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.

Comments

Hah

[Anonymous Coward]

Parallels with professional musicians and actors, who usually get little sympathy on this board. Supply and demand, etc.

We'll see whether the game devs do any better.

STEM Shortage

[RobinH]

There's no STEM shortage, just a shortage of people willing to work 80 hours per week for under $50k per year.

Re:STEM Shortage

[Spy Handler]

I see. So what you are saying is that there is a large number of skilled engineers and scientists, sitting at home watching TV, while they wait for salaries to go up?

No, they're doing something else in life. Working, teaching, studying, masturbating, whatever. Just not willing to work 80 hours a week for 50k a year.

Job skills and careers aren't things you can acquire and shift around instantly, it takes time. It took decades of abuse to get to this point. If a sensible gov't disbanded H1B program and said "fuck you" to Bill Gates right now, salaries will rise but you're not gonna have a sudden flood of programmers entering the job market. It takes times to make programmers. What you will have is a lot more students interested in CS.

Re:STEM Shortage

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they are sitting at home or in a non-STEM profession because hiring in STEM (and everything else these days) sucks because employers are idiots. The structural unemployment and underemployment in the US proves that.

Unemployed people are discriminated against, for one. And then there are the completely unreasonable requirements for jobs - and we've ALL see those.

If one is an employer and has a problem finding qualified workers, I can say with 100 percent certainty, that it's their problem: their recruitment and hiring practices are horribly flawed.

I have never - ever - seen an employer spell out exactly what skills are missing in the candidates that they get. And what kills me, in Silicon Valley I see a lot of complaints about new grads not having the right skills. Really? So Stanford, CalTech, Berkeley suck? Recruit from MIT or an Eastern school.

Or how about telling universities what skills are required.

But they don't do that; which tells me that they are all full of shit.

For example, when Caterpillar needed welders, they helped the local trade schools to create a program and now, viola! plenty of qualified workers. The same can be done with engineering and programming talent.

But they don't do that - actually the entire tech industry doesn't do that. Why? Because they are full of shit about STEM shortages.

So, either STEM employers are really fucking stupid (they do ask retarded questions in interviews) or their motive for lying and saying there is a STEM shortage is all PR and politics to get cheap Third World labor and drive US wages down.

Re:STEM Shortage

[Opportunist]

Salaries should go up if the demand cannot be met at the current salaries, or did I miss something?

And don't tell me there's no money to up the salaries to attract personnel. Fire one or two of the useless VPs that should free up dough enough to hire a dozen engineers or two.

In other news, water is wet

[russotto]

Stress is a reason to leave a lot of jobs/careers. If game companies can't get a supply of new suckers, they'll have to either do something to reduce the stress, or actually pay more. If they can get a supply of new suckers, I guess things stay the same and I recommend staying out of the industry. Either way, no real story.

Re:In other news, water is wet

[Drethon]

In engineering I learned to just say screw you at crunch times beyond what I could handle. I'm still employed and getting raises at the same pace as my old work my tail off days.

Re:In other news, water is wet

[whh3]

Until people stop taking this very attitude toward the problem the situation will never change. It cannot be enough for the next sucker to take a burnt-out developer's place. There has to be a conscious effort by the developers to stop this situation.

As younger developers move up it will only continue: "If I went through it as a developer, they can go through it." This is exactly what happens with young doctors who become attending physicians when they subject their students to long hours and harsh treatment.

In the end, no one wins.

Re:In other news, water is wet

[EllisDees]

Bingo! I've been a programmer for almost 20 years and have never done crunch time. It hasn't hurt my career at all.

Re:That's not all

[Totenglocke]

[citation needed]

Half the pay twice the work

[netsavior]

When I was a kid I always thought I wanted to be a game programmer. Turns out, I fucking love writing boring enterprise software. I write lots of code, solve lots of problems, make lots of money.

The average game developer makes crap money writing spongebob or dora the explorer or some other licensed character crapware 16 hours a day for years in hopes they will be on one of the teams that gets to write the one good game their studio puts out each year/decade.

The average enterprise software developer spends years working 8 hours a day fattening his 401k and, since you get to go home at 5pm, could spend the other 8 hours a day he would be working at the game company writing his own games... or more likely just playing games or having a family.

