Stories of crunch, neglect for QA at Treyarch
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 employees and contractors describe unfair treatment, disregard for contractor work force

Add Treyarch to the list of development studios hit by unflattering accounts of the company culture and workplace environment from current and former employees. Kotaku today published a feature based on interviews with 11 current and former developers at the Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 studio who said the company routinely crunched and treated its QA staff poorly.

According to the report, the studio crunched hard on Black Ops 4 for a number of reasons, including the early 2018 decisions to scarp its campaign mode and replace it with the new Blackout battle royale mode just nine months from launch.

One developer said the decision turned the year into a state of "perpetual crunch" at the studio. One estimated they worked about 64 hours a week over six days, occasionally coming in for a Sunday as well. On top of that, crunch was extended multiple times, with one developer being told it would end at launch, only to see that date pushed through the winter break, and then into this summer.

"The people who I felt sorry for and really bore all that brunt were QA members," one former employee said. "Sometimes we were pushing updates twice in a week, which is absurd... As Black Ops 4 was live, it progressively got more broken and buggier, not because the developers didn't know what the problem was, but because they didn't have time to fix it."

Treatment of QA staff, many of whom were technically contractors working for external staffing services provider Volt, is a particular focus on the piece. Interviewees said QA testers were told not to talk to Treyarch employees, not allowed to eat catered lunches (although sometimes allowed to polish off whatever was left after an hour), not eligible for bonuses, not allowed to use the studio's main parking lot (instead being told to use a lot a 10-minute walk away), and typically not included in all-hands meetings, parties, or workplace health surveys.

Hourly wages at the studio were reported to start at $13, and overtime was compensated at up to double the hourly rate. Volt contractors received sick days, but no vacation time. They would get paid holidays like the Fourth of July, but only if they had worked full work weeks for the 13 weeks prior to the holiday in question.

Additionally, the company had a night shift QA team that crunched from 10 p.m. to 10 a.m. during the summer months, but turned off the air conditioning once the daytime development team had left.

"We're still there and have all these [computers and consoles] running, so the temperature would basically spike to 90-something degrees," a QA tester said. "A couple of jokes were made about sweatshops and all that, but it's terrifying, because it kind of was sometimes, especially in the dead of July."

Management told the testers that the air conditioning was broken, even though it reliably turned on for the day crew and off at the same time for the night team. The above tester said it took two months of complaints before Treyarch began running the air conditioning to run at night, and even then it wasn't every night.

Activision provided a statement to Kotaku, saying, "It's important to us that everyone working on the game, or any of our projects, is treated with respect and that their contributions are appreciated. If there is ever an instance where this standard is not met, we work to remedy it immediately. We constantly strive to provide a rewarding and fun development environment for everyone."

Treyarch co-studio heads Dan Bunting and Mark Gordon followed that up with an internal email to Treyarch developers, saying, "The first and most important statement that we want to make to the team is that, as managers of this studio, we take the well-being of every single individual working here very seriously.

"We have a vision for the future of this studio that includes significant improvements to work/life balance, and we plan to achieve that through better project planning, streamlined production processes, and rigorous decision-making timelines. It is also our intention to maintain our commitment to increased transparency."

They added an encouragement for open communication within the studio, saying, "No one should ever feel like they don't have options, can't talk openly, or that the only choice is to take their concerns to the public."

Wolfenstein: Youngblood will not be altered for German release
International version of the game will be available in Germany, complete with Nazi imagery

Bethesda has confirmed that Wolfenstein: Youngblood will not be censored for the German market, thanks to a change in regulations last year.

Previous games in MachineGames' rebooted Wolfenstein series had been altered before they could be released in Germany, which imposed restrictions on the use of Nazi imagery and icons in video games.

That won't be the case with Youngblood, Bethesda said in a German language statement on its forums. The publisher later confirmed to PC Gamer that the international version of the game would be released in Germany.

Another version of the game was created in tandem with the international release, which would have complied with the old standards had the regulations not changed in August 2018. Both products will be available in Germany when Youngblood launches on July 26.

The German software regulation body USK was allowed to give age ratings to games featuring Nazi imagery in August last year -- for the first time since 1992, when the original Wolfenstein prompted a decision in the German courts.

We spoke to Felix Falk, head of the German games industry trade body, in the aftermath of that change. You can read the article here.

