Free Radical is paying it's staff overtime

Free Radical is aiming to challenge the way other independent studios do business by improving its staff's payment system, and start paying them overtime.

The move comes as a bid to avoid the pitfalls that other developers fall into when it comes to crunch and overworking staff with no recompense.

[Avto]

It's about time good devs get a little respect

[Avto]

It's about time good devs get a little respect

[Vip3r]

This is good to hear. Free Radical make really good game and certainly deserve the extra money.

[pandabear]

Good to hear - but is this beacause they are behind schedule and strugglinjg for Christmas 07??? I hope not...

[Enigma_2099]

If I'm well compensated, I'll work as long as you want...

My god, I sound like a prostitute...

Well, you know what I meant...

The problem is that, and game companies ain't the only people guilty of it, people want the most work out of employees for the least ammount of pay.

[barom]

i digg these type of companies

[mighty_douche]

i work till half 5 then i down tools, if they want me to work over its time-&-half! why should they be any different, you get paid to do a job, if the job is going to take longer then you deserve more money, simple as that. the better the game the bigger the profit and its about time companies passed this on to their loyal employees.

[BigPenguin]

Well, you are a wage paid employee.

Game designers are salary based, they are paid to get a job done. They are not paid less if they finish it fast, they should not be paid more if they take longer.

Of course this may just be the boss in me talking.

[PS3n360]

i am salary based for 37.5 hrs a week, however I do receive time and a half for overtime after 40 hours. The extra pay is a great incentive for pushing into the nights and weekends. without it I would just fizzle out and get bitter. $65/hr is decent compensation for working a weekend. I would still rather spend my time with my wife and kid though. OT is also a way to make employers think twice before calling people in to just sit there as has happend to me in the past when I was not paid OT. I quit that job because of that BS.

[neogeo]

Good thing to see that there following the LAW!!

[Proxy]

But it did occure to me that perhaps the norm is to have salaried employees, which means they get paid like mercenaries (if thats a reasonable comparison). "We give you this much if you give us this game."

I don't know for sure though.

It's true though, overtime is the law. If this is so unusual it makes the news, then what is the normal payment system everyone else uses?

LOL, or maybe it's just a new post from Captain O.

[damnwrx]

Is on the way, huh...........for hard work!

[Que813]

they live up to their name! how dare they pay those slaves overtime. dont they know this is the game business, you get paid less than teachers?!

/sarcasm

[Skynetone]

if your on 200k plus ya might do some free overtime but for your average worker over-time must be paid