I love games. I wish making games for a job wasn't the programming equivalent to grinding it out as an extra in Hollywood for years trying to be an actor, but that is exactly what it is.

Re:Half the pay twice the work

[rwa2]

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.

Re:Half the pay twice the work

[__aaclcg7560]

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.

Re:Half the pay twice the work

[drinkypoo]

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.

And that right there is how you knew you were in a pile of shit*. True leaders create more leaders. False leaders only want followers.

* There is a joke about this, and if you were happy there, perhaps I will relate it. But many of you, I imagine, already know the joke.

Re:Half the pay twice the work

[Bob the Super Hamste]

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.

Re:"Crunch Time" == Bad Project Management

[jandrese]

Isn't that how game companies work? They hire fresh faced grads, work them like dogs for a few years and then let them go once they get the skills to demand good pay and reasonable working conditions. Or they just burn out entirely and change professions. That's one reason why there is so little institutional knowledge in game companies and they end up making the same mistakes over and over again.

I write drivers

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Not quite, try unpaid hours

[Anonymous Coward]

If you pay staff for what they do, they are happier. Expecting them to work 12 hours a day, and having to come in at weekends because your marketing department pulled a date from their arse is what pissed people off. "Free" food and drinks is no substitute for lost time with family and friends. Only those starting out are dumb enough to put up with it. Why? Because they've yet to start a family and work is all they have.

Re:Not quite, try unpaid hours

[bobbied]

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...

Re:Not quite, try unpaid hours

[bobbied]

Management is ALWAYS to blame, because in the end, they are responsible for everything.

So I'd like to point out that not having the tools in place is a management problem too. This problem seems to be systemic in the industry of software development in general. Few organizations put the thought, and resources necessary into their management processes to give themselves the visibility they need to be effectively managing the system development.

Good for them

[bennini]

I am a software engineer and it's never made sense to me why people would be willing to put up with these types of conditions. Sure it's fun and way cooler that most other programming jobs but I wouldn't want to give up weekends and put up with asshole managers which inevitably make the job NOT fun.

The employers like EA, Trion, and countless more are exploiting the people's willingness to get treated like slaves in exchange for working in the gaming industry. Engineers need to stop undermining each other by taking these shitty positions and it sounds like this might finally be starting to happen. And they shouldn't fear that the video game industry will go away because it won't. Execs will simply need to reset their profit expectations in light of paying the engineers more.

Re:Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

Or unionize. This is a classic example of where unions make sense.

Re:Good for them

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Good for them

[__aaclcg7560]

Also keep in mind all of the schedules were unrealistic.

Most schedules are tied to achieving a specific milestones AND bonus rewards. As a lead tester, I would add two months to the expected code release date and plan my testing schedule accordingly. Everyone screamed bloody murder that my code release dates were unrealistic because that often meant no one got bonuses. As I didn't get bonuses, I didn't care. My code release dates were the most accurate (+/- two weeks).

Re:That's not all

[ShanghaiBill]

Women and minority developers are also being driven out of this industry because it is an inherently racist, sexist, misogynist boy's club.

Baloney. Women are repelled by the long hours and low pay. The game industry has plenty of minorities, unless you are using "minority" as a code word for "black". I have friends in the video game industry, and it has always amazed me how they can get so many talented people for such low pay and horrible conditions. But many guys (and very few gals) dream of being a game programmer, so they have them lining up at the door. My 12 year old son spent the entire weekend writing Mindcraft mods in Python, and wants to be a professional game programmer when he grows up.

Re:That's not all

[bobbied]

[citation needed]

No it's not... At least for the people who wish to fan the flames of social discord.... Or for those being sarcastic..

"Crunch" can be illegal (at least in the EU)

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re: "Crunch Time" == Bad Project Management

[tysonedwards]

But they don't pay you for 40 hours per week. They pay you salary, and as such you are paid the same regardless of whether you work 20 hours or 80 hours.

Re:leave the craft

[penguinoid]

Your best bet is to abandon the game industry, which will slightly improve conditions for the millions of naive young programmers who are falling over themselves for the chance to make video games, nevermind the bad pay and terrible hours.

