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Work Environment for Game Developers Must Change

Posted by Zonk on from the not-all-20-years-olds-any-more dept.

Christopher Reimer writes "C|Net is reporting from the GDC that the video game industry will have to improve its work environment as the working population gets older and unionization becomes an issue. From the article: 'Numerous studies have shown that developers and other workers putting in 12-hour days routinely make more mistakes as the midnight oil burns, said Francois Dominic Laramee, a freelance game developer and author. That means any extra productivity is eaten up by hits to product quality. "If your company is in crunch mode, drunken zombies may be checking your code right now," he said.'"

11 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. I want to... by gimpynerd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I'm not really in the field yet but when I code for long periods of time it is usually of my own volition. If you wait until the next day often you forget some of what you were working on. Reaching a stopping point before you quit accelerates the development process.

    1. Re:I want to... by ChaosDiscord · · Score: 4, Informative
      You clearly don't work in the field yet. Trust me, no employer will complain if you log some extra hours because you're in Deep Hack Mode. The problem is that you'll be asked to be working 12 hours days when you're not. You know those days when you really don't feel productive, so you do something else? For example, maybe sleeping for 16 hours after doing two up-all-night coding binges. Well, no break for you; you're expected to put in another 12 hour day and be productive. Repeat, night after night, week after week (weekends included). In extreme cases (all too common in the game industry), month after month. Eventually you're going to hit the point where you need a break. But your boss in more interested in having an ass in that chair than in real productivity. You'll be checking stupid mistakes into the code, you'll be oblivious to minor bugs. Eventually you'll get to a point where each hour of work you do actually sets the project further back instead of advancing it.

      Death marches (as they're affectionately known) aren't "I'm in the groove and can't possibly stop" all night coding binges. They suck the life out of you. You're typically fighting lots of bullshit (the same BS that got you behind schedule in the first place) and your morale is drained because you're never, ever on time. You're asked to the impossible; not a "I'll just work really, really hard" impossible, but "even if I never take breaks to eat, sleep, or use the restroom I'll never make that dealine" impossible. This isn't cool and the sign of a vibrant programming population. Death marches are typically the the sign of large, beaurocratic, grossly mismanaged companies with terribly managers, a complete lack of plans, and no real hope of accomplishing anything.

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    2. Re:I want to... by badasscat · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You clearly don't work in the field yet. Trust me, no employer will complain if you log some extra hours because you're in Deep Hack Mode. The problem is that you'll be asked to be working 12 hours days when you're not.

      Not to mention that if your employer gets the idea that you "want to" work all those extra hours, they'll cheerily push you even further than they would have before. Employees train their employers in what to expect from them, and while it can be tricky to do, you ideally want to let your employer know that while you're flexible, you also have limits. Sitting and working 12 hours a day without being asked to tells your employer "I have no life, and I enjoy being here, and I enjoy doing work" - forget about ever leaving that office once your employer figures this out.

      I worked for a major game publisher in New York for several years, and there was this constant push-pull between employees and bosses. Both sides would be trying to stake a few extra minutes out on either side of working longer vs. leaving early. Of course, in the game industry when I say "early" I mean around 8PM. We'd constantly be trying to sneak out around 7:55 or 7:50, and in turn our bosses would routinely throw four hours worth of critical work our way at 7:30 in order to keep us there, when they could have given us that same work at any time earlier in the day. I became convinced that it was done on purpose to get us accustomed to long hours.

      Over a period of time, I saw my earliest clock-out hour move, on a permanent basis, from a fairly consistent 7PM to an optimistic 9PM even during non-crunch times, with many nights during crunches much later than that. It happened over several years. Before I was hired, I was told "sometimes we work until 7 or 8", and when I first started there, indeed we all left at 7 on the dot. Then during crunch times it would be 7:30, then 8, and a "two steps forward, one step back" pattern emerged, where we'd never quite go back to the way it was before when the crunch was over. After you've been working until 8 for a while, 7:30 no longer seems so bad... similarly, after working until midnight for two weeks on end, leaving at 10PM feels almost like a break. Of course it wasn't, and everybody at the company broke down after a while - the turnover rate was conservatively around 50% from the time I was hired to the time I left. Almost nobody at the company I worked for was over 30.

