Crunch Tactics a Symptom of a Larger Problem? 63
An anonymous reader writes "One of the brave few: hot on the heels of the recent lawsuit filed against Vivendi Universal for back wages due to a developer who was allegedly asked to alter his timecard, Rob Fahey of gamesindustry.biz
has taken the bold step of taking the position that the insane hours game developers are routinely asked to work are might not be in the industry's best interest, and in fact might be less profitable than planning projects well."
This is, like, news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is, like, news? (Score:1)
It's like this for any programming project. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:5, Insightful)
...
Unless you give yourself an extra 6 months to a year of slack time, you are always going to have suicide hours near deadlines because shit always happens.
Then you plan for that and include it in the schedule. If it "always happens", then you'd better always include it in the schedule. There is no excuse for doing otherwise -- forty years of software engineering history gives us a pretty strong indication that the belief "maybe everything will go perfectly this time" is a horrible fallacy.
Things will go wrong. Specs will change. People will get sick. It happens every fucking time, and we all know it. So what the hell are we doing not building this time into the schedule? Not doing so is equivalent to jamming your fingers in your ears and yelling "la la la, I'm not listening!" at the top of your lungs. It might feel good for a little while, but it's bound to bite you in the ass later.
At my company (not games, but trust me, you've heard of us) we routinely double or triple all time estimates provided by engineers, to account for unforeseen eventualities. Wonder of wonders, my team has always hit our dates and we don't have insane crunch time near launches.
Obviously, truly earthshaking events -- building burns down, lead programmer hit by a bus -- can throw even the best schedule off. But surely we can be doing better than having the schedule thrown off every single time we build something, can't we?
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:2)
It would be interesting to take an IT manager from a non-gaming firm known for getting projects done on time and drop them into a gaming firm and see what happens. Of course, if the root cause is insufficient budgets compensated for by abusing the labour pool, the results would end up being the same.
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:3, Funny)
Think you could call my boss and have a talk with him?
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:1)
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:2)
bs (Score:5, Insightful)
this is bs, of COURSE if your staff is already burned out from the previous crunch time, for the first half of the schedule they'll 'recuperate' and not be very productive, which means that by the end they'll likely be a bit behind. Also a good project has a very 'tight' schedule (not tight = no time, tight = many meaningful milestones, possibly on a weekly basis)
If your work force is not exhausted, on the other hand, you'll see that if you do your scheduling well (adding buffers and so on) more often than not you'll be bang on or even early. In video games development you'll always likely be bang on because there are always a lot of 'nice to have' features you can work on if you're early.
The problem is how to go from an exhausted work force to a happy work force: you do this by having everybody basically take a month off after your last insane crunch spell and making it clear that from now on they will NOT BE ALLOWED to work more than 9 hours a day, and that if the deadline is not hit at the end they will NOT GET their bonus (which should be made a significant % of compensation).
All of this will definitely encourage people not to kill themselves, to have a life, and to be happy productive coders for many years to come. In the end it would also save the companies money, because they wouldn't have the staff turnover problems (with retraining costs etc.) they have now and so on and on.
Odds of this happening? pretty close to nil, also because there is some perverse 'you're not a tough guy coder unless you can go 48 hours on mt dew' psychology at work here as well...
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then my team is somehow miraculously immune to this effect, as we have A) never missed a ship date, and B) never had to work twelve-hour days to meet a deadline.
Most of t
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:2)
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:2, Interesting)
-- Formula invented by the English political analyst Cyril Northcote Parkinson, which states that 'work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion'.
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:2)
I direct you to Hofstadter's Law and the inevitable conclusion that, if you attempt to include the unforseen in your schedule, eventually you are going to be working on a project with an infinite budget requirement and no deadline.
Re:It's like this for any programming project. (Score:4, Insightful)
If it takes another 6 months, they should schedule another 6 months. That ain't slack time. If those dates are so important, they shouldn't be cutting it so close that Murphy's Law can derail the project.
