Slashdot Mirror
Behind the Guildhall - The Story of the Students
Sam Machkovech writes "Multiple stories about SMU's Guildhall game design school have already shown up on Slashdot, but none like this. My friend and coworker Paul dug into the motivations and stories behind people who dropped their lives to learn the art of game design in an upstart school, and what the story may lack in technical information, it more than makes up for in the students' accounts. Included is a particularly touching story about a student who survived the 2002 Sari Club terrorist attack in Bali. It also touches upon the excessive overtime and dedication that the job requires, which means graduates should be plenty prepared for their future careers."
"...graduates should be plenty prepared for their future careers."
We should be trying to remedy this work situation, not prepare people for it.
If people are aware of the situation that they are getting into, and choose to get into it anyhow, should government legislate it?
Now, I think employers should be required to divulge what actual working conditions are. Not just to prospective employees, but to the public as a whole. Then, as a consumer, I can choose whether or not to buy a product from a given company.
And all "subsidiaries" ought to display who their parent company is. I get sick and tired of a large company dividing themselves up... one division squeaky clean, the other not.
But bottom line: Make the information public, and you will find the need for gov't intervention decreases.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
If you love the work that you do and don't mind getting overly engrossed in it then it is not so bad working the long hours, but simply preparing students for the drudge and grind of the real-life workplace because it simply is the way it is just plain sucks IMO. Get them excited about their careers and then let them decide if they want to burn themselves out instead of preconditioning them for it.
News Reporters Make Tasty Polar Bear Treats!
:) Good point!
But, I think you now what I mean. We don't need another logic error riddled peice of legislation that creates a bigger problem than it was intended to solve.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
I for one would buy games from companies that use only free range programmers
Depends.
The game companies can get away with all sorts of stuff because demand is huge vs. supply. I'm sure most of us at one point or another wanted to have a job that did nothing but involved games (or perhaps more correctly, to show our parents that playing games can be a job). A QA tester (which is probably where most people start) has a pretty nice job description - "Play games all day and report bugs" - sounds fairly enticing to sit in front of a computer/TV playing games - prerelease games, at that! Of course, while accurate, the true job is far more mundane, and the reality of it all sinks in (60 hour weeks, $8/hr, must find X bugs every week), and the "play" involves running into walls continually.
Others see programming as the way to go. Given the option (without knowledge of working conditions) of a boring job programming Microsoft Word, or some application using a database for insurance companies, and an "exciting programming job" as entry level game programmer, which looks more appealing?
EA and other companies have long treated employees this way - it's nothing new. Just until quite recently, it was more or less a poorly-kept industry secret (I can't recall when I first heard about it, but I knew when I graduated). Of course, I *did* apply to gaming companies, but this was more of "finding a job" rather than "I want a job in the gaming industry".
If people are aware of the situation that they are getting into, and choose to get into it anyhow, should government legislate it?
so - if a company has a policy to hire only 8 year old girls to work the sewing machines, but discloses it, they should be allowed to do it?
take your randian shit and go home. the only way capitalism works, is if it is well-regulated.
... hi bingo
The thing I find interesting about game programming is that it is the'last frontier' of art created for consumption by a mass audience that still requires a huge learning curve and cost expendature to be successful in.
Think about it- used to be that you needed a bazillion dollars, a ton of talent, and a lot of connections in order to successfully make a movie, or a record. Now? People are doing it in their basements with equipment that costs a few hundred dollars.
The big question is how long will it take for someone to figure out how to make designing a video game 'accessible to the masses' the way Digital Video and computer-based audio recording have done for those industries. I'll bet it won't take as long as you think...
---As my daddy used to tell me: "You gotta be smart before you can be a smartass."
This is just another system of control
The following text file was liberated from the president of the university. It's his welcome speech.
welcome.speech.txt
Greetings. The Master Control Program has chosen you to serve your alma mater on the Game Grid. Those of you who continue to profess a belief in the Users will receive the standard substandard training, which will result in your eventual elimination. Those of you who renounce this superstitious and hysterical belief will be eligible to join the coder elite of the Guild. You will each receive an identity disk. Everything you do or learn will be imprinted on this disk. If you lose your disk or fail to obey commands, you will be subject to immediate de-resolution. That will be all.
end of line
Frankly, I don't understand how people can do this for any amount of money or passion. You don't do good work when you're running constantly on 6 hours of sleep, and I'm surprised that any of these guys have any sort of a family whatsoever.
