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Game Development Conditions Could Drive Devs East
Kotaku has up a feature piece looking at the opening of a new studio in mainland China. Staffed by expatriate Western game developers, it represents something that founders Chris Pfeiffer and Max Garber see as a future trend: developing games in the west is soul-crushing. The two participated in the grind to get Resistance: Fall of Man out in time for the PlayStation 3 launch, and have now opened a studio with the goal of 'making great games while living a good life.' Lower costs in China allow for a higher standard of living, while labour laws will force game studios to stick to rational work-weeks. Pfeiffer also suggests that the overwhelming costs involved in making games will force U.S. studios to outsource development work to Asian nations. When that happens, Pfeiffer's studio and compatriots will be ready.
I could've sworn I just read an article the other day about how Japanese video game companies were trying to make the social aspects and work schedule of their employees more in tune with the West so that they would be able to retain their programmers. Japan's work week + work conditions = 10 x worse than the West's.
You have to live in Red China.
This is the same government that likes to filter the Internet for its citizens. I hope the reduced cost of living is worth it, guys!
Canthros
unavailable for comment. no, seriously, they have to get back to work or they'll get fired
It seems to be just saying gaming companies work people too much, so if you work less it must be better! While I understand overworking hurts productivity, at some point addition by subtraction has to fail. If it's really such a great idea for programmer to work 8 or 6 or 4 hours a day while stll making a great game, someone would've done that by now. The fact that there hasn't been much success from not working much on the gaming industry seems to suggest that working really hard at least works. And if working less really is better, what's stopping someone from doing it here?
I'm not even sure how the standard of living is relevant. It applies to every job equally. You gain due to the lower standard of living, yes, but you also lose some things, like living in a foreign country you're not familiar with. It's not like outsourcing is some always benficial action to do. You win some but you also lose some. If not, all companies can just pack up and resume operations in China!
At DICE this year, Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games (developer of the Dungeon Siege games and the just-released Supreme Commander title) had a very intersting talk regarding improving work/life balance at his company. It appears that you don't really need a "work-till-you-drop" work schedule to ship big games after all.
... but that doesn't mean you have to move your studio East to achieve them.
I think it's an interesting, and necessary, shift in the game development culture. As the industry matures, so does its business practices. Understandably, there are lots of passionate folks who prefer to stay up late to work on their game, but that doesn't mean everyone wants to. Additionally, those who stay up late may actually be contributing negatively to the product (decisions and code generated at 2 AM may not be the best).
So yeah, I agree that the typical hardcore work development schedules need to change
-- jchenx
while labour laws will force game studios to stick to rational work-weeks
Too funny that Chinese labour gets better treatment under Communist rule than US labour gets under the current Corporatist setup.
Seems like a lot of game developer jobs are going to Hollywood to capture that great creative spirit that brings in the money. Or it might be that wanna-be-actors are cheaper to hire than elsewhere. As long as game developer treats talent as replaceable cogs in the assembly line, the game industry will always be cursed to re-inventing the wheel.
That's the problem at had when I worked at Accolade/Infogrames/Atari for six years. One of my mentor told every new hire that they must prepare to sacrifice their personal life to the video game gods, get rid of the girlfriend/wife (prositutes are OK), and forgot about the kids. My current job is being a help desk specialist where I work only 40 hours a week but I make the same kind of money when I worked 80 hours a week in the video game industry. Now I have time to enjoy a personal life.
Man, it took me way too long to process that story. All I would think was "China is west of me".
Slogging the blog that you don't like is one way to go about things. Another is to actually read the article, which consists of a lot of discussion with Chris Pfeiffer and Max Garber from Insomniac. It's not like Kotaku just pulled this out their asses. You know...like your comment.
China?! Looking at the headline my first thought was Eastern US like Atlanta or Philly.
This guy hasn't really thought about what he's doing at all. Holidaying in a country is completly and utterly different from living in said country. I haven't done it myself but know several people who have. One of those differences is income, when you take a holiday (say from Britain to Spain) the £ is substantially stronger than the Euro the result is that everything is dirt cheap. When living there you get a job and a wage thats more in line with the country the end result is financially your probably not that much better off (good example would be UK/USA i may pay less tax and get a higher wage but once you've paid for medical insurrance, etc... it does work out about the same in wage terms.)
Assuming they've created a dev house which is paying devs the same amount as they would in America, great your only business savings are going to be in taxes when you balance that with the socail costs (quality of local talent, living in a china, dealing with different cultures/language barriers) its not going to be that much cheaper.
