Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga has led to extensive crunch at development studio TT Games

In late 2017, development studio TT Games began work on Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker SagaAt a time in which many employees were fighting with the management, Citing frustration over tight development schedules, the company’s crunch culture, and outdated development tools, more than 20 Actual and Polygon hears from former employees at TT Games that their calls for reforms over the years have been largely ignored.

Many people working at the studio recall feeling exhausted from the stress and the work load.

“It was a very soft-spoken blackmail,” one former employee says. “‘If people don’t start doing overtime, there’s going to be problems,’” although the problems were never specified.

Some former staff even came up with a term to describe their experiences at the studio, referring to them as “PTTSD.”

With The Skywalker Saga — an adaptation of all nine main films in the Star Wars series — management promised employees a longer development timeline and a new engine. According to staff, the promise of a longer development timeline and a new engine did not improve the situation. Numerous employees say management did not warn about NTT switching, an internal engine, and that this was ineffective at relieving crunch.

Polygon spoke to over 30 TT Games employees in the last few months. All of them spoke anonymously as a result of nondisclosure agreements. They opened up about the studio’s challenging work culture over the last decade and a half and The Skywalker Saga’s difficult development cycle. It has been two years since TT Games, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and the announcement of their partnership. The Skywalker SagaThe development of the game was delayed three times. TT Games employs many people and has had to undergo a lot of staff turnover since the game’s development. The Skywalker Saga began.

Image Credit: TT Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

A Lego empire

The company’s challenges started well before The Skywalker Saga. According to staff, the culture of crunch at TT Games goes back to the company’s formation in 2005. After the great success of Lego Star Wars Video Game, British game studio Traveller’s Tales acquired publisher Giant Interactive, forming what we know today as TT Games.

TT Games, a manufacturer of Lego games has enjoyed great success. Its titles have been well reviewed and are able to sell millions. Because of their easy and accessible gameplay, they have been referred to as one of the best games for families. But former employees say that the company’s decision to release new Lego games annually resulted in a culture of crunch.

Jon Burton was co-founder of TT Games and creative director. Six ex-employees said that he used to shout at employees to get back to their desks if employees failed to arrive on time. He also expected them to work extra hours. Some others, however, recall seeing leads follow employees out of the studio to ask them why they left and to test their loyalty.

“A big problem was that crunch was premeditated,” says one former employee who worked at the studio under Burton. “It wasn’t an emergency protocol for when things went wrong. It was more of a production tool. Projects were scheduled with short periods or worse, without crunch. This wasThis is the calendar. […] It was a regular occurrence because of the type of games we made: movie tie-ins, and kids’ stocking fillers. They all had deadlines dictated by a holiday event or the release of some film.”

Warner Bros. acquired TT Games Group on November 7, 2007. It included the Knutsford-based studio TT Games as well as the Wilmslow (U.K.)-based TT Fusion, acquired in January 2007, and TT Centroid, which was then spun out into its own limited business in 2008. TT Games bought mobile game developer Playdemic in February 2017 — which it then sold to EA in June 2021 — and acquired mobile developer TT Odyssey in 2018.

Shortly after TT Games’ acquisition, in 2008, Warner Bros. held a companywide satisfaction survey to determine what people thought of the working conditions across the studios. The results received the lowest rating Warner Bros. ever had, according to two employees at TT Games.

“Jon told us [during a presentation] he was going to ‘hit the reset button’ in response to the survey results, and try to start fresh,” says a former employee. “He started by dropping some of the odd rules we had at the studio — disabling the internet firewall, and allowing people to answer phones at their desks — but nothing meaningful that addressed project timelines, low salaries, or the crunch culture. It was back to business as usual the following Monday.”

Reached for comment, Burton sent the following statement: “I can’t respond to these points as I have continuing obligations to TT that I don’t want to risk breaking (for example – confidentiality and non-disparagement).

“I can clarify a couple of things for you though. The company was founded by me [Traveller’s Tales]In 1989, he was the owner of the business [TT Games]It was until 2007 when I sold it off to WB. I moved to California in 2013, at which point my job title first changed to Creative Executive, and then later to Creative Executive Advisor, and as you can imagine, any insight into the day to day running of the studio ended when I moved.”

