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The Almighty Buck Entertainment Games

IGDA Quality Of Life Survey Analyzes Game Developer Crunch 99

Posted by simoniker from the captain-burnout dept.
Thanks to the IGDA for its survey details discussing the problems videogame developers face trying to balance work crunch and family/relationships. A survey commissioned by the IGDA revealed "34.3% of developers expect to leave the industry within 5 years, and 51.2% within 10 years", and also noted: "Crunch time is omnipresent, during which respondents work 65 to 80 hours a week (35.2%). The average crunch work week exceeds 80 hours 13% of the time. Overtime is often uncompensated (46.8%)." The IGDA's Jason Della Rocca is quoted as suggesting: "While game development is a stimulating and rewarding career, the work conditions are often taxing, making it hard to sustain a balanced lifestyle and leading many senior developers to leave the industry before they've done their best work... it is not just the community that is affected - these issues also impact the quality of games produced." Are insane hours just part and parcel of working in games, or is there another way?
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IGDA Quality Of Life Survey Analyzes Game Developer Crunch More

IGDA Quality Of Life Survey Analyzes Game Developer Crunch

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  • Personal experience (Score:5, Interesting)

    by almaon ( 252555 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @08:15PM (#9058573)
    I worked at a well known, shovelware game dev studio. I won't say exactly where, to protect the innocent/guilty. But lets say it was a number one title around 97-99 timeframe.

    The main cycle for this unsaid company was in shovel ware, low budget, 'value priced" (such a bastardization of the word 'value'), and equally low timeframe to build these games.

    They'd produce about 8-10 of these crappy games a year, each game being alloted 2-3 months on average. So crunch-time was all the time, it wasn't uncommon to see their best and lead programmer working 80+ hours a week, sleeping under his cubicle desk.

    Once in a rare while this is alright, but all the time got old. I left quickly and decided "This isn't for me" the pay is alright, but money is worthless if you don't have time to spend/enjoy it.

    At the end of it all, it was just a nice way to get the bug out of my system. I always wanted to design games for a living, got my foot in the door and got it right back out. Fulfilled the dream, went on to do other things.

    I enjoyed it more when it was just myself, hacking away at early games like Doom and Duke3D. No pressures, just fun like the games themselves.

    Soon as yo umake your hobby your career, the pracitce often starts to taste sour and eventually bitter.

    • Re:Personal experience (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wibs ( 696528 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @08:17PM (#9058590)

      I'm friends with a handful of people who worked on a particular game that fit into pretty much all of the evil categories of game development, It was the third installment of a trilogy which had just been bought by another company, so they were running it into the ground and hoping for money just because of the name. My friends spent a year of their life spending every waking moment (and a lot of sleeping ones) in the office, had the release date moved up 2 months in what was originally a 12 month plan (which is already pretty fast), and then the whole staff got fired a week before the publisher put it on the shelves. In other words, no bonuses based on sales, no dev staff to make (sorely need) patches or updates, and none of the big bonus milestones that would have been reached with the originally planned 2 months more of dev time.

      Basically they threw away a year and a lot of pay, all for the benefit of having an unfinished and therefore not very impressive game on their resume. I wish I could say this was some sort of freakish breakdown in the game development industry, but from my experience and what I've seen this is par for the course.

      • Re:Personal experience (Score:3, Interesting)

        by 2megs ( 8751 )
        I think that was my project. :)

        Assuming you're talking about Myth III, I wouldn't say it was a bad thing resume-wise, though. The rabid fanboy community from the first 2 games all hated it because the multiplayer wasn't anywhere near what anyone wanted, but the single-player game was solid enough for it to get positive reviews (8.7/10 and 8.4/10 from IGN and GameSpot, respectively). Lots of the team got to move on to better projects at better companies, when some of them weren't even in the game industry b
        • Nope, not Myth III, but I remember hearing about that one :). It's a little depressing that a story like this reminds people of their own projects, but it's good to hear that things worked out for the best for you guys.
      • Publishers are the most unscrupulous lot I've ever seen. They frequently sign developers with a great idea on with the promise of bonuses and royalties, then set the developer up to fail so that they never have to pay out those monies. If that doesn't work, they simply buy the company and nullify the contracts.

