Game Development Conditions Could Drive Devs East

Kotaku has up a feature piece looking at the opening of a new studio in mainland China. Staffed by expatriate Western game developers, it represents something that founders Chris Pfeiffer and Max Garber see as a future trend: developing games in the west is soul-crushing. The two participated in the grind to get Resistance: Fall of Man out in time for the PlayStation 3 launch, and have now opened a studio with the goal of 'making great games while living a good life.' Lower costs in China allow for a higher standard of living, while labour laws will force game studios to stick to rational work-weeks. Pfeiffer also suggests that the overwhelming costs involved in making games will force U.S. studios to outsource development work to Asian nations. When that happens, Pfeiffer's studio and compatriots will be ready.

Funny.

[EveryNickIsTaken]

I could've sworn I just read an article the other day about how Japanese video game companies were trying to make the social aspects and work schedule of their employees more in tune with the West so that they would be able to retain their programmers. Japan's work week + work conditions = 10 x worse than the West's.

The downside?

[Canthros]

You have to live in Red China.

This is the same government that likes to filter the Internet for its citizens. I hope the reduced cost of living is worth it, guys!

Chris Taylor setting an example: Work/life balance

[jchenx]

At DICE this year, Chris Taylor of Gas Powered Games (developer of the Dungeon Siege games and the just-released Supreme Commander title) had a very intersting talk regarding improving work/life balance at his company. It appears that you don't really need a "work-till-you-drop" work schedule [next-gen.biz] to ship big games after all.

I think it's an interesting, and necessary, shift in the game development culture. As the industry matures, so does its business practices. Understandably, there are lots of passionate folks who prefer to stay up late to work on their game, but that doesn't mean everyone wants to. Additionally, those who stay up late may actually be contributing negatively to the product (decisions and code generated at 2 AM may not be the best).

So yeah, I agree that the typical hardcore work development schedules need to change ... but that doesn't mean you have to move your studio East to achieve them.

Re:The downside?

[Pojut]

Seconded. Some morons may think about how the government is spying on us and how everyone lies and all that crap (and they are right)

But you know what? I would still rather live here than some other fucked up country. At least the way our country is fucked up allows me to think and feel how I please (and in many cases, expressing it as well. Again, many people think our free speech is fucked in this country, but I have proof that it is not. Go to any street corner in the USA and shout "I hate our leader we need a new one!"

I can assure you there are far fewer countries you can do that in than there are countries that you can't.

East? West of me!

[Tragek]

Man, it took me way too long to process that story. All I would think was "China is west of me".

Re:Less is more?

[provigilman]

What these devs moving to China are missing is, what happens when a big company like EA outsources to you? They will expect RESULTS, and fast. If you don't do it, for low cost, they'll pick a different company. In short, those who longer, faster and cheaper will be more successful in China. It will be the same atmosphere as we have currently in the US.

How long did they work on Halo, or Halo 2? Or what about Gears of War and Dark Sector (which, while not out, has been a work in progress and looks to be a Marquis title)? These devs took their time with their product and made the effort to do the job right, not just fast. If Halo had been an EA franchise instead of Bungie/MS, what would we be on now? Halo 5? And what would the quality of those games be?

Once the industry can get into a quality over quantity mindset you'll see conditions improve, pay will get better and talent will be more appreciated. They need to realize that we want quality products, not just another iteration of the same game, with the same engine, and the same graphics, but *2* new characters! That starts with the devs though, and the consumer (read: guys that own Madded '03, '04, '05, '06, '07, etc..). Running away to China won't fix this.

Re:Chris Taylor setting an example: Work/life bala

[jchenx]

I work in the games portion of MS, and we've always had a good work/life balance schedule in my group. Yeah, there are times where we do work late night, but that's surprisingly rare. I think it's a combination of both smart management, and also the fact that my team doesn't ship retail titles, but works on platforms. So there isn't really a periodic crunch schedule, the way there are for games. Rather, we're always hectic, but in a manageable way.

But I have definitely heard the horror studios from friends who work in other companies and other parts of MS, which are really scary sounding.

Re:So sad yet funny

[baldass_newbie]

Too funny that Chinese labour gets better treatment under Communist rule than US labour gets under the current Corporatist setup.