Image: TT Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Niemandy’s morale

Twelve former employees say that conditions failed to improve after Burton’s move, with studio manager David Dootson (2013-2018) and his successor, studio manager and director Paul Flanagan (2018-2020), maintaining an atmosphere where overtime was expected.

Overtime at TT Games was, according to employees who were there for the past 20 years, always considered voluntary. There were systems that could be used to calculate, monitor, and pay overtime. Starting in 2010, though, overtime at TT Games was split between two types for every employee: “flexitime” and overtime. Based on milestones and workloads, department heads were responsible for determining what hours were appropriate.

Extra pay and days off could be used to exchange overtime, while employees could only exchange flexitime for holidays or late starts. Staffers also stated that flexitime had a maximum 40 hour limit. Employees could reach the maximum hours and still not receive any benefits, even if they had to finish work.

Many employees claim it was difficult for them to refuse additional work hours. In some cases, employees were warned about consequences if they didn’t pull their weight and told that they were letting others down if they chose not to work, while in other cases, staff felt compelled to take on additional overtime to bolster their salary. A half dozen employees told us that it wasn’t uncommon for them to crunch while working 80-100 hour days, six days per week.

The expectations didn’t impact every department in the same way, with sources saying that programmers, visual effectsAnd animation were among some of the worst teams hit, as well as contractors who were told about full-time employment opportunities and asked to prove themselves. According to staff, this didn’t just impact TT Games’ Knutsford studio, but also TT Fusion, which has developed its own titles, like Lego Jurassic World, Lego City Undercover, and Lego The IncrediblesAs well as working on console ports, cutscenes and quality assurance,

Multiple former QA testing staff at TT Fusion claim they were subject to bullying and crunch as well as harassment from their colleagues. They say QA was treated as “less than the development team” and kept separate from other departments. QA staffers weren’t allowed to access other floors without supervision, which was a policy the company had implemented to control leaks after a QA tester tweeted an image of a redesigned Wii U GamePad ahead of the console’s release. This prevented QA staffers from secretly visiting HR, as well as making it more difficult for programmers and programmers to reach specific QA testers if they need additional information on a bug.

“The mood at [the Knutsford studio] was always rock bottom,” says a former employee. “People were worn out, worked down, mentally and physically ill because of the pressure. TT always said, ‘We’re going to change,’ but we all knew it was never gonna happen. The case was, We’ll play one more time and do it different next..”

According to other sources, the two TT Studios were also hostile environments for female employees. They made comments about women’s appearances, bullied them, withheld contracts and promotions, and even withheld their promotion. Some speaking for this story highlighted the studio’s gender pay gap, and the number of women in senior roles, with reports showing that women were paid less than their male counterparts on average and held significantly fewer senior roles.

The gender pay gap does not exist in TT Games. In fact, many top U.K. game companies, such as Codemasters, Rockstar Games and Sumo Digital all reported that their employees make less than the average hourly wage for women. TT Games is, however, ranked among the lowest-paid game studios for female employees in the highest quartile. According to the latest snapshot report, TT Games has only 2.4% and 8.7% respectively of highest-paid workers in the top quartile of hourly earnings.

Image: TT Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Unreal expectations

Many of the problems at TT Games, from mistreatment claims to crunch, came to a head with the creation of The Skywalker Saga. The reason is simple: At the beginning of the project in late 2017, the management decided to use NTT, a brand new engine.

According to Polygon, employees at the studio were pushing for TT’s switch to Unreal Engine. One small group created a Lego Star Wars test using the Unreal Engine. This was well received internally by those who saw it, according to both current and former staff, but management decided to continue developing the project on NTT, in an attempt to avoid paying engine licensing costs — Lego games often ship on a large number of platforms, and each of those adds to the expense. Even though NTT was warned about the potential problems, this decision was made.

“Everyone was like, ‘We have new programmers, why are we not using this technology?’” says one former employee. “We have all this crazy technology, Unreal is [charging lower fees]Unreal is used by more people than ever to make their stuff look better. Why are we not using this technology instead of creating something that is unfinished and being forced into production and is going to give really terrible final results?”