        I'm disgusted that these tactics haven't been brought to the DOJ's attention, because it's fraud at a minimum, and racketeering at its worst.

        • Re:Personal experience (Score:3, Insightful)

          by tc ( 93768 )
          Disclaimer: I work for a publisher.

          What you say makes no sense. Why would a publisher want a title to fail? The publisher has invested money in development. If they can't recoup that investment, they've lost money, so it's in their interest to make the developer succeed.

          I know that we work pretty hard to try to make a developer successful once we've signed them. Sometimes titles get cancelled because they're running off the rails. Sometimes they fail after release for all the various reasons that can happ
          • Reread what I wrote. I didn't say that they want the title to fail. I said that they set the developer up to fail. I used to work for a game developer, and it was not unusual to find out one day "You're shipping next week" when we thought we had over a month of development time left. Arbitrarily moving the schedule up meant no early delivery bonuses ... a weasely way to get around contract wording.

            Likewise, it wouldn't be the first time a developer had royalties based on sales of a game at retail. But
    • You might as well have just said "ValuSoft." It's not like no one knows who you're talking about.

      Rob (I hope Something Awful doesn't send a hit team to your house)

    • So, then... (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Superliminal ( 768640 )

      When you *do* decide leave the industry, do you find it easier to get jobs elsewhere because people think video game programmers are gods who are willing to put up with long hours, or do you find it harder because people (suits) think video game programmers sit around and play games all day, so you must be a slacker?

      An open question...

    • Re:Personal experience (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      None of this stuff is unique to the gaming industry. It's spread throughout almost all technology fields. I have working conditions/expectations/exploitations similar (and probably worse) than those listed in this report - but I don't have the luck of being in the video game industry and instead have to deal with boring stuff like writing code for a popular application server for enterpises.

      Not to suggest that being able to make videogames is any less difficult - but people in the gaming industry are far m

      • Re:Personal experience (Score:3, Insightful)

        by yo303 ( 558777 )
        but people in the gaming industry are far more likely to be extremely interested in and excited by their particular job than someone in most other tech fields.

        That is exactly what makes it unique to the gaming industry. I was in the video game industry from the gameboy through the PlayStation, and usually we put in the extra uncompensated hours because we loved the game. We WANTED to make the game better. I'm glad I'm on my own now, and wouldn't want to go back to those conditions, but at the same time

  • Too complex (Score:3, Insightful)

    by GaimeGuy ( 679917 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @08:28PM (#9058685) Journal
    Games have become so complex: That is why developers need to work so hard, for so long, while spending so much money, to get games today finished. With so much complexity involved, many developers won't be able to keep up.

    Some people look at movies and say "Well, games are only now becoming just as complex as movies!" Not true. Games have technologiclally advanced far enough to be compared to movies: however, they are far more complex than movies. With today's games, you have the complexity of a movie combined with complete interaction by the consumer: You interact with the environment, the characters: In some cases, your actions as the character partially determine the plot.

    It's quite obvious: The increasing complexity of games will, unless someone takes a stand, kill off all companies except the huge ones: I can think of only eleven companies which have the money to be able to continue to survive: Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, Konami, Sega (maybe), Namco, Capcom, Square Enix, EA, THQ (not sure about them, though), and Take Two. All other companies will eventually be dispersed, or will be engulfed by one of the big eleven.

    • Re:Too complex (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sigma 7 ( 266129 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @09:50PM (#9059306)
      Games have become so complex: That is why developers need to work so hard, for so long, while spending so much money, to get games today finished. With so much complexity involved, many developers won't be able to keep up.
      In almost every instance within the software industry (games or otherwise), an improperly planned project will end up either incomplete or behind schedule - especially if there are large groups working on the project.

      While complexity does have a factor in delaying projects, it is minimal when compared to lack of planning.

      • While an improperly planned project will, mostly likely end-up behind schedule, there is no guarantee a properly planned project will end up any differently.

        First: There is a limit to one's estimation ability. It is described here in a 2001 Slashdot post. here [slashdot.org]. So unless you've actually done the task before, you may get the estimations wrong ... and even if you HAVE done a task before, you may not get the estimations right.

