育碧魁北克谈《刺客信条：奥德赛》开发过程中的加班问题和团队管理

原作者：Kris Graft 译者：Vivian Xue

近来，伴随着游戏圈的大规模无声裁员，工作室倒闭和耸人听闻的开发者死亡游行，游戏从业者的权利成为了人们高度热议的话题。

这些现象存在的部分原因是创造庞大、无尽延伸的世界需要大量劳力。谈起宏大的虚拟世界，我们第一个想到的是育碧和它的开放世界游戏《刺客信条》系列。

在最近一次同《刺客信条：奥德赛》开发商育碧魁北克工作室的领导们的交谈中，我们的话题转向了加班以及工作与生活的平衡问题。尽管同一家工作室里的人们感受各不相同（领导们承认这方面需改进），作为2018年大制作之一的开发者，他们能够站在一个更高的角度看待这些问题。

以下是编辑过的采访内容。

Kris Graft：你们已经拥有了管理大型团队的经验，当然，我们此次采访针对的是当前饱受议论劳工问题，人们讨论着工会组织、加班、突然间的大批量裁员以及工作与生活的平衡问题。我想知道你们对人们当下的讨论有何看法，你们在育碧、在你们工作室是如何处理这些问题的？

Patrick Klaus，育碧魁北克工作室董事总经理：是的，这是个非常现实的话题。在过去的几年间，我们工作室一直非常努力地去预见和解决这些问题，我们试图战胜最优秀的竞争对手，但同时确保我们的团队、人才、创作者处于良好的工作氛围中、保持良好的开发状态，我们希望他们的工作与生活达到一定的平衡。

我们在《刺客信条：枭雄》之后就很重视这一点，开发枭雄是很艰难的，它是我们的第一部大型3A游戏，我们必须从工作范围、工作的优先次序、每个人的角色和责任、工具等方面来改进过去的一些开发方式，从而提高我们的工作效率。

我可以向你保证《刺客信条：奥赛德》的开发过程中不存在像五年或十年前开发3A游戏一样的大规模加班现象。尽管我们可以做得更好，但我们在制作高质量大型游戏的同时，我们希望保证团队成员不会筋疲力尽，不会对开发工作感到厌恶。

我们的管理团队一致认为，让团队透支对效率没有好处，反而会导致他们离开你、使你失去人心。并且如果我们逼迫这些人才疯狂工作，他们也无法充分发挥创造性。我们还有许多待改进的地方，但我对我们目前取得的结果感到满意。

Marc-Alexis Côté，《刺客信条：奥德赛》资深制作人：让我插一句……我们能不断做出更好的游戏的条件是我们继续以团队为基础进行工作，并不断发展团队。要做到这一点，唯一的方式是使人们愿意一起工作。而要实现这一点，我们必须让团队保持良好的工作-生活平衡。因为一旦失衡会产生很多问题。

从2005年6月27日育碧魁北克工作室成立起我就在这工作了。我当过程序员，关卡设计师，游戏总监，创意总监——我几乎什么都干过。我见证了工作室的发展，我也从不同角度见证了游戏制作过程。毫无疑问，至少在育碧，如今我们制作这些价值数亿美元的3A大作的方式和以往大不相同。

Assassins Creed Odyssey（from gamasutra.com）

我认为我们为实现目标所采取的方式比以前成熟了。这听起来可能很琐碎，但是从长远来看，避免疯狂加班的方法是不断重新评估你的现状、你要达成的目标、剩下的工作量，并更好地计算安排时间。

十五年前我们在这方面做得很糟糕，但是随着行业日益成熟，我们管理团队和开发范围的方式也在不断改进。并不是所有的工作室和团队都能这样成长起来，但这是我们团队成立之初所立下的承诺：我们会控制游戏的范围，做极具野心的游戏，但每两周我们会一起重新对它进行评估，保证它确实可行。

Kris Graft：让我暂时总结一下，Patrick刚提到要预见问题，你提到了方法和效率，以及定期评估过程。你能具体谈一下你是如何与员工沟通的吗？你提到你每两周就要和他们沟通一次？还有，对于职员和工作量，您会追踪哪些指标？

Côté: 我们尝试让团队自己评估工作量。因此我们从团队身上、从他们创意的角度获得了创意目标。但我们希望他们自己界定自己工作范围，因此我们会说：“这个是我们要实现的大目标，你们会怎么去实现它？”