The only reason I can see for making a developer house in China is to take advantage of Chinese talent, to be honest thats a very risky venture since you don't really here about major CS breakthroughs coming from China (apart from the Great Firewall.) If they were fussed about working times why not actually look around the world places like the UK and Europe have a maximum 40 hour working week (the Uk has a opt out ability.) Just because America lacks such regulations doesn't mean other western countries do.
Basing major decisions on less than three weeks expearence of a place is just being stupid, they should have gone there and actually lived there for some time before doing this then make a choice. I'll wait for the backslash detailing how the companies gone under.
I work in the games portion of MS, and we've always had a good work/life balance schedule in my group. Yeah, there are times where we do work late night, but that's surprisingly rare. I think it's a combination of both smart management, and also the fact that my team doesn't ship retail titles, but works on platforms. So there isn't really a periodic crunch schedule, the way there are for games. Rather, we're always hectic, but in a manageable way.
But I have definitely heard the horror studios from friends who work in other companies and other parts of MS, which are really scary sounding.
-- jchenx
"I'm not even sure how the standard of living is relevant. It applies to every job equally. You gain due to the lower standard of living, yes, but you also lose some things, like living in a foreign country you're not familiar with. It's not like outsourcing is some always benficial action to do. You win some but you also lose some. If not, all companies can just pack up and resume operations in China!"
Remember what happen to the field of animation? Now it's game's turn.
..since it says that it's better not to work your developers so much, you must move to a place where it's illegal to work them too much?
How about growing a spine and just not work them so much IN THE USA?
Just wait until he's developing for a Western Gaming firm who is creating a game where you're fighting Communist China.
... what about Free Speech?"
China:
"Stop Developing This Game."
Developer:
"But Chinese Government Official
China:
"Stop Developing This Game NOW or Go To Jail."
Game Development Conditions Could Drive Devs East... ...Nintendo fuels speculation by investing in fleet of yachts.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Why not India? Its a democracy(albeit poor one)
but you can live there as well as in China for the money.
If they consider to stay there long-term it might be a factor.
When you hear about the huge budgets of modern video games, you rarely hear what percentage goes to actually paying developers. If more of the money went to the people actually doing the work, they could hire the developers they need to get the job done without working their developers to death. As it stands right now, no self respecting developer with a family can afford to take a job in games because the hours are crazy, and because if they're any good the pay in non-games work is as much as three times what a programmer can make in the games industry. No wonder they end up understaffed with inexperienced people, struggle to hit deadlines, and we're always hearing about how this or that experienced developer gets fed up and leaves the industry. Meanwhile, the publishers and marketers are living fat off these people's labor.
One of two things will break this trend. Either publishers will become less relevant as self funded studios become common (who knows how this will turn out as Vista pushes game development off of open platforms into a console and portable only world), or the rest of the venture backed software industry will start to treat their employees poorly enough that game development doesn't look so bad anymore. Either way, it's likely to get worse before it gets any better.
Regardless, it's hard to see how China has anything to do with this story other than to stir up the outrage of outsourcing and send hits to the website. So they opened an independent studio, and they did it in China because they have some delusion that their happiness there was due to geography and not the fact that they actually took a vacation... I wish them luck, really, but the geography of this story shouldn't be the focus. It's a red herring.
They develop a launch title for PS3 that DOESN'T move PS3's .. then "Move to enjoy the good life" in China ...
They didn't decide to relocate; Jack Tretton promptly shipped them off when Resistance didn't kill Gears/Wii like it was supposed to.
...because it was developed using Chinese labour, and we all know how well that one turned out. No creative spark, no real connection with the audience, and a bunch of guys working to the rule without question or concern. That's fantastic for mass-producing (or knocking off) consumer goods, but rather less so when trying to develop something that appeals to emotion like game-play.
The article seems to be suggesting that labour laws in China prevent the kind of unpaid mega-crunch 60+ hour week hell that western developers demand... since when were we behind China in labour laws?!
Saying that, the UK is behind a lot of Europe, and the US behind us...
