Quality of life within the gaming industry...

[Almasy]

Recently, there have been plenty of details about how EA is used to slavering its employees, from people that have had the opportunity to work in the company.

They´re quite long, so I´ll just offer the links, in order to not clutter the page:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/21/b...&partner=rssuserland&pagewanted=print
http://www.livejournal.com/users/joestraitiff/

And if anyone is interested in the GA thread where this was discussed:

http://forums.gaming-age.com/showthread.php?t=24446&page=2&pp=50

Ok, so here´s the question: Are similar working conditions widespread throughout the industry? Is it expected from most of the workers in the industry to lose family their family, social life, hobbies and practically live inside the offices in order to be able to make games?

This is an important topic for me, since I still have 2 years or so to go in my universtity and was seriously considering to make games after I´m done with it. However, if working conditions are as hellish as they´re portrayed in the entire industry, I might as well begin considering other areas to work in.

So, what do the people that work in the industry (or have worked) think about this?

 

[Qroach]

Wide spread? yes. The degree varies from company to company. Like rockstar is getting a very bad name in the industry for getting it's employees to work 7 days a week, 12 hours a day at a number of it's studios.

Imo i blame much of this working stupid hours on bad management. it's fine and expected when you are nearing completetion of a project that long hours become standard. However when there's no reason for it and employees have to throw out work, or restart numerous times, then the problem fall on the heads of management.

 

[DeanoC]

To be honest you have to be lucky not to do a fair bit of overtime.

I've worked for some where crunch has been pretty constant (I did 60-80 hour weeks for a solid 6 months last year).

If you joining this business, for now your going to have to accept it. While that change in a couple of years? I don't think so...

Ninja Theory/JAM is pretty good. I personally tend to do about 50 hours a week non crunch, however thats my own choice, lots of people do normal (40) hours and thats fine. I'm expecting to do a good month of crunch (70-80) before E3, due to how important this will be for us.

I personally reckon that in a two year project, a couple months of crunch is about right. In theory that should be divided into a few seperate weeks (for things like E3, marketing presentations, etc) and a bigger month long when going gold.

 

[DemoCoder]

It's not just the gaming industry. The software industry in general is not a 9 to 5 job, especially mid to small size companies, people are often expected to put in whatever hours needed to meet a deadline, or take their work home.

 

[wco81]

It's true that in software, long hours are common. Maybe it's easier to take because salaries are pretty good.

However, I think there is some truth that gaming is particularly extreme. You will see a lot of commercial software delayed over and over again. Profit margins are huge so companies like Microsoft can ship their new OS when it's time. Not sure what happens to smaller developers but then again, maybe the pressures aren't the same since the staffs are much smaller than those at MS, Oracle and a few other big software companies.

In games, a big hit could be lucrative but isn't it the case that a lot of games don't make money and are subsidized by the big hits? Anyone know the ratio of hits to busts? Or hits to titles which do just so-so financially? Probably not as bad as music or movies but maybe for every hit, there are 3 or 4 busts?

So you wonder if the margins are the same as with other software, especially when they have to pay licensing fees and you see price markdowns at retail. You don't see MS Office marked down to half or less than half of the initial price but you will see GTA San Andreas marked to $20 at some point.

Plus, I think EA is more deadline-sensitive than the Japanese companies. EA is dependent on annual releases while PD and people like Kojima will ship their GT and MGS games only when they feel they're ready.

 

[Jov]

Plus, I think EA is more deadline-sensitive than the Japanese companies. EA is dependent on annual releases while PD and people like Kojima will ship their GT and MGS games only when they feel they're ready.

The model is like quality vs quantity. Do you really need the same type of sports game every year (with a few added features o'cause)?

 

[Cryect]

Unfortunately a lot of people do think they need a new sports game every year.

Edit: Then again I know a decent amount of people who solely play sports games so they are only buying like 2 or 3 games a year.

 

[Polarbear53]

Although I don't really know programming that much, I can't imagine working for a sports game, making the madden or fever games just seems like it wouldn't even compare to halo or half life or doom. Theres only so much you can do to football, ya know?

 

[wco81]

Although I don't really know programming that much, I can't imagine working for a sports game, making the madden or fever games just seems like it wouldn't even compare to halo or half life or doom. Theres only so much you can do to football, ya know?

That's exactly the way I feel about FPS games.

Actually there is so much that could be done for football and sports games in general. There is no real physics. The current consoles provided 3D technology across the board for all the sports games (yes GameDay was 3D for the PS1).

Instead, it's motion-captured animation heavy. The results, while nice to look at (but still not state of the art), often leaves a lot to be desired in terms of control.

 

[Cryect]

Seriously none of the sports games have rag doll physics yet?

I don't pay much attention but for a football or hockey game that would seem to be tons more useful than for any FPS I've seen it in.

Well hopefully they will add that in to the next generation sports games (prolly leaving that off as a feature at EA just so the animation looks that much more believable on the tackles and it really seems like a complete new game).

Edit: Btw I will just make note that last year EA had $500 million profit last year and has only 4,000 employees.

http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/compinfo/CompanyTearsheet.jhtml?tkr=ERTS

 

[wco81]

I would swear GameDay on the PS1 with those crude blocky player models felt a lot more solid and responsive. Of course, some people questioned not having any sense of momentum so players could turn on a dime.

Bing Gordon gave a presentation on what would be possible the next gen in a widely quoted piece:

http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10612&view=previous

I would swear he also said something like "everything on the screen will be modeled" meaning it would all be physics-based.