Wouldn't Be So Bad (Score:1)
I guess it's a job like any other, but it would be better working overtime coding a cool game than, say, the next version of MS Word.
Re:Wouldn't Be So Bad (Score:2)
Re:Wouldn't Be So Bad (Score:5, Insightful)
But I digress. Last night I stayed up all night to code. Any coder who has a project he or she enjoys to work on will want to stay up to work on it. But when it's work and you're there for like 15 hours a day and not getting overtime, then I have a real problem with that. You'd think it would be, but game programming is sometimes completely mind-bending. There's lots of parsing, data management, bug-hunting, optimizing, and deadline-dodging that goes on. It's some of the hardest coding on the planet, as the entire thing has to have a good "feel" and "flow." It's not like you can say "thisGame.feel = great;" There are hours and hours of refinement and tweaking and debugging that go on, all in a very high-pressure environment (especially when you're under a release date or convention deadline). Game coders probably don't have it worse than any other coders, but I'd be hard pressed to say they have it much better.
As a coder. (Score:1)
Now I get in at 8ish and start up my pc check my e-mail open the project read the documentation and wow it's 8:45 time for the morning meeting. Great now it's 9am and I am ready to go... Great work till 12:00 and hmm hungry time to grab some food. Cool well join a cowo
I don't think poor manangement is the problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
There might be ways via management and planning to reduce the time it takes to create a piece of software, but that won't lead to shorter work days for the programmers. It will merely lead to more projects being completed in a year with programmers still working 12 hour days. As long as the other guy has workers that are willing to work 12 hour days to achieve goals, you can bet that you will too.
Wrong (Score:5, Interesting)
The first and foremost reason a game company fails is that it failed to release its first game. This is often due to poor planning (business, game design, project management), and secondly to lack of resources/talent.
The second reason a game company fails is because it releases a bad product. This can be a product that's very unfinished (rushed out), very bug ridden, or just not what game players want.
Crunches usually happen because of external influences - trying to meet Christmas retail season, trying to get a playable demo ready for E3, or trying to meet a publisher deadline for a milestone.
Anyway, game developers I've worked with were usually as committed to their game development as they were to their spouses (those who were married), or sometimes more. They _want_ to get it done. It's not simply a boss behind them cracking a whip.
mailbox head (Score:1)
For startup game dev houses making an original title, this is true.
The second reason a game company fails is because it releases a bad product.
yes, it all works through the amazing blue faeries that make sure that companies who release bad products go out of business. You can sleep well
Re:I don't think poor manangement is the problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I don't think poor manangement is the problem. (Score:2)
Yeah, like Blizzard. Or Bungie. Both of them recognize that it's not the quality that matters, it's the frequency of their releases. It's also well known that most of their games are coded during crunchtime, in order to meet a pre-defined deadline.
Low-frequency quality releases is far from a worthless buisiness model. The problem is more related to the fact that people constantly buy crappy
Re:I don't think poor manangement is the problem. (Score:2)
If nothing else, this is a poor poor example. EA is a rich company to say the least (Madden series), so to say they can't afford to hold out an extra year is pure marketing by EA.
"Oh we can't hold out an extra year to fix all the lag and bugs in our games otherwise some other company will somehow manage to
Re:I don't think poor manangement is the problem. (Score:2)
Already addressed; Solution proposed (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, this was brought up at the June Dallas IGDA meeting. Several producers discussed ways that they avoid crunch time. Tom Mustaine, a friend of mine, told about how he schedules three-day workweeks (!). While sounding totally insane, when crunch time rolls around, they just go to a normal five-day work week and finish what they need without killing themselves.
There's also much to be said for the effect on quality when quantity of hours are worked. In short, the longer you continually work, the more mistakes are made. What happens is that sometimes you lose more time fixing those mistakes than instead just going home and getting enough rest.
The game industry is finally coming to terms that the long work hours caused by inadequate planning and management is driving away many talented workers and programmers.