        Second: Prefect planning is not possible because change happens. "Market" change,

        • I think that if you want to get rid of crunch time, you have to get rid of market pressures ... which in essence mean getting rid of capitalism as we know it.

          I think you're right about market pressures leading to crunch time, but "getting rid of capitalism as we know it" might be a bit drastic. Legally mandating overtime pay for software developers would go a long way. It's just too easy for companies to bully employees into working those 80 hour weeks. Two employees for the price of one!

          Of course

          • I think that's what they mean by getting rid of capitalism as we know it.

            If labor forces are unnaturally mandated or prevented (e.g. through regulation), then it is no longer capitalism -- or maybe I should say it is no longer free market capitalism.

            I think the endemic overwork in the game industry is a symptom of free-market economics: lots of supply of potential game developers, with little demand for quality or longevity of the games. Hopefully this is starting to change as the game industry gets a

        • Doesn't Hold Up (Score:3, Insightful)

          by NickFusion ( 456530 )
          Do we see Hollywood rushing unfinished movies to market?

          "Sorry, Jackson old bean. You've run a bit long, so we're just going to throw up the credits in the middle of the battle on Mt. Doom. By the time the audience sees it, we'll already have their $9.00, and haha on them."

          Unfortunately, this is all too often what happens with games.

          How does Hollywood acheive the awesome feat of actually finishing products before they're released?

          By making reasonable estimates of the actual time to compleat the project,
      • While complexity does have a factor in delaying projects, it is minimal when compared to lack of planning.

        It is impossible for a large organization run by middle managers to properly plan anything. Middle managers do not plan. They build contingency structures and processes which serve no constructive purpose.
    • I don't buy that argument. Yes, technology has increased and this argument should really only apply to developers who work like dogs to get the best game using the best tech so that it becomes game of the year.

      Look at some of the games made by PopCap -- Bejeweled, Dynomite, etc. These games don't use any technology that wasn't available in the 1980s. No kick-ass pixel-shaded 3D rendering, no highly complex AI routines... but for such simple games, they are fun as hell and very addictive.

      You can take th
    • What about Ubisoft?

      Ubisoft are very well integrated into the PC gaming arena, having licenses for several pretty major titles and so on.

      Although of course we stand on the brink of the death of PC gaming so they might not count for much longer.
    • I wrote a post last night and managed not to post it. Here's the summary :)

      1) Software with release dates that are set independant of developer input is a disaster waiting to happen.

      2) Asking developers to work more than 45 hours a week consistently breeds more tired developers who make more mistakes who then spend time fixing those mistakes etc.. You can get great productivity from a developer working 80 hour weeks for a week or maybe a month but over time, you're going to be better off with developers w
    • What I meant by my post was that, gamers in general keep on DEMANDING more complexity, more graphics, more sound, more costly stuff! A lot of developers are forced to be conservative, and a lot of them need to fold or sell their property, or the company itself. Because the general consensus among the gaming industry is that you need to make games BIGGER, developers have felt pressured into these high cost projects. It can't hold up forever.

      You can't tell me that the increas
  • While this focuses on Games, it's a common occurrence in nearly all deadline driven development activities.

    (The production of many term papers seems to parallel this "crunch mode" as well.)

  • Isn't this true for most software developments? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by antdude ( 79039 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @09:01PM (#9058941) Homepage Journal
    Non-game projects also make developers, QA people, etc. work long hours as well.

  • So whats new? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ZorMonkey ( 653731 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @09:02PM (#9058947)
    This has been the norm for at least a decade, probably more. Maybe this is the first time someone did a survey, but I've heard the horror stories for years.

    The trouble is, programming games is "cool" and "fun". People dream about playing and writing games all day, and getting paid for it. So, the development companies have a huge pool of people they can recruit from. If you dont like your working conditions, they'll just hire someone else who will put up with it longer. Thats also why they can pay less on average for young programmers, they have plenty to choose from.

    • Re:So whats new? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by MMaestro ( 585010 )
      The trouble is, programming games is "cool" and "fun". People dream about playing and writing games all day, and getting paid for it. So, the development companies have a huge pool of people they can recruit from. If you dont like your working conditions, they'll just hire someone else who will put up with it longer. Thats also why they can pay less on average for young programmers, they have plenty to choose from.

