Quality of Life Issues Holding Back Game Industry

zenrender writes "With all the craziness regarding EA_Spouse's blog entry, it looks like some more organized groups are starting to chime in: Open Letter from the IGDA (International Game Developers Association). See Also Quality of Life White Paper, also from the IGDA."

Comments

What's it like in Japan?

[ronfar]

I'm wondering what work is like for game developers in Japan. Now, I know the Japanese are notorious workaholics, so I'm not sure what I'm expecting to be different, I'm just curious.

Re:What's it like in Japan?

[king-manic]

The Japanese are notorious workaholics. The Americans and Canadians are close behing, with a few scant hours difference each.

Re:What's it like in Japan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, I'm not Japanese, American or Canadian, but I thought it was common knowledge that Americans worked the longest hours per worker?

I don't know how close Japanese are to them, but they don't work as long during the year.

(Note: This doesn't take into account actual productivity. Apparently countries in Europe with 35 hour work weeks have equal productivity to countries with 40 hour work weeks...)

Re:What's it like in Japan?

[jasno]

After a 2 1/2 week stint in Japan a few years back, I came to realize that, at least as far as engineers are concerned, the Japanese don't work much harder than Americans. They also had about the same distribution of slackers vs. workaholics.

They did seem to have longer commutes, and they definitely partied harder, but work? Nope.

Re:What's it like in Japan?

[jjhlk]

I wonder if there is a short of Laffer curve for hours vs. productivity. Maybe leading up to the 7th hour most people are already slowing down, and then the 8th is almost completely useless.

Re:What's it like in Japan?

[sjames]

The Americans and Canadians are close behing, with a few scant hours difference each.

Of course, U.S. workers get a LOT less vacation.

Re:What's it like in Japan?

[Anonymous Coward]

After a 2 1/2 week stint in Japan a few years back

Well hold the fucking phone, we've got an expert here.

Re:What's it like in Japan?

[Anonymous Coward]

We work hard. Its pretty much similiar. Sleeping on your chairs is pretty common as is not going home. No one wants to leave before anyone else. Say goodbye to your family and personal life.

Its ok to come in at 9:30 - 10:00 am, but you wont be leaving until your last train 11:30 pm - 12:00am, or you will be riding a bicycle home at 2:00 am - 4:00 am.

Its pretty hard, and the overtime is not really compensated. U do work on weekends (should be holidays) they give you a day off for each holiday worked, but there is never a time to use them. The only time off is when you get sick (or fake being sick)

I wouldn't say we slack off either. There is the occasional quick browsing (2-3mins) but other than that you can get in trouble.

Regular japanese office jobs are much better. There during OT everybody slacks. But not in the game industry.

-Famous Japanese Game Company

Re:What's it like in Japan?

[ynohoo]

From my experience, they also spend alot more time around the water cooler/coffee machine boasting about how many hours they did yesterday.

Re:What's it like in Japan?

[the angry liberal]

Agreed. The last NOC I worked in had a sister office in Tokyo. If anything, those guys seemed somewhat slack compared to the engineers in Atlanta. We also had offices in several european countries. Universally, the people from other nations seemed more relaxed and easier to deal with. After this experience, it occured to me that we, as Americans, are an over-worked, over-stressed, scared as hell bunch of people compared to most folks.

Initially, when I read the open letter, I felt a little for the writer. I know how it feels to work your butt off and never get a break. But, this is the way business is conducted today. If EA slacks, the investors will go ballistic and force a management shake-up, so you will never purge a publically funded entity of this type of evil.

Simply put: Those investors don't care about you, your kids, your husband or your dog. They could care less whether you develope cancer from their product, as long as they sold before the share purchase price plunges.

Then another part of me says she should quit whining. She lives in the richest nation, married to someone who makes a good income -- probably in the top 5% income of our fine planets population. If it sucks so bad, perhaps he could go work somewhere else? Hell, since the entire software industry is a giant nightmare to work for right now, how about suggesting he take up a nice construction or landscaping job? Quit acting like a spoiled yuppy housewife and take responsibility for your situation and do what it takes to change course!

Cognitive dissonance

[Profane MuthaFucka]

I would really love to play Half Life 2, because I am a person who really enjoys weapons, blowing things up, shooting people in the head, shooting people multiple times with shotguns, watching them bleed, seeing them fall on the ground, writhing in pain, or better yet, seeing their bloody hamburgerfied bodies smeared on the walls.

But, I can't, because computer games are the product of human misery.

Re:Cognitive dissonance

[CommanderData]

If at first you don't succeed... Try again! Looks like your comment faired much better than it did yesterday.

For what it's worth I thought it was funny both times :)

Re:Cognitive dissonance

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Thanks. The moderators seem to have resolved their cognitive dissonance.

Re:Cognitive dissonance

[rjshields]

If at first you don't succeed... [slashdot.org] Try again! For what it's worth I thought it was funny both times :)

Translation: Hey! He told that joke last time! BTW it's an excellent joke! Harrumph, I'll have his karma if no-one else wants it.

Remind me not to go out for a drink with you.

Change of Mentality

[VGMSupreme]

This open letter does show a good point. A lot of the mentality of the new recruits that are passionate about working in the gaming industry (or any industry for that matter) is to work the extra hours or do the large amounts of extra work to prove to everyone they can do what others who are already in company are doing. If this mentality can be changed or proved to not be a driving factor, then we can get the companies to stop working their employees to the bone cause of a notion that has not really been proven to work.

Re:Change of Mentality

[SetupWeasel]

In almost every job these days employers look at employment as a gift they give their workers, and they expect their workers to treat them as benefactors.

Until there is a decent job market or workers unionize employers can afford to fire or force out those that refuse to be treated this way.

And this is happening to $8/hr jobs. I couldn't imagine what it would be like in an industry as competitive as video games.

There's something wrong...

[Alpha27]

Workers should not have to go through all these hours of developing on a regular basis to launch a product. If a product can not be made under normal working conditions (8-10hr days/5 days a week), then the product can't be made by the deadline set.

If the time schedules are constantly being scheduled so that I work more and more hours each week, where I essentially am working the amount of 80+ hrs in a single week, then something is absolutely wrong.

I have a life. I have a family. I need money to pay my bills, but I shouldn't have to work as if I had two jobs to pay bills for things, that at this rate, I hardly use. This practice of constantly asking (or demanding) workers to put in, above and beyond the call of duty, so many hours should be against the law, or at least with some vacation time to compensate. The human body can not take so much of this for long durations.

I've done the long hours in the web development field for years, fortunately not for long stretches of time. It's really not worth putting my life on hold to work at a company under these conditions. I had things in my real life slipping away and things that needed attention that I couldn't due to the long hours.

Overall, I wouldn't work for a company under those conditions, and would find employment else where. I would even go as far as boycotting the company.