Re:Already addressed; Solution proposed (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are a member of IGDA I'm sure you know that there is no lack of programmers that want to work in the game industry. The problem is the game industry has no method to bring in programmers who have experence programming, but not programming games. Basically you need a CS Degree, plus a hell of a working demo to get hired somewhere and the jobs are very limited. Once you are hired, and you are good enough then you can hang around, but most people in the gaming industry are very good programmers and at some point after working 80 hours a week they are going to say "I don't need this shit". Lack of programmers who want in isn't the problem, lack of an ability to keep them in might be.
Maybe if the gaming industry brought on more low level programmers at the start of a project, they would have enough people so insane crunch time wouldn't be as insane. Of course then they would have to pay their salaries, which gets in the way of Profit!
Re:Already addressed; Solution proposed (Score:2)
There is an interesting concept in Jim Collin's "Good to Great", which I'll paraphrase:
"It important to get the right people. Along with that, most companies think they need to motivate their employees, but it is MORE important NOT to DEMOTIVATE them."
Peace
--
Orignal, Fun Palm games by the Lead Designer of Majesty!
http://www.a
Re:Already addressed; Solution proposed (Score:1)
Re:Already addressed; Solution proposed (Score:1)
moulah (Score:1)
Lack of programmers who want in isn't the problem, lack of an ability to keep them in might be.
You are touching on an important point, but are missing the core: The pay is crap. Game programmers work startup-type crunches (sometimes for years) without the same dream of a payout as a reward. Working in the industry is supposed to be it's own reward, but that doesn't do it after you get a good idea o
Re:moulah (Score:2)
And what exactly is wrong with the name "JavaLord"? Do you have some kind of preconsieved notion that Java can't be used to make games? If you do, it's sad you are basing assumptions on what Java was in 1997-1998.
You are touching on an important point, but are missing the core: The pay is crap.Game programmers work startup-type crunches (sometimes for years) without the same dream of a payout
java (Score:1)
A bit touchy are we? Java people are so damn defensive you'd think they are a minority. Now granted there *are* a lot of stereotypes... Unfortantely for you, most of them are pretty correct.
Before, I was unconsciously was thinking console and A-title PC game industry...
Re:moulah (Score:3, Insightful)
Mediocre programmers are paid a decent amount of money, but not when compared to some of the hours they have to work. Most of these are people who THINK they are the best programmers, but in reality only know basic data structures and algorithms and probably write code that is not
Re:Already addressed; Solution proposed (Score:2)
For example, it's no secret that management prefers to hire young programmers because they're single, cheap and for some reason like to work insanely long hours. Older programmers (from my time working in the industry) have families want to get their work done as
Yes about time (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't mistake this for crunch-time (Score:3, Interesting)
The big game publishers are reaching the point big music publishers reached about a decade or so back with music: their very presence hurts the overall industry due to their pump-em-out-n-release-an-expansion attitude, EA especially. Perhaps it is nearing a time where like-minded people need to stop buying games and their expansion packs from companies such as EA, Vivendi, etc. Now that it has become as popular as its music & movie siblings, we can expect more and more re-releases of games redone for new engines & systems, more (potentially crappy) sequels, and more branding (street fighter, resident evil, etc).
Unpopular view. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, I understand that overtime is needed at time. I really do love what I do, so I don't mind the all night code jams (which are only fun when you look back on them). What I don't like is the fact that many companies take advantage of this fact to set absurd timelines (I'm not going to name names, but they know who they are).
Add the extra 6 months. Need a new NFL game every year? Then hire two teams and give each a the time they need to make a good game. Not only will your employees live longer (and be happy), the end product will improve (remember less returns == more money).
Far more widespread.... (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is much more common and much more widespread than this.
A good friend of mine works for Motorola as a developer.
He is expected to work more hours than I would believe if he wasn't at work every time I call him.
He works nearly every weekend, all weekend, frequently comes home around 2-3am (gets to work 8:30am I think) on any day, etc.
ALL WITHOUT ANY OVERTIME OF ANY KIND!
He likes to say he's "allowed to work all the time".