      Although I'll probably get modded down as well as flamed for this, I think the mod scene is o

    • I recommend "the soul of a new machine" for anyone who thinks this is a new phenomenon
      • Heh- many times in my career, I've daydreamed of emulating that guy who disappeared, leaving only a note: "I've gone to join a commune in Vermont, where the shortest unit of time is a season"

    • Re:So whats new? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by be951 ( 772934 )
      I don't think the idea is that this is something new, just that it is getting worse. And that makes sense, given the greater complexity of top-shelf games today. As graphics, physics, AI, variety of gameplay continue to improve, it takes more work to finish a game. To an extent, you can have more people working, but with pressure on publishers to deliver more value without raising prices and do it faster, something has to give. And programmers will do it because there is probably someone in line behind

  • sure there is (Score:2, Interesting)

    by hak1du ( 761835 )
    Sure there is another way: sustained, long-term open source game development. A number of very successful games have been developed that way.

    You get different games that way from the commercial stuff, of course: because these kinds of games are developed over many years, they only survive if they are replayable. Because developers are also players, the games get improved and problems get eliminated over time.

    Oh, and, of course, it's not a career choice. Open source games are for fun, both fun playing t
    • could you please give some actual examples of those very successful open source games?
      • For specific games: nethack, netrek, conquest, omega, xconq, FreeCiv, and versions of mazewar come to mind. There have also been tank simulations, MUDs, flight simulators, and several other conquest/strategy games.

        And, of course, there are lots of little puzzles that have been around forever (the UNIX equivalents of minesweeper, I suppose).
        • Irrelevant. Of the projecs you mention the majority have little or no graphical complexity. As for FreeCiv, despite its laughably simple graphics (compared to modern productions) it still fails by far to be a "very successful game". It is slightly successful at most. One big reason for that seems to be that very few artists are willing to make "open art", probably because having to draw 50 versions of the same monster from different angles for free doesn't appeal to all those artists who can do it well - be
          • Of the projecs you mention the majority have little or no graphical complexity.

            Neither do chess or go. Graphical complexity is not necessary for a good game. In fact, a focus on graphical complexity during development seems to hinder good game play development.

            As for FreeCiv, despite its laughably simple graphics (compared to modern productions) it still fails by far to be a "very successful game".

            The games I mentioned have been around for many years and have large, active player communities (and no
            • Neither do chess or go. Graphical complexity is not necessary for a good game.

              It certainly is if you want any game, good or bad, to sell. And that's what every game business wants to do - make a profit. Sometimes if you have your nose in open source too long, you forget simple laws of economics.

              No one is going to go down to the game store and buy a text-adventure game for $39.99. As a mapper for Unreal Tournament, the following premise holds strongly: You need great visuals to rope the players in; y

              • Gameplay is relatively simple compared to art. Try an Unreal Tournament map

                You don't even know what good gameplay is. It certainly isn't about maps and scattering a few enemies here and there. I don't think it is even possible to construct a games with good gameplay using the Unreal engine. At best, you can recreate a FPS with slightly different graphics, not much different from any of the other FPS.

                Who really cares about gameplay if your surroundings are so boring?

                Lots of people: there are lots of
                • You don't even know what good gameplay is.

                  Considering I've built over 50 maps for various games and am employed as a Game Designer, I think I have a good idea of what "good gameplay" is, thank you.

                  I don't think it is even possible to construct a games with good gameplay using the Unreal engine.

                  The hundreds of thousands of Unreal Tournament 2004 owners would beg to differ.

                  Lots of people: there are lots of visually boring games that have survived for thousands of years.

                  I didn't know we had video

    • I'll agree with that. The quality of just about every open source game I've seen surpasses every game in the same scope.

      There's even a couple of open source mmorpg's being developed.

  • entertainment industry (Score:5, Informative)

    by tolldog ( 1571 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @09:09PM (#9059009) Homepage Journal
    Sounds like the entertainment industry in general. When I was working on a small animated 3d feature film a few years back, I averaged over 80 hours a week for over a month. I peaked at over 100. My average week off peak was about 60. Crunch time kills. I know people that quickly quit the industry afterwards because it just isn't worth it.