      This is the reality of the industry, and it's causing problems beyond simply a lack of productivity. You've got an entire industry of people who work at one company for a couple of years and then move on. Nobody ever develops a sense of loyalty, or history; people work on game sequels without ever having even played the original, they come up with new game designs and concepts that they don't even realize have been done a thousand times before. It's part of the reason for the buggy games, the lack of original concepts, it's why a one-time great company like Acclaim can fall so hard, so fast. (For the record, Acclaim is not who I worked for.) It is seriously hurting the industry as a whole and has definitely had a hand in bringing down several publishers. It's partially responsible for the consolidation we've seen in the industry over the past 5 years or so. (Of course, many other factors are involved in that too, but the lack of experience throughout the industry coupled with a high turnover rate and low productivity from unhappy, disloyal workers does not help.)

      People who are outside the industry seem to have a hard time understanding how pervasive a problem this is. It isn't just some companies and it isn't just some jobs. It's all game developers and publishers, and every position, from the company CEO's on down to the product managers on down to the designers, coders, and illustrators. It's everybody, in the entire industry. And it's an industry that's losing a lot of good people every single day because of it, who are then replaced by young

  2. Re:So what? by quark101 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    That may be so, but videogame developers are often the only ones that speak out. I agree that high tech workers don't really need to be unionized, but that doesn't mean that companies should be allowed to run roughshod over the developers. I personally know several people who have worked both in video game testing and development, and conditions are often very, very bad. They may not need unions like laborers, but they deserve the same humane working conditions of other fields. Having to work 18-20 hour days for several weeks should not be allowed.

  3. Something to say... by Dormann · · Score: 5, Funny
    There's a lot I could say on this topic, but it wouldn't be wise for me to post anything from my work machine.

    Check back on this page around 2am. Better make it 3.

  4. The reasons behind crunch time... by Fitzghon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...is bad management, plain and simple.
    If game development teams had better management and more realistic timelines, the programmers would not have to pull 12-hour shifts and we would be seeing higher quality titles on the market.

    Fitzghon

    1. Re:The reasons behind crunch time... by YrWrstNtmr · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Its not just that 'last hour' being unproductive, its the entire shift. Not much more gets done in a 12 hour shift vs an 8 hour one. Especially 12 hours day after day.

      But those long shifts look good for the middle manager reporting up the chain. "We're doing everything we can, boss!"

  5. IATSE? by skyman8081 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Seeing as video-game developement is a creative field in the entertainment industry. Should IATSE(Internation Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employee's) expand to allow video game developers into it, as well as its curret grouping of Theatre and Film Industry workers? The problem might have already been solved.

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  6. Re:So what? by HarvardFrankenstein · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not even remotely true. I work for Lockheed Martin, as a software engineer no less, and we have a union that gets us all kinds of good stuff. Unpaid overtime, for example, is strictly forbidden. Admittedly, I'm told Lockheed was already pretty good to their workerbees to begin with (I wouldn't know - I've only been with the company for a few months), but engineers can and do unionize. With the way game developers get creamed, it's bound to happen sooner or later.

  7. Re:So what? by quark101 · · Score: 3, Informative

    You do have a good point there. But on the flip side, how many people do you know that do jobs like that for 20 hours a day, for several weeks at a time?

    I know several nurses. In and of itself, it can be very demanding work, both physically and mentally, especially depending on what subfield one goes into. However, even with the great shortage of nurses, they do not have to work overtime.

    Some of the game programmers I know have to though. And it isn't the fact that the work is fundamentally different. It's the fact that working conditions like this (18-20 hour days, for several weeks) are extremely detrimental to a person's health.

    The wife of a ex-gametester has talked to me about visiting the company during crunch time. People there would be wearing jackets and several comforters off of beds, while they were working in a normal temperature room. Do you know why? Because they had been awake and working for so long, there body was starting to shut down. They could no longer produce sufficient body heat.

    Anyone who says that the video game industry doesn't need to change, or that makes light of the problems in it doesn't fully realize what those problems are, and how drastically major changes are needed.

  8. Re:So what? by Zerth · · Score: 4, Funny

    It used to be that construction workers did 12+ hours shift, worked in unhealthy conditions, crunched to finish on time, etc. building skyscrapers. But then one of the construction companies realized it was cheaper to hire a larger work force and have a safe workplace than to pay for repairs and death/disability. That company flourished and several other companies followed before legislation and unions forced the rest to comply.

    What's the difference between them and us? Well, the game companies obviously don't mind putting out crap products, so they don't have to redo the work, so we need to get them on death&disability.

    While I doubt anyone would be willing to work themselves to death, try going crazy if your insurance covers it:) Stress disorders, carpal tunnel, narcolepsy. Have fun with it!