As for Japan, I'd gladly put with with the crunch there I think. It's hard for a while but the rewards are genuine.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
More work hour doesn't mean higher productivity, have you guys forgot about the EA bride thing? Back when The Day After Tomorrow was made, Dreamworks treated their employees like crap, and I mean really like crap. They work almost every waking hour of their life for months, people would work until they can't take it anymore, crash under their desk for a couple hours, get up and get right back into working. It's a destructive way of life and many many people got sick physically and mentally. Immediately after the movie was done (you never ever walk out of project even if it's shitty and you're not getting paid, walking out of a project is the same as black listing yourself in the industry) Dreamworks lost their entire talent pool. For a long while nobody want to work for Dreamwork because face it, nobody want to work 160 hours a week. Someone did a bit of calculation and found out that with the salary that they are making and the hours that they are working, they make as much as someone who work at McDonalds. After that Dreamworks had to start treating their artists like human and people could actually expect to get paid well for a job well done and can go home at 6~7. Another example of this is Industrial Light and Magic, they close at 6 unless it's the final crunch period. They literally kick you out by 6 and nobody is allowed to stay to work. They get things done, they make good movies and they are one of the best studios in the industry. Or how about Pixar? They treat their artists like human, everybody gets paid well, does not work 12 hour days (most of the time), the management and the artists are friendly with each other, the whole company is like a big family. Last time I checked they are coming out with block buster after block buster films. I wish the executives would realize that when you push your artists to work 20 hours a day, they are not going to be able to make good games. I know when I was crunching 16 hour days, I literally just zone out and make a ton of mistakes by the last few hours. We're not robots, when you overwork us you should expect our productivity to drop. In the end it hurts the productivity because next day when I come in I have to fix a whole lot of mistake I made last night before I passed out.
If gamecompanies would spend less time on pushing the graphical boundaries but instead would focus more on providing innovative gameplay or interesting storylines we can keep the jobs here. I mean we don't outsource our hollywood scriptwriters to china do we?
...what matters is what you like, not what you are like...
Believe it or not, I believe the game industry is actually growing up. Losing your life to the almighty schedule was the accepted norm a few years ago, but not so much today. I actually know of publishers routinely scheduling six-day workweeks for the latter half of the project, and seven-day workweeks for the final month or two.
This is an issue I actually talked with my current employer about during the hiring process. I've now worked at a pretty well-known studio for the couple of years, and have shipped two successful games. So far, I'm still working normal 40-hour work weeks, except for the few weeks before and after the ship data (after because it's online). And so far, I have yet to come in on a weekend.
The company was founded by guys who were tired of the burn at other companies and wanted to make sure theirs was not like that. Lots of our devs have families and young kids, and it's a great working atmosphere. And, we're *still* very productive. Many companies are starting to understand it's just not worth burning out your talent and losing them for the sake of a single title.
For anyone looking for a job in the industry... don't let anyone tell you that everyone in the industry goes through insane crunches. Crunches, yes, but the days of mandatory death-marches are fast disappearing. Many developers love to brag about how many hours they worked during the end days of a project (guess it's the game developer equivalent of a war story), but I'm no longer impressed. Putting up with that kind of a nightmare is just foolish at best, and destructive at worst.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
And here I was all excited because I thought more gaming companies would move or form here on the east coast. I'd love to stay in my native area near Philadelphia, and I'd also love to break into game development. I guess that's still going to be very hard - there are a few companies here and there, but it's nothing like Seattle where you can't throw a stick without hitting a few hiring game studios.
Your brain is not a computer.
This is great news as I plan to live in Thailand instead of the UK (were I am from). I am hoping that I won't have to setup my own business to be able to work in the Games Industry there since I'm still in University. I'm working in Thailand (which is below china) right now as a web developer and am going back to my Games Programming course in England this year. I really hope more Game development companies come here as its a great place to work and live.
New Montreal video game studio shoots for top talent
Montreal is a fountain of talent in the arts. Low cost of living, good quality of life... its a happenin city.
I'd like to see them come just a little further east: to Bangor, Moncton, Saint John, Halifax, and Saint John's (NFLD). Maritimers have the skills, will work long hours and wages can be considerably less considering that the cost of living here is probably a third of what it is in Seattle or Vancouver.
"Your scummy lakes and city of Toronto don't do a damn thing for me, I'd rather live by the sea" -- Stan Rogers
Yeah, but your good/evil balance is totally out of whack.
Hope you like snow. Lots of it. Like 2 meters high.
You get tired of the novelty very quickly, believe me.
You got exploited by asshole managers, now you're going to do the same thing to chinese by moving over there. Have fun trying to get anything truly original from them, as they have no games culture, much like the indians.