    The primary reason it happens is sliding deadlines, misunderstood goals and ill-prepared schedules. That and people being overly picky about parts of a project too early in the game.

    I swore to myself that I was done with it. But I love the industry and got myself into a non-production role where I only work 50 hours a week. I am a much happier man now.

    -Tim

  • A different approach? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by October ( 107948 )
    Being one of the aforementioned poeple whose lifelong dream is to make games for a living, this issue is one of my biggest concerns. Much as I'd love to design and/or code games for a living, I'd also like to see my family more than once a month. Maybe its not realistic of me, but I'd like to think that much of this problem can be eliminated through a combination of more realistic scheduling and careful design, stressing re-use of components. There are starting to be some impressive third-party game develop

  • Abandoning the dream ... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by arhar ( 773548 )
    ... it's stories like these that I've heard over the past couple of years, when I was nearing graduation and thinking of what industry to go into, that made me abandon my lifelong dream of developing games. If you search the net, there's many more horror stories, not only about long hours. From what I understand, basically it's just not FUN 99% of the time.

    I'm glad I've decided not to pursue my dream. I now work as a programmer in a financial industry, I love what I do, and I couldn't be happier.
    • Why abandon the dream? If you love it enough, you can find a way to make it work for you. In my case, I'm getting a Business Management degree with a game design certificate so that I can get into the production side of things, rather than the coding. In fact, I think that the production end needs more experienced coders to set realistic goals, and keep everything on the up-and-up.

  • Typical software engineering... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ConceptJunkie ( 24823 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @10:33PM (#9059592) Homepage Journal
    How is this different than any other software industry. Bads management, unrealistic goals, development schedules dictated by marketing... this is true in every aspect of software development. Part of it is the nature of the work, software development is still very new on the industrial time-scale, people haven't reduced it to a science or even an art yet. Look at Microsoft (or any other company), who is incapable of doing anything, no matter how advanced or sophisticated without glaring bugs and obvious flaws. What other industry is like this? Cars have problems, but not like software... and they've had 100 years to figure out how to build them and the product is cheaper, works better, safer and more reliable than even 20 years ago. Software is more powerful, but is it more reliable? Cheaper? Safer? Or is the software industry driving the hardware industry, which in turn drives the software industry, forcing us to upgrade endlessly depsite the fact that we all own supercomputers by the standards of the 1980's. For games this is understandable, but for word processing?

    The other issue, which sets games apart is just that... unless word processing, or spreadsheets or browsers or any of the other 95% of things that computers are used for, pushing the technological boundaries isn't necessary and in fact causes as many problems as it solves. With games, pushing the limits is integral to the experience. How do you think id has stayed in business releasing the same game over and over for 15 years, because each new release pushes the technology in new ways and makes the experience more intense and immersive. Can you really say the same need exists for word processing. As a casual user, I could do anything I would ever want to do with a WP program 10 years ago or more.

    Anyhow, I guess I've rambled long enough. I love games and would be a hell of a game designer, because it's been an interest of mine since I was designing war games with graph paper and dymo labels for counters in middle school, and I've dabbled in rewriting one of the older roguelikes, but I wouldn't want to be in this industry... I'd rather have a life. And even though I wor in other software fields, about once every three months I swear I'm going to chuck it all and become a teacher.

    Maybe the "crunch time" is a little more extreme in game development, but I don't think it is unique and it certainly isn't necessary. It's just how business works. If we knew how to do it better, our society would be much more advanced than it is now... and in another few generations, it probably will be.

