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Game Developers Sound Off On 'Quality Of Life'
simoniker writes "At the recent WIGI Conference in Dallas, a number of game industry veterans discussed the ever-problematic issue of 'quality of life' in the game industry, or, as moderator and The 7th Guest creator Graeme Devine commented: "What does that mean to most of you? Well, it means crunch." Aspyr's Lori Durham suggested of the issue: "You won't always have a perfect balance as far as how many hours you're outside of the office, and how many hours you're inside the office", but, for game developers: "As long as you feel good about where you are at that moment, Durham thinks that's what matters.""
Sorry I'm not first...but I'm only allowed out of my coding cell for two breaks in each twelve hour shift. Quality of life? I'd say it's pretty good. We get three meals a day, including one hot meal, and sometimes we get a mouse pad or eye drops if we invent something that saves render time. Well, gotta go - I heard we just got the rights to code the game for Charlie's Angels III; I know I'll need to pull a couple all-nighters just getting those stupid line breaks in the string tables lined up again.
I'd rather take a break...... off a kit-kat bar.
He whom you called four-eyes yesterday, you call Sir tomorrow.
I guess it's you who is in denial...;) Since when does a 50-hour work week = a 100-hour work week? IMO, "crunch time" wouldn't happen at all if the people who manage and work in the game companies didn't spend ~20 or so hours per week of every week leading up to the month before release "talking at the water cooler" and "taking coffee breaks" and "scratching their nuts" and "Internet surfing" and etc., ad infinitum...;)
Basically, "crunch time" looks to me as the game developer saying to itself and its employees, "OK, we've all had a lot of fun for the last year and a half, haven't we? But now we are six weeks out from shipping and it's time to take this work very seriously, isn't it? So, we're going to have to work our asses off to make up for what we didn't do that we should have done over the last eighteen months!"
I think, though, that "crunch time" is likely inevitable and unavoidable in any process that takes what is essentially a highly creative venture and seeks to internally inject regimention, discipline, and scheduling into it at the same time. You're going to have to flow creatively in the process of crafting a game for as long as you can so as to create a decent game, but eventually there comes a time when the rubber meets the road and you have to *finish and ship.* I think it's the nature of the beast, frankly. I also think that professionals in the business for a long time understand this, whereas other people just don't. And there's the rub, isn't it?