The issue of Quality of Life for game devs is back on the news: Feat. R* San Diego

[wco81]

I would think the workers behind mega-hits like MW2 are doing well but most everyone else probably must feel the economic strain not just in the industry but nationally/globally.

It seems games sales follow a similar trend to movie ticket sales, where a big part of the revenues has to be earned in the first week or two after release, before other releases draw away revenues.

So release dates seem to be slotted or have specific windows and that is why there's such pressure to make that window.

While other software doesn't have this sales pattern as entertainment software, usually software development schedules also have peaks like this. But since that software isn't hit-driven like games, well-managed software companies keep larger permanent staff, whereas games studios seem to use contractors more.


I remember looking at the Square web site several years ago. Seemed like they had very generous benefits, like a month off between projects, bonuses, etc. They were doing very well at the time.

 

[Dregun]

Actually I have quite the interesting story..kinda related.

Way..WAAY back in PS1 days there was a game my friend had called Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo. Because of this game and how impossible it was to find a copy of the game I resorted to a method of obtaining the ability to play the game that lets just say is frowned upon.

Fast forward a year or two later and my library of "such" software still only consisted of that one particular title. However I remember a Naughty Dog game that had a couple of videos on it, one of the videos was about software piracy and its affects on the industry.

The video started out showing people with stacks piled high of pirated software after the police raided that piracy ring. It was some very dramatic footage, they even had footage of developers sleeping on the floor of the offices in sleeping bags and them talking about how piracy has affected them. (Basically saying because of piracy these guys have to sleep on the floor).

The best part however was when the next video on that disc was all about Naughty Dog and the games they create. Was a very interesting video showing what was going into the design of the games and some background info about the company. It wasn't until the very end of the video that I really started to discredit any claims about piracy affecting the video game business. You see at the end of the video it showed one of the owners peeling out of the parking lot in a Ferrari with a license plate that said NDOG.

So here was a conflicting message, one that Piracy is hurting the industry ..and look at those developers sleeping on the floor because of it. Oh yeah and the owner owns a Ferrari!

If anyone besides me was foolish enough to spend the money earned playing UC2 to unlock some videos about Naughty Dog and Drakes Fortune it was a nice treat. They had a couple videos just about the atmosphere within that company and the "family" aspect that the developers have for one another because of it. What goes on when the camera is off might be different but the employee's being filmed didn't seem to put on a front for fear of losing their job and I think that showed with the quality of the work..ala UC2.

We as consumers are to blame for the industry being the way it is, it's sad to say that "I" am responsible but when I complain because a game I want to play has been delayed I'm basically saying "Those guys should work more hours to complete it on-time/sooner". We sit here and talk about games and how "The developers are being lazy, why wasn't this fixed before release" and "This game has already been delayed once why are they delaying it again".

Granted some management problems are more then likely responsible but until we as consumers cut them some slack on deadlines we contribute to the problem.

 

[ERP]

I still think a lot of these issues are Historical in nature.

Even 15-20 years ago a lot of the industry was young single men whose lives revolved around their jobs, and crunching for a month on 5 person 3 month projects to make a date made a lot of sense.
Now when most people in development now have famillies and interests outside work, there is still an expectation of these crunch modes. And with large teams and in some cases multiyear schedules what was once a few weeks of crunching has turned into months with little benefit.
I've been on teams where older developers bemoan the fact that people aren't working 6 and 7 day weeks because it doesn't feel like we're finishing.

Having said that a lot of these long drawn out crunch times (or death marches as they are often called) are a result of desperate attempts to salvage product. Your no longer working to any sort of design other than this needs to be fixed and deadlines keep moving. I know of a very successful product that went Alpha 5 times, each time resulted reviews that required more changes, moving dates out leading to developers crunching over a period of almost 15 months.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

It's just bad management. Whether it's screwed up designs that need to be salvaged in a big panic, or the ignorant idea that you can just burn people out and throw them away as a business model, it's an indication that a relatively new and growing industry still hasn't moved to a professional and mature level.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think this kind of treatment is true to most technology companies. The difference is at a startup, people feel they have a real investment in the company, and though they might not want to work late, a lot of times they're proud to do it. Once the companies get bigger, you have to move away from that mentality. People can only stay in startup mode for so long. These companies expect their employees to work like it's a startup for eternity.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

It's just bad management.

I think that comment, and really this entire thread, is quite interesting in light of the Average cost of development thread that is also on the front page and is a issue that has been rehashed time and time again.

