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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?'"
The question seems retorical but I'll answer it anyway. If the people being hired are all 25 years old, the problem will remain. I have seen more and more offerings or game developer educations. Most of these are reduced computer science programs at universities, which frankly doesn't solve the problem. Recruiting earlier will require a lower education program which teaches programming. Perhaps special programs at high schools, or more likely compartmentalized education from certification schools. I'm not sure if an option like these would help developers or not, but it seems logical for it to be an option if publishers want better developers to work with.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
I can honestly say I don't want what 99% of these people make in their 5 years at the grindstone in full time game development.
Now these people must have got into it initially for the love of games - and even if they jack it all in and get a 'real' job, I assume they'll still like games.
We're going to end up with a huge glut of people with real jobs (i.e. can do whatever they want) moonlighting in the evenings making quality mods, small games for online distribution etc etc.
Much more what I want to buy anyway and should be a nice bit of fresh air
This doesn't just apply to game developers, but most software developers as well. It's a risky business, and for most innovation developers are forced to put their career, money/life savings on the line whenever an innovative product is developed. How can we be innovative when we can't pay our mortage payments?
There aren't enough investors out there to put money on risky software development projects, so we are often forced to take big risks ourselves when it comes to ideas we are passionate about. And frankly, people with lots of money often don't understand what we're doing.
There are 10 types of people in the world; those who can read binary, and those who can't.
Just like the Atari devs split and founded Activision... I think that a small company is the best for game development.
Like the old, OLD Activision method of a single developer designing a game and actually getting credited on the product packaging. When someone figures out how to implement that design model again, you'll have the next craze of video games.
Useful article on what's wrong with game development appear in Game Developer regularly, in the "postmortem" section. Those are worth reading. This is not.
The early burnout problem is a major issue at Electronic Arts. But they're not even in compliance with California labor law, and there's a class action on their unlawful nonpayment of overtime. That one (for artists) has been settled, with EA paying $15 million, and two other cases are pending. That's real news. This article isn't.
Balderdash.
Arguments such as these have been made hundreds of times over about every creative profession, and there are enough counterexamples to prove it's utter bunk. Take Cezanne. He did most of his important, really revolutionary work in the last few years of his life. He was only actually discovered by the around the turn of the century, when he was finally honored with an exhibition. Monet himself came up to him and esposed his genius, saying he was, in fact, the greatest genius of them all. He said (T. J. Clark's paraphrase) "Maybe... but back to work!" Can I offer you, perhaps, John Milton, or Robert Frost, or, hell, Neal Stephenson (he's 46, you know)?
Young people generally have the advantage that they're poor, desparate to make their mark on the world, too inexperienced to know what they're doing is stupid. Their brains also have a higher degree of plasticity, but this countered on the other end of the scale by the experience and wisdom that comes with age. What happens to older artists is that they get rich when they're 30 and are too busy with the trappings of fame and fortune to really produce anything good after that. After all, I don't think the decline in the Harry Potter books is because Rowling (not a spring chicken, by the way, she's 40) is now incapable of true innovation, but because she's writing big sloppy books as fast as she can. She knows they'll sell and her dedication to the craft of writing has become lax.
As my profile states, I'm a reformed game programmer. I've written a couple of bitter posts on Slashdot about working in the game industry. I'm better now. :-)
But the stress caused by poor quality architecture and code cannot be understated. Coders begin to hate the designers and artists after awhile and that, as you can guess, really causes problems. If the designer wants that really cool scene or feature or art, but the coder is stressed out the kazoo with debugging the last 3 new features and hasn't seen his new born child awake since it was born, you can imagine how he would react to the new feature.
The solution is a self-learning development process. A.k.a., CMM. I met some game developers who've only worked in Game Companies who sneer at that kind of talk, but the more seasoned veterans (working 10+ years) actually liked the idea. When you reduce the stress on the developers, and improve productivity, they can spend time making stable code that can be used to build cool, new features on it.
More importantly, it will rebuild the relationship between coder and artists, designers. That is the single most important relationship in the game process, IMHO.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
OK what have we got here? Overworked developer. Inadequate tools. Unreasonable deadlines. Exponentially increasing content. Parallelisation problems. Increased competition. Increased Expectation. Aaaannnd... C++....hmmmmm.
OK. Looks like a classic case of square peg in round hole syndrome. Take two courses in Lisp and read up on a fractal generation algorithims.
And for Christ's sake kid, lay off the coffee.
May the Maths Be with you!
Sure its going to sound like console bashing, but look at the market. When you make a product more accesible it becomes very tempting to try and maximize that even further. As businesses grow and the market evolves, publishers are under greater pressure (mostly greed) to abuse that market. The easiest way is to ignore innovation, create broader appeal to already existing franchises (often through dumbing down) and pump it out and make it available for anything that moves. As an example on what's being done to something like The Sims. You can trash it all you want, but its a prime example of a very popular franchise. Initially they announced 7 EPs. Its a lot, but the market is there. Then they announced they'd start putting it on anything that could play it. Consoles, phones, handhelds, etc. Get a smart watch, Maxis will port it.