  • What Brings the Dreaded Crunch (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MiceHead ( 723398 ) on Tuesday May 04, 2004 @11:03PM (#9059822) Homepage
    There are plenty of reasons why a studio might enter crunch-mode:

    • Approaching holiday - Christmas brings about the hottest season in retail, and publishers want to capitalize on this by releasing new titles in time for this. The Christmas push is less pressing for smaller studios that distribute outside of retail.
    • Media event - E3 [dejobaan.com] is when all the gaming companies and all the gaming press come together and pretty much stand around in a competition to see who can avoid having a seizure (flash/audio) [seizurerobots.com]. Or, such was my take on it. There's a huge PR incentive to have content prepared for this event; more eyeballs translates into more potential sales.
    • Publisher-imposed milestone - Publishers can withhold payment or cancel projects outright if a team misses milestones; if you're nearing such a deadline, the extra hours may be the difference between a happy publisher and a cranky one.
    • Competition - You might have a solid first-person shooter, but if it's released concurrent with Doom III or Half-Life 2, there's a good chance it'll be overlooked. If you own the UHF [imdb.com] DVD, you'll hear Al Yankovic lament that his movie went up against Batman, Indiana Jones, Lethal Weapon II, among others. You may also have your favorite game that was underrated due to poor timing. (Fortunately, there's always the possibility of a sequel [slashdot.org].)
    • Budgetary constraints - Especially crucial if a development house is self-funding a title. If a generous publisher sees a promising project go over-budget, they might extend it. If an independent studio runs out of money for going over schedule, it must secure more financing.
    • Loss of staff - This can be devastating at project-end. There's no time to train new staff; existing members must take up the slack.
    Game development is a wonderful vocation, but as with anything, too much of a crunch (the death-march) results in burnout. There must be ways we can mitigate some of the above causes. Less reliance on outside investment is one, but maybe that's wishful thinking my part.

    • Loss of staff - This can be devastating at project-end. There's no time to train new staff; existing members must take up the slack.

      And beware the vicious circle. Those staff who left probably left due to the long hours and stress. What do you reckon will happen when the manager tells the remaining staff to do even longer hours?

    • I'd like to point out that it's not just E3 anymore. Starting in January or February, we start ramping up for demo season. The GDC (Game Developer's Conference) is also a big demo for most companies. That means about 1/3 of the year (finishing with the E3 demo) is spent preparing for demos. For a pretty decent game, the dev cycle is 2 to 3 years. So in 3 years, you've probably got 2/3 of a year dedicated to showing demos at shows (the first year doesn't usually see you having enough of the game done to even announce its development, let alone show it), and one release deadline. Besides working crunch for all those events, you also have all sorts of intermediate milestones that you have to meet for internal demos, or demos for your publisher, like you mentioned.

      I got my job straight out of University. The crunch there was much more intense, but for a shorter time. As long as I don't have to work 80 hour weeks for 3 straight months or more, I can cope. (Especially if my crunch is in the winter, when I'm not going outside anyway. :)

  • It's the way it is (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Crunch time is just a fact of life at most development houses. It's due to MANY factors, some justified and some not.

    Factors involved:
    - Poor management (of assets/time/staff)
    - Poor schedule planning
    - Poor funding
    - Too much publisher influence (resulting in developer companies cutting budgets too low yet needing to keep quality too high, at the publisher's mercy)
    - AND TOO MANY "GREEN" STAFF

    Yesm consider this: So much of the industry is dominated by young inexperienced newbies. They're fresh out o

    • Faceit, it's very easy to end up working a 14 hour day when you spent 4 hours of that day chasing each other with Nerf guns or taking 2 hour lunches.

      Indeed. And conversely: It's very easy to spend 4 hours of the day chasing each other with Nerf guns or taking 2 hour lunches when you're working 14 hour days.

      When workdays get longer, so do breaks, and people still need to do their chores: Get the car worked on, go to the bank, pick up the dry cleaning, and whatnot. And they do, only it's now a protrac

  • I found this story amusing, considering... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Zoid ( 8837 ) * <zoidctf@gmail.com> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @12:31AM (#9060354) Homepage
    I'm currently in my 14th hour at work. E3 is next week.

    Working on a triple-AAA title requires that effort. The guys who made the LOTR movies put insane hours in as well. When you're making outstanding triple-AAA quality entertainment based media, be it movies, games, televisions shows, etc, you've got put the effort in to make it as good as it can be.

    There are horror stories about publishers fucking developers with unreasonable deadlines. Fortunately, I work for a publisher that doesn't do that--the extended effort is for quality, not just for making the deadline. I count myself lucky, and I hope guys who did get fucked can find themselves working for a developer who has a good relationship with a publisher.