But I don't know if Gordon was necessarily referring to the sports games EA is known for. Really no point for instance modeling individual strands of hair on a football player.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

The long hours and mediocre pay are the two reasons why I stopped focusing on doing graphics work back in college and chose a new path. I still work in software, but I have to say that so far my hours have been fairly manageable. I only have to put in over time every once and a while and it's usually not a lot of time. Maybe 5-10 hours over my normal work week. I do miss doing graphics, but I have a wife, and some day I'll have kids. I don't want to miss seeing them grow up because I'm working on the newest incarnation of some stupid football game that is only marginally different than every other football game out there.

Nite_Hawk

 

[ERP]

Although I don't really know programming that much, I can't imagine working for a sports game, making the madden or fever games just seems like it wouldn't even compare to halo or half life or doom. Theres only so much you can do to football, ya know?

You'd be surprised, there are a lot of unique challenges in a sports game, that don't really exist in other games. Your average sports game these days probably has a more sophisticated animation engine (and more animation) than any other game on the market.

Personally I don't play them and I have never worked on one, but I know a lot of people who have/do.

 

[ERP]

To answer the first question and get back on topic.

It depends on who you work for, and how lucky you are.
Not all EA (read big publisher) titles have ludicrous crunch modes, and I've worked at small developers that have had some of the worst crunches I can remember.

If the hours worry you then I'd stay away from the industry, I've been trying to change peoples attitude on crunch mode for years. There is a pervasive belief by some in management that it's a necessary evil. The fact is that when it occurs for extended periods it hurts the team, the product and productivity.

Now having said that I've voluntarilly entered projects that I knew would be "death marches" (where crunch mode just goes on and on and on), but I enjoy shipping product (as in the act of finishing a game).

I'll keep trying to push the rest of the management of the teams I'm on to have realistic expectations, but crunch mode is going to be a fact of life in the games industry for a few more years at the very least.

 

[Almasy]

Hey, sorry for the incredibly late response. LOL, I guess I should start looking into other fields where to work, right? Especially when I do want to have a life outside the office building of EA.

Well, now that that has been covered, I still think it´s interesting. Was it always like this? Or is this situation the result of the expansion of the market and pressure on publishers that these "crunches" became more and more necessary?

 

[Guden Oden]

The attitude by some that crunches are good, normal etc, along with the rotten job security (fired when the title ships) are likely to be the biggest threats against the games industry, ever. People will only put up with shit like that for so long, especially people with talent.

They'll move on, perhaps to the TV/movie special effects industry instead, and we'll be stuck with mediocre programmers and artists who endure crunches and layoffs because it puts food on their tables. Games will of course reflect that, as will sales.

Call me a communist if you want, but I believe people work better if they're treated like human beings and not cattle/slaves. :?

 

[Almasy]

Call me a communist if you want, but I believe people work better if they're treated like human beings and not cattle/slaves. :?

Tell that to EA.

Personally, I don´t understand these people that stay for 13 hour-long periods working their asses off, for 6 days a week (and 8 hours on Sunday ). Don´t they think about having a life outside work? I certainly can´t think of myself as a tool to be exploited.

About your other comment, I hope these cases of exploitation are brought to the public so project managers can get their act together and think about having efficient practices that don´t require the personnel to work 13 hours straight.

I´ve never worked in the industry, so maybe that´s nonsense, but common sense tells me an employee with energy, well rested is more productive than a slave.

 

[Nite_Hawk]

Call me a communist if you want, but I believe people work better if they're treated like human beings and not cattle/slaves. :?

Tell that to EA.

Personally, I don´t understand these people that stay for 13 hour-long periods working their asses off, for 6 days a week (and 8 hours on Sunday ). Don´t they think about having a life outside work? I certainly can´t think of myself as a tool to be exploited.

About your other comment, I hope these cases of exploitation are brought to the public so project managers can get their act together and think about having efficient practices that don´t require the personnel to work 13 hours straight.

I´ve never worked in the industry, so maybe that´s nonsense, but common sense tells me an employee with energy, well rested is more productive than a slave.

In this day and age, you are pretty much told that if you land a job in the tech industry once you are done with school, that you should consider yourself lucky. In addition, you are told that if you work in any "real" position, it's common for you to have to work unpaid overtime. It's all a part of the "job". I know, I just got out of school and got a decent jobs and these are the things that I'm hearing. Granted, I haven't had to work an 85 hour work week or anything like that, but it's still the common chant. Some people even kind of brag about it. Like the fact that they just worked a 60 hour week makes them more valuable and important. Employers of course love this because it means they get free work out of people for stroking their egos thus.

Nite_Hawk

 

[ERP]

Hey, sorry for the incredibly late response. LOL, I guess I should start looking into other fields where to work, right? Especially when I do want to have a life outside the office building of EA.

Well, now that that has been covered, I still think it´s interesting. Was it always like this? Or is this situation the result of the expansion of the market and pressure on publishers that these "crunches" became more and more necessary?

Crunch modes have always been a part oif the industry.

Back in the 80's I worked 70+hours straight to ship one particular title.

As products have gotten more complex, the industry hasn't really adapted, team sizes have gotten larger, schedules longer and crunch mode instead of lasteing a few weeks can now run for half a project.

There is still the mentality of the "Hero" who basically performs superhuman feats working insane hours to save a game. It's getting harder and harder for that one person (or small group) to pull it off, and a lot of people are just leaving the industry. Over the next few years it will mature and things will get better, I just don't know if that's 5 years, 10 years or longer.

 

[mech]

Yeah, the whole reason I went into application coding rather than games was because of the awful stories I'd heard about crunch times, job security, and heck, just companies going down all the time. I would sincerely love to code games, more so than apps, but in the shape the current industry is in, I doubt I'd be moving across anytime soon, which is a shame.