Naughty Dog of co-founder and former THQ executive Jason Rubin sent an opinion exclusively to GameIndustry International about the below standards working conditions that 4A Games had to deal with while working on Metro: Last Light.
"4A's staff sat on folding wedding chairs, literally elbow to elbow at card tables in what looks more like a packed grade school cafeteria than a development studios," Rubin wrote.
According to Rubin, he tried to remedy the seating issue by attempting to purchase Aeron office chairs but space limitation got in the way. That wasn't the Kiev, Ukraine developer's only issue.
Frequent power outage issues lead to delays.
"Power outages are the norm for 4A," wrote Rubin. "I know a few that had to bring in construction generators to be able to work the weekend before final submission because an extra day meant missing shelf dates by weeks."
The most shocking claim from Rubin was that because Ukraine's government provides all of the heating to homes and offices, 4A endured extremely cold weather for weeks at a time when the central coal burning facility broke down. Rubin said that 4A "struggled to keep their fingers warm in temperatures well below freezing."
Reasons for the subpar conditions was due to 4A's low development budget, Rubin writes.
"Lets be honest: 4A was never playing on a level field," Rubin explains. "The budget of Last Light is less than some of its competitors spend on cut scenes, a mere 10 percent of the budget of its biggest competitors.
Rubin went on to congratulate the developer for creating a game that has received positive reviews, even mentioning the fact that it scored higher than last year's big budget Medal of Honor Warfighter release from EA.
4A Games Creative Director Andrew Prokhorov thanked Rubin for the opinion and seems satisfied with the reviews.
"What else & We deserve the ratings we got," wrote Prokhorov. "After all, the final consumer doesn't care about our conditions."
Deep Silver published Metro: Last Light yesterday on the Xbox360, Playstation 3 and PC after purchasing the franchise from dissolved publisher THQ for $5.8 million.