Canary in the pixel mine

[sinij]

Video game industry is the canary in the pixel mine. This what ALL tech work will look like if suits succeed with over-saturating the market. So with each H1B, the rest of us getting closer to this hell. Make sure to write your congressman.

Re:Canary in the pixel mine

[GuB-42]

Video game industry is a bit special. It has nothing to to with H1Bs and suits.
Working on video games is the dream of many young developers. They would sell their soul just to be able to work on the games they love... and companies are all to eager to take on the offer. But don't blame it solely on big names because if you decide to roll your own or join a small team, that's even more work for even less pay.
When I left school, in the early 2000s, several friends tried the video game industry. They all came back and are now doing "boring" stuff with a decent pay and schedule, and it was before the outsourcing boom.

Re:Canary in the pixel mine

[asdfman2000]

You're missing the point. GP was pointing out that many H1B holders would "sell their soul", as you put it, to work any tech job in USA making 5x what they make back home.

When a job market is oversaturated (like video game development), wages and working conditions are driven down. It's not a coincidence that the abuses of the "robber baron" industrialists in the early 1900's coincided with huge waves of immigration from Europe and elsewhere.

I'm one of those people

[UnknownSoldier]

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.

Re:I'm one of those people

[iONiUM]

Minecraft? Really? You do know Microsoft bought them, right?

Not that I have anything against Microsoft, but to call it indie is pretty miss-leading.

Re:I'm one of those people

[fluffernutter]

The game has not changed yet. I am still holding my breath.

Re:I'm one of those people

[UnknownSoldier]

I'm quite well aware that Notch had 2.5 billion reasons to sell Mojang to Microsoft.

I too am concerned about _future_ versions but just because Notch "sold out" doesn't negate the fact that Minecraft _started_ out as indie back in 2009.

Re:Glory Days!

[bobbied]

Not really, the companies that develop the popular games will survive. That means marketing is at least as important as development, that having good art work and a good story are as important as having a good development staff, that getting onto the right platforms and released at the right time is as important as developers...

Catching what I'm saying yet.... Development staff is literally NOT as important as it seems up front. Successful game releases require a lot more than just development...

Re:"Crunch Time" == Bad Project Management

[ottothecow]

And really, I don't think people making less than $50k/yr as a programmer should qualify to not earn overtime.

To be exempt, you are supposed to perform exempt job duties. These include things like: Managing employees, hiring/firing, preforming a job involving specialized education (excluding skilled trades...which is more of what programmign is...you don't need a DR's license to be a programmer), or work in administrative support (which core business programmers don't by definition). I suspect a lot of companies bend the "Professional" category to include programmers even though that is really for things like doctors/lawyers/nurses that require specific training and licensing.

The real problem though is that there is a "Computer Employee Exemption" which throws all of those rules out the window as long as you are a programmer and get paid at least $455 a week. I don't know why programmers are specially carved out....a fresh undergrad getting paid even double that should be getting overtime pay...if you want to work them twice as hard at crunch time...then you should have to pay for it. Even that rule is pretty incongruent. An hourly programmer has to make more than $27.63 to be exempt. Working 40 hour weeks at 27.63 would pay you well over $50k, while a salary of 455 a week gets you 23k a year before you stop being overtime eligible.

Re: That's not all

[Anonymous Coward]

Men - especially young men - lack scope. They're thrilled by the thought of doing their "dream job", playing with cool toys and whatever, and forgetting a job is just a means to an end. By the time they find out it's too late, they're burned out, about to be replaced and with no safety net whatsoever. Computers are for chumps. There may be some smart and lucky ones but the rest is in for a miserable ride.

Re:That's not all

[bmo]

Men aren't supposed to be repelled.

It's the workaholic ethic many men grow up with.

You might think sexism is only discrimination against women. Men are the victims of sexism just as much, on the basis that they're supposed to be strong, macho, invincible in the face of adversity.

"Long hours? You don't like long hours? What kind of a pussy are you? You're not a team player. Your last paycheck will be Friday."

or...

(I heard this from one of my supervisors. It's something straight out of Dilbert:) "Taking unpaid personal time is stealing from the company."

