Many Chinese gaming companies have rather harsh working conditions — specialists work six days a week from 9 am to 9 pm. However, Lightspeed & Quantum studio, owned by Tencent and developed PUBG Mobile, decided to fight crunches. To do this, she made a number of small concessions for her employees.This was reported by analyst Daniel Ahmad.
According to him, this happened against the background of global concern about crunches in the gaming industry.
Lightspeed & Quantum intends to create a healthier work environment. The studio will prohibit employees from working on weekends and holidays, as well as staying at work after 9 pm. The only exception is Wednesday. The reason is Tencent’s internal policy, which already prohibits working on this day after six.
Poor working conditions are an important problem in the Chinese gaming industry due to the spread of the so—called “996” schedule. It assumes a 72-hour working week: six days, from 9 am to 9 pm. This practice is formally illegal from the point of view of Chinese legislation, but it has been adapted by many technology companies.
One of the adherents of such conditions is Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba. The 12-hour working day is aimed at maximizing productivity. For example, in 2017, Tencent even introduced a shift schedule to work on PUBG Mobile literally 24/7.
“It is worth noting that “996” is not an official policy in any company, because it would be illegal. However, this is part of the working culture, and such practices are encouraged by management,“ explains Ahmad.
In recent years, young Chinese specialists have begun to actively raise the issue of the unacceptability of “996”. For example, in 2019, a list of companies operating a similar model appeared on GitHub, including Tencent and NetEase. Last year, young developers released the game My Company 996 on Steam, which was designed to draw attention to the problem.