    For me, I'm still here because I want to make the best game I can.

    • Re:I found this story amusing, considering... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @04:42AM (#9061228)
      The guys who made the LOTR movies put insane hours in as well. When you're making outstanding triple-AAA quality entertainment based media, be it movies, games, televisions shows, etc, you've got put the effort in to make it as good as it can be.

      By driving employees to the point of exhaustion? Its inefficient and a poor way to build an industry. Structural engineers don't work 14 hours a day building suspension bridges. Auto workers don't work 80 hour weeks. Why must game developers work ridiculous schedules to earn their paychecks? (Hint: It has to do with management and the value of a "really cool job.")

    • Hey Zoid...

      Everyone is different, but you have to admit that there's a deficency when it comes to QoL (Quality of Life) in the video game industry. Part of it is self-destructive; the built-in drive that seems to exist in the soul of game developers to work long hours. Those long hours eventually catch up to you as deminishing returns.

      Do you remember the time when I pulled a 36 hour shift at Ensemble? (It's been several years.) Sure, I got a lot of work done but at the end the quality suffered and it
    • I'm currently in my 14th hour at work. E3 is next week.

      And here you are on Slashdot. Now we know why our game will be late. Fucker.


  • Every time I see a story like this I post the same thing.

    Form a union. You should be paid for the hours you work. Anything else is the theft of your time and money by your employer. You say legislation allows employers to legally ask you to work overtime without pay? Vote for people who support your right to be paid for time worked.

    Union. Vote.

    Michael. [michael-forman.com]
    • Anything else is the theft of your time and money by your employer.

      You must be new here. Around these parts, we call it "compensation infringement". :)

    • Re:Union (Score:2, Interesting)

      by mad.frog ( 525085 )
      Form a union.

      No shit. I wish one had existed when I was working for A Major Game Publisher -- I would have joined in a heartbeat.

      After 6 months on 80-100 hour weeks, though, with no overtime, no royalties, no meaningful bonuses, I left, and I'd say I'm done with games forever, most likely, barring a major change in industry practices.

    • Unions exist for a reason. Unfortunately, unions often get a (well-earned) bad rep when they outlive their useful life. The union is to protect workers from being exploited. What happens when the union's workers are working reasonable hours for reasonable pay? The union still exists, and the union members are still paying dues. So the union becomes like so many government agencies that continue to exist beyond their goal - when there's no more work to be done, work is made. New piddly or unreasonable causes
    • Form a union and lose any individual decision making in your career path while bureaucratic, professional union leaders rake in the cash and power.

      A union turns everyone into one neck, ready for one noose.
      • Mmm. Rhetoric. Let's show 'em how rhetoric works boys.

        Join a corporation and lose any individual decision making in your career path while bureaucratic, professional company leaders rake in the cash and power.

        A corporation turns everyone into one neck, ready for one noose.

        Whee! It's like we don't even have to think.

        Michael [michael-forman.com]
    • I completely agree. Either get paid by the hour worked or, if you can't do that (and it seems programmers just can't get that done) then form a union and enforce it.

      I'm in a union, the CFA, and we elect our representatives. I don't elect the president of my university, nor the deans. I expect most people don't elect their boss. So the argument that the union will *make* you do anything is just childish when compared to the obvious counter-power which *does* in fact make you do stuff.

      Unions work well f
  • In my experience, game programmers tend to be the hardest working and most intelligent programmers in the industry, yet they consistently get crapped on in terms of compensation. I salute you.

    My intent all through college was to get a job making games, until I actually talked to people who were in the industry. Game companies consistently offered the lowest salaries, least room for advancement, and worst benefits. After a lot of soul searching, I chose a job which payed almost 50% more than the best ga

  • Ok (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cubicledrone ( 681598 ) on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @04:30AM (#9061195)
    34.3% of developers expect to leave the industry within 5 years, and 51.2% within 10 years

    Sounds like a great way to build up knowledge and experience in the industry so game development advances like all other industries. Just another example of short-term, slap-a-label-on-it thinking, brought to you by middle management.