These attitudes are rampant not only in game publishers but in manufacturing and everything else.

And we're supposed to just put up with it. Because we're not pussies.

--
BMO

Re: "Crunch Time" == Bad Project Management

[Opportunist]

Then I guess I won't work for them.

40 hours a week. Occasionally, after we've agreed on it AND it's not your fault (if it is, fuck you! I'll not work myself ot death for your blunders), I'll do more if, and only if, we agree on sensible compensation.

Sorry. I've seen too many people burn out to even consider the possibility of walking down that road myself. No job on this planet is worth this.

Re: "Crunch Time" == Bad Project Management

[bsolar]

So the lack of proper regulation allows companies to screw their employees? Paint me shocked...

Here companies are mandated by law to pay overtime and if it's after certain hours or above a certain amount it has to be paid *more* than the normal hourly rate. In my current company I was actually forbidden entry on the office on Saturday afternoon since I didn't get the proper authorisation by my manager. When I talked with him he was unwilling to give it to me since overtime on Saturday costs more than due time in the week.

Basically I never did unpaid overtime in my career, but I hope to in the future: the law protects only employees with a salary under 175K or something.

Re:That's not all

[ShanghaiBill]

> 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.

Re:That's not all

[LaurenCates]

And I'll call bullshit on the sexist (and heteronormative) notion that women can't handle the idea of porn. That we're all so scared of guys liking porn and sharing porn that it's scaring us out of male-dominated fields.

Aside from that, if porn is the thing that alters your life plan, then your life plan wasn't that good to begin with.

You may need to find a new job, but there is a substantial difference between saying the industry is sexist versus a single studio being sexist.

false dichotomy

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:That's not all

[Jason Levine]

This attitude also comes into play when you start a family. It is thought of as natural for women to want to take some time off after the baby is born. (Though, maternity leave isn't guaranteed in the US. Some companies still expect you to push out the baby and get back to work.) However, if a man wants to take some time off to help out his wife (exhausted from the birth) and new baby, many people will think of him as neglecting his "duties" to waste time with his family.

Example: The case of ballplayer Daniel Murphy who missed opening day when his son was born. Some radio hosts said that he should have been at opening day and not with his family. The hosts even went to far as to claim that his wife should have scheduled a C-Section before the season began so that he wouldn't miss any games. Yup, let's put his wife through an invasive, likely-unnecessary surgical procedure just so he doesn't stop hitting a ball with a stick. Where are some people's priorities?

I was lucky that my company let me take time off, though it was pulling time from my vacation/sick days. My company could just as easily have said "No time off for you. Get back to work now!"

Re:That's not all

[Infiniti2000]

Should mod parent up and GP down. I'm with Lauren. Regarding GP, when he says "And hey, I'm not personally offended by that kinda shit - I'm a guy." I'm offended by this. I'm a guy and I'm not just offended by that behavior ("that kinda shit") but especially by that sexist comment. "I'm a guy" supposedly means that you shouldn't be offended by it? That's exactly the behavior the OP is talking about, albeit it's a generally pervasive problem and nothing to do with gaming industry. Guy or not, you may or may not be offended by it. By virtue of you thinking that "I'm a guy" shouldn't be offended by it--that's the problem.

Re: "Crunch Time" == Bad Project Management

[Jason Levine]

I love the terminology used. You are an "exempt" employee. Usually, when you are exempted from something, it's a good thing. "Everyone needs to go to this boring conference. Bob is exempt, though." "Everyone run three miles today, except Jill who is exempt due to a medical condition." The very definition of exempt is "free from an obligation or liability imposed on others."

So when you are salaried and not paid by the hour, you are "free from the obligation of collecting overtime pay that is imposed on others." How wonderful of the company to free you from that obligation. You should feel like working another 20 hours this week out of pure gratitude.

Re:"Crunch Time" == Bad Project Management

[aaron4801]

1. Promise AAA game in 10 months.
2. Scope out 16 months worth of work with the resources available.
3. Work a bunch of young, eager (i.e. cheap) developers to the bone.
4. Profit.
You say bad project management, but it sounds pretty lucrative for the folks who are actually in management.