我们尝试让团队都参与进来，采取许多敏捷开发（游戏邦注agile development）的方法，因此你不要把它视为一个单纯的工程项目，而是尝试把它当作一个跨越多专业的工作，所有人聚在一起共同完成它。

并且有时候团队自己会做决定，“这对我们来说太重要了，我们要为它做些额外工作。”很多时候，我们看到一个团队加班工作，那么之后我们会让他们休息一阵子。对于三年或四年开发周期的项目来说，这样做可以避免形成日后的负担。

如果一个团队表示，“我们真的觉得这个会让游戏更出色，我们希望能推一把。”这是可以的，但就像骑车一样，你需要偶尔暂停踩踏板来调整状态和平衡。这些是我们让团队自由决定的事情，这样做使他们能合理地界定工作范围，并找到实现创造性的构想的方案，这个过程不是独裁式的，相反，这是我们管理部门、团队和创意部门一项持续共同讨论的事宜。并且再次强调一下，定期让人们休息才能让他们保持清醒和活跃。

Kris Graft：创意行业内的很多工作都不是朝九晚五型的。你认为在游戏开发中，是否有可能实现这种“固定工作时间”？

Côté: 我们工作室在这方面灵活性很高，员工需要做什么、什么时候做可以由他们自己安排。这取决于项目，我是从一个开发周期为三年或者四年的项目的角度来看的。

在项目开发中，很多时候你是无法保证朝九晚五的。也许是朝九晚三，也许是朝九晚四。有时是朝九晚六，制作电子游戏不像那种常规工作。我们要求人们保持创造力，这是我们所看重的。

但在这个方面我们是灵活的。来公司上班不是最重要的。如果你处于低谷期，我们认为如果需要你就回家吧，让自己冷静下来，思考下如何让游戏更好，或者提升你的事业，或者其它的什么。

但有时候……并且再次强调很多时候是人们自愿的。他们有了一个很棒的想法，他们想要去实现它，于是他们为此连续加班工作好几周然后休息一下。

Klaus：我补充一下。我们发现赋予团队一定的自我管理权能取得更好的效果。很明显，拥有了自我管理权，团队和个人就有了责任感。这对我们更有好处。

但同时，我们不在纽约、旧金山或者伦敦这种人才汇聚的地方。因此我们要让团队、创意者感到满足和快乐，对工作室产生归属感。因为一旦我们失去他们，我们很难再找到同等水平的人才。因此关心团队是双赢的，不是只是为了做出一个好游戏，也是为了让团队保持健康。

当然我们也会进行一定的检验，在我们的项目中，我们关注的是交付情况，我们会根据目标评估取得的效果。我们还依据一些具体的指标来分析团队的健康程度。

Kris Graft：你们具体看什么指标？您能举些例子，你们是如何评估团队的健康状态的？

Klaus：我不知道你是否了解净推荐值（Net Promoter Score），我们采取的是与它类似的方法，让团队为自己状态打分，计算出扣除消极和中立者所占百分比后的推荐者百分比，然后你可以一路追踪这个数据并深入研究它。

可以参考马斯洛的需求层次理论金字塔进行评估，他们有工具吗？他们对项目的长期目标是否了解？他们有框架吗？进展得顺利吗？每当Marc Alexis和管理团队发现一些带有问题的数据时都会深挖，确保小问题不会酿成大问题。采取行动、然后跟进。

Jon Dumont，《刺客信条：奥德赛》创意主管：这一次我们摆脱了公式化的设计，我们尝试制定了一个原则，就是每两周审视一遍游戏内容。内容团队协助确定我们要推进的优质内容，以及需要立刻舍弃的内容——那些我们没有把握，或者整个团队不太认可的内容。

我们对团队的承诺是追求正确的设计，因此我们不会逼迫团队去做一个无所不包的游戏，你懂的，像一块披萨一样。我们每两周会思考游戏有哪些好的地方、什么对设计来说是真正有益的。我们还会每隔六到八周尽心进行一次回顾，对游戏做一个快速的评估，它还缺什么，我们应该放弃哪些东西，哪些还不错。

然后团队是我们所有决策和评估的参与者。团队使我们避免一次性推动过多的事情。即使我们的团队很庞大并且我们到处都有合作方，我们会尝试评估它们的情况，问对的问题，然后告诉它们我们想在哪些方面做一点推进。团队大部分时间是专注于做正确的事情。我们无法永远保持完美，但我们非常重视如何让游戏更好、而不是希望“某些东西”会让游戏更好。

