Utah Benefits From 4-Day Workweek

Last week I criticized comments by Epic Games president Mike Capps and Gears of War 2 producer Rod Fergusson that crunch time “is necessary” and that a “mere” 40-hour workweek was “kind of absurd”:

Mike Capps, head of Epic, and a former member of the board of directors of the International Game Developers Association, during the IGDA Leadership Forum in late 08, spoke at a panel entitled Studio Heads on the Hot Seat, in which, among other things, he claimed that working 60+ hours was expected at Epic, that they purposefully hired people they anticipated would work those kinds of hours, that this had nothing to do with exploitation of talent by management but was instead a part of “corporate culture,” and implied that the idea that people would work a mere 40 hours was kind of absurd.

[Rod Fergusson:] “I am a believer that if you’re going to make a great game, and there is that caveat, I believe that crunch is necessary. I believe it’s important because it means your ambition is greater than what you scheduled out. Going in with that idea that crunch is necessary means you can plan for it. It shouldn’t be a surprise. Crunch should be driven by the ambition of the team, and not the inaccuracy of the schedule.”

Yesterday, NPR posted an article about the Utah state government’s widely-reported move to a four-day workweek. In short, government employees now work four ten-hour days, instead of five eight-hour ones. The idea was to save energy and thereby cut costs, but it turns out that the real (and apparently unexpected) benefit of the change is increased employee productivity and satisfaction:

A recent assessment of the program by state planners found the expected energy cost savings haven’t materialized, but there have been unexpected boosts to productivity and worker satisfaction. [...]

Mike Hansen, strategic planning manager in the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget, says one of the more surprising effects of this workday change is that employees are now taking significantly less leave.

“That’s increased productivity — that’s employees behind their desk more this year than the last two years, to the tune of 9 percent” less time off, Hansen says. Paid overtime is also down.

While it’s probably true that working in government is not the same as working in game development, this result of Utah’s experiment appears to support the importance of a healthy work-life balance, which directly contradicts the attitude that’s recently been advanced by Epic.

Is it possible that the game industry could learn a thing or two from government?

HB 353 Vetoed!

Utah Governor Jon Huntsman vetoed HB 353 today! This is a great victory for gamers, retailers, and developers alike.

Huntsman is really on a roll. He’s made significant progress on normalizing Utah’s backwards liquor laws, recently spoke out against the unproductive partisanship of Congressional Republicans (Huntsman is a Republican governor), and now has once again solved a problem with reason and critical thinking, bucking huge supporting majorities in both the House and the Senate in so doing.

There are a lot of things I dislike about Utah, but Governor Huntsman certainly ain’t one of ‘em. Thanks, Gov!

FUD Over HB353

Utah’s HB 353, which would impose penalties for retailers who advertise that they do not sell M-rated games to minors, but then proceed to do so anyway, carries on its tortured journey. Next stop: the Utah Senate, where it will be voted upon by midnight tomorrow.

I got an URGENT! email from the Video Game Voters’ Network this morning, which read in part:

Why is this bill bad? No video game retailer wants to be exposed to these kinds of lawsuits. If this bill becomes law, retailers could be forced to take drastic and counter-productive steps to avoid possible lawsuits by no longer using the ESRB ratings to protect children, and they may even have to stop selling video games!

While I do oppose HB 353, this characterization is a bit extreme and, in my view, inaccurate. I made a related post before about opposing misinformation, and it cuts both ways: just because VGVN is on “our side” doesn’t grant them a free pass to spread FUD, even if it is from a pro-game point of view.

Specifically, there appears to be nothing in the current version of the bill — the full text of which is available here — that suggests that retailers would “have to stop selling video games”. The problem is not a video game prohibition; it is the unintended incentive in the bill for retailers to abandon their age-verification policies, which I recently outlined in The Unintended Consequences of Utah HB 353.

I am by no means suggesting that we ignore the VGVN’s call to action; in fact, it would be well worth your time to visit their action center and write to the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mike Morley. But make sure that you’re arguing the right point, and not just shouting FUD at our legislators.

If we expect to hold our critics to a higher standard, we must first start with ourselves.

Here We Go Again, Revisited

Three weeks ago I posted about the Utah Eagle Forum’s annual convention featuring Jack Thompson as keynote speaker, and associated rumblings that Thompson would be working with Utah state legislators to craft yet another attempt at anti-game legislation.

It appears there was truth to the rumors, as GamePolitics and the Salt Lake Tribune are reporting today. Rep. Mike Morley is reportedly sponsoring the legislation.

Utah has tried and failed twice to pass such legislation, in November 2006 (HB 257) and again in January 2007 (HB 50). I suspect Rep. Morley is simply ignorant of the history of this issue, and since he’s apparently receiving his information from the likes of Jack Thompson and Gayle Ruzicka, he’s not likely to learn the truth any time soon.

I urge my Utah-based readers to contact Rep. Morley and let him know that you do not support spending legislative effort — much less taxpayers’ dollars — on yet another unconstitutional anti-game bill.

From Private Clubs to Big Brother

The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting this morning on a proposal by Sen. John Valentine (R-Orem) to replace Utah’s outmoded private club system with statewide ID scanners and patron databases:

Under his plan, everyone entering a club, whether they’re 21 or 101, would have to swipe their identification to verify it is genuine. The patron’s name, address, driver license number and date of birth would be logged into the database, along with the time and place they were drinking. [...]

Valentine said the scanning would help cut down on underage drinking and could give investigators a tool, if a patron leaves the bar and causes an accident, to show where and when the person was drinking.

It could also be used in traffic stops. If an officer suspected a driver might have been drinking, the officer could run the license and determine if the driver was coming from a bar.

(Emphasis mine.)

In Salt Lake, you can’t drive 100 yards after midnight on the weekend without seeing a police car. It seems clear they’re out in force to catch drunk drivers, and that tends to mean a lot of other people getting caught in the dragnet.

Imagine you’re pulled over for going five-over on the freeway. Normally it wouldn’t be that big of a deal: you’d get your ticket (or warning) and have done with it. But let’s say you were on your way home from Port O’ Call, where you had met some friends. Maybe you didn’t drink anything at all, but the officer runs your ID and finds out, “Oh, this guy’s coming from a bar, he might be drunk.” Now you have to take the “drunk test” (not exactly convenient), jumping through hoops to convince the officer you’re not a DUI case. You can thank Big Brother for that.

And to add insult to injury, you’ll be paying for this inconvenience out of your own pocket:

The database and its management would be paid by a fee assessed to bar owners, which they could recoup through a cover charge or by raising prices, Valentine said.

You can argue, “Well, don’t speed!” and that’s fair enough, but it misses the point, which is that Sen. Valentine’s proposal is a massive, unwarranted invasion of the privacy of bar and club patrons.

Note to Utah legislature: Abolishing our private club system is about giving people more freedom, not less. We are adults. Please treat us as such.