    Crunch time is omnipresent,

    Poor, overpaid, underqualified, incompetent management.

    The average crunch work week exceeds 80 hours 13% of the time.

    Omnipresent 80 hour work weeks. Sounds like about half the proper work force hasn't been hired yet. Probably because of arrogant, incompetent, cynical management.

    Overtime is often uncompensated (46.8%)

    Even though the video game industry makes profits in the billions.

    While game development is a stimulating and rewarding career

    Sure it is. From this description it sounds like a wailing shithole.

    he work conditions are often taxing, making it hard to sustain a balanced lifestyle and leading many senior developers to leave the industry before they've done their best work... it is not just the community that is affected - these issues also impact the quality of games produced

    No shit?

    Are insane hours just part and parcel of working in games, or is there another way?

    Yes. Standardize the tools. No more graphics engines for 10 years. Period. Half of all development budgets should be spent on games that haven't EVER been developed yet (no sequels, no clones, no remakes, no licensed characters). One fourth of development budgets should be used to hire independent developers. One tenth of all development budgets should fund games written by one developer.

    The adventure genre should be re-invented from the ground up. Interactive fiction should be marketed again. Prices for games should be cut by 30% across the board. Electronic distribution should be standard for all games, including consoles.

    Publishers should invest long-term to build a true renaissance for video and computer games. Create-your-own-game tools should be developed and marketed for all genres. Standardized artwork, engines and tools should be made available to all amateur developers.

    Arcade, console and computer classics should be marketed in binary form as products by genre with properly licensed emulators. All such products should include documented source for each game with reference to the available tools so amateur developers can build their own versions of each game type. Game designs and theory should be documented as well.

    The result would be decades of windfall profits for the game industry and entire libraries of new games for players, amateur developers and the mod community alike.

    Oh, and it wouldn't require 80-hour uncompensated work weeks so we can have another sequel of a remake of a clone of a boring game.
    • "Even though the video game industry makes profits in the billions."

      Well, that statement ignores the number of companies that don't make a profit.

      "Yes. Standardize the tools. No more graphics engines for 10 years. Period. Half of all development budgets should be spent on games that haven't EVER been developed yet (no sequels, no clones, no remakes, no licensed characters). One fourth of development budgets should be used to hire independent developers. One tenth of all development budgets should fund gam
      • So, basically you want people to create innovative titles that no one has ever heard of, but using existing engines?

        Correct. The reason companies don't make money is because they insist on re-inventing the wheel every two years. Technology is often abandoned after one game. It is a waste of capital and man-hours.

        Innovation is a great word, but in game development, if people aren't buying new, you give them what they want.

        People aren't buying new because there is no new. "The market wants what we
  • I stopped doing overtime after several events in my project that made me question the reasons I had for doing them. Was my best decision ever!
    When I leave work it is still light outside, I can relax at home, sleep well, forget about the problems for a while, and continue work the next morning with fresh energy.
    There is absolutely no reason to do it, if the game is not near completion and in testing. And then I don't have a problem putting in the extra time.

  • Expectations (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Psychochild ( 64124 ) <psychochild.gmail@com> on Wednesday May 05, 2004 @03:51PM (#9066891) Homepage
    Crunch time as we have it now is a perversion of what originally made the industry great.

    In the olden days of game development, you had people that were genuinely passionate about their project. These people were willing to go the extra mile to make the game great. That often included working insane amount of hours to put as much quality into the game as possible.

    Somewhere along the lines, management decided this seemed to be the norm, so why not schedule for it? Just assume that game developers will work 60-80 hour weeks, and you can save a lot of money. So, "crunch" time went from being something developers did as a sign of pride in their work to something that managers just scheduled for.

    Unfortunately, this change makes all the difference. If you don't care about the game you're working on and you're still expected to make 16 hour days for the next few months, then you're going to burn out quickly. Of course, there's a seemingly endless supply of fresh college grads willing to take the job, especially with the current economic conditions.

    This is one of the main reasons why I started my own company. I wanted to feel passionate about the games I worked on, and I wanted my long hours to directly contribute to my own well-being. For the record, I work on the game Meridian 59 [meridian59.com].

    My point of view,

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