Trawling through the long list of comments on the Rockstar San Diego Wives story (not covered on this site yet – we’ll get there eventually), we end with this gem:
“Working on All-Star Baseball ’99 for the N64 (yes, I’m old, dammit) the last 6 months of the project were 7 days a week OT, and averaged 14-16 hours each day. Asking for time off was a no-no. Leaving at midnight earned you the “guilt trip” the ladies mentioned (even if you started at 8am as I did, due to my wife’s work and college schedule.) There were zero days off during this time. The only reprieve we had was we could leave at 6pm on Friday, but we had to be back by 10am Saturday.
During this time, one artist and extremely nice guy…can’t remember his name, Joe something…cracked. Not sure what happened to him, but he was very talented and enthusiastic.
The horrible part was, if you missed a day due to illness (even Saturday or Sunday), it would count against your TOPS time (time off pool.)
The bonus I personally received, which was probably in-line with the other developers, was about $3,000 if I remember correctly. It wasn’t ALL bad, we did get stock options and I sold mine at the peak. And we had an endless supply of pop tarts and other sugar-laden coding fuels. A bit of a self-serving “perk” if you think about it.
None of this matters when every waking minute of every day is spent staring at the same 2 square feet of reality.
I remember very clearly the day the game shipped…I broke down because it felt like I had just been released from prison.”
…going through all the other comments, one by one. This could take Some Time…
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