I tell him it sounds more like he's forced to, but he corrects me on that saying it isn't true. When I ask him if he'd get fired if he didn't work those hours they're "asking" him to work, he says "yes" without hesitation.
Sounds forced to me.
He says that Florida has some law that allows this behaviour of "non-exempt" employees. Yeah, stupid term - I have no idea where they came up with it or what they are not "exempt" from.
Another example is my uncle... who works for NCR as a hardware field tech.
He works 2-4 COUNTIES away from his home, while people in those counties work in HIS.
He has also been forced (for years) to falsify his timsheets to show 40 hours, even though he typically works 70-90.
He also is forced to work 10 days, then take 4 days off (this would drive me nuts, but at least they give him time off, unlike my friend above).
Both situations are 100% due to poor planning by idiotic management (I worked in one of these companies for 8 years, I know).
This also shows that it is not only not limited to the game-developement world, but not limited to program developers.
This is a growing problem in this country, and it is due to our rewarding people based on their B.S. skills rather than their _real_ skills.
It's that way in big companies, and it's that way in our government.
Unfortunately, I have yet to hear of a way to remedy the situation... it's in our culture.
Re:Far more widespread.... (Score:5, Insightful)
That might fly in Michigan (big union state, where I grew up), but Florida is a non-union state and very much a republican state... making such a thing practically impossible.
Unions go in both directions, so I have mixed feelings about them.
If there's work, great for every employee.
You always get a raise for hard work, but then so do the slackers that barely get their job done, so there's hardly an incentive to be the best.
If there isn't work, you are NOT allowed to compete and you starve.
My brother is an electrician in Michigan, and royally screwed lately due to the drastic cutbacks in construction up there.
He has to put himself on a waiting list... first-come, first-served.
If he tries to get a job without going through the union's waiting list, he can get blacklisted and will either have to change carreers or move to a non-union state.
At the same time, unions are practically required to keep giga-corporations from abusing their employees... hence the United Auto Workers.
I'm not sure where to find the "happy medium" on that topic.
Re:Far more widespread.... (Score:2)
Not to mention that it'd be damn near impossible to fire anyone, for cause or not.
As for the giga-corps, I'd say there was abuse on both sides. Employees CAN because of unions, and they DO. They get CRAZY salaries, and short of commiting
Re:Far more widespread.... (Score:2)
Re:Far more widespread.... (Score:2)
Re:Far more widespread.... (Score:1)
I'm only rarely called on to do massive unpaid overtime at my current job (here in Florida). Overtime pay doesn't exist as a concept at this company, but it is a comfortable job compared to many others in the area. At least here it only happens when somebody screws up and it will affect revenue. My old job was overtime every day, my m
Re:Far more widespread.... (Score:2)
The thing is, back in the day, they tended to hire kids right out of college and work 'em to death just like you describe. After a few years, they figure out they're being taken advantage of, and mo
Game development is very popular (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Game development is very popular (Score:3, Insightful)
For some reason, people think programming games must be fun, because playing games is fun. Really bad logic, and it leads a lot of people into career choices they will regret in ten years.
Yes, it is fun for some people, but as a job it isn't half of what it is cracked up to be. Part of keeping all your programmers working 80 hour weeks is so they never have a sane moment to realize how brutally the
I hate the games:movies analogy, but (Score:3, Interesting)
What's interesting is that the movie biz is heavily unionized, so the movie studios can't really take advantage of the impulse to hire cheap labor and work them to death.
In response to that, the movie studios have had to develop project management down to a fine art, because that's the only way they had to cut labor costs. I
Call me crazy but (Score:1)
Game industry is the new record industry (Score:3, Interesting)
Could apply to the music business or the game business. It's the conglomerates(sp?) utopia.
OMG! Member of games industry reads a book! (Score:2)
Come on. We should all know this by now. The extra hours are turning into people too tired to notice obvious defects, just plain crappy games, and an exodus of experienced people from the industry. It's not a shock-- the entire computer software industry knows this except, apparently, the people who run game companies.
Hell, they know it too. But then they fuck up their schedules, fail t