As long as the game developers don't try to openly practice religion or have to work in manufacturing, they should be fine.

Clearly these guys haven't played Bad Day L.A.

[Bieeanda]

...because it was developed using Chinese labour, and we all know how well that one turned out. No creative spark, no real connection with the audience, and a bunch of guys working to the rule without question or concern. That's fantastic for mass-producing (or knocking off) consumer goods, but rather less so when trying to develop something that appeals to emotion like game-play.

film and game industry

[wootywoot]

More work hour doesn't mean higher productivity, have you guys forgot about the EA bride thing? Back when The Day After Tomorrow was made, Dreamworks treated their employees like crap, and I mean really like crap. They work almost every waking hour of their life for months, people would work until they can't take it anymore, crash under their desk for a couple hours, get up and get right back into working. It's a destructive way of life and many many people got sick physically and mentally. Immediately after the movie was done (you never ever walk out of project even if it's shitty and you're not getting paid, walking out of a project is the same as black listing yourself in the industry) Dreamworks lost their entire talent pool. For a long while nobody want to work for Dreamwork because face it, nobody want to work 160 hours a week. Someone did a bit of calculation and found out that with the salary that they are making and the hours that they are working, they make as much as someone who work at McDonalds. After that Dreamworks had to start treating their artists like human and people could actually expect to get paid well for a job well done and can go home at 6~7. Another example of this is Industrial Light and Magic, they close at 6 unless it's the final crunch period. They literally kick you out by 6 and nobody is allowed to stay to work. They get things done, they make good movies and they are one of the best studios in the industry. Or how about Pixar? They treat their artists like human, everybody gets paid well, does not work 12 hour days (most of the time), the management and the artists are friendly with each other, the whole company is like a big family. Last time I checked they are coming out with block buster after block buster films. I wish the executives would realize that when you push your artists to work 20 hours a day, they are not going to be able to make good games. I know when I was crunching 16 hour days, I literally just zone out and make a ton of mistakes by the last few hours. We're not robots, when you overwork us you should expect our productivity to drop. In the end it hurts the productivity because next day when I come in I have to fix a whole lot of mistake I made last night before I passed out.

Re:Funny.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been in the industry for about 8 years now (I'm a programmer). In my years I've worked for several US companies, a British company, and a Japanese company.

The US companies had a wide range of policies. Some were not too bad, others were outright criminal. Working for a PC game outfit, my hours averaged about 60 a week - of course that company no longer exists. At another company I did only tech and tool work for about 45-50 hours a week (was a really nice job but my department was closed). The console developer I worked for was run "poorly". I averaged 120 hours a week there and I have the scars to prove it.

The British company I worked for enforces quite reasonable rules on thier GB based employees. Unfortunately for us we were a new studio based in LA. That meant that some of the people in charge were from the US and therefore when our development contract was signed they used US think. We ended up having 1 years worth of work to do in about 3 months. I ended up working 90-120 hour weeks again, and after the project was complete (the contract was renegotiated to roughly 10 months), I bailed.

The Japanese company was my most recent. I was there for 2 years. The studio was based in the US, but more than 1/2 the employees were Japanese. I was working 10am-2am hours most of the time I was there, but the Japanese employees arrived before me and were still working when I would leave. I rarely saw any of them on weekends however. I'm really not sure if the Japanese workers worked so much due to their work ethic, or if they were asked to. I think it was a little of both.

The moral of the story is the industry as a whole sucks. I was working crazy hours no matter who was in charge. My story is neither unique nor uncommon. Moving to China isn't going to make a difference unfortunately. They may be forced to set good working hours, but the company will not be able to survive that way. The problem boils down to schedule - Xmas season, Hardware launches, or License tie-ins. No games are made without one of these deadlines in mind. If a company cannot finish their work on schedule (outsorced or otherwise) they will not be hired for future projects and will die.

there is a simpler solution

[angrymilkman]

If gamecompanies would spend less time on pushing the graphical boundaries but instead would focus more on providing innovative gameplay or interesting storylines we can keep the jobs here. I mean we don't outsource our hollywood scriptwriters to china do we?