But no matter how desperate their circumstances, two sources believed that their colleagues felt financially compelled to stay at ZeniMax, the largest games employer in the Rockville, Maryland area. QA contractors were rewarded with low hourly pay, while permanent employees would work for slightly above that. I remember seeing one of my coworkers stand up, look at the person who was in charge that day, and scream across the room: “Why are we here? We gave up our day for this. As a result of this dynamic, testers told Kotaku that they felt more vulnerable to production issues on the Fallout 76 project, resulting in more brutal crunch. Accounts of game production at major studios over the last seven years have painted a picture of an industry where testers are granted lower professional status compared to colleagues with skills that are perceived as more technical or creative. Within the games industry, QA is seen by many consumers and even some non-tester developers as an easy job that involves “ playing games for a living.” They are often treated poorly by their managers, work long hours, and are underpaid, to the point that QA testers at Raven Software recently formed the first AAA-studio video game union as a measure to help better their working conditions. Two former testers recounted that one of their colleagues said in a QA group chat after leaving the project: “I didn’t cry last night when I was taking a shower.” Another said in the same chat: “I pulled into work today, and I sat in my car for a second, and my chest didn’t feel heavy like it normally does.” Some testers would only find reprieve when they finally left the Fallout 76 team. Testers who worked during the months leading up to the original launch said that they crunched 10-hour days for six days a week as the game trudged toward the beta’s optimistic launch date of November 14, 2018.
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