Aside from this, I have to say that from experience, the modern developer is like a 19th century coal-miner, digging away,
damaging his health for the better profit of the fat bastard sitting on top, making sure almost all royalties go back to him and a few of his pals.
Game programmer, you are a gullible sap ! Just quit as soon as you detect unacceptable behavior the same way they would to it to you without hesitation !
Be a man and refuse or sabotage those sweatshop operations.
Oh, and read your damn employment contracts, you idiots !
Just because it's the entertainment industry doesn't mean you have to drop your pants and go on all fours saying 'please, go ahead'...
ILM/Lucasfilm and Pixar are union shops, represented by the IATSE Animation Guild. EA is not.
Some IATSE contract terms:
Those multiply, too; if seven days of work runs through a holiday, you're up to 4x the base rate. This encourages management to avoid unnecessary "crunches".
The movie business sometimes runs long hours during crunches, but directors, producers, and studio management try to avoid them, since their labor costs go through the roof. That's the way it should be.
Unions - the people who brought you the weekend.
That's a funny statement to make. Virtually everyone I know who works in Asia, China, Taiwan and Japan, works insane hours. It's a way of life and they just accept it. Up until a few years ago in every second Saturday was a work day in Taiwan. Even for me, when I was out there getting out at 7pm or 8pm was early. And that was pretty much all year round; there were few lulls. And I worked at a fairly small company, because bigger ones were often worse. It gets to a point where you don't even think about it anymore. You've become a worker drone.
In Taiwan and China they do get maybe five days off for Chinese New Year, and maybe a holiday or to at some other time during the year, but that's it. Now, if you're in management, especially higher level management things change considerably. People in the US like to complain about their managers. But the most people here deal with is general stupidity. I've seen management in Asia treat employees like utter crap. They get fairly vicious and insulting with their employees. And many have the habit of not being in the office half the time. It's like the position exists simply to sustain their personal lives. It was frustrating trying to convince some of these guys to invest some money in improving the company when, as they say it, the money could go towards a nice new S-class Mercedes.
I'd like to know what labor standards actually exist in China, and if they do exist if anyone is actually enforcing them. I think what these guys are expecting is that they can lead a fairly cushy life running this company while having others do the "soul-crushing" dirty work. And because labor is cheap they can hire three or four developers for the cost of one in the US. It sounds good until you realize that you need to direct them a lot more closely than you would with a Western developer.
Corporate cultures are different there from the West. The employees expect managers to direct them in everything they do. Western employees tend to figure things out for themselves where possible. I even noticed this tendency with college graduates, in my case design graduates. We'd see their portfolios and they'd have impressive work. We'd bring them in and they were totally incapable of performing. They couldn't figure anything out. I eventually learned that it's because in school professors closely direct the student's work. So once they were left to fend for themselves they were lost. I think it's one reason they tend to copy ideas so much. For this reason we had a tendency to hire locals educated in the West.
Anyone who was really good had a tendency to move to the West where the working conditions were better, contrary to what these guys claim, and where they could earn more. Ultimately, you're going to sacrifice something. You either spend less money and have more hassles or you spend a bit more and ensure that things generally go well. I know people who've stopped outsourcing programming to China and India because of all the trouble they've had. Ultimately it was cheaper and easier to just hire programmers here. I will say one thing, people in Asia generally have a much better work ethic than many Americans. They don't have the excessive sense of entitlement that you see in this country.
The problem is, we are working programmers 10-18 hours a day. As a result, we are burning out programmers, increasing turnover, and getting crappy results.
Spell cheek you've failed me four the last thyme!
"Game Development Conditions Could Drive Devs East "
I look forward to more game developers moving to the Boston area.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I wonder, can you order up that ASUS motherboard from the mainland?
Too funny that Chinese labour gets better treatment under Communist rule than US labour gets under the current Corporatist setup.
I used the think that a communist government would favor labor over non-state management but a Discovery Channel episode cleared up that fallacy. The episode, who's title escapes me, had a segment showing a lawyer who specializes in representing workers who were injured at work. Injured as in lost limbs in industrial machinery! When a worker was injured the company would declare that the worker violated safety protocols and was therefore ineligible for any compensation and fired. Government backs the factory owners, the police regularly beat up the lawyer who files lawsuits against the companies.
Nothing has really changed, it still boils down to not supporting the current interests of the state. Woe to the citizen who does so.
Well then how about making a game where you're fighting America for a change?
Uh, the game is for export not domestic consumption.