在长期管理中，我们试图保持灵活性，在设计上也是一样，我们不想一开始就定下条条框框，然后循规蹈矩地进行三年的开发。

Kris Graft：在游戏行业内，很多项目在完工后会解散一大批人。但是在育碧这种情况却不常发生。你们在项目前期、中期和后期是如何管理团队人数的呢？

Klaus：我们从来不这么做，在项目结束后大量裁员不是育碧的作风。

我分两点来回答你的问题。第一，我们的3A游戏是不断进化的。过去当你把成品交给甲方并进行生产，意味着项目可以收尾了。但如今我们的大部分游戏，即便不是全部，尤其是《刺客信条》系列都致力于打造超长的游戏内容。

昨天我们宣布了奥德赛发行后的计划，它是《刺客信条》史上组最宏伟的计划。我们希望能不断为玩家提供新内容。团队的大部分的人会继续参与游戏的更新和未来作品的开发中。

至于团队人数的管理，也就是奥德赛的开发人员。非常幸运的是魁北克工作室有一些其它正在进行的项目，不过很抱歉我无法透露，我们的一些成员会参与进去。并且我们已经形成一个工作室合作网络，跨工作室合作是育碧的特色之一。

比如，假设目前我拥有60个可以在接下来的6到9个月内进行创作的人才。我会和蒙特利尔和多伦多工作室的总经理联络、介绍我们的人员情况，看看他们能否协助制作其他的3A游戏。

Côté: 在每个人投入到下一个项目之前，他们拥有休息的时间。这是工作室的倡议，让每个人都有时间放松和冷静。

人们创作时都是全身心投入的，如果你让他们从一个项目直接跳到另一个项目，他们的创造力很容易会枯竭。

另外一件重要的事是，项目快结束时你会发现某些工作不需要那么多人，但是你在未来也许仍要用到他们的专业技能……比如我们为《刺客信条：奥德赛》招纳的一堆美术人才如今开始筹划一个项目，这样他们可以一边提升自己的技能，又可以在需要他们时派上用场。再次声明，这是我们的方式，我们希望能保持合作，通过合作变得更好。

Klaus：我认为团队信任关系的建立、团队的成长和人才投资，这些比优化盈亏要重要的多，因为如果我们只看盈亏，在项目结束后裁减人员才是最佳的选择。但人才是我们的力量，我们将对他们进行投资。

本文由游戏邦编译，转载请注明来源，或咨询微信zhengjintiao

Workers’ rights in the game industry is a topic that’s reached fever-pitch as of late, sparked by mass layoffs that come without warning, studio closures, and horror stories of game dev death marches.

The labor required to make giant, sprawling worlds is partly the reason such stories exist at all. And when you think of virtual worlds that are astonishingly huge, Ubisoft and its open world Assassin’s Creed series comes immediately to mind.

In a recent interview with the leaders behind Assassin’s Creed Odyssey studio Ubisoft Quebec, the conversation turned to crunch and work-life balance. Though any one person’s experience in the same studio will differ from another’s (the bosses here admit there is work to be done), they were able to offer a view from the top of one of the biggest game productions of 2018.

Edited for length and clarity.

So you’ve got all this experience managing big teams and things like that, and of course right now we’re doing this interview amid these conversations about these labor issues, we’re talking about unionization, talking about crunch, these mass layoffs that happen all of a sudden, work-life-balance.

I’m wondering, what do you think about these conversations that are happening, and how do you address these things at Ubisoft, at your studio?

Patrick Klaus, Ubisoft Quebec Studio managing director: Yeah, it’s a very real topic. And it’s something where the studio, over the past few years, has tried extremely hard to be super-proactive about, trying to hit the sweet spot of competing with the best, but also making sure that our teams, our talent, our creators, are in a good position to continue to develop, [they're] feeling good about staying at the studio and we want to provide a certain work-life balance.

We put a huge focus [on this] post-Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, which was a tough one. It was our first big triple-A [game] coming out of Quebec City. [We had] to look at improving some of the ways we develop our games in terms of scope, of the work that we take on in terms of prioritizing our investments, in terms of role and responsibility, in terms of tools; to be more efficient in the way we work.

While we can always do better, I can tell you hand on heart that [Assassin's Creed Odyssey] hasn’t required a massive crunch, like maybe some of the triple-As from five or ten years ago. We can still always do better, but we have managed pretty well to succeed in delivering a game of huge magnitude which is hitting a good quality [level], while making sure that our teams are not burnt out and disgusted with working in games.

