Bad management as a business practice
Until recently, I've been an employee (now self employed) in video games, as a programmer, at a handful of companies, over a decade or so.

And I hereby present a summary of a pretty standard project:

Pitching the project to a Publisher
Your boss asks you to write an exceptionally detailed design document for a system/task based solely on assumptions, because it is in fact for something mostly intangible. You give time estimates for the work, and add on ~20%, because your boss reduces the figure. This document is called a TDD.

Designing the project
Firstly the TDD is binned, well sort of, the publisher will use it to berate you over details, but you can't do the reverse, oh no. You write a proper design, while a "designer" does the same thing. The designers grip on the reality of what your target console can do, is tentative at best.

Making the project
After a month or so of working in good faith, the publisher will changes their minds massively. Requiring all designs to be redone.

Making the project (again)
Half way through the new project the publisher will acknowledge what you told them early on about features A, B & c not working together. Queue partial redesigns.

Making the project (yet again)
Just after half way through the project, the publisher begins testing the woefully incomplete, somewhat buggy game. Testers are given daily bug (something wrong) counts they need to meet, and so will submit the most pointless rubbish.

Nearing the project completion date
Owing to the lying schedule that your boss put forward, by this point the project is nowhere near complete. Your boss will now insist everyone works unpaid overtime to catch up.

Almost finished (after running late)
During a conference call, the publisher will ask for new features x, y and z. These features were never requested, designed or scheduled, will take extra time that you don't have and you are completely unable to say no. This requires even more unpaid overtime to achieve.

Almost finished (after running more late)
The game is feature complete, but still buggy. So the publisher begins cutting features to save time, features that people have spent lot's of time on, and they themselves have paid for. They also start looking at the bugs that are "not on the user path", i.e. are rare, and flag them as KS (known shippable).

Finished
In most cases you submit your game to whatever company you are aiming for (nintendo, sony, microsoft), so they can judge if everything is hunky dory and legal. At this point, they find n number of the KS'd bugs from earlier and as it would show their hardware in a bad light, reject the title.

Finished (again)
After fixing the problem areas, or more likely your publisher bribes/threatens the company they just flat out won't release on the platform if they won't be cut some slack (very, very common for a well known two letter publisher). So the title goes through, embarassing bugs and all.

The Comedown
Your game is released and goes on sale, and the first few reviews come trickling in. "It was in development for ages, and it still has bugs".

So next time you buy a game, and get angry at how bad it is and how filled with bugs it is. Remember how soul destroying it must be to have to spend your working day doing that stuff because you're told to.

The general public seem shocked when the EA spouses/Red Dead spouses stuff hit's the news, amazed at employee policies. The shocking thing is that it's like that most of the time, at virtually every company.
(ShiftyBastard won the World Cup on World Soccer Champs 2010!, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 15:32, 13 replies)

I can concur
Sadly I am a producer....so while I don't get the pain of re-writing code/features, I am the sucker in the middle who everyone hates.

Good times.
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 15:33, closed)

In-house producers are great, they are like human shields for publisher retardation. External producers though, are normally the spawn of the devil.
(ShiftyBastard won the World Cup on World Soccer Champs 2010!, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 15:39, closed)

I was an internal producer first...
So when I made the switch to External I remembered how much I hated 'us' and tried to be one of the 'good ones'.
(Galahad is out of his gourd on yellow bentines, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 15:41, closed)

Been there, done that, moved to middleware.
I can't see myself working for a games company again unless it's my company.
(Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 15:35, closed)

Memories
The sad thing is- this is the EXACT same story as the last place I worked for (not quite games - but a software house)- the company no longer exists and there are quite a few people out of pocket as a result.

Oh, not the managers who caused the issue, and not the customer responsible - oh no, they are all fine and dandy.
(audreyforbes audreyforbes, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 16:14, closed)

Went to leamington spa for a code masters interview many years ago.
I could smell the shite just walking about the place. 2 hour interview. they asked me to draw a car. I think could draw better cars when I was 5.

I'm glad didn't get the job. Al code master games are awful soulless shite. I'm sure its one guy in the "design" committee at the top kicking the life out of all of them. poor buggers.
(waxdart hello., Fri 11 Jun 2010, 16:51, closed)

There's a reason they're known as "Codebastards".

(Pie of Meat ___°¬¯O¯____\o/_____/\_,____Y¯¯Y, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 21:01, closed)

I heard it was bad from one of me mates
and he only sits in the game-testing department.

The 80's with a glamorous nerd in front of a spectrum decompiler are truely gone.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Fri 11 Jun 2010, 20:48, closed)

I quit the games biz 10 years ago...
...it's comforting to know nothing's changed since
(MonkeySpunkMoped, Sat 12 Jun 2010, 3:16, closed)

This is why I buy all my games after a few years of patching
that and they'll probably come on special! $5 on Steam anyone?
(Arsenic, Fri 13 Jul, 2:73 and, Sun 13 Jun 2010, 14:52, closed)

Story of my life!
Try being asked to turn a garage into a space ship and then back again after the the requester forgot to inform the other people of his decision.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6utKjLUbcE
( Digeridude Lord Wellington's Beef Trapeze, Mon 14 Jun 2010, 21:27, closed)

Sounds very much like visual effects
You have my sympathy. I just drink to get through it
( pixel_fucker is going to need a bigger brush, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 20:57, closed)

Does indeed
At least similar to most big studios in London, one of the reasons why I moved out to Canada nearly two years ago. There maybe crunch times, but at least it's all paid overtime.
Had a mini breakdown working on one film a few years ago, 3 months of 6 and 7 day working weeks, 12-14 hour days....not much fun
(badfiremonkey, Tue 15 Jun 2010, 21:21, closed)