According to the members of the team, NTT is unstable and lacks features in real life. Sometimes tasks like adding animations, which would have taken two minutes with the older engine, could take 10 or more minutes this time. This depends on how many crashes the engine has had. It also resulted in hours of work vanishing if the engine didn’t save properly. Many ex-employees wondered why this company would take such a risk on such an important project.

Staff also say that a lot of pre-production is done by them. The Skywalker SagaThe old engine was used in the design. That created problems when trying to implement the game’s design, as assets and animation had to be reexported and reintegrated. According to some staffers, the struggles with the new engine were the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Several members of the team approached Tom Stone, TT Games’ managing director, to voice their concern about low morale, NTT issues, and any other problems that they observed within the company. Stone replied by hosting a series meetings in which anyone could give their opinions about the company.

“Essentially, someone communicated to Tom that [the mood inside the studio] wasn’t great,” says a former employee. “So Tom got half of the studio into one meeting and half the studio into a second meeting, and essentially split people off into groups so they could talk about what they liked and disliked about the studio. You can see the list of bad things at the bottom and the small number of positive things to the left. And he’s gotten this feedback from multiple groups.”

Reached for comment, Stone said, “I noticed towards the end of 2017/the beginning of 2018 – I definitely felt things were not right. Stone said, “I noticed towards the end of 2017/the beginning of 2018 – I definitely felt things were not right. No one ever came to me and said, ‘I have been bullied or I have been discriminated against or I’ve been picked on.’ No one ever said that. People said it’s tough working here, we work long hours, and people don’t communicate with us. But also to give it balance we had plenty of people, even the same people, say, ‘I absolutely love being here and I love working on Lego games.’ […]

“I said that I wanted to know everything that was going on, but I didn’t want it to be just about, ‘Well that’s wrong, that’s wrong, and that’s wrong’. I wanted them to say, ‘Well, why do you come to work?’ ‘What inspires you?’ ‘How do you feel about making Lego games?’ ‘What do you think about the environment?’ ‘What do you think about the atmosphere in the office?’ ‘How are you all?’ It was that.”

According to employees, TT Games presented new contracts that gave more holiday and a greater percentage of a bonus each year. More than 10 employees, both current and past, claim that little has changed in the company over the period. They also say the NTT problems and fractured relationships between staff and management remained. Stone left the company in the following year to seek other opportunities.

Image: TT Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

This is the biggest Lego game ever

Polygon also heard from former employees about issues beyond NTT. The Skywalker Saga’s development, including feature creep. According to them, management informed employees that they had told them early in their careers. The Skywalker Saga was supposed to mark changes in the company’s working conditions, but it eventually grew into what many now refer to as TT Games’ biggest project yet, with management coining the phrase “strive for 85” to refer to the game’s potential Metacritic score — the company’s highest Metacritic score at present is 83 for Lego Marvel SuperheroesPS4. This, they say, required staff to be in and out of overtime for years to achieve the company’s ambitions.

According to former staff, constant changes in the design of the game were common throughout its development and resulted from months lost work. One of these changes was the creation of a 27-hit combat system. However, focus testing revealed that only one button was being used to battle.

“The director would request new mechanics on a whim, then ask that they be changed, whilst never actually fixing anything that really mattered,” says one former employee. “Read every review of a Lego game. The same thing is repeated over and over again [things]: ‘Platforming is pants, the camera is terrible, no online co-op.’ So let’s add a God of War-style combat tree! 5-year-olds will love it.”

Sources say, however that the value of The Skywalker SagaThe studio was always working on multiple projects at once, so staff members were constantly moving around. This added pressure to those who remained focused on Star Wars.

“A lot of staff got taken off the game [in early 2020] to focus on another project,” says a former staff member. “This made zero sense to me at the time. Star Wars was reduced to six artists for the final production, although there were thousands of bugs and feedback that needed to be addressed. It made zero sense to take any staff off Star Wars, let alone most of them.”

