this might get my ass blacklisted but i want to talk about the ridiculous amount of experiences i had/saw at netherrealm for the short FIVE MONTHS that i was there.



NRS needs to be exposed for predatory and abusive behaviors in the same ways that riot, epic, and telltale have.

NRS is in a long building with 3 sets of bathrooms. they turned the woman's bathroom closest to contractors into a "unisex bathroom" b/c there are so few women. men would urinate with the stall door open while women were in there. fem coworkers told me not to bother to complain.

i sat with all the other contract artists in a back room that was stuffed with workstations so they could fit as many temp people as possible.



it was a daily occurrence to hear FT people talk about how many contractors were cramped into that room during crunch cycle.

my second or third week of work, a new temp environment artist sat down next to me and was working on getting his desk set up. the first thing that a FT person said to him was "ready to die from crunch?"



i will never forget that

i and most other contractors, some of the most talented junior-level workers that games have to offer, worked at $12/hour to work on a AAA game



unless you were a woman like me, we got $11/hour

temps work on a 9 month on, 3 month off cycle with zero benefits near minimum wage, strung along with lukewarm messaging that maybe you'll be hired "after the next contract."



some folks have been doing this for 4+ years.

some folks have gone into huge credit card debt b/c of it.

because of this, NRS's contractors NEED overtime to survive. they NEED the time-and-a-half pay to make rent.



much of the best talent in chicago is paid so little that they go into credit card debt to buy food and seek out 60+ hour weeks to pay their bills

i know women that were not included in scrum meetings because they were "distracting" for the guys

since NRS is the only AAA studio in chicago, they headhunt new grads and then grind them into hell for minimum pay. i know a LOT of people that quit games entirely because of a single contract with NRS made them realize how shitty it can be to work in games.

when things go wrong, they blame & yell at & abuse contractors. there was a major leak that resulted in a higher-up bringing all contractors into a room and having a SCREAMfest at them & threatening all of them collectively



found out later the leak didn't come from a contractor.

the sea of temp workers are rarely invited to any of the outside of work events or activities and are treated as inferior in a LOT of ways

i know contractors that have worked on a game for 80% of its production cycle and didn't get a copy at the end



they literally had to pay $60 to play the game they made

they don't even call you an associate artist



they kept calling me an intern, the entire time i was there, even though i was designing props for literally harley quinn and batman

NRS has one of the worst reputation among devs, especially women and queerfolk, to a point that almost anytime i bring it up with another developer, they say "fck that place"



if you want another company to be pissed at then please add it to your list

please do not boycott. bosses get paid first.



support game workers and be patient with us. a lot is going to happen in the next year across the industry. i believe it.

all this in 4 months. i've heard worse stories, especially about harassment, but those rely a bit too much on secondhand information.



not everyone has these experiences- some workers have a perfectly fine time there- but jeez it's mostly rough

one more thing:

people have tried to sue them over this stuff.

journalists have TRIED to write about nrs before.



but every effort has been shut down

former and current employees that would be open to anonymous interviews: my email is in my bio

follow @GameWorkers

please absolutely do not make an article out of my or anyone else's tweets without permission, that's crazy rude and irresponsible

You can follow @beccahallstedt.

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