IGDA Quality Of Life Survey Analyzes Game Developer Crunch 99
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?
Personal experience (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
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)
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
Re:Personal experience (Score:2)
Re:Personal experience (Score:2)
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)
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
Re:Personal experience (Score:1)
Likewise, it wouldn't be the first time a developer had royalties based on sales of a game at retail. But
Re:Personal experience (Score:3, Funny)
Rob (I hope Something Awful doesn't send a hit team to your house)
So, then... (Score:1, Interesting)
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)
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)
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)
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)
While complexity does have a factor in delaying projects, it is minimal when compared to lack of planning.
Re:Too complex (Score:1)
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
Second: Prefect planning is not possible because change happens. "Market" change,
Re:Too complex (Score:1)
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
Re:Too complex (Score:1)
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)
"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,
Re:Too complex (Score:2)
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.
Re:Too complex (Score:2)
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
Re:Too complex (Score:2)
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.
Re:Too complex (Score:2)
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
Re:Too complex (Score:1)
I agree wholeheartedly with your points, with the possible exception of #6. I think what you describe in #5, in the context of Microsoft, is exactly what has happened to Blizzard after being acquired by Vivendi Universal.
A news search on gamasutra.com retrieved the following:
My impression is tha
Re:Too complex (Score:2)
You can't tell me that the increas
Nearly All Deadline Driven Development (Score:2, Insightful)
(The production of many term papers seems to parallel this "crunch mode" as well.)
Re:Nearly All Deadline Driven Development (Score:3, Insightful)
For 80 hours a week? I don't think I spent 80 hours in aggregate on my term papers as an undergrad.
Isn't this true for most software developments? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't this true for most software developments? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying that isn't the case in other industries as well, but sometimes non-game software is a little more rigid in terms
Re:Isn't this true for most software developments? (Score:2)
The difference is that not too many people rush out before Christmas and pick up the latest copy of Dreamweaver MX for dad.
Re:Isn't this true for most software developments? (Score:2)
So whats new? (Score:5, Interesting)
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)
Although I'll probably get modded down as well as flamed for this, I think the mod scene is o
Re:So whats new? (Score:1)
Re:So whats new? (Score:1)
Re:So whats new? (Score:2, Interesting)
sure there is (Score:2, Interesting)
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
Re:sure there is (Score:1)
Re:sure there is (Score:2)
And, of course, there are lots of little puzzles that have been around forever (the UNIX equivalents of minesweeper, I suppose).
Re:sure there is (Score:2)
Re:sure there is (Score:2)
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
Re:sure there is (Score:2)
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
Re:sure there is (Score:2)
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
Re:sure there is (Score:2)
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
Re:sure there is (Score:2)
There's even a couple of open source mmorpg's being developed.
entertainment industry (Score:5, Informative)
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)
Re:A different approach? (Score:4, Funny)
Abandoning the dream ... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Abandoning the dream ... (Score:2)
Re:aww, poor programmers (Score:1)
Re:aww, poor programmers (Score:1)
Re:aww, poor programmers (Score:2)
Re:aww, poor programmers (Score:3, Insightful)
Daniel
Typical software engineering... (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
Re:What Brings the Dreaded Crunch (Score:2)
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?
Re:What Brings the Dreaded Crunch (Score:4, Informative)
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)
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
Re:It's the way it is (Score:3, Insightful)
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)
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 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.")
Re:I found this story amusing, considering... (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re:I found this story amusing, considering... (Score:3, Funny)
And here you are on Slashdot. Now we know why our game will be late. Fucker.
Union (Score:2)
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]
Re:Union (Score:2)
You must be new here. Around these parts, we call it "compensation infringement".
Re:Union (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Union (Score:2)
Re:Union (Score:1)
A union turns everyone into one neck, ready for one noose.
Re:Union (Score:2)
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]
Re:Union (Score:2)
Re:Union (Score:2)
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
A Damn Shame... (Score:2)
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)
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.
Re:Ok (Score:1)
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
Re:Ok (Score:2)
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
Been there, done that. (Score:1)
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)
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,