LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, crunch, complicated engine and permanent pressure, the conditions at TT Games criticized by developers

The development of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was obviously complicated, as evidenced by the significant postponements suffered by the project. But as we see the end of the tunnel when the release date is announced, polygon has just released a very long paper in which he tells the appalling working conditions of Manchester-based developers. About twenty current and former employees have indeed confided their ill-being to the editorial staff, obviously remaining anonymous.

Several of them declare having cracked under the stress and the workload, forced by “a very soft blackmail” synonymous with problems if the implication did not exceed that envisaged in the contract. And already under the time of Jon Burton, co-founder and creative director until 2013, it was not uncommon for employees to be yelled at if they wanted to leave work on time.

“A big problem was that the crisis was premeditated,” says a former employee who worked at the studio under Burton. “It was not an emergency protocol for when things went wrong. Instead, it was a tool in the box for production; projects were planned with crisis periods in the schedule, or even worse, the crisis was the schedule. […] It was a regular occurrence because of the type of game we were doing: tie-ins with movies and games to release for the kids’ Christmas. They all had deadlines dictated by the end of the year or the release of a film. »

Despite the change in management, the pressure remained the same for a long time, leading to a high turnover of the studio’s workforce, numbering several hundred employees: polygon estimates the number of employees at least 400, and there would have been more than 40 departures since the beginning of 2021. Some of them would also have joined 10:10 Games, a new studio founded by Jon Burton, perhaps proof that he was not the only one responsible for the deleterious atmosphere at TT.

However, the situation would not have improved with his successors David Dootson and Paul Flanagan, when overtime was difficult to refuse and was not paid beyond 40 hours per week. Several employees testify to having already realized weeks of 6 days with 80 or even 100 hours of work, for which they were paid very little, a real crunch over the long term. The quality testers of TT Fusion declare themselves to have been treated like under-developers and having been teased by executives and certain colleagues: they could hardly get in touch with the programmers even in the event of a bug report, did not have access to all the staff levels and could hardly speak to human resources. Several women would have experienced intimidation, sexist comments and wage discrimination.

This situation of long-term crisis would have been increased since the start of the development of LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga end of 2017, due toa switch to the new internal game engine NTT. Many would have fought to move onUnrealEngine, but the decision was made to avoid paying fees to Epic Games. NTT would have been choppy, slow, and lacking many convenient features to begin with, weighing down the morale of the teams. Members of the studio complained about it to Tom Stone in early 2018, at the time general manager, who organized several meetings to collect the complaints and ended up granting more vacations and better bonuses to his workforce. Still according to the sources of polygon, it would not have changed the atmosphere and general working conditions much.

Reached for comment, Stone said: “I noticed towards the end of 2017/beginning of 2018 – I really felt things weren’t right. I can tell you now that I had no reports of bullying. No one has ever come up to me and said, “I’ve been bullied or discriminated against or harassed. Nobody ever said that. People said it was hard to work here, that we worked long hours and people didn’t communicate with us. But also to give balance, we had a lot of people, sometimes the same people, saying, “I love being here and I love working on LEGO games. » […]

The high expectations of TT Games would also have played in the balance. Executives want to deliver a game that reaches 85/100 on Metacritic, setting a record for games LEGO, before Marvel Superheroes. Several overly ambitious ideas were reportedly floated to surprise audiences, such as combat mechanics with 27 different moves, scrapped when it was noticed that testers were only using one.

“The manager would ask for new mechanisms on a whim, then ask for them to be changed, never fixing anything really important,” explains a former employee. “Read all reviews of a LEGO game. They always say the same [choses] : the platforming phases are high-sounding, the camera is terrible, no online cooperation. So let’s add a combat tree to the God of War! 5 year olds will love it.

And despite these aspirations, the workforce would not have followed, a part having even been moved to another unit on a different project in 2020.

Regarding the development of The Skywalker Saga and its delays, a TT Games spokesperson provided this statement: “LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga is the most ambitious title the studio has ever undertaken. The team is committed to delivering a wonderful LEGO experience to our players, and we’re giving the game the time it needs to fulfill that aspiration. We greatly appreciate the support and understanding of our fans. »

“TT Games is committed to creating a respectful, fair and inclusive workplace for every employee. There has been a lot of effort in recent years, with new studio management and support from Warner Bros. Games, to foster a culture of collaboration and work-life balance that our employees can be proud of. Our legacy of delighting fans with the games we’ve created over the years is very important to us. We recognize that our continued and future success hinges on maintaining the momentum of the positive changes we have made to date, ensuring that every employee feels supported, valued and feels a true sense of belonging. »

polygon ends by stating that several initiatives have taken place or are underway to improve the situation. The number of overtime hours would be limited and better monitored, and it would have been decided to no longer use NTT and to favor theUnrealEngine for future projects. Above all, let’s hope that this healthier working culture spreads in the video game world, so that developers and players are happy to commune around the finished products: LEGO Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga will be released this April 5 anyway and you can pre-order your copy for €59.99 on Amazon.co.uk.

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