We collectively, on the management team, think that it is a false economy to burn out our teams. We risk losing them, or we risk disengaging them, and we will simply not get the best out of those talents if we’re forcing them to work insane hours in crunch. We’ve got some way to go, but I’m feeling good about what we have achieved.

Marc-Alexis Côté, senior producer, Odyssey: Let me jump in…The way we’re going to keep making better games is if we keep working together as a team, and keep growing the team. The only way to be able to do that is if people want to keep working together. And the way to do that is to have a good work-life balance on the team — because [a bad balance] is when problems start to occur.

I’ve been at Ubisoft Quebec since June 27, 2005, since the day the studio opened. I’ve been a programmer, a level designer, a game director, a game designer, a creative director — I’ve seen pretty much everything. I’ve seen the growth of the studio and I’ve seen game production from many different angles. And definitely, at least here, within Ubisoft, the way we approach these big triple-A productions that are worth hundreds of millions of dollars is very different today than what it was in the past.

I think where we have matured is in the way where we manage what we are trying to achieve. It might sound trivial, but [the way] you avoid crunch in the long term is to continually reassess where you are, what you’re trying to achieve, how much work is left to be done, and to become better at measuring that.

It’s something we were very, very bad at 15 years ago, but as the industry is maturing, we are becoming better at managing our teams, managing our scope. Not every studio will grow in that way, not every team will grow in that way, but it’s one of the commitments we made to our team when we started: that we would manage the scope of the game, that it was super-ambitious, but that every two weeks we would reassess it with them to always make sure that it is doable.

Just to follow up: Patrick had mentioned being proactive, you talked about tools and efficiency and evaluating [progress] on a regular basis. Could you discuss in practical terms how you communicate with your staff? You mention every two weeks you talk to people? And also what metrics do you keep track of as far as the labor and the workload go?

Côté: We try to have our teams evaluate the workload themselves. So we have creative objectives that come down from creative direction, from the teams themselves. But we want them to scope their own work, so we say things like: “This is the high-level goal that we’re trying to achieve, how would you achieve this?”

We try to bring the team in, bring a lot of principles of agile development into the larger scope of game development, so you don’t necessarily approach this as if it were only an engineering project, but rather try to approach this as a multidisciplinary work where everybody sits together and tries to [do] this work together.

And if it doesn’t fit — sometimes the teams will decide, “This is so important for us that we’ll put in extra work.” And a lot of times when we see a team put in extra work, what we’ll do is we’ll rest them a bit afterwards; again, [in order to] not accumulate the kind of debt we often see on a three-year or four-year cycle of a project.

If a team says, “Oh we really think this will make the game better, we want to do an extra push.” It’s like okay, but then you need to lift the foot from the pedal just a bit to stay in good shape and maintain this kind of balance. These are the kinds of tools we put at the disposal of the teams to be able to scope properly, and come up with solutions to attain the creative vision so that it’s not a dictatorship. Rather, it’s really something that is an ongoing discussion between the management, the team, and the creative part of the team as well. And, again, resting people on a regular basis so that they can stay fresh and motivated.

A lot of jobs in studios in creative industries — they’re not set 9-5 jobs. Do you think that’s a possibility; to have that kind “regular schedule” of a “regular job” in game development?

Côté: We give a lot of flexibility to our employees to structure their schedule around the work that they need to do. I really try to see this as kind of a three-year cycle, or four-year cycle depending on the project.

A lot of time during the development of the project, it’s not a 9-5 job as you would say. It might be a 9-3 job, it might be a 9-4 job. Sometimes it’s a 9-6 job, so again production of a video game is not constant work. We’re asking people to be creative, that’s what we look for in people.

But we try to give them the flexibility of both. It’s not about just showing up to work. If you’re in more of a down period, we think it’s good for you to be home if you need to be, and let you cool down and think about things that could make either the game better or your career better, or everything.

But sometimes…and again a lot of times it comes from the people themselves. They have a brilliant idea, they want to implement it, so they’ll push for a couple of weeks and then rest a little bit.

Klaus: If I could add, what we’re finding is that we’re getting better results with a certain amount of autonomy [for our teams]. Obviously, with autonomy comes responsibility of the teams, of the individuals. That works better for us.

