Epic Video games has introduced it is going to provide a whole bunch of contract staff full-time contracts, a transfer that comes within the wider business context of extreme tensions (at finest) between main studios and their workers. A part of the latter have been stories about Epic employees having to crunch and work lengthy hours to be able to maintain the content material flowing for Fortnite: with some saying they worked 70-hour weeks for months at a time.
Subsequently Epic closed its studios for 2 weeks and now, as first reported by the Verge, is making ready to supply its US-based contractors full-time contracts: this consists of QA testers and different unspecified roles. An inner memo despatched to workers says that Epic will “provide full-time at-will employment to eligible US-based contingent staff” and the brand new contracts “can be efficient [from] April 4th, 2022.” Epic additionally outlines some exceptions to this variation the place it claims “it is smart for each the employee and Epic to take care of contingent employee standing.”
Epic spokesperson Elka Appears told The Verge the variety of workers concerned is “a number of hundred” and that QA makes up “most however not all” of the contingent. The complete-time contracts will include Epic’s appreciable worker advantages which, in a rustic with a healthcare system like America, is definitely to not be sneezed at.
This does really feel barely like Epic attempting to get forward of the remainder of the business however, placing the cynical hat to 1 facet, it’s inarguably the suitable factor to have executed: nevertheless late within the day it could be for some. It’s maybe coincidence that, 9 days in the past, a decide dominated that temporary workers could be included in one of the ongoing lawsuits faced by Activision Blizzard.
In an business the place workplace culture still makes continuous headlines, and once you’re by no means quite a lot of days away from one other story about horrific crunch, that is a minimum of a recognition that extremely worthwhile firms like Epic can afford to deal with all workers higher: and in the long term, that’ll work out higher for everybody.