Re:There's something wrong...

[the morgawr]

I think it would be a little spoiled to expect 40hr work weeks for every job. Many "common laborers" work 50-60 hrs a week regularly (with a six day a week work schedule). High level managers and owners of a business often put in 100 or more hours in a week. Some people don't even get "normal" hours and have to work night shifts, or as in the case of truckers, salesmen, pilots, and other traveling positions, the work for long streches with brief breaks in between to catch up with their family.

Ideas like 40hr work weeks, and work-life "balance" are not as common as you might think and tend to exist only in big urban areas with large union presences. In most parts of the world the idea goes: I have my job, I'll show do my work until my job is done and then I'll go home.

All of that said, every one of the jobs I listed above makes it clear from the beginning what you are in for and they pay or provide benefits commensurate with the time and effort put in. The owners and managers of those businesses also generally treat their employees with dignity and respect, none of which do I feel EA is doing.

In my exerience IT and software companies tend to be poorly managed to properly take advantage of the tallent and education of people they have hired. Often the educational/experience requirements for a job are far too high for what needs doing. Other times the policies, procedures, and attitudes at a company prevent employees from accomplishing anything meaningful. A valid comparison would be hiring an engineer to do a technician's job. This has resulted in low pay, and poor work conditions. With proper management these games could get designed and coded on time without massive overtime.

Re:There's something wrong...

[Dot.Com.CEO]

Thing is, the US is backwards in securing workers' rights, mainly because of Americans' distrust of the state as a guaranteer of citizens' rights. In Europe, the 40 hour week is a basic legal right. If you work more, you have the right to overtime. If your company refuses to pay you overtime, you take them to court. If they fire you because of your refusing to work overtime, you take them to court, you win and you get a pretty good settlement agreement.

There was only one job that required me to work 60+ hours a week. It was hilariously mismanaged, had no direction and the CEO aimed for a Steve Jobs like aura that eluded him. I now own my own company and even though I have enormous responsibilities I manage to work 40 hours a week. It's not that hard. You just have to manage your time and be good at making realistic projections.

Re:There's something wrong...

[the morgawr]

Thing is, the US is backwards in securing workers' rights

I take the opposite stand that trying to secure rights via the government, unions, and other organizations results in a net average that's worse off. There is only so much money in the ecomony for labor. Artificially restricting what can be bought with that money only serves to reduce the number of jobs available and raise the cost of goods. Furthermore by removing many competative elements from the job market you create a situation, prominant in most of Europe and parts of America, where there are hordes of bad managers who can't effectively organize labor to save their souls. These bad managers make the work enviroment worse overall not better. There have been studies that examined this trend. In the US for example, the amount of state control over the job market correlelates very well with unemployment levels and job satisfaction levels.

I've had jobs that have required 70-80 hours of work in a week regularly (because there was that much work to be done). Jobs like these are hard and if you arn't cut out for them you get burned out and tired, but they pay well, and provide chanllenge and exitement so on the all I enjoyed them.

Re:There's something wrong...

[perkr]

40 hour week is not a basic legal right in Europe. Maybe if you work for the goverment or an international corporation (which have special deals with the unions). Most engineers and scientists can just forget about compensation. You work as much as you have to or you're laid off. And it's not easy to get a new job in Europe either...

Re:There's something wrong...

[austad]

equired 70-80 hours of work in a week regularly (because there was that much work to be done)

There is never that amount of work to be done on a regular basis. If you find this to be the case, your employer is screwing you by not hiring the required number of people to do the work. It's not that there's "too much work", there are "too few people".

I'll work the 60-80 hour week when required. But when it becomes a regular thing, that's when my employer needs to start looking for more help.

Life is too short for one to spend that much time at work, I've worked 90 hour weeks for months on end. Once you end up in the hospital with an ulcer and heart palpitations from the stress, you'll realize this.

If you are really that busy at work, hire yourself a maid and a personal assistant to take care of your chores/errands for you. So when you do get freetime, you can actually spend it relaxing.

Re:There's something wrong...

[the morgawr]

> So when you do get freetime, you can actually spend it relaxing.

You are neglecting that I choose to work that long because I enjoy it. I found the work relaxing and fulfilling. That's the point of my post above. If people arn't finding these things in their job (no matter how short the hours) it's not worth working there. I'd much rather work for 60-80 hours and enjoy it then work for 40hrs and be missrable.

> Life is too short for one to spend that much time at work

I'd say that life it too short to spend it on things I don't find enjoyable and rewarding.

> There is never that amount of work to be done on a regular basis

Sure there is. Either we can hire someone else to do the work part time (because it's not enough to make another shift, and pay full benefits; this means we'll get part time quality out of it too) or I can work a little longer.

Re:There's something wrong...

[J4]

Uh, laborers get paid overtime, business owners are reaping the fruit of their own labor, cops, firemen, truck drivers and pilots all get comp time and have legal protection WRT consecutive hours worked. They're also union jobs (surely just a coincidence, right?).

Programmers get abused because they put up with it as a group. Think a bit on the whole "managing programmers is like herding cats" meme and who really benefits.

Re:There's something wrong...

[humblecoder]

A couple thoughts...

First, maybe I am just not superhuman enough to work in the game industry, but I find that if I work insane hours for more than a couple of days, the quality of my work suffers dramatically. I have noticed it isn't just me either. I've code reviewed programs that were written under extreme schedule pressure, and most of the time, the code was terrible.

I wonder if the 80+ hour week mentality is self-propogating in the sense that long hours leads to more bugs, which leads to more long hours to fix them, etc.

Second, most places I have worked have rarely required putting in more than 40 hours a week. Ocassionally I've had times where I've put more for various reasons, but that has been the exception rather than the rule. This has held true at both small startups and large Fortune 500 companies, so I do have a good sample of companies to go by.

One common thread in these companies has been good project management. They realize that excessive schedule pressure is more likely to kill the whle project, rather than help it. If you are constantly in crisis mode, quality suffers.

I know that game companies like EA stress being able to ship by a particular date, but, as a consumer, I would rather wait for a solid product, rather than get something that is half baked. Take Neverwinter Nights, for instance. That game was constantly being pushed back for one reason or another, and the delays certainly haven't hurt overall sales. Actually, delays of an anticipated product seem to feed the hype and the excitement, with the added bonus of allowing developers to put out a solid product.

Finally, you can't really compare the number of hours a business owner puts in relative to an employee. A business owner is the one taking the risks and the one getting the rewards, so they have a vested interest in putting in insane hours. For some of the other occupations you mention, there are rules (at least in the US) about how many hours truckers and pilots can work. And "common laborers" usually get overtime for their efforts, so many of them actually WANT to work more hours. Code jockeys don't have any limits (other than physical ones) and they usually dont get any overtime for their efforts (although that may change pending legal challenges).