I think that if these sorts of conditions are typical in the gaming industry, it might explain why games in general have slid into the sequel-after-sequel hole and there's very little new or original stuff coming out. You can't think clearly when your brain is sleep-addled and you are living on beer and Cheetos.
I'd rather them spend three times as long producing games, so long as the games were actually original and entertaining, and not yet another boring sequel with an ending that sets up for YAYABS [yet another yet another boring sequel]. (Or, in the case of that guy Levy, some sort of social campaign inspired by the modern equivalent of strange women in ponds handing out swords.)
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You just don't understand. They have to go play golf and relax. The pressures of managing the rest of us must be tremendous. Actually it seems like the more time they spend working, the more problems they cause. I for one would prefer they spend more time away from work.
Everyone thinks they're a game designer. Its not game design the companies are looking for, since EVERYONE thinks they're a game designer. Game companies are looking for highly intelligent programmers, or highly talented artists. Its EXACTLY like Hollywood, where they don't think they need writers, but they need big name actors and special effects.
Game design has some real challenges to it, and theres many things that seem like a good idea but isn't fun in a game. I'd be interested in taking an online course on game design just to see what they got right. I'm not saying I know everything, but I know some stuff like balancing mechanics, MMOG theory, etc. Like I said, everyone thinks they're a game designer, including me. And man is the industry hard to break into. I've had about 7 interviews in ten years and hundreds of job applications.
God spoke to me.
Just because a prospective worker is aware of the situation doesn't make it legal/ethical to deprive that worker of overtime or compensation. Instead of developing a reasonable number of games at a time, it sounds like developers with perpetual crunch time are working on twice as many games as they should be, overworking the employees and pretty much turning unpaid overtime and comp time into company profit, essentially stealing from the employee.
I know this isn't how it is everywhere in the game industry. I've read the EA stuff and heard the horror stories. Our management takes quality of life issues extremely seriously, which probably makes us the exception rather than the rule, but with all of this recent coverage it seems as if people are finally stepping back to take a look at what is really happening in this industry. This business evolved very quickly, with lots of passionate people involved who were willing (and happy) to work suicide hours in order to get the game out of the door. The days of a couple of guys making Doom in their basement and pulling in millions is long gone.
Of course, coverage focuses on the negative and larely ignores the positive. I doubt there will ever be a slashdot story about how employees at game company X are working 40 hour/weeks and loving life. I just Hope that the lessons EA employees seem to be learning will be taken to heart by more than those people directly affected by it.
Of course, having a title that sells a ton of copies makes all of this stuff easier. Someone should tell that to the EA execs.
I realize this program is new, but I'd be very interested to know how many of these students get gaming jobs after graduation. I tried to break into the industry for a while, and came close a few times, but it's a very hard thing to do (looking back I'm happy with where I am now). If this program (and/or others like it) can prove itself valuable to game companies such they their students are quickly snatched up, it would remove a major hurdle for interested developers.
Does anyone know of any game design related accredited scholls that offer online education? I recognize the power of google, but it also brings a lot of crap up to sift through.
If you love the work that you do and don't mind getting overly engrossed in it then it is not so bad working the long hours ...provided that you're single, or don't care about your family, or otherwise have no social skills whatsoever.
Part of the reason I finally decided I wasn't cut out to be a programmer was because I felt guilty working overtime on projects while my wife and kids were expecting me back at home, and that wasn't even on a regular basis.
How would that work? I mean, seriously...even if you open the door to the coop, they'd just stay in & play games. What can you do if your free-range programmers don't want to range free? Can you still use the "organic software" (now there's an interesting term) label if you gave them the choice, but they didn't take it?
"The pressures of managing the rest of us must be tremendous."
/.. Don't you know that Thanksgiving vacation doesn't start until tomorrow? GET BACK TO WORK!
You don't know the half of it. You can't imagine how stressful it is to keep you wage slaves, er workers, from wasting time on
Now, where did I leave my putter?
if child labor were legal, we would see it in america
;) Nothing wrong with putting kids to work under some amount of control.
Child labor does exist in america, it's called farming. It is not unusual for farm kids to work 20 - 40 hrs/week during the school year and 60-80 during the summer. I think it's legal and it happens even if it isn't.
I don't really think there is much wrong with it either, yeah, I hated it as a kid, but it builds character. Props to dad for that
We should be trying to remedy this work situation, not prepare people for it.
The Merc is carrying an article just today on a lawsuit against EA [reg may be req'd] regarding deceptive work environment practices. It seems to me that companies that behave this way are just asking for unions.