Re: "Crunch Time" == Bad Project Management

[Jason Levine]

When my father was working, he used to bring tons of work home with him every night to do after dinner. Then, he would bring more work home to do every weekend. Once, I asked him why he brought so much work home. He answered "My boss expects a certain level of output from me and I can only keep that up by working nights and weekends." I pointed out that he wasn't being compensated for this and by giving his boss this level of output, he was setting those expectations himself. Still, my father kept working this hard. In the end, all it got him was fired when they decided to give the job to someone else (even though that person likely didn't work as hard) to save money.

When I began my current job, I made it clear that I wouldn't be bringing work home with me. I was fine with the occasional after-hours emergency work. If a critical system failed and I needed to fix it, that's fine. But I wasn't going to bring coding work home with me so that we could finish the project a week or two early. There was occasional pressure to do more work at home, but I stood firm and made it clear that this was non-negotiable. When I'm home, I'm spending the time with my family or working on my own projects. Just because the company pays me a salary, doesn't mean they own all of my time.

They're all going indie.

[Qbertino]

Any dev with a brain is going indie these days.

There's an abundance of dirt cheap/free (beer) softwaretools.
Hardware prices are negilible.
Networking makes it possible to find co-devs all around the planet.
Steam, Google Playstore and Apple Appstore are taking out the middle-men.

All the big publishers can do these days is kill off good studios and churn out the bazillionth CoD clone. They've abandoned innovation.

All major space games today come from teams of less than ten, such as No Mans Sky.

Limit Theory, one of the most interesting prospects, is from a single guy!.

Robertson is doing Star Citizen as a crowdfunded indie project - a big one, mind you.

Koji Igarashi left Konami and started a Castlevania follow-up/Rip on Kickstarter. The fans are drowning him in money and he has more creative freedom than ever.

Bottom line:
Indie is where the partys at nowadays. No one wants to work for EA and the likes.

Re:That's not all

[SirSlud]

Many humans can handle porn. But for some reason, they seem to prefer seeing the kind of porn they want to see, and generally in a private environment, not plastered on computer screens at work. I apologize if that came off as hetronormative - I just mean that the *multiple studios I've work at* have had work environments that are exactly that: full of guys who think that the word hetronormative is imaginary PC bullshit. What you think should be tolerated (ie: all porn, of all kinds, I presume?) is exactly what professionalism seeks to address and what lacks in these work environments. But in the ways that these environments are unprofessional, it is exclusively geared towards male hetro guys who seem to freakout at the very concept of hetronomativity. (Presumably you would be fine with most of your co-workers laughing at you and calling you an SJW .. it's a very off-putting element of many of my colleagues in this industry to me. I'm not saying it's all bad. Plenty of good inclusive environments in gaming exist - I'm only saying that they're still the exception.)

I'm sure that the solution is just to hope that everyone gets all mature and never gets offended or bothered by the lack of professionalism and sometimes downright hostile environment in some studios.

And I don't need to find a new job. I've worked in this industry for years and year, and I enjoy it. What's next - I don't like a law, and your suggestion is that I move somewhere else?

Re: That's not all

[Rakarra]

A job is NOT "just a means to an end."

It's something you're going to be doing for the majority of your waking life. It really pays to find something that you like doing.
Going for your dream job is a fantastic move. Passion for your job is a positive. However, you can't let passion blind you either -- when considering that your 'dream job' pays little for terrible working conditions, it might pay to be pragmatic and avoid the industry. They can only get away with such conditions because so many are willing to put up with it.

Union

[MrLint]

Well perhaps the IGDA will put their money where their mouth is and advocate for some form of unionization for these exploited workers?

Re:"Crunch Time" == Bad Project Management

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

And then your studio shits out something like Assassin's Creed: Unity.

Re:That's not all

[Moheeheeko]

This is incredibly true. I work in high tech manufacturing and I get sideways glares all the time from people because I dont work overtime like most of the other men do. I earn enough to live by working 40 a week, but apparently that's not good enough for my coworkers. Of course none of the women I work with who dont work OT never get this treatment.