Personally, my feeling is that I have no problem pitching in with extra hours from time to time. However, if the extra hours becomes the rule rather than the exception, then there is a serious problem with project management and scheduling that needs to be addressed by the company. If the company's management is so bad that it cannot properly plan its projects, then it is probably a company I would not work for. That last point may explain why I gravitate away from such companies.

Re:There's something wrong...

[Anonymous Coward]

Thing is, the US is backwards in securing workers' rights, mainly because of Americans' distrust of the state as a guaranteer of citizens' rights.

Nope. It's something different.

Europe, the 40 hour week is a basic legal right.

The American approach is that governments do not grant rights, they observe them. Rights come from the people and their nature, whether you want to say "endowed by their Creator" or "arising naturally from game theoretic considerations".

Re:There's something wrong...

[EkkiEkkiShiwaddle]

Not everyone is like you. I have a life as well. I have a family as well. I no longer need to work to pay my bills, because working hard enough for the past few years has landed me in a very easy situation.

I work two jobs a day (2x8hours), work after hours as much as possible, sleep 4-5 hours a day. I work weekends as well. In doing so, I save huge amounts of money not spent on other stuff, which I invest to get even more money. The purpose? Trying to get rich. Quick. While working, and enjoying what I do.

I don't mind working overtime, as long as they pay me.

I'm mid-20s now, and already I do not need to worry about money ever again. By the time I'm 30-35, I'll stop and retire to enjoy my life while you still need to work to support yourself.

Re:There's something wrong...

[Scorchio]

First, maybe I am just not superhuman enough to work in the game industry, but I find that if I work insane hours for more than a couple of days, the quality of my work suffers dramatically. I have noticed it isn't just me either. I've code reviewed programs that were written under extreme schedule pressure, and most of the time, the code was terrible.

I wonder if the 80+ hour week mentality is self-propogating in the sense that long hours leads to more bugs, which leads to more long hours to fix them, etc.

Games programmers don't have superhuman qualities when it comes to working long hours, even if they think they might - and yes, the quality of work suffers as a result.

I remember one game I worked on, we needed a demo producing for an internal review. Just something for a suit to look at. It was required for the Monday lunchtime, and needless to say, the team was in all weekend. When midnight passed and we were into the early hours of Monday morning, I told the project manager I was going home to sleep. He begged me to stay a few more hours, but I told him I'd just spent the last two hours unsuccessfully trying to fix a bug because my brain was fried. I left, got some sleep and returned at 9am.

When I got back into my office, I found my co-worker still there attempting to work after 24 straight hours. He was tripping after consuming an unknown quantity of caffiene pills, and was sent home. It took me about 45 mins to clear the rest of my bug list with a relatively clear mind, and spent the rest of the morning fixing the bugs my co-worker had introduced through the night.

Sustained long hours are a false economy. Fatigue will slow you down and introduce errors, and you will end up taking 12 hours to accomplish what you could do in 8 if you weren't so damned tired.

While a lot of the problems can be pinned down to poor planning, design and management, there are still those developers in the industry who let their ego get in the way. One guy I was unfortunate enough to work with was assigned a lead programmer role. He took an unusual approach - he attempted to write the whole game himself, and when he got bored or stuck on a particular section, he'd hand that section off to one of the other programmers on the team.

While the work he churned out early in the project made him look like a hero, it came back later to bite him on the ass. He'd made himself the critical team member for every part of the project. He was having to fix problems in his code throughout the entire game, working silly hours trying to keep on top of it all. Eventually he cracked, left the office in the early hours one morning, and disappeared for several weeks. He returned for a while doing light tasks, then quit. You can imagine the mess this left the project in.

Re:There's something wrong...

[humblecoder]

I've worked with a couple of refugees from the game industry, and the stories that they tell are similar to what you are saying. Based on my small sample size, game programmers are among the most talented programmers that I have worked with. However, they seem to "burn out" after a few projects and go into a less demanding area.

I wonder if game industry is shooting themselves in the foot by letting all these talented folks get away with their draconian practices. I suppose there are enough young, ambitious, talented people in the pipeline to take their place, but the one thing the companies can't replace is experience. Game companies have a big recruiting advantage in that it is "cooler" to work on a game than on some accounting system. However, they flush that advantage down the toilet with some of their practices.

I don't know if you've read the book _Soul of a New Machine_ which follows a group of engineers at Data General in their quest to build a state of the art computer. The engineers on that project work insane amounts of hours on the project, sacrificing their outside lives for the good of the project. It tends to glorify the manic single-mindedness of the team, but gives short shrift to the personal toll the project took on its participants. I think I remember reading elsewhere that many if not most of the people on the project left the company afterwards. That might explain why Data General is no longer around today!

Re:There's something wrong...

[EkkiEkkiShiwaddle]

Can someone please explain to me why my post was modded as troll?

Just because you're not a workaholic does not mean that others shouldn't be.

Game programming is a vocation

[bay43270]

People don't get into game programming for the money and the good hours. Neither do priests, teachers, firemen, policemen or soldiers. Complaining about the long hours in the video game industry is like complaining about the color of the sky. Just deal with it or pick a different profession.

With half the skills an EA job requires, you could get a very nice low-stress job working half the hours. My job isn't especially interesting, but it pays the bills easily and it's very low stress. Plus, I can start working on my more interesting hobby-programming when I get home (between 4:30 and 5 in the afternoon).

Or if you can't settle for less than an interesting, high-demand job, then you must really enjoy what your doing -- in that case, shut up and get back to work!

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you come from but firemen and policemen are unionized and they get paid overtime. In fact an officer that takes a lot of overtime during a year could very easily find their annual gross pay at over $100,000.

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[startled]

Your response to the article is a non-sequitur. The point is, as the headline says, that quality of life issues are holding back the game industry.

Their assertion-- read the white paper for more on this-- is that these practices are resulting in worse products. Even if your attitude is "fuck it, I hate all of humankind, and wish for all people to eternally burn in searing pain", if your goal is good games, current practices are counterproductive. How is that possible? How can it be that demanding maximum hours per day from all employees could actually be counterproductive? First, clearly output quality falls as hours and stress increase. Perhaps more importantly, conditions are driving experienced game developers from the industry in droves.

In response to their QoL survey:
* "Only 3.4% said that their coworkers averaged 10 or more years of experience."
* "34.3% of developers expect to leave the industry within 5 years, and 51.2% within 10 years."

Do you really think driving away experienced employees is a good thing for the industry? Do you think the knowledge drain somehow benefits game production over the long term? If so, I believe you severely undervalue the types of knowledge that only come with long-term work in a field.

Do you want all your generals to be 25? Do you want all your priests to become atheists at 30? Should all teachers retire before hitting middle age?

