Slashdot Mirror
Developer Stress Crippling Game Innovation?
hapwned writes "Jason Della Rocca, the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), looks at the big picture of the grim, dead-end careers of game developers. From the article: 'More fundamental is the notion that immature practices and extreme working conditions are bankrupting the industry's passion - the love for creating games that drives developers to be developers. When the average career length of the game development workforce is just over five years and over 50% of developers admit they don't plan to hang around for more than 10, we have a problem. How can an industry truly grow, and an art form evolve, if everyone is gone by the time they hit 30?'"
I grew up wanting to be a game developer. I spent a lot of my free time as a kid in front of a computer writing code, designing my own games. But as I get older and am actually out in the workforce the thought of working 80 hour weeks making a salary on the lower range of what programmers in general make has turned me away from the industry. The next step, once the majority of CS majors have been scared away from game programming, is the farm the work out to programming "sweat shops" in other countries to make rehashes of the same games that have been coming out for years. Unless there are some major changes in the game industry the only real innovations are going to end up coming from indie game developers who work some other job to make a living and develop games in their spare time.
Suppose I hire the kind of people who are creative enough to create a good game, and then I hire people that are able to code that creativity into a functioning product. Isn't this a much better model than hiring 50 super-coders to bust out YAJMF? (Yet Another John Madden Football) Game development is expensive to get right, but if you have a team that can make lots of good and different games, games good enough to develop franchises from (i.e. Zelda and Mario), then you will win. If you take one painfully stale idea and re-release it over and over, it will cost you more each time in order to generate the same sales, because PEOPLE GET BORED. It should be real obvious how to manage creativity, but apparently few want to take charge and do it. There's such a ready supply of young kids looking to "code games" that they can be duped into thinking that "some company" is cool when in fact it's a slave ship. Any gaming company that leverages creativity over slave hours and slave pay will be the champion in the long run, bar none.
stuff |
Creative spark plays a relatively minor role in AAA game development. Most of the 'overworked' crowd is doing 2 things: generating code and generating art. But even the artists typically need more skill than creativity, and in my experience the older artists tend to produce both more and better stuff (thanks to experience, particularly with the tools). For example, if the artist is going to generate an elf character ... that might typically involve one day of inspiration, and two weeks of pixel pushing. Even if he's twice as slow during that 1 day of inspiration, he'll more than make up for that extra day thanks to his familiarity with tools. On the code development side, I think we all understand how experience renders advantage.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
I don't understand people who go after this career because they "love games." It always concerned me when someone told me they want to become a programmer because they like games. HELLO! Everybody loves games! You're joining the profession for all the wrong reasons! Sometimes I'd ask the person if they've ever even programmed. Answer? "Nope!" I admire the willingness to fight for a dream, but I frown on the lack of research before committing a lifetime to it. Why programmer instead of another facet of game production? Oh, the money, you say... Notice how programming itself is not mentioned as an interest in any way here? Yes, it concerns me too.
The games people love are nothing like the process of coding them. Anything that is remotely fun and exciting in programming has nothing to do with what makes Madden fun and exciting. The average consumer can love Final Fantasy -- no, I'd even say there are many, many hardcore fans. But the vast majority of those that love that franchise are not meant to ever, ever become game developers. It's apples and oranges.
Playing games is exactly that -- PLAYING. But coding a game is no child's play. It's work -- and hard, hard work. If producing a graphical manifestation is the only joy you see in coding, I'd seriously reconsider the profession. There are other ways to contribute to creating a game without being the code monkey. There's marketing, story writing, graphics, concept designing, testing, and even managing.
If those don't appeal to you any more than coding does, then why choose coding? What? For money? That's a whole different can of worms that I'm sure you can already see is a repeat of what I just finished saying.
In my humblest opinion, programming is fun on its own, and it really doesn't matter what it is you're coding so long as it is challenging and stimulating. Sure, coding games can fit that, but to start on this path without actually loving the path itself seems risky at best and a terrible, life-long mistake at worst. In short, don't choose a path that makes you walk through shit and garbage. That path just so happens to be the rest of your life. You better damn well choose a route you'll enjoy every minute of.
Your argument is a variation of the broken window fallacy, because you're saying that making things less efficient is good because it creates work. It's incorrect because if things were more efficient there would still be plenty of work, but it would go towards making progress rather than maintaining what we already have.If that's a problem, then someone would hire programmers again to make new kinds of games.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
I think THIS might be a little closer to the explanation than any "loss of creative spark." A 30-year old developer likely has a wife/husband and is approaching the age where they either have kids or don't. That urge to reproduce has moved more than a few high-stress-job professionals to seek jobs with less stress/hours required because they decided a pile of money doesn't balance out "No family life whatsoever."
Funny how that "no family life" thing isn't in the ads/job descriptions for these positions...
Who did what now?
You're being exploited because you let yourselves be. That's the harsh truth.
If you want a life, you need to control the business aspect where money is generated. Otherwise the machine is going to use you up and spit you out, if there's one thing conclomerates like EA have shown, is you can beat programmers stupid and (new) ones keep coming back, begging for more.
Get involved with the business, own the IP, sit on equal footing.
Yes, business sucks sometimes. Coding sucks sometimes too. If you're able to distingush people with the clue from those without, use that to outbid people. Yes, there's big budgets involved - but there's also people with big pockets who will fund things that look like they'll make money.
Entrepreneurs: See the above? Find some really good programmers and PARTNER with them.
Otherwise? Well.. I'm sure there's a fresh crop of programmers to burn out next year.
..don't panic
Its hard to really care when you're an artist working on games. All you hear is, "the game industry makes more than hollywood" and all you see is very low wages incomparison to hollywood fx artists, insane deadlines, tons of tedious work, little control over idea because it came down from the suits, no room for advancement, and it sucks the life out of you.
The industry supposedly makes so much money and yet the salaries are like 40k to 60k, while the work days are 12 hours.
Its not a fun job.
The days of garage games are pretty much over due to the amount of time it takes to make a good 3d game.
The game industry was great for artists and programmers, but then the suits came in. Yup those vultures from the entertainment buisness, such as the movie and music industry decided to get their hands on the gaming cash.
No longer are the days of the garage game developers who make millions making a hit game. Now you go and work for the suits if you want to make a game. You get shit pay and thats the way it is.
How much money did Halo make? How much do you think the guy who animated Master Cheif made?
Peanuts.
It's a shitty buisness thats been raped by the buisness majors.
which is why i've decided to leave it and go into film and advertising.