Now they haven't saturated things enough, they're releasing mini-eps in between EPs. Why? Because EA has reportedly been sucking out, except for The Sims franchise, its their cash cow. The game isn't going to innovate.
You can see it in the underlying structure of the game. People who have taken apart the code and looked at it call it disgusting, the little things are missing. Problems that have existed since the original game, but instead of fixing those to produce quality, they're going to pump out 3 more platforms and another 2 expansion packs. If EA could market a gaming device who' sole purpose was to play The Sims, they would.
That market is changed, and if you want quality, I really think you have to stick with small developers who are in it for the love of the game.
I wonder if the sentiment is true on the other side of the earth? Do the Japanese devs feel this way too? From what I've read, Nintendo devs are a very proud bunch and lots of them have been doing it for a long time. I don't know for certain, but I wonder if they're under the same time pressures as, say, EA? We've all read stories about EA's marketing dates dictating everything. Is that true for Nintendo? If it is true, I certainly wouldn't have noticed, cuz all their games seem so polished. SSBM? Wind Waker? All top notch (in terms of quality). Can't say the same for EA. I actually bought the first Sims game for gamecube way back ... 10min into laying out my house, it froze on me. First time I had a game crash/freeze on me (on a console). I haven't bought an EA game since.
Anyways, I'm rambling. Just wondering if the japanese devs feel the same? Anyone have any insight into this?
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
This is a common problem that plagues every booming industry... especially advertising. Your bean counters arrive, and apply their "insight" and "wisdom" to running the business and increasing productivity. The end result is deadlines, avoidance of solutions that are too difficult to schedule (or understand), reuse of code and concepts that should be trashed... in all: a bad work environment. Game developers, like myself, strive for the cutting edge. The idea of mandated shortcuts pisses us off.
Game development is a creative art. You can't rush or schedule that kind of a process. No project management book or body of knowledge can overcome this. As long as game publishers drive for more efficiency and output, they will burn out their staff. Game development is a business that needs a bit of fat (free time). You need more freedom to develop and burn code to test new concepts. Investing in throw-away code is almost always a business "no no."
Business folks expect that all problems in computer gaming have known solutions. This idea is false. There's a ton of R&D for just about every algorithm. There's not necessarily a "one size fits all" solution to any given problem. And even a solid algorithm can often be implemented in over a dozen different ways.
I've worked for a couple of places that tried to run game development like regular software engineering projects. They did not succeed. Sometimes, entire industries need to ditch the MBAs and embrace what got them to where they are in the first place. Operating efficiency is only a good thing, so long as it doesn't negatively impact your staff, quality, and sales.
Building games is completely different that any other kind of software development. It needs to managed that way... special needs in mind.
I've been thinking about this issue lately, and I'm stuck with a conundrum: Why are people so interested in modding commercial games, when they could use a Free game engine instead and have their work more widely available?
There are a couple of possible explanations for this:
However, none of these reasons seems to provide a complete explanation for why there isn't even a single example of an extremely popular GPL game. I mean, there's no reason whatsoever that the next Counterstrike couldn't be built on Cube or the GPL'd Quake 2 source... so why isn't anyone doing it?
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
There are different kinds of stress...
I used to get quite stressed working in Burger King, for example, because we had hard-limited resources (fixed number of staff, fixed number of burgers, fixed rate of production etc) but very variable demand (we were in a place which could be either totally dead quiet, or hyper busy beyond our ability to serve). Now the job itself wasn't what made it stressful, it was dealing directly with customers who got irate because we were in a train station and if we didn't serve them quickly they could miss their train.
Similarly, I often get a bit stressed in my job as a games developer. Not usually because of the work I have to do, but often the circumstances which I need to do it in. But not because I have game-buyers sitting around me telling me the game is gonna suck, either. Things like last-minute new content, demo work for shows like E3 or TGS conflicting with game production work, schedules which bear no relation to reality.
Yeah, my job isn't dangerous like someone on a construction site, except when I plug a 110V American devkit into a 240V UK mains supply without a transformer (oops), but when I get stressed I do feel it just as much as I did in my no-thought-required job.
Game dev and music blog
There's nothing wrong with an up or out mentality in an industry. Both big law firms and management consulting firms employ this strategy. Having a revolving door of fresh blood may be what allows the industry to flourish with new creativity instead of stagnating with aging dinosaurs.
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[insert funny
Don't outsource your core business. When you're a games developer, outsourcing development, the publishers will wonder why they're dealing with you when they can work directly with the developers, and the developers will wonder why they're developing for you when they can develop for the publishers.