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[bay43270]

Your right. I wasn't responding to the study, but to the spouse's blog entry. I should have said so in my post. There are two separate issues here:

- These companies are tearing themselves apart with by taking advantage of these programmers (your point)
- These programmers are allowing themselves to be taken advantage of (my point)

I can't imagine anyone thinking that exploiting employees is in the long term best interest of the industry. The debate seems to be over what to do. The way I see it, we have two choices:

1) Find a job that treats you well, and let intellectual pursuits take a close second place on your priority list. The companies will eventually figure things out, as the EAs of the world loose talent.
2) Stay at the company, and bitch a lot until things change.

The point of my original post - choose life. Even if you can change a company from the inside, by the time you do, you will be old, bitter and broken.

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[Goldsmith]

This model is the same which is used in science research. The people in the lab, doing the research are all around 25. Once you've put in 10 or 15 years as a lab rat, you're expected to move on to management (or professorship), and out of the lab.

My boss can get things done much faster than I can, and has likely already solved the problems I face. Why does science take its most experianced workers out of direct research?

While my boss may be a better lab worker than I, the most efficient use of his time is in recruiting, fund generation and training. He knows what equipment we'll need, how much it will cost and can train half a dozen of us to use it. These are things I simply cannot do right now, yet still must be done.

I don't know about the game industry, but I would expect something similar. The best game coders out there go on to be the best game company managers, while those who can't cut it end up somewhere else.

Having a 50% dropout rate in 10 years seems pretty good. (The 3% number is skewed due to the massive growth in the game industry over the last 10 years.) That means 50% of the people are able and willing to do what is asked. How many people start as pre-meds and then make it through med school? It sure isn't 50%. I would guess maybe 5% of those who start in physics (my field) make it 10 years.

To use your own argument: Don't discount the type of knowledge that comes with long term work in a field. Sometimes that knowledge is that you're no good at it, and sometimes that knowledge is best used by passing it on to as many people as possible, rather than using it. In jobs which are very important (MD, police) or very popular (game programmer, actor) the work force is stressed to get only the best. There are people who can work harder, and longer than others. They are statistical outliers for which output does not much fall with increasing stress.

Is it immoral to work people like this? Yeah, but you have to ask why the people work so hard. Which is what the original poster what talking about. These programmers can quit whenever they'd like, but something is keeping them there despite the long hours and high stress, and it's not the money.

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[gilmet]

I get it now! You see, all of this illogicality is just part of the "system". Wait, I won't speak any more of it, because if you knew what I was talking about, the "system" would collapse.

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[xero314]

Though as a software Developer I agree wholeheartedly that poor work enviroments, long hours and undue stress cause inferior products I do think their is another important point to consider. What is happening in game development is nothing new, it's happended in other industries, and in those industries it has changed. The reason it changed because the people being misstreated refused to be mistreated and the customers of the products they built became dissatisfied with the products.

In the game industry this is not happening for a few reasons which debunk the idea that the issues are holding back the industry. First game developers have what they consider a "Dream Job." It's like being an actor or screen writer or any other form of entertainment profesional. There is a bit of fame involved and that makes people feel good, and must be making the hours and quality of life issues worth dealing with. In other software development , most programers quit and look for other jobs before the situation gets so bad they have to spread there complaints across the internet.

On the other side of things the customers, you and I, are still satisfied with the products, even if they are not excelerating at the rate they could. Games continue to get better, in general, they still get excelent reviews, and here is the real kicker to the whole problem, they still get purchased.

Personaly I don't have a problem with so called experienced developers leaving th industry. If they were really as good as they would lead us to belive they would not have to leave, they would simply say, "give me what I want or I'm out of here." So the fact that they are leaving is a good sign that they are not that great at it. I know this from perosnal experience, where I have been asked to work long hours and weekends and have simply said that I wouldn't do it, and I still work for the company that asked. Length of time in an industry does not necessarily mean you are any good at it. Sometimes it is benificial to get some fresh blood into an industry, especialy a young industry like game development.

30 years from now this whole situation will be a none point. It will just be one of those things that happens in an industry until it stablizes and matures.

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[nwbvt]

I do hope you were not trying to compare video game developers with priests, teachers, firemen, policemen, or soldiers. People choose those jobs because they benefit mankind. People choose to write video games because they think such a job would be cool.

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[Anonymous Coward]

Why does science take its most experianced workers out of direct research?

It's the same where I work. There is only one level of technician in the company. If you want to advance in the company you have to move to management.
However, most of us who became technicians did so because we have an aptitude for "messing with gizmos", or atleast enjoy the hads on work.

Massaging budgets and fighting political fights are about the last things I can see myself doing effectively, or deriving any satisfaction from.

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[HuguesT]

Your list is interesting. There are quite a number of not particularly nice people amongst soldiers and policemen from my experience. I don't think those I'm thinking about chose their profession for benefitting mankind. More because they like to play with various bits of hardware, they like to order around people and they don't seem to have too much of an inner life.

There is a wide variety of games developpers and some of them, those who develop games for young children, do a remarkably similar job as teachers. Most of them do a good job as entertainers, is there anything wrong with that?

Finally I think the vast majority of people do a job which in some way or another benefits mankind, from the entrepreneur to the tool machinist via scientists, doctors, air pilots, playwright etc. Even some laywers are not in there for the money.

Trying to establish a hierarchy of jobs according to their perceived usefulness is somewhat misguided.

Re:Game programming is a vocation

[nwbvt]

" Your list is interesting"

Not mine. I was responding to another post who had compared the motives of game developers to those of the professions on that list.

"I don't think those I'm thinking about chose their profession for benefitting mankind."

I'm sure there is a wide variety of motivations for every profession. We were talking about generalizations.

"Most of them do a good job as entertainers, is there anything wrong with that?"

No, as long as you don't try to claim their motivations are the same as those for policemen, soldiers, teachers, etc.

its not so bad

[xamomike]

I've worked as a programmer and web developer in a demanding work environment for 7 years. It does take a toll on family life, but part of it isnt just demands placed on me by a corporation, part of it is the love of the job, getting a sense of accomplishment when I complete a demanding project, its a good feeling. Yes, other people suffer because I work too much, but the blame isn't just on the company I work for. With this profession, comes a love for your work, a feeling of accomplishment, and the extra rewards of knowledge. Blame can be put on the programmers, as or more so than the companies that require these positions.

Re:its not so bad

[LWATCDR]

"Blame can be put on the programmers, as or more so than the companies that require these positions."
Interesting. Sure long hours can be part of any job that has a crunch time but... There are laws that say you have to pay people for it. It is perfectly legal to reguire more than 40hours a week of work but you have to pay time and a half for each hour over 40. That is where the companies are doing wrong. Someone else comparied game programing to being a Doctor, Nurse, Fireman, Police Officer, or Priest. Well that is just NUTS. We can all live if Doom 4 or HL 3 never ships. But if your house is on fire then you have issues.