Re:That's not all

[LaurenCates]

The point I was replying to was not that porn should be in the workplace, but whether or not women are affected differently by it. Are women going to need a fainting couch put in because work isn't a "safe space", because the "guys" have had a long day and have dropped the appearance of propriety, or are they going to grow up and deal with it like an adult?

Moreover, it's a tried-and-true business practice to not linger where you're not appreciated. If you're never going to get promoted, or get a raise, or internal office politics are going to kill morale, what do you do? Do you bitch and moan? Do you start trouble? Or do you find someplace else where things are more stable?

I've found that the best option tends to be the last one in virtually all cases. Don't burn bridges, just say "sorry it didn't work out" and move on.

Re: Star Citizen

[friesofdoom]

Star Citizen, while crowd funded, is not indie developed. Unless you consider major studios being paid by someone as indie, which they do. For instance, Kuju considers itself "indie" because it is not a publisher or affiliated with one, but they have a few big studios with 100+ per studio, in multiple countries.

Indie in the game industry does not mean "one or two guys in an apartment"

$50k, nope

[thetoadwarrior]

That's nothing for a job where they'll expect you to have a degree. But I'm nor surprised, there are plenty of jobs around here that even without the degree debt just wouldn't allow you to live in this area. Even some big names in science who you'd think would want top people to get shit done right pay what I consider peanuts and often only offer fixed terms. So it's pay too low to buy a home, no job security to help secure a mortgage and enough of a wage to guarantee you'll need to pay your uni debt. It's no wonder so many good devs go down to London to fight over jobs in finance.

Done it, moved on

[Anonymous Coward]

I've done it for 25 years; I started to work on the 8 bits and it was my passion. But once the industry became big, parasites came with it as well and then everything changed.

I worked on a few of the biggest franchises, I have been a programmer, a manager, an owner, etc.

And about 6-7 months ago I got fed up...

I love games, I dislike the industry, I just moved on and I really feel happier.

Re:That's not all

[Dutch Gun]

Women and minority developers are also being driven out of this industry because it is an inherently racist, sexist, misogynist boy's club.

Professional videogame programmer here, closing in on two decades in the industry. My thoughts, if anyone cares...

Don't confuse a few unpleasant but vocal gamers with videogame industry professionals. I've never seen any such behavior among my professional peers. Female programmers (and audio specialists, oddly) are somewhat rare, but there are lots of very talented female artists, writers, and designers that I've worked with over the years. I'm closing in on two decades in the industry, and there are more females developers than ever. Some minorities are still underrepresented, but that's slowly changing as well. The industry wants talented and creative individuals. It has absolutely nothing to do with institutionalized racism or sexism, as far as I can tell. I'm sure it probably exists out there, but I've never seen it personally.

The story of people getting exploited, stressed out, and quitting the industry is nothing new. Lots of people quit the videogame industry, because yes, it is stressful. It's got highly complex, multimillion dollar projects with a fixed deadline, and that means things are going to get stressful before the ship date. Of course, when a company forces people to crunch for months at a time (or even years in some horrible death marches), that's crappy management. Nine months of 80 hour weeks? That's abuse, pure and simple. For the love of God, find a new job NOW. I'd quit the industry as well if that was my only alternative. But it's not. Not every company abuses their workers like that, believe it or not. But if you don't think you're going to be putting in some long hours at the end of a three to five year project, that seems a little optimistic.

Also, to clarify, very few developers earn under $50K. A better indication is the annual Game Developer Salary Survey, which states the average salary is a bit over $83K. Keep in mind when you break this down by job, the differences are made clear. Programmers average $93K, for instance. If you've been in the industry for a decade or two, you can earn quite a bit more than that. QA *average* about $53K, so I'm guessing the Dice writers were talking mostly to QA, who unfortunately tend to get the raw end of the industry stick in just about every way, being the least skilled of the labor pool and often hired as short-term temps (but again, this isn't universal either).

Frankly, I absolutely love my job, and can't imagine doing anything else. I'm aware that I could probably earn more money in a different industry, but I still earn a good living and absolutely love what I do. I'd rather not get painted as a victim, because I feel pretty fortunate. There are a lot of guys that work far harder than me digging ditches in the hot sun or freezing rain and earning a hell of a lot less for it.