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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?
I worked at a well known, shovelware game dev studio. I won't say exactly where, to protect the innocent/guilty. But lets say it was a number one title around 97-99 timeframe.
The main cycle for this unsaid company was in shovel ware, low budget, 'value priced" (such a bastardization of the word 'value'), and equally low timeframe to build these games.
They'd produce about 8-10 of these crappy games a year, each game being alloted 2-3 months on average. So crunch-time was all the time, it wasn't uncommon to see their best and lead programmer working 80+ hours a week, sleeping under his cubicle desk.
Once in a rare while this is alright, but all the time got old. I left quickly and decided "This isn't for me" the pay is alright, but money is worthless if you don't have time to spend/enjoy it.
At the end of it all, it was just a nice way to get the bug out of my system. I always wanted to design games for a living, got my foot in the door and got it right back out. Fulfilled the dream, went on to do other things.
I enjoyed it more when it was just myself, hacking away at early games like Doom and Duke3D. No pressures, just fun like the games themselves.
Soon as yo umake your hobby your career, the pracitce often starts to taste sour and eventually bitter.
When you *do* decide leave the industry, do you find it easier to get jobs elsewhere because people think video game programmers are gods who are willing to put up with long hours, or do you find it harder because people (suits) think video game programmers sit around and play games all day, so you must be a slacker?
An open question...
This has been the norm for at least a decade, probably more. Maybe this is the first time someone did a survey, but I've heard the horror stories for years.
The trouble is, programming games is "cool" and "fun". People dream about playing and writing games all day, and getting paid for it. So, the development companies have a huge pool of people they can recruit from. If you dont like your working conditions, they'll just hire someone else who will put up with it longer. Thats also why they can pay less on average for young programmers, they have plenty to choose from.
Sure there is another way: sustained, long-term open source game development. A number of very successful games have been developed that way.
You get different games that way from the commercial stuff, of course: because these kinds of games are developed over many years, they only survive if they are replayable. Because developers are also players, the games get improved and problems get eliminated over time.
Oh, and, of course, it's not a career choice. Open source games are for fun, both fun playing them and fun developing them.
Being one of the aforementioned poeple whose lifelong dream is to make games for a living, this issue is one of my biggest concerns. Much as I'd love to design and/or code games for a living, I'd also like to see my family more than once a month. Maybe its not realistic of me, but I'd like to think that much of this problem can be eliminated through a combination of more realistic scheduling and careful design, stressing re-use of components. There are starting to be some impressive third-party game development libraries out there (Havok comes to mind) - between libraries like that, and well-designed, re-usable in-house components like GUIs, factories, event systems, and other such suitably generic components, much of the development time can be cut down, at least after the first game to use them is developed.
... it's stories like these that I've heard over the past couple of years, when I was nearing graduation and thinking of what industry to go into, that made me abandon my lifelong dream of developing games. If you search the net, there's many more horror stories, not only about long hours. From what I understand, basically it's just not FUN 99% of the time.
I'm glad I've decided not to pursue my dream. I now work as a programmer in a financial industry, I love what I do, and I couldn't be happier.
I'm currently in my 14th hour at work. E3 is next week.
Working on a triple-AAA title requires that effort. The guys who made the LOTR movies put insane hours in as well. When you're making outstanding triple-AAA quality entertainment based media, be it movies, games, televisions shows, etc, you've got put the effort in to make it as good as it can be.
There are horror stories about publishers fucking developers with unreasonable deadlines. Fortunately, I work for a publisher that doesn't do that--the extended effort is for quality, not just for making the deadline. I count myself lucky, and I hope guys who did get fucked can find themselves working for a developer who has a good relationship with a publisher.
For me, I'm still here because I want to make the best game I can.
/// Zoid.
34.3% of developers expect to leave the industry within 5 years, and 51.2% within 10 years
Sounds like a great way to build up knowledge and experience in the industry so game development advances like all other industries. Just another example of short-term, slap-a-label-on-it thinking, brought to you by middle management.
Crunch time is omnipresent,
Poor, overpaid, underqualified, incompetent management.
The average crunch work week exceeds 80 hours 13% of the time.
Omnipresent 80 hour work weeks. Sounds like about half the proper work force hasn't been hired yet. Probably because of arrogant, incompetent, cynical management.
Overtime is often uncompensated (46.8%)
Even though the video game industry makes profits in the billions.
While game development is a stimulating and rewarding career
Sure it is. From this description it sounds like a wailing shithole.
he 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
No shit?
Are insane hours just part and parcel of working in games, or is there another way?
Yes. Standardize the tools. No more graphics engines for 10 years. Period. Half of all development budgets should be spent on games that haven't EVER been developed yet (no sequels, no clones, no remakes, no licensed characters). One fourth of development budgets should be used to hire independent developers. One tenth of all development budgets should fund games written by one developer.
The adventure genre should be re-invented from the ground up. Interactive fiction should be marketed again. Prices for games should be cut by 30% across the board. Electronic distribution should be standard for all games, including consoles.
Publishers should invest long-term to build a true renaissance for video and computer games. Create-your-own-game tools should be developed and marketed for all genres. Standardized artwork, engines and tools should be made available to all amateur developers.
Arcade, console and computer classics should be marketed in binary form as products by genre with properly licensed emulators. All such products should include documented source for each game with reference to the available tools so amateur developers can build their own versions of each game type. Game designs and theory should be documented as well.
The result would be decades of windfall profits for the game industry and entire libraries of new games for players, amateur developers and the mod community alike.
Oh, and it wouldn't require 80-hour uncompensated work weeks so we can have another sequel of a remake of a clone of a boring game.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
No shit. I wish one had existed when I was working for A Major Game Publisher -- I would have joined in a heartbeat.
After 6 months on 80-100 hour weeks, though, with no overtime, no royalties, no meaningful bonuses, I left, and I'd say I'm done with games forever, most likely, barring a major change in industry practices.