There is no excuse

[kuwan]

There is no excuse for this kind of behavior in the gaming industry, or any other industry for that matter. If I recall, the gaming industry is expected to make more money than Hollywood this year. An industry with these huge revenues can afford to treat their workers humanely. In fact, I believe that it is the developers and artists that make a game successful, that these are the people that should be getting the biggest share of the profits. Not some nitwit CEO or other executive.

There are those that say that working in the gaming industry is a privilege, that there are tons of people out there that would die for your job, that these programmers shouldn't complain. Well, frankly there are tons of people out there that want my job or that want your job. That doesn't mean that they will do it better than you or I do our jobs. And that sure as hell doesn't give my (or your) employer the right to treat me like an animal and work me until I'm burned out.

Employers like EA need to change and they'll eventually be forced to if they keep burning through their talent.

--
Sounds like a scam, but it works.
Free Flat Screens | Free iPod Photo |

It is so bad that people sleep on sidewalks!

[antdude]

See the photographs, link, and comments on AQFL.

IT needs a Union

[helfon1]

Gaming is not the only area of IT that is treating thier employees this way. After 2.5 years working as a consultant at one of the largest consulting firms as an out of college grad I finally left to go to a smaller firm with less required overtime.
The consulting firm set what they called "stretch goals". Goals that were lofty and perhaps unreachable to force workers to work 60-70 hour work weeks.
People died for the 40 hour work week around the turn of the century. This is the reason for labor unions. Since the IT industry doesn't have a strong union companies will force their staff to work as hard as possible to make the most amount of money.
I can at least empathize with this person while sitting on the 40th floor of a downtown chicago building on a sunday afternoon in 98 degree heat (inside) because they don't turn on the air conditioning on the weekends. IT needs a union.

Re:IT needs a Union

[the morgawr]

> 98 degree heat (inside) because they don't turn on the air conditioning on the weekends

Surely the people doing this realize that the laws of thermodynamics coupled with the inefficiencies of modern cooling systems means that in most cases you'll loose money by doing this.

Re:IT needs a Union

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so let's say for the sake of argument that IT shops actually let their workers form a union. Then let's say that said shops actually let the union set a 40 hour work week. The shops that didn't get rid of half of their force altogether and outsource as much as they possibly could will probably fail, leaving everyone in the shop out of work. The workers will then take whatever job they can get elsewhere, union or not. Unions are fine when the shops don't have the availability of cheap labor like they do in IT, but now is not the time for IT unions to form.

Now, this isn't directed at the parent; I'm just ranting now. Nobody likes to hear it, but the idea that somebody would try to build a family on the income of IT employment and then be surprised that their jobs suck and they no longer have a job in 10 or 20 years is silly. If you want stability and predictable hours, working for someone else in IT is not going to achieve the desired result. Sorry. This industry is built on pioneers and if you aren't a pioneer, you may need to adjust your course or at least make sure you are able to save enough money so you won't be caught off-guard when you look around and the industry is in ruins.

the indie route

[BortQ]

Here's a discussion on the EA issue from the perspective of some independent game developers:
indiegamer.com forum thread about EA work conditions

A lot of the guys there are creating games and then releasing them for sale on the internet, totally ignoring the whole publisher/retail method. It's a real alternative for game devs. I am supporting myself in just this manner by my own game.

Re:the indie route

[sYn pHrEAk]

I am supporting myself in just this manner by my own game.

Supporting yourself with just one game? Very impressive. If you don't mind me asking (which I understand if you do), what sort of marketing approaches do you use to get the word out about your game other than your site and forum?

What resources do you use for information on legal and tax issues?

You seem to be living the life I dream of living.

Re:the indie route

[BortQ]

what sort of marketing approaches do you use to get the word out about your game other than your site and forum?

Google is my biggest driver of new traffic. Both using natural results and also using adwords. Software download sites also provide some traffic (more so on the macintosh side). And my slashdot sig brings in a surprising amount of people =)

What resources do you use for information on legal and tax issues?

The internet at large has a lot of information if you go looking for it. I am a member of the Association of Shareware Professionals, which contains a huge amount of experience from people that have been doing this for years. It costs $100 a year to join and get access to the private newsgroups and article archive.

Re:the indie route

[sYn pHrEAk]

Awesome. Just found your blog, too. Bet you're really pleased with your decision about the EA job now, huh? Thanks for the info.

non sequitur

[Anonymous Coward]

That "does not follow". Just because people go into something driven by ideals does not imply in any way that it's okay to exploit the crap out of them for the good of the corp.

Re:non sequitur

[bay43270]

That "does not follow". Just because people go into something driven by ideals does not imply in any way that it's okay to exploit the crap out of them for the good of the corp.

Your still looking at the company. Sure, EA is an evil company. I never said otherwise. They should stop acting so evil. But you have to admit, its a bit hard to feel sorry for someone who could easily solve their own problem. Quitting wouldn't make EA any less evil, but it would make one programmer's life easier.

As a parallel, think of teachers. Most people would agree that American public school teachers are underpaid. I would be more than happy if we doubled all their salaries. But I don't have any sympathy for 30 year old teachers complaining about their own pay. It was no secret that teachers are under paid. Each and every teach (under a certain age) made an individual decision to take a low paying job in order to fulfill some other aspect of their lives. If they aren't happy, they made the wrong decision. I would be happy to pay more taxes to get better teachers in the school. But I wouldn't pay more taxes to pay our current teachers better. The current teachers don't need more money (if they did, they would leave).

This EA guy obviously likes his job enough to put in the hours. If he didn't he would leave. My brother likes teaching enough to put up with the low pay. I don't. And I don't want that EA job either.

Re:non sequitur

[Chyeld]

"But your honor, if she didn't want to be raped, she shouldn't have dressed that way!"

Bah. Pure poppycock.

Telling someone to leave a job if they don't like it is the one sure way to ensure nothing changes. You don't like your job? You are underpaid, overworked? You see your compatraits in the same position? How about not wussing out and actually making a stand to force your employer to play in an equitable manner?

Re:non sequitur

[the morgawr]

Your analogy is poor. The woman being raped presumably tried to take action to prevent the rape and did not. These employees can take action to prevent being abused - they can get another job.

The reason work quality is so poor in software and IT in general is because there's too damn many people who want to do it. They are willing to work for cheep and tollerate bad conditions to get the job. In turn the glut of willing people encouraged a glut of bad managers which only makes situations worse. If putting a hot game that sold well was more difficult (because developers were in short supply and could charge a high price, because good project managers were scarce, etc.) the situation would be better. The best sollution is for everyone unhappy with the working conditions to leave the industry and get a better job. That forces the employer to either hire people who'll be happy (everyone wins) or improve the situation (short term the employer takes a hit, long term everyone wins)

Re:non sequitur

[Anonymous Coward]

Try having time to find another job while you're working 80+ hours a week. The ea_spouse thing that got all the news the other day made it clear that the guy was having to work 7 days a week, so not even a weekend to devote partially to a job search. And I'd imagine that searching for a job while at work wouldn't be smiled upon. Then there's the problem if he has to schedule an interview. Add to that the mental fatigue and most likely hopeless feeling accompanying such a mind-numbing workload and I'd think it would be hard to take much action at all.