But also, we are not in New York, San Francisco, or London in terms of talent pool. So we need to keep our teams, our creators, fulfilled and happy and engaged in the studio. Because if we lose them, you know, it’s tough to find that level of talent that you’ve invested in. So it’s win-win to really care for our teams, not just to ship a game but also to [keep] our teams healthy.

In terms of some of the checkpoints also, in our projects we look at the deliverables, we look at what was achieved against what was planned. We also analyze, together, the team health results, based on certain indicators.

What certain indicators are you surveying? Can you give me some examples as far as measuring team health?

Klaus: Stuff to do with the net promoter score. I don’t know how familiar you are with that process, to take a snapshot of your team and have some data on the promoters minus the detractors and neutrals, and you can follow that trend over time and you can dig into it.

In terms of the pyramid, the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs pyramid of fundamental scales, do they have the tools, do they understand the vision, do they have the structure, is the road clear? Marc-Alexis and the management team will, whenever they see some data that raises certain flags, will dig into and it and see that a little snowball doesn’t become an avalanche. Take action, then follow up.

Jon Dumont, creative director, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey: Without getting into big formulae, one of the design principles that we try to establish is that we review the game content every two weeks. The content directions team [helps determine what] we are going to keep pushing on — the things that are panning out. But [it also helps determine which content to] abandon quickly — the things that we are not sure of, or things the team doesn’t feel that are good.

Our commitment to the team is to pursue the right designs so that we don’t try to force something that does it all, you know, like a pizza. And then we try to figure out what’s good about it, what’s true to the design process, every two weeks. We [also] have milestone reviews every six to eight weeks where we make a quick assessment about the game, what is missing, what should we stop working on, and what’s fine.

And the team is part of that decision making, and part of those evaluations. It helps us not push a million things at the same time. Even though these are gigantic teams, and we have collaborators everywhere, we try to really evaluate what’s there, ask the right questions, and say what we’d like to pursue a little bit more. The team focuses on the right things most of the time. It’s not always perfect but we try to really focus on what makes the game better, instead of hoping ‘these things’ will make the game better.

We try to be agile in long-term management, as well as from a design perspective, instead of enforcing a game bible at the start of the game and doing that for three years.

In the game industry, there’s this idea that when a project is wrapping up, you lay off a bunch of people. But you don’t really see that happening too often with Ubisoft. So how do you manage the headcount when ramping up, and ramping down, and in between projects?

Klaus: We never do that at Ubisoft; those big rifts at the end of the project. It is not in our philosophy.

Two things to answer your question. The first one is that the triple-A games that we are making are evolving. There used to be a massive ramp-down when you get your gold master and you submit to first-party and go into manufacturing. Most of, if not all, of Ubisoft’s games, particularly Assassin’s Creed is working toward a long, long, really long gameplay cycle.

Yesterday we announced the post-launch plan, which is the most ambitious we’ve ever seen on an Assassin’s Creed. We want to keep the players in the brand to give them some content to continue to have fun and enjoy. What that means is that a significant part of the team will continue to work on Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and the post-launch for the foreseeable future.

In terms of managing the headcounts, that is the staffing from Odyssey. We’re lucky to have other projects going on at Ubisoft Quebec, which unfortunately I cannot talk about, but will take some of that [staff to] ramp up. And we also are a collaborative network of studios, where co-development across studios is part of Ubisoft’s DNA.

For example, right now if I’ve got 60 creators that may be available for the next six to nine months, I’ll have a chat with some of the [managing directors] from other studios — Montreal, Toronto — and talk to them about what that talent pool looks like in terms of functions, and how we could potentially help some of those other big triple-As across the Ubisoft portfolio.

Côté: Before every person transfers to another project, they get the time to rest as well. This is really a studio-level initiative, so that people have some time to cool down.

You become so involved in the work that you do creatively. You want people to be invested, but if you’re just moved around from project to project this can also lead to creative burnout in a way, so we’ve found.

The other thing that’s important is sometimes at the end of a project you’ll see you need certain types of people less than before, but you still might need their expertise. … So [for example] we’ve got a bunch of artists on Odyssey who started to ramp up a project so that they can improve their skills, while still staying available for a project should the need arise. Again, this is our way of trying to make sure that we want to keep working together, that we become better at working together.

Klaus: I think that in that relationship of trust with our teams, and the growth of our people and the investment that we put into our people is more important than P&L optimization, because if we were only driven by P&L optimization, then we may make some cuts at the end of the project. But our talent is our power, and we will invest in our talent.（source：Gamasutra  ）