TT Games employees report crunch, bullying at Lego studio
Brendan Sinclair
Managing Editor
Thursday 20th January 2022
TT Games employees have accused the Warner Bros.-owned Lego studio of planning around excessive crunch, bullying management, and poor decisions that have wasted work and exacerbated other problems at the studio, according to a report from Polygon.
The site spoke with more than 30 current and former TT Games employees who voiced a number of concerns and complaints about the way the company -- known for its Lego Star Wars, Lego Harry Potter and other such licensed adaptations -- had been run.
A handful of staffers reported crunch was common at the studio, with employees working 80-100 hour, six-day work weeks during crunch periods. Crunch was also said to be planned on and built into the schedule.
"It wasn't an emergency protocol for when things went wrong," one person told Polygon. "Instead, it was a tool in the box for production; projects were planned with crunch periods in the schedule, or even worse, crunch was the schedule."
Some who worked for TT Games co-founder and creative director Jon Burton said he would "often" berate employees for trying to leave at their usual hour, while others recalled leads questioning workers' loyalty if they decided to leave before others.
Employees were also previously forbidden from answering phones at their desks or using the internet, two rules that were relaxed in 2008 when a Warner Bros. companywide employee satisfaction survey found TT Games employees among the least happy developers in the system. While Burton had told staff there would be improvements, complaints about low salaries, crunch, and project timelines reportedly went unaddressed.
QA testers also reported being treated subjected to crunch and bullying, as well as
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