Re:non sequitur

[the morgawr]

That's why you quit. Life is too short to put up with other people's stupid shit. Just don't do it.

Re:non sequitur

[nwbvt]

I think you are missing the point with regard to the teacher's pay problem. The thing people are complaining about is not that Ms White, the 5th grade teacher, isn't making enough money, its about whether or not we should be treating the profession as a whole better as teachers are critical for our society to function. The analogous situation does not hold for game developers, as game developers are not critical for our society to function. Whats more, most teachers do not become teachers because of some hidden personal desire, they want to help people (ok, some probably are just pedophiles). That is another major difference between teaching and writing games, which fucks up your entire argument. Again, trying to compare teachers with EA programmers is ludicrous.

And BTW, the problem with teachers is not that their pay rate is too low, in fact it is rather high. The problem is with the available hours. They only get to work 10 months a year, which means at the end of the year they don't take home as much as someone who works year round. That and salarly is based solely on experience, not performance. Thus the old crabby teachers that havn't been in school since the 70's make a lot while the young ones who kids relate to make much less.

You're all a bunch of wimps.

[TheAdventurer]

You guys are such wimps! I work 168 hours per week. Every christmas I take a day off to sleep, but then I'm right back on the job. I ship four games per year and my supervisor has complimented me many times, saying that his golf vacations have become even more pleasurable knowing that I'm hard at work making his money.

Frankly, I think you guys just should just suck it up and learn how to be men. Real men sit in soft chairs for 99% of their life and stare at glowing phosphorus tubes so that adolescents can pretend they are football coaches. What did you expect from life? A wife? A sense of intrinsic happiness? A healthy body? That's not how it works.

Life is hell and everyone who doesn't enjoy that fact is wussier than me.



[for the love of god, note the sarcasm] =)

Re:You're all a bunch of wimps.

[chris_mahan]

That's nuthing...

I wrote an artificial intelligence system that emulates 8 workers (yes, modded voice response units to tell them apart)

My bosses, in between golf games, stripped me of benefits and moved me from senior developer to tech support, and I'm on call 24/7/365, as I know primarily maintain the system.

I wasn't fired because they're too lazy to figure out the gui.

Re:You're all a bunch of wimps.

[crandall]

As a game developer, I must say that that post is quality.

We've been here before

[DaveJay]

Isn't this what unions are for, so that skilled, talented and experienced people can band together and demand better hours/wages/benefits for themselves?

Of course, the corporations can settle for inexperienced/unskilled/untalented people who aren't (or can't be) part of the union, but their product will suffer as a result.

Meanwhile, someone else will form a game company, hire the union guys, and put out a killer product that makes them tons of cash.

I'm just sayin'.

Re:We've been here before

[the morgawr]

Short term that's the idea, but long term unions calcify the relations between the employer and labor. This calcification prevents major improvments, limits worker flexibility, and tends to reduce job satisfaction. End the end this hurts the employer and then the employee. See the UAW and the Teamsters for examples. These problems are the reason the modern trend is toward professional societies.

Re:We've been here before

[tf23]

read that like this - calcification == greed

The union's generally become an entity of their own. And they work to solidify the *union* first. They end up not doing what they were originally intended to do - protect the *worker*.

Personally, I'm thinking of the UAW as I type this.

How-to: Getting a job as a game programmer

[Free_Trial_Thinking]

Hi, does anyone know how to find work as a game programmer? I'm willing to work cheap because I love games. Any ideas? Where should I start?

Much Thanks.

Re:How-to: Getting a job as a game programmer

[Anonymous Coward]

You and the many thousands like you are the reason that EA can grind up and spit out its employees. They know there are people such as yourself falling all over each other to replace each person they burn out before the remains have stopped smoldering.

That being said, I've always wanted to work in the game industry too, but I'll wait until the lawsuits create better working conditions before I take one of those jobs at EA :)

Re:How-to: Getting a job as a game programmer

[PhoenixOne]

>That being said, I've always wanted to work in the game industry too, but I'll wait until the lawsuits create better working conditions before I take one of those jobs at EA :)
>
And, with that said, you better either have a lot of talent or be willing to move to the third world country that EA will outsource its work to.

I've worked 90+ hour weeks for less money then a 7-11 employee and felt lucky to have the work. I now work sane hours (40-60) for twice the pay because I have that experience. I'm not saying that you should just "suck up and take it", but I can't throw a rock without hitting 3 guys who want my old job...

Re:How-to: Getting a job as a game programmer

[th3space]

Is 7-11 hiring right now?

MOD PARENT UP

[Dingeaux]

Best laugh I've had all day. Thank you good sir.

Congratulations, games are now art

[sien]

There is a push to get games recognized as art. Perhaps people should compare the working hours and the rewards of other arts like music, novel writing and the film industry.

All these industries have a common compensation scheme. Many, many people work very hard for very little money, a small fraction make a great deal of money. Read this for how writers make out. If you look there are countless other examples of this.

It is partly due to the nature of entertainment. Our tastes are fickle. Some Hollywood producer famously said Nobody knows anything about what films will be successful. (Check out William Goldman's book Adventures in the Screen trade for the quote). Who can really predict which one of the hundreds of projects starting this year will produce a great new game? Sure, EA can buy huge franchises and make a reasonable amount of money, but even there games like Pro Evolution Soccer threaten their name based primacy.

With music, in almost every town there are bands that are 90% as good as REM, U2 or whatever band you like. And they make very little money and work pretty hard and tend to be pretty smart.

Entertainment is not now, nor has it ever been stable. That said, working people huge hours tends not to produce inspired work. But making anything great, or even good, involves a lot of time and the economics of entertainment isn't likely to change either.

Re:Congratulations, games are now art

[Moo Moo Cow of Death]

Entertainment in theater (movies) or music has FAR less strain on a person basically trying to make a 1 million piece puzzle without knowing what puzzle pieces they have to use.

They work MUCH harder than say, Joe Schmoe painting the set or actor X saying a few lines with "emotion". In a work of 'art' of a video game, everyone is the artist honestly. The person who is getting paid the least does the most work where the person doing almost nothing gets paid the most. It may be art but it's FAR closer to a normal job in construction.

Re:Congratulations, games are now art

[Torgo's Pizza]

And yet, all those other entertainment industries have unions that protect their workers... except game developers.

