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Stress Is Driving Developers From the Video Game Industry
Nerval's Lobster writes: For video game developers, life can be tough. The working hours are long, with vicious bursts of so-called "crunch time," in which developers may pull consecutive all-nighters in order to finish a project—all without overtime pay. According to the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Developer Satisfaction Survey (PDF), many developers aren't enduring those work conditions for the money: Nearly 50 percent of respondents earned less than $50,000 annually. Faced with what many perceive as draconian working conditions, many developers are taking their skills and leaving video games for another technology sector. The hard and soft skills that go into producing video games—from knowledge of programming languages to aptitude for handling irate managers—will work just as well in many aspects of conventional software-building. Fortunately, leaving the video-game industry doesn't have to be a permanent exile; many developers find themselves pulled back in at some point, out of simple passion for the craft.
I write drivers for consumer electronics (tablets, STBs, some phones). I am paid significantly more than $50k/yr and I have a fairly predictable schedule. We have occasional long hours to fix the last few bugs at release. But everything is code complete when it is supposed to be, and we aren't designing new things near the end only cleaning up and making adjustments.
So game devs, get out while you still can. There are other ways to apply your code-fu and still go home every night.
Well, there's some saying about your career satisfaction being proportional to how much of your education you're able to use on the job.
And I have to admit, I was happiest during a brief stint at a game development studio where I finally actually got to use The Calculus. But yeah, it's much more lucrative to do boring stuff and then have free time and money to actually pursue hobbies.
The irony of course is having gone through college getting an aerospace engineering degree that I'd never really put to use while toying around with computers and Linux all night. Now I make all of my money dinking around with my Linux at work so I can use my aerospace degree to play with toy airplanes. At least I always feel like I'm playing, I suppose.
Just don't expect to be respected for pointing that out. I worked for Ubisoft a few years back on an utterly pathetic salary. When the crunch came along, I worked out the extra hours I was "requested" to work (unpaid, of course) would've effectively pushed my hourly salary below the national minimum wage (i.e. it was illegal) so I refused.
Of course, my appraisal rolls round and I get an abysmal score - despite the fact that my output exceeded that of my colleagues slaving away into the late evening. One of the idiots who did my appraisal said that the studio producer had basically asked why they didn't just fire me for having such a low score, and that he'd "rescued" me by saying the work I was doing was invaluable... despite being responsible for the low score in the first place.
Resigned shortly after and switched to web dev. Never looked back.
The average enterprise software developer spends years working 8 hours a day fattening his 401k
After three years of being a video game tester, I became a lead tester and I spent the next three years going to back to school to learn computer programming. Despite working 80 hours a week for two to four weeks at a time, I was branded as not a "team player" by management because I had an exit strategy. After I left the video game industry, I spent the last ten years in help desk and desktop support roles, making more money for less hours than I did as a game tester. I'm now a senior system admin in computer security.
I've shipped numerous games on consoles and PC. I exited the direct industry a few years back; I now make significantly more, have way less stress, and work stays at work. I also get to work on my indie game the first thing I wake up for a few hours and then start my normal day job which involves WebGL and Javascript.
There are 4 major problems with games industry:
* This industry was started by _hobbyists_ before the "suits" came in and tried to run it like a business. AAA games have become linear, repetitive, and formulaic narrative. This FPS map design 1993 vs 2010 sums its up.
* I slept under my cubicle in 1995 when I worked for EA because of "crunch time." The fact that crunch time *still* exists is a symptom of managers _failing_ to take responsibility. Why do they treat game devs as a resource to be consumed. Why did it take a lawsuit "EA Spouse" to make a dent in this problem??
* Mobile has zero respect for gamer's time. They call people who spend the most on freemium "Whales." What's the problem with freemum? You keep using this word free, but it doesn't mean what you think it means. This image succinctly summarizes how they have hijacked the word free to mean Hurry-up-and-Wait.
* The cost of content creation is spiraling out of control. Each year the budget and man-hours keep increasing. Something has to give.
Indies have their own share of problems but what they bring to the table is innovation. Vote with your wallet and support indie games such as:
* Limbo
* Minecraft
* Path of Exile
* The Stanley Parable
* Trine
* The Vanshing of Ethan Carter
* World of Goo
If you continue to play grind fests that have zero respect for your time such as Defiance, Destiny, Warframe, World of Warcraft, then all you are is part of the problem.
To be fair, many times the marketing folk pull dates out of actual requirements and not just out of the air. What's really happened is the requirements and the schedule to do them was too optimistic for the resources and time allowed. You see, release dates usually are VERY important for marketing and if you miss marketing's date it can mean the difference between success and failure for the game and the company.
What the REAL problem happens to be is NOT what you claim, but the fact that management didn't recognize the schedule slippage when it was really happening and when they could do something about it, so in order to "make it" it turns into a orgy of late nights, pizza and caffeine energy drinks for that last development phase. When really what should have happened is the requirements should have been shaved back or more resources acquired a year ago. But that kind of management is rare in any of the engineering disciplines as is the processes necessary to collect the metrics and plan the work well enough to know when you are falling behind.
Blame the management, not marketing for what ails you in this case. More than likely the deliver date was fixed a long time before anybody started coding...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
All it takes is 2 or 3 key players to 'walk out at 5'
I talked about 3 dudes into doing it. We went from 60-80 hour and lots of weekend grinds to 8-5 jobs. Everyone went along with it. EXCEPT the people who love burning it on both ends and the managers with the unrealistic schedules. They burned out in under 3 years. We caught tons of hell from the double end burners. But in the end our way worked. Because the quality shot thru the roof. Ideas went from 'lets half ass this' to 'lets prototype it and pick it up in the morning'.
Also keep in mind all of the schedules were unrealistic. There was NO point in killing yourself to make them. They would push them ANYWAY.
> Women are repelled by the long hours and low pay.
And men aren't?
Correct. Men, especially unattached young men, are far more willing to work long hours. When I was in my 20s and early 30s, I regularly worked 80+ hours per week, and kept a sleeping pad and shaving kit at work. Many of my male co-workers did the same. Our employer encouraged this behavior by providing a shower, a kitchen, and free pizza for anyone still working at 9pm.
it's both (& likely more)...
I took a job at a studio w/a popular current game, my 1st time in the industry after 20+ yrs at more conventional companies. w/few exceptions they paid squat (I was shocked at what some of them were making) b/c they did have (disproportionately male) kids lined up around the block to work for them _AND_ they tolerated sexual stuff (tbf didn't see racial stuff) that would get a company in another industry sued out of existence. I got out quickly - it sounded like fun & the technical challenges of gaming sounded interesting but the answer is definitely "D - all of the above". while I envy the passion to be willing to sacrifice so much for so little that is the nature of the beast...
Well I get to make use of all that computational theory stuff I learned in my degree frequently at my job and it does pay well even if it is boring work with SCADA systems. I did have one of those bosses who wanted every one to work crazy hours and be on call at all times even when on vacation. When I told him I would be unreachable on one vacation he didn't believe me and after a bit of back and forth I told him that if he really needed me where I was going to be leaving my car and walking into the woods and that he should hire a trained tracker and a team of dogs.
Time to offend someone
Males are also considered expendable. I'm not whining (as in, I'm just observing the fact), but it's expected that males get the last lifeboat, if any. Which is kinda the correct answer in a survival situation, biology says protect the more-valuable factories, the half that has the hatcheries.
I imagine it's rare for the effect to surface plainly - leaping in front of bullets is for movies. But it does skew expectations less consciously. So for anyone who applies their time after equality, it reasons that it belongs on the checklist.