Many sources don’t surprise that NTT struggle and feature creep have caused NTT to lose its way. The Skywalker SagaThis took nearly five years.

The development of The Skywalker Saga and its delays, a spokesperson for TT Games provided this statement: “Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker SagaThis is the biggest title that the studio has undertaken. We are determined to provide a great Lego experience for our players and will give the game all the time necessary to achieve that goal. Thank you for your understanding and support.”

Image: TT Games/Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Neue management

TT Games underwent a series of organizational changes in 2020. Former vice president at Sony Worldwide Studios Michael Denny was appointed vice president and head of studio. In August 2020 Martin Palmer, TT Games’ head of technical design, left the company. Studio director Paul Flanagan departed shortly afterward, in October; in July 2021, he joined 10:10 Games, a studio formed by Jon Burton, one of the co-founders of the original Traveller’s Tales.

When reached for comment about his time at TT and his reasons for leaving, Flanagan said, “Given the seniority of my position whilst at TT it would not be appropriate for me to comment on the day to day running of the studio, any decisions that were made or how they were decided. Regarding my departure, I left TT over a year ago now after just over 16 amazing years and am now focused on building a new studio at 10:10 Games.”

Denny was a divisive figure since his arrival at TT. While some see him as someone trying to fix TT’s historical problems, including excessive crunch and a lack of diversity, others have criticized some of his choices as studio head for not seeming to match up to his aspirations.

His former Sony colleagues Eric Matthews (director of game development) and Mark Green (head of game), were hired in the latter’s place as head of games and director of game. This was controversial inside TT, as the roles weren’t widely advertised within the company, which some staffers argue prevented more diverse candidates from applying. Arthur Parsons (head of design at TT), was also fired in April after these hirings.

Parsons’ and Flanagan’s departures were received with mixed feelings. While some saw the departures as a new beginning and an opportunity for studio management to address long-standing issues, others were critical of their direction.

We’ve confirmed that at least 40 employees have left TT Games and TT Fusion since the start of 2021. Two high-ranking sources claim that the company has more than 400 employees across both studios. (Warner Bros. & TT have declined to disclose exact numbers. Over 15 of the current and former employees Polygon spoke to say they’re disappointed with management’s vision for the future, and its decision to focus solely on Lego projects. Management has restructured the team of concepts within TT Games. The group was initially created to protect the studio from losing the Lego license, but it has since been retooled and focuses exclusively on Lego. This concerned the staffers, as many have become increasingly aware of Lego’s interest in working with other studios — including with independent developers, like Light Brick Studio on Lego Builder’s JourneyRed Games is one of the mobile studios. Lego Brawls,Gameloft is also available Lego Legacy: Heroes UnboxedAnd Lego Star Wars Castaways.

Ex- and current TT staff can also see the parallels with what’s happening at the company, and Polygon reports that it was at Sony Manchester. Matthews & Green managed all design elements.

A spokesperson for TT Games did not answer specific questions about the company’s issues, but provided us with the following statement about its current work culture: “TT Games believes in creating a fair, inclusive and respectful workplace. With the help of Warner Bros. Games and new studio leaders, there have been numerous efforts to create a culture of collaboration and work-life balance that employees are proud of. We are proud of our legacy of creating games that delight fans over the years. Recognizing that our future success is dependent on the continuation of the positive changes implemented to date, we ensure every employee feels valued and supported.”

Several senior staffers have also left TT in the past two years and have joined Flanagan at 10.10 Games. These include Leon Warren, James Lay, the former technical lead, and Robert Nicholds, an ex-senior programmer. But 10:10 doesn’t account for everyone who has left TT Games, with many others joining studios elsewhere in the U.K.

We have been hearing positive developments at TT over the past few months. According to multiple sources, TT has decided to move to Unreal Engine for future projects. This is a positive step that some see as a breakthrough. Employees currently working at TT say the company has been paying attention to overtime and is limiting the hours that employees can work.

For more information, see The Skywalker Saga, a mixture of current and former employees say that they expect the finished results — currently scheduled for early 2022 — to satisfy fans, but they wonder why the staff had to endure so much to get to that point.