I guess it was easier for Pete Cooke and the rest when coding a game was a single man effort besides the mandatory stunt doing the music score. Then they started adding more and more people and now it sounds more like making a movie. I don't necessarily see the amount of people involved as a problem per say but often people have different agendas and it's hard to have them all sold on a well defined vision. Too often the way to go is to offer something for everyone in the process diluting the original idea if there ever was one. It seems like marketing has become the king even when it should be content and the coders are stuck in limbo between the utopia of what could have been and commercial values. "Forget the plot lets make really good looking screenshots" I doubt the soulless but pretty end result inspires coders much. For example Arcanum wasn't that pretty but it had an excellent main plot with multiple possible endings. Add five years and now we have Oblivion which looks really pretty but the plot seems like something Steve Ballmer came up with between his rants. Apparently it's more profitable to spend the cash in marketing than giving some of it to someone who knows about fantasy plots. George RR Martin, Robin Hobb et al spring to my mind. A really good plot might inspire the coders or it might not but it would certainly make games more interesting and something of that would have to trickle back. People will always complain about their jobs. At least most aren't digging graves in Finland.
No, you have the wrong idea. I'm not ok with that because it makes all my work worthless.
Yes. I can understand why you would be upset if your work was suddenly made worthless. Emotionally, this is a very upsetting thing.
However, it is also a necessary consequence of progress. New things (be they ideas, implementations, technologies, methodologies, or even just attitudes) always have an impact on old things. Often, new things make old things obsolete, or otherwise worthless.
As upset as you can (rightfully) feel about having your old thing made worthless, the fact remains that it is an old thing, and it is now worthless. It is ok to be upset and cry and whatever, but it is NOT okay to pass stupid laws that keep your old thing valuable by stifling progress (be it technological or cultural). We don't want your old thing anymore, so you should not force it on us.
Do not try to halt the march of ideas. You will be trampled.
Oh, cut me a break! Yeah, I'd say it's a different timescale! I've never heard of a fast-food employee working for 40+ hours, straight, sleep an hour or two under a desk, then pick back up and do another 12 hour day before going outside to sleep in the car to get enough energy just to drive home to sleep, then come back and repeat! I've done 100+ hour weeks for months. At $50k/year salary, I think that works out to about the same amount I'd have made working equal hours at fast food.
Working that sort of extreme schedule has a price. First of all, you never see your family, sleep at the office 3 nights of the week, don't get exercise, eat whatever you can get quickly, have no time for recreation, etc. It's called "death march" for a reason. Constant headaches, blackouts, racing pulse, dizziness were common symptoms among the engineering team. My symptoms mostly went away within six months of quitting and returning to a normal 9-5 career, but my formerly coal-black hair gained an amazing amount of grey in two years! I was 25 years old. Most of the 120 person company, excepting senior management, was under 21 years old.
Game development is like pro sports. You're either 100%, devoting all of yourself and sacrificing your personal life for the team, or you're out of the game. Sounds stupid, but it's true. I know an ex-pro American Football player (lineman for the Vikings) and he once called game development "nerd football -- except you guys beat up your bodies from the inside out." He has a point.
Fast food, no matter how stressful, is over when you walk out the door. You don't go home worrying about the bloody hell you're going to pull off the impossible and invent some new process tomorrow in time for the next investor deadline. You just do your job, then leave. Additionally, the stress on a game developer follows him home because due to peer pressure you're never really allowed to be "off duty." You feel like you're letting your colleagues down by not working all night, or both weekend days.
Luckily I got out while I still had a marriage. Many of my colleagues chose their job over their families and got "the call" while at work. (meaning wife calls to say "I'm leaving you and won't be here if you come home.") When you're not there, you have no marriage.
Shipped a PC Gamer "Game Of The Year" title and made a ton of money for my company and our investors (not for myself) but it almost cost me my marriage, made me miss out on two years of my kid's childhood, and certainly impacted my health. Was it worth it? In retrospect, no.
In a way I'm glad I did it but I would never, ever do it again. Not for five times the salary. Seriously.
--"Jack"
Posted anonymously, for obvious reasons.
The older you get, the less you play games. .
:)
Sorry. The average age of a gamer is 28 -- or at least it was three years ago when I needed that stat for a story. The Entertainment Software Association has been showing a steady increase in the average age of gamers for years, due to the fact that the original Gen X gamers are getting older but actually don't stop playing games, according to the head of ESA (who made this point a centerpiece of his keynote address at E3 in, oh, 2001), so I'm willing to bet the average age has risen by a year or two already. The ESA's current stats indicate that 39% of frequent players are over 35 years old. So if the majority of gamers aren't over the age of thirty already, it won't be long before they are. Therefore, by your own logic, it'll be even more important to hang on to designers in their thirties.
just because I'm cynical, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong.
It doesn't make you right either.
"Just once, I'd like to meet an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets." -- The Brigadier, Dr. Who