Sure, it's possible that poor management practices are leading to overworking resources that lead to poor games that lead to loss of revenue, which isn't sustainable and leads to houses closing.

Or, it's possible that the market is fickle, games are expensive and lead times are long and by the time you get your game to market it has already been surpassed by prior offerings. That leads to slim profit margins as most games fail and few succeed so every ounce of cost savings is squeezed out of the assets they have at their disposal - their employees.

I think we can solve the problem rather easily for all those gamers that are so concerned. Push for increase game prices, champion the cause to raise them from $60 to $100. That extra $40 per game can be used to fund the failures, and expand the profit margins on the successes so the houses can hire increased staff or avoid the "crunch" because the consequences of missing the launch window won't be so dire.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

I think we can solve the problem rather easily for all those gamers that are so concerned. Push for increase game prices, champion the cause to raise them from $60 to $100. That extra $40 per game can be used to fund the failures, and expand the profit margins on the successes so the houses can hire increased staff or avoid the "crunch" because the consequences of missing the launch window won't be so dire.

Of course, that's not what happens given that the people at the top still drive their Ferraris whist the grunts doing the work are still being burnt out and thrown away. Missing launches is a red herring, given that it's not like a customer can go down the road and buy a particular title from somewhere else. Sure they can buy something similar in the genre, but there's nowhere else to get that same game other than the people developing it. If it's a good game, then it will sell - if it's a bad game, then it won't.

How about developers/publishers accept that when they make a poor game, it won't sell well, and that treating your employees like shit is both bad for morale and business? You can't make a business model out of burning out the talent that makes your product - unless you want to topple from one disastrous project to another, falling behind and finally putting out a half-finished product in the hope you can con the customer (who won't forget your for it) out of some cash.

 

[ERP]

"If it's a good game, then it will sell - if it's a bad game, then it won't."

It's not quite that simple the reason dates are so important is because budgets is based on sales expectations. Ignoring the obvious quarterly variation in sales, often games are presold to major chains with significant penalties if dates are missed. Slipping a game is a major decision.

IMO part of the issue is process, companies don't cancel enough product early enough. The industry has to accept that it's difficult to predict the quality of a product from a design and a schedule and can stuff earlier in the process. We're getting into my what's wrong with development rant, but too much money is tied up in too few products, teams get too big too quickly, investments reach levels where cancellation is too expensive to be easy and bad games get dragged through development, then fail to make money.

There are cultural issues at play aswell, no one wants to work for a company that cans a lot of product, because cancellation is equated with failure. Most dev groups in large companies don't have control over staffing and as a result cost. Big companies should be throwing a lot of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, you can fund a lot of 2-5 person startups for the ammount it costs to fund one team of 50. I'm not saying you develop with 2-5 people, but you put the core in place verify the idea, then ramp up the staffing as appropriate.

 

[deathindustrial]

How about developers/publishers accept that when they make a poor game, it won't sell well, and that treating your employees like shit is both bad for morale and business? You can't make a business model out of burning out the talent that makes your product - unless you want to topple from one disastrous project to another, falling behind and finally putting out a half-finished product in the hope you can con the customer (who won't forget your for it) out of some cash.

As an outside observer reading about game development it seems like in many cases what is going on is ultimately a scam to get money from investors, like the vast majority of Internet start ups back in the 90s or any other "lottery" type industry (movies, hedge funds, whatever). The creative crew may both have good intentions and suffer the consequences (as they apparently have at RS:SD) but the company's true purpose is to siphon cash from outside investors to individuals at the top.

Since the development company is paid up front by the publisher (or investors), it is irrelevant whether the game sells millions or zero later on. . .the money has already changed hands. If the company crashes and burns, whatever, rinse and repeat with a new dev company (or take over an existing one and run it into the ground).

No shortage of psychopaths in the workplace.

http://www.amazon.ca/Snakes-Suits-Paul-Babiak/dp/0061147893

IMHO of course.

Cheers

 

[obonicus]

IMO part of the issue is process, companies don't cancel enough product early enough. The industry has to accept that it's difficult to predict the quality of a product from a design and a schedule and can stuff earlier in the process. We're getting into my what's wrong with development rant, but too much money is tied up in too few products, teams get too big too quickly, investments reach levels where cancellation is too expensive to be easy and bad games get dragged through development, then fail to make money.

What would a solution be? More time spent in preproduction?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

"If it's a good game