What Alex St. John is wrong about

Pictured: The truth about too much OT that Alex St. John doesn’t want to admit.

There are a lot of problems with his message, though. First of all, he conflates a lot of ideas. Here are the logical jumps that he presents:

• Complaining about working conditions means that you think a 40 hour week is too hard.
• Speaking about compensation is irrelevant to your passion for your job.
• If someone is serious about being an engineer, their work should be the all encompassing priority for their life.
• Any experienced game industry worker should be able to break away from any job they have and run a kickstarter
• Because there’s no “magic” management solution there is no point in blaming management at all, and there is therefore no need to improve management.
• Because there is no hard physical labor involved, this should not be considered “work”
• Feeling like your employer is mistreating you means that you are making victim-hood a part of your core identity.

There are also a lot of facts that he simply ignores.

• Crunch affects more people than the coders.  For example, it hits QA plenty.
• Extra time at work leads to diminishing returns in work quality due to exhaustion.
• “Burn out” is a legitimate psychological phenomenon that is incredibly detrimental to the health, well being, and productivity of a worker.
• People aren’t complaining about 40 hour work weeks, they’re complaining about 70+ hour work weeks without any days off for months on end.
• While it is amazing to have a career in the video game industry, you can still work for an employer who takes advantage of you.
• Someone who knows their value and demands it in compensation isn’t a “wage-slave”, instead they refuse to work for less than their value.  Like our own Judge Greg says, “if you’re good at something, never do it for free”.
• There are long term studies that have shown that on average, crunch time harms the quality of the game.  Check out this Gamasutra article that charts out the effects of crunch.
• EASpouse is a thing that happened, and people were not happy about that.  This is the kind of thing that makes customers not support the company doing it.

Why Alex St. John is an asshole

Even with all of that, probably the biggest reason that the backlash is so strong isn’t just because of his misguided opinions, but because he’s such an insufferable jackass about it.  I’ve already given examples of it, but here’s another where he dismisses any counterpoint as someone who’s chained to the wrong mindset.

I know I’m going to offend a lot of people by saying this, but I do so with the hope that a few will wake up and shake off their mental shackles.

Or, there’s when he overstates the opposing viewpoint as a form of mockery, as though there couldn’t POSSIBLY be any legitimacy.

Listening to them complain about it, you would they think that they are trapped in some disenfranchised third-world country forced to dig for blood diamonds to feed their families.

Then there’s more details in his hiring slideshow:

Who are you really recruiting and retaining?

RULE 1: You don’t recruit and retain male engineers you recruit and retain Wives and Girlfriends

Sure, because your engineers are all male, and you control them by being an attractive offer to their wives and girlfriends.  The offer gives enough compensation that these significant others can spend enough to be satisfied while the male engineer spends all their time at work…

That isn’t me overstating his perspective as a form of mockery.  He explicitly states that.

• If the wife or GF is unhappy the engineer is gone
• If the relationship breaks down the engineer is gone
• The paycheck goes to HER
• Why does SHE want her husband or BF to work for you?

He also has an elitist attitude toward what it means to be a real software engineer:

RULE 2: Coding is NOT WORK

People who think it is… aren’t real software engineers

Because exclusionary, elitist attitudes like that go over real well…

Then, there’s this bit that’s really creepy, and almost predatory…

Be on the look out for the holy-grail… the undiscovered Asperger’s engineer. (usually found on open source forums)

-They have no social skills

-They generally marry the first girl they date

-Can’t make eye contact

-Resume and educational background is a mess… because they have no social skills

-They work like machines, don’t engage in politics, don’t develop attitudes and never change jobs

There’s an argument that this is a pragmatic view to hiring someone with a mindset and attitude that is well suited to what he hopes for, but reading this really sounds to me like it’s advocating abuse.

Then there’s the simple things, like how often he throws out epithets like “lazy millennials” and accusing people of having a “wage-slave attitude”.

His complaints about burn out are hypocritical as well.  He worked himself far past the point of safety while at Microsoft.  Reportedly he fell asleep on his keyboard, and attended meetings with key marks on his face.  When he finally left, he reportedly said he felt “100 lbs lighter”

Add to this fact that he expects people should be thankful to him for this insight he so generously gives to people.  Add to this the fact that he apparently can’t even comprehend how someone could want enough time to see their children AND work in the game industry.  Add to this the fact that he doesn’t seem to think a worker should have an idea of what they are worth and demand that in compensation.  In Alex St. John it appears that you’ve just got a closed minded jackass.

I know where of I speak

Believe me, I know that overtime is necessary at times.  I also know that there’s a limit to what you can get out of people.  I’ve worked 12-14 hour days 7 days a week for months straight.  I’ve worked 50 hour minimum weeks for over a year.  Both of these eventually led to a notable drop in productivity.  There comes a point where it’s easier and more effective to hire a second shift.  For QA that’s even cheaper, because it’s less overtime pay for the company.  Engineers, on the other hand, are salary, so demanding more time from them could be a cost saving move for the company.

I don’t need someone telling me that just because I know I need a GOD DAMNED VACATION after 5 years that means that I am not passionate about my job.  I’m not a coder, but I’ve gone through crunch.  I know how damaging it can be when used carelessly.  I know crunch will happen some times, we all do, and we’re OK with it.  It’s when it’s the first and last resort that we feel, or rather KNOW that we’re being taken advantage of.  I’ve worked VERY HARD over my career.  I live, breathe, eat, and sleep this business.  I have lasted over a decade in the highest churn sector of a very high churn industry.  I have gone through all this, know my value, and know my limits.  I know I can’t go full tilt forever, and I work smart enough that I can manage a large workload without needing to.  I value my own time, and that DOES NOT mean that I am not passionate about the industry.  In fact, most of my free time I spend reading about the industry, or playing other games.  Again…  LIVE, BREATHE, EAT, AND SLEEP THIS BUSINESS.

You want to diminish my work!?  You want to dismiss my passion!? Shame on you, Alex St. John!

UPDATE

This guy won’t stop doubling down on his message:

• http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2016/04/17/wage-slaves/
• http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2016/04/18/recruiting-giants-2/
• http://www.alexstjohn.com/WP/2016/04/21/i-apologize/

But scores of people are universally condemning him, from comentators:

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/19/11451092/alex-st-john-tech-recruiting-millennials-women

To a line by line teardown:

An inline response to “wage-slaves”

To an industry response:

Developer Bro Alex St. John: Want a great coder? Hire someone autistic!

To the inimitable Jim Sterling:

TO HIS OWN DAUGHTER:

http://www.wired.com/2016/04/alex-st-johns-daughter-wrong-women-tech/

At this point, we can only hope that Alex St. John’s message is ironic, and he is serving as the villainous foil to bring everyone together in rejection of his ideas.  I doubt that’s it, though.  I don’t think he’s our Ozymandias…

Kynetyk is a veteran of the games industry.  Behind the Line is written to help improve understanding of what goes on in the game development process and the business behind it.  From “What’s taking this game so long to release”, to “why are there bugs”, to “Why is this free to play” or anything else, if there is a topic that you would like to see covered, please write in to kynetyk@enthusiacs.com

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