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Game Developer Now Offering Employees Overtime
Via Joystiq comes a story from the European game development website Develop, saying that the UK developer Free Radical will be offering employees overtime for crunch mode sessions. "Steve Ellis of Free Radical says the days of 'bonuses that pay off your mortgage are long gone' and that they've 'decided to start paying people for the work that they do -- even when that work is outside their normal hours.' Ellis says that the industry as a whole will eventually go this way, but they prefer to do it sooner rather than later. Although there are so many companies who are guilty of not paying their employees for working extra hours, EA gets picked on more often than not because of the infamous EA Spouse saga."
This model might work for the "kids" of the gaming industry that recycle developers like toilet paper, and treat them the same.
I suspect that the big names, companies like iD, Raven, and SplashDamage will continue on a by-project basis, simply because their teams are so radically different.
Interesting idea, though, and it definitely helps bring 'game developer' closer into the fold with 'real' jobs, giving it more weight with skeptics who don't understand the industry.
I don't know, but I think Developmag.com could remove a few more lines of content, and shove a few more ads on the page.
11 sentences to 14 ads is just too small of a cost/income ratio (yes, I counted).
</sarcasm>
how pathetic must you be to work overtime without being paid for it. I'm moving into the 20th year of my career, mostly software development, some IT work. NEVER worked overtime without being paid handsomely for it. Remember you anti social youngin's, you have to STAND UP FOR YOURSELF OR THEY RUN YOU OVER.
Idiots
Current employment law allows employers in the US to exempt pretty much any and all employees who work with computers from overtime. If you were not exempt before 2004, the revisions made by Congress pretty much assured you are now.
We don't buy slaves any more, we rent them.
"Trademarks are the heraldry of the new feudalism."
which putts it totally at odds with why overtime was first introduced. During the great depression, overtime was introduced to pressure employers to hire extra staff rather then simply working the ones they had into the ground.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
If it gets games out by their release dates great! But I'm not shelling out 90 bucks a game!
It'll likely lead to saner game release schedules. Instead of saying "Oct 9th 2007, no matter hell or high water", it'll be "forth quarter 2007, probably".
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
[Overtime's quality of being cheaper than hiring more employees] puts it totally at odds with why overtime was first introduced. During the great depression, overtime was introduced to pressure employers to hire extra staff rather then simply working the ones they had into the ground. Overtime still works that way, just not in the way that you expect. It is cheaper still to hire more part-time employees and refuse them both benefits AND overtime. Overtime contributes significantly to this equation; as it is possible for a part time employee to be paid overtime on a short term basis without running afoul of federal laws that would change their status to full time. The resulting expenses however cause any employer of part time employees to be downright paranoid of you "going over" at any time, usually to the point of pushing you out the door as soon as you get close.
Mind you as I say this, I'm not against overtime laws or want to remove them in any way. However, overtime is helping to create more part-time jobs. As I said though, the solution here to create more full time jobs is not to remove overtime but rather to further increase the pressure by requiring benefit packages to be extended to all employees regardless of the hours worked. Most benefits require some employee contribution, such as insurance fees, premiums, 401(k) contributions, etc. Or an employer could simply raise their payroll, and get rid of employer tied benefits altogether, a more reasonable approach in my opinion.
~Rebecca
This is one of the problems with allowing businesses the level of freedom that they have over compensation. Sure minimum wages and similar mandates tend to be problematic when not thought through, but so is the idea that an employer should be allowed to require constant overtime as well. Burn out is a serious matter, and as is killing morale. There just aren't many industries that have workers that thrive by working constant overtime because the business model was messed up.
Absolutely. I know from personal experience I've spent hours on a problem working late and fixed it in 5 minutes the next day. After an 8 hour day you;re not going to get a lot from an employee.
I used to work in AAA game dev, now work for myself. I'm not sure paying overtime is the solution. If I'm paid by the hour and I have a bad ass bug, yet I have a brainwave and fix it in 20 mins, I'm going to avoid checking it in, chat on msn, play peggle for 3 hours and pocket the 3 hours extra wages. Who is going to know? I'd be very surprised if this doesn't lead to longer dev times, rather than shorter, its all about incentives.
If there is more cash available, the solution is good, regular bonuses, and higher salaries. The problem is the management obsession wit bums on seats and hours clocked in. Coders and designers especially are knowledge workers. It's to do with clear thinking, experience, efficiency and inspiration. you can't chain someone to a desk and expect them to produce a linear amount of results per hour. Coding and designing is not bricklaying. Management panic that they can't tell if a game coder is working hard or not, or whether he good at his job or not, so they settle for the one metric they understand -> hours worked.
It's a deeply flawed method, and paying them for the extra hours just penalizes those who are more efficient and get stuff done faster. Pay people by results.
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