Riot Games teams up with Nielsen to measure brand exposure for esports sponsors
"We have the opportunity to help monetise Riot Games' platform and validate this growing market"

Riot Games will partner with Nielsen to more accurately value the exposure its sponsors and advertisers receive with League of Legends esports events.

Nielsen will measure key metrics around brand exposure in the North America League of Legends Championship Series and the League of Legends European Championship in 2019 and 2020. It will do the same for a select group of regional leagues in Asia.

"As esports continues to gain momentum with brand marketers and advertisers, the need for independent, third-party verification of audiences and brand exposure is critical," said Nielsen Esports managing director Nicole Pike in a statement.

"With this agreement, we have the opportunity to help monetise Riot Games' platform and validate this growing market."

This relationship will strengthen Riot's case with potential new sponsors, which are interested in reaching the League of Legends audience. Nielsen's research indicates that almost 60% of esports viewers in the US on Twitch don't watch television on a weekly basis.

"Trust and transparency are vital components of building and maintaining relationships with brand partners," said Doug Watson, head of Esports Insights at Riot Games.

"As major companies invest in our tournaments, we want to help them see the value of their exposure and identify how best to engage with our passionate fan base."

Third Revolution in Language Is Upon Us and Will Impact Translators, Interpreters — EU


First launched in the 1970s, the International Annual Meeting on Language Arrangements, Documentation and Publications (IAMLADP) brings together users of conference and language services from around the globe. Its network of members comprises delegates from the EU, the UN, NATO, and the African Development Bank, among others.

In preparation for this year’s event, which was hosted by EU institutions in Brussels, Belgium from May 27–29, 2019, the host institutions authored a paper dated April 29, 2019 and entitled “New Technologies and Artificial Intelligence in the field of language and conference services.”

The paper, presented by the European Parliament, the Council of the European Union, the European Commission, and the Court of Justice of the European Union, examines the current state of language technologies (LTs) and AI and their use within the EU’s translation, interpretation, and conference services. It also highlights the added value of LTs and AI and identifies potential barriers to their wider implementation.

LTs and AI have had a “transformative effect” on language services, the paper said, achieved by enabling greater automation of tasks. Although productivity tools (CAT) have long been the de facto standard and are deeply ingrained in language production, “the future smarter CAT environment is yet to be developed,” according to the EU host paper. Tools can be lacking in user friendlessness (UX) and many do not integrate sufficiently with terminology, MT, workflow, and CMS systems.

Machine translation, and NMT in particular, has become “an integral part of a linguist’s toolbox” in recent years, according to the paper. The paradigm shift achieved by NMT is a result of its ability to produce better quality and more fluent translation output.

Right now, “most EU translation services have integrated eTranslation in their pre-processing arrangements and provide NMT output to their linguists.” eTranslation, the EU’s MT service, is based on more than one billion sentences from the EU’s Euramis translation memories, which exist in all of the EU’s 24 official languages.

Outside of translation, the application of LTs and AI within conference interpretation is still limited, however, and restricted to assisting with discrete tasks such as meeting preparation and key term prompts.

The paper also highlights the use of LTs and AI in the areas of terminology management, speech recognition, and conference management; for instance, in helping meet the challenge of programming “up to 1,000 interpreters’ assignments for an average of 40 meetings a day.”

There are several hurdles that will need to be overcome for LTs and AI to become even more useful in language production, the EU paper stated. Among them are the management challenge of helping alleviate fear and uncertainty around what these technologies mean for jobs; the current absence of well curated data for training; and the notion that a linguist’s translation and language skills could possibly degrade once they are no longer responsible for the production of a translation.

Along with the increased use of language technologies and AI, there is a clear benefit for language professionals, since, as the paper posits, “LTs and AI ideally take over the mundane part of language professionals’ work, making it possible for them to spend more time on the creative aspects.”

The EU, for one, is driving a number of operational developments to adapt to the shifting landscape. They created the role of Language Technology Coordinator in 2018 across all 24 EU languages, and have also set up an AI incubator, a CAT Network, and a CAT Helpline, which comprises a “group of translators and translation assistants who voluntarily provide peer-to-peer support across all language units, in collaboration with the IT Helpline and using the IT department’s issue tracking system to manage support requests.”

The paper underscored the EU’s commitment to LTs and AI, and goes as far as calling them “the third revolution as far as human language is concerned, after the creation of the alphabet and writing and then the invention of printing.”