Re:Game devs suck

[tyoob]

You sound a lot like my producer. Is that you, Paul?

gamasutra.com

[CrazyJim1]

I've coded my own projects for 10 years, but never finished because I'm always aiming too high or think the game I'm working on is boring. I never got in with a company, but it hasn't stopped me from developing games. I'm thinking of working with the half life 2 engine now.

It is called "having a backbone"

[Safety Cap]

Workers should not have to go through all these hours of developing on a regular basis to launch a product.

If you let them get away with it, then they'll keep taking advantage of you, forever. If working crazy hours is the expected norm where you are, then you

1. Have incompetent (non-existent?) project managers,
2. Work for grossly incompetent management (who never read/don't understand The Mythical Man-Month)
3. Need never expect it to get better unless you do something about it,
4. Don't need the government to do something you can do yourself (do you honestly think they'll get it right?)

Take some responsibility for yourself and draw the line (diplomatically...), but if that doesn't work, then you have basically two choices, suck up or get out.

Understand that not every place is like what you describe. Where I work, I put in no more than 40 every single week, unless *I* want to work late. When management first squawked about how long the project was taking, I whipped out the work breakdown and said, "Okay, which features do we cut first?"

Re:It is called "having a backbone"

[h8macs]

Wait! I thought when the bubble burst all of the dead weight was lost!? I guess that was not the case with management...

As a Net/SysAdmin that has pulled some of the long hours, I feel for the developers.... no matter what "industry".

Re:It is called "having a backbone"

[Safety Cap]

There will always be dead weight, friend.

An exploited tech worker is responsible for allowing it to happen.

Uh, no

[Capitalist1]

Unions are for the benefit of those workers who want to receive multiples of the benefits of doing a job without having to actually do the job. Unions are also for those who have no problem profiting from this sort of institutionalized graft, namely politicians and organized crimimals.

The competent, valuable employees are never the ones who benefit from unionization, in any field.

Isn't there another alternative?

[CodeWanker]

I'm not sure, but I think there's another option open to people that hasn't been addressed here (or it's so unpopular it's been modded below my threshold.)

If you love the gaming industry and you've got a gripe, then you're probably just not in a situation that rewards the kind of effort demanded. But if you REALLY love gaming, then you've got a good game in you screaming to get out, right? /. has had good stories about how open source game dev yields less-than-stellar (and generally non-lifestyle-supporting) game projects. But what hasn't been covered is forming a startup to make your game and either 1) reward you appropriately for working insane hours or 2) prove what some people above have said about the optimum value of working a limited number of hours a week.

There's a lot of venture capital out there. People aren't giving it away on the street corners, but if you've really got a good game inside of you you ought to be able to find a marketing/business guy who loves games and will pitch your idea to the VCs because you've got a good game inside you. Ditto the art/creative people you'll need. If you can't build a good creative/technical/business team to do this you either 1) don't have a good game inside you or 2) don't have what it takes to make it a reality.

And before you rip my head off, you need to know that 1) I was the technical brain behind a startup that raised $750,000 in capital after the .com bubble burst and 2) I am making my first feature-length movie in my spare time in addition to working full-time as a software architect. People need to put up, shut up, or go to work coding the database behind some mega-store's on-line shopping cart.

Okay, NOW you can rip my head off.

Re:Isn't there another alternative?

[CountBrass]

Are there any other Pro-Life atheists out there? Hello? Anyone?

Is a pro-life agnostic close enough?

Re:Isn't there another alternative?

[Spaceball_3000]

Question on the venture capital, could you provide details on how you were able do this? I've been working on a game for a while now in my spare time, and starting to think I should turn it into a business. It's an MMORGP that I've have been working on in my spare time for the last 6 years. Most of my time I spend is on the game server and DB client. I've had working 2d clients in PPC and PC but now have ditched them and moved in the last 2 years to a 3d engine client instead (Torque.) I've gone to Game Developers Conference and sat in the round house tables with the leaders in this online game industry (AC, UO, AO, EQ, DoC, etc.. talk about enough ego's in one room) but I never got any good details for looking and obtaining venture capital. Thanks.

Re:Isn't there another alternative?

[CodeWanker]

As long as your reasoning on the morality of abortion does not involve any supernatural consequences, yes.

Re:Isn't there another alternative?

[CodeWanker]

Wouldn't you know it, there's a Dummies book for it. The steps are to
1) write a business plan that clearly explains what you need to become a money-making venture and what kind of money you expect to make. These expectations have to be documented, preferably by using real-life independent MMORPG projects (Non Sony, Non EA, Non BLizzard... You know, niche MMORPG creators that people like Penny Arcade talk about) that have made it to profitability/viability. You also need to explain why your venture will be superior to the existing ones so you can have a chance to poach from other MMORPGs and draw new people to MMORPGs.
2) You need to locate angel investors and Venture capitalists. Believe it or not, they list themselves in the yellow pages. Find them there and then go to their websites. Their sites should tell you what kinds of things they invest in and what format they like. If it doesn't, please call them. They're there to answer your questions.
3) Get your presentation together. Oddly enough, this is like looking for a job in that you're providing a resume, work samples, and are interviewed to determine if the product and team you've got has what it takes to get money out of the investors.
4)Remember that "Venture Capitalist" is not a monolithic structure. Some are professional investors. Some are tech people who made a pile and want to make another pile backing a winner instead of going through the pains of product development themselves. Some are doctors and dentists who have realized they hate doctoring and dentisting and want to find a good investment so they can change careers.

The book I linked to above is a good place to start. It's best if you can convince a successful marketing professional that your idea is good enough to go get venture money in exchange for a piece of the action. But, if you can't or don't want to do that, you can do it yourself.

And don't narrow your search too much. Our primary investor turned out to be a Malaysian real estate tychoon.

Good luck!

Well, that's PHBs for you

[Moraelin]

It's not just NWN. Diablo 2 took for ever to finish, but it sold like hot cakes because it was a good stable well-designed well-balanced product. Diablo 1 also came out of nowhere as a game that didn't even copy last year's best-seller, but it sold like crazy. Why? Quality. Or Epic and Id pretty much officially have "when it's ready" as a policy, and I you can't say they're going bankrupt because of it. Etc.

True, noone knows in advance the secret handshake that _guarantees_ a bestseller, but if you look at what did well and what failed, you notice a trend. Quality stuff tended to do a lot better than the buggy crap shoved out the door in a hurry.

Contrary to the mentality that hype is everything, quality does sell. People do talk to each other, and that's a big factor that works for the good games, and against the crap buggy ones.

And I don't even only mean code quality, but also design quality. If you look at some of the the things that, say, Blizard did right before, they include:

- very low learning curve (if you can click, you're already half-way to mastering Diablo or Diablo 2)

- well balanced (you don't end up stuck half-way through the game because you chose a class that dies even from a paper cut, or a skill that has no use whatsoever)

- just the right difficulty curve for the casual gamer (the majority of which do _not_ want to reload 25 times to get past a boss.) In fact, better yet, it let you adjust your difficulty curve by yourself, by going faster or slower.

Etc.

That's all things which aren't just stroke of genius, but I'll bet involved a lot of testing and tweaking. They're done well _because_ the games were not shoved out unfinished.

Especially balance _never_ comes from just a stroke of genius, and just writing down some genial numbers from the classes/races/whatever from the start. No matter how bright a designer you are, your first numbers will _always_ suck. Getting them right is invariably a matter of extensive testing, running simulations (e.g., how often does a halfling thief kill an orc barbarian, if you run all possible scenarios), and tweaking.

But somehow the PC game industry just can't get to take quality seriously. Basically they don't _care_ if they're producing crap, including, yes, by stressing the devs and driving away talent.

They just care about having some movie license, a design that's a verbatim clone of last year's bestseller (ironically: it often misses all the parts that made that one a bestseller), and having the game shoved out the door by christmas. Everything else can be fixed by lots of hype, right? (Wrong. But good luck convincing them.)

You may be enojoying it ...

[jotaeleemeese]

... but we are not all masochists.

There is a fundamental difference.

[jotaeleemeese]

The professions you mentioned are known tobe of an altruistic nature, the compensation comes from a work well done.

Many in the gaming industry in particular and the IT world in general have glamourized the image of the overworked gaming programmer (and for extension anybody related to the industry), to the advantage of the gaming industry of course.

In any case, your reasoning is a fallacy. Any industry could claim that and then launch in a escapade of employee explotation.

Some things are immoral, no matter if the victim is a willing participant (young programmers are generaly too stupid to know any better).

Its the software industry in general

[haplo21112]

I didn't realize what I was missing in my life until I meet my wife. As my GF and now my wife she has always been somewhat insistent that my job not be the highest priority and more often than not leave work (and leave my work at work) at 5:00pm. My life has been my better since.

Re:Its the software industry in general

[tf23]

Same here. The older I get, the more I see this happening. They settle down, get married, get the house, the kids. How priorities seem to change through those years with all that happening is amazing :)

The longer I've worked, the more I see employers trying to hire younger, single IT'ers (on the cheap). They promise them big raises over the next few years to compensate on the low-starting-salary. And the naive kids fall into the trap. :(

not any different in other industries

[Is0m0rph]

It's not just the gaming industry. I'm a senior level sofware engineer in the semiconductor capital equipement industry and am currently working 60+ hour weeks and am on call basically 24 hours a day. In addition I'm an hour away from work so at least 14 hours out of the day is involved in work. A lot of time I also need to VPN into work from home to solve an issue. It's tough (especially being salaried and not getting any extra money for overtime) on my family. Especially when I'm working a bad shift like 3pm - 3am or 6pm - 6am. But on the other hand my job pays for my nice house, cars, etc. I've been working almost 9 years and have a personal commitment to meet unreasonable deadlines, make sure everything is handled properly on a software release, travel to customer sites for a weeks at a time when a new release comes out, etc. You have to love your job to really handle it well. A lot of the blame for long hours is management allowing scope creep into a release.

Re:not any different in other industries

[Anonymous Coward]

you answered your own question that i dont think you are aware that you are asking.

>But on the other hand my job pays for my nice house, cars, etc.

ask your family if you would be better off with less things and more time for yourself and your loved ones.

whos making about 10x what you are being paid for your effort? thats right, your employer.

ask yourself, will any of this hard work matter in 5 years? 3?

Re:not any different in other industries

[Is0m0rph]

Fortunately for me though there's crunch times usually during Alpha testing for a new release where I'm working those hours and travel for the beta release to a customer, but then I may have a couple months where I don't have enough work to stay at work for 40 hours during the week and I can come in at 9 and leave at 2:30. So it evens out which allows me to stay at the same job. If it was always like this I would have left a long time ago. I would imagine that game development follows the same type of cycle.

The difference is monopolies

[yorkpaddy]

EA games can put out shiite because from what I understand, most of their games are monopoly franchise. Blizzard, maxis (I guess they are owned by someone now), id, and those other small companies you mentioned work in a competitve market. If EA writes an incrementally better version of their football game, people who want to play the best football game will still buy the new game from EA instead of someone else, because no one else sells a football game. If id writes an only incrementally better Doom, everyone will go out and buy far cry, half life, or whatever other game of the week. That incourages id to write qaulity software. EA just wants to get the product out the door because they have a monopoly.

|-|0n3y, a f3\/\/ th1n9s fR0m xe $70R3 ...

[Mrs Anonymous Coward]

w3 n33d:

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Deadlines

[CrewChief]

I work for a company that is very sales focused, and I admit, at times it is very frustrating and the deadlines seem impossible. However, I know for a fact that a lot of the projects i have worked on bring in over $1M in revenue to the company a year (per client). And a lot of the clients want to have the software in a given timeframe. We as developers are challenged to meet the dates set forth by the client - which for the most part are totally insane. I know this may not apply to the gaming industry, but it surely does in my line of work. It sucks, but I work the hours so our company makes money (as opposed to our competitors)... so I continue to get my paycheck.

Re:Game devs suck

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but managers don't actually work - most of their time seems to be spent acting like power mad jackasses in meeting rooms and talking about how many hours a week they work.

I actually had a manager fucking brag to me one weekend that he had missed his boys fifth birthday party to come in and work. The best part was he was useless there - the programmers were doing the work and he just fretted and scolded.

The problem is with the publishers.

[voodoo1man]

From what I understand, currently the problem with forming game start-ups isn't with finding capital or producing the product (god knows there's enough amateurs out there), but with the publishing end. Even established firms with hit titles (for example Troika, and I'm sure there are others that I don't follow) have trouble negotiating agreeable publishing agreements. Just look at the squeeze Vivendi tried to put on Valve over Steam. Big publishers have retailers locked down when it comes to distribution (read David Sheff's Game Over for an account of how Nintendo used to strong-arm stores in the late 80s/early 90s, something that eventually earned them an antitrust lawsuit). Distributing games over the Internet isn't yet feasible (maybe Steam will change that, but it does have it's downsides). And of course this is talking about the PC market only - if you're developing for the consoles, you have to shell out big bucks for development kits, pay a hefty sum on each game sold to the console maker, and be subject to major distribution restrictions (more than one Gamecube game has been sacked after Nintendo deemed it too violent). There was hope a few years ago that Internet and cell-phone minigames would bring about a sort of developer's Renaissance, but so far it seems the margins and the markets are too small and there is too much competition for any real success stories.

It's not as bleak as it sounds though. There is at least one mom and pop game developer that's been successful making and selling games independently over the Internet for a number of years. Maybe some more operations can follow their formula successfuly.