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IGDA Quality Of Life Survey Analyzes Game Developer Crunch
Thanks to the IGDA for its survey details discussing the problems videogame developers face trying to balance work crunch and family/relationships. A survey commissioned by the IGDA revealed "34.3% of developers expect to leave the industry within 5 years, and 51.2% within 10 years", and also noted: "Crunch time is omnipresent, during which respondents work 65 to 80 hours a week (35.2%). The average crunch work week exceeds 80 hours 13% of the time. Overtime is often uncompensated (46.8%)." The IGDA's Jason Della Rocca is quoted as suggesting: "While game development is a stimulating and rewarding career, the work conditions are often taxing, making it hard to sustain a balanced lifestyle and leading many senior developers to leave the industry before they've done their best work... it is not just the community that is affected - these issues also impact the quality of games produced." Are insane hours just part and parcel of working in games, or is there another way?
Sounds like the entertainment industry in general. When I was working on a small animated 3d feature film a few years back, I averaged over 80 hours a week for over a month. I peaked at over 100. My average week off peak was about 60. Crunch time kills. I know people that quickly quit the industry afterwards because it just isn't worth it.
The primary reason it happens is sliding deadlines, misunderstood goals and ill-prepared schedules. That and people being overly picky about parts of a project too early in the game.
I swore to myself that I was done with it. But I love the industry and got myself into a non-production role where I only work 50 hours a week. I am a much happier man now.
-Tim
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
I'd like to point out that it's not just E3 anymore. Starting in January or February, we start ramping up for demo season. The GDC (Game Developer's Conference) is also a big demo for most companies. That means about 1/3 of the year (finishing with the E3 demo) is spent preparing for demos. For a pretty decent game, the dev cycle is 2 to 3 years. So in 3 years, you've probably got 2/3 of a year dedicated to showing demos at shows (the first year doesn't usually see you having enough of the game done to even announce its development, let alone show it), and one release deadline. Besides working crunch for all those events, you also have all sorts of intermediate milestones that you have to meet for internal demos, or demos for your publisher, like you mentioned.
:)
I got my job straight out of University. The crunch there was much more intense, but for a shorter time. As long as I don't have to work 80 hour weeks for 3 straight months or more, I can cope. (Especially if my crunch is in the winter, when I'm not going outside anyway.
Hey Zoid...
Everyone is different, but you have to admit that there's a deficency when it comes to QoL (Quality of Life) in the video game industry. Part of it is self-destructive; the built-in drive that seems to exist in the soul of game developers to work long hours. Those long hours eventually catch up to you as deminishing returns.
Do you remember the time when I pulled a 36 hour shift at Ensemble? (It's been several years.) Sure, I got a lot of work done but at the end the quality suffered and it took me time to recover. Developers putting in regular 80 hour weeks on average have buggier code, which then requires even more time to fix.
The other half is management. During Age of Empires 2, Harter Ryan did this milestone schedule of nine weeks normal, four weeks crunch time. Sounded good at the time, but what happened is that everyone slacked for those nine weeks knowing that they could catch up during crunch time. Crunch time ended up being six weeks. Then the nine weeks of regular time ended up being compressed on the next milestone so it got progressively worse. It was absolutely murder on me and my family (with a brand new baby in the house). I ended up leaving the company because of burnout and the time commitment that I couldn't give to the company anymore.
I know that there comes a time when you just *have* to give extra time to a project. I'm in one know that's caused me to miss a week of trivia (there'll be some today) but my present company figured out a way around it. Instead of everyone working 16 hour shifts, they divided everyone into three shifts working eight hours. We get 24-hour coverage, but everyone is always rested and working. It won't work for every situation and company, but it's a new option.
Commitment for quality is commendable and even desirable. There's a big problem in this industry with QoL. There is a lot of truth to the sterotype of a game developer being male, overweight, smelling and having a wardrobe only of T-Shirts and shorts. As a whole, the industry needs to focus on improving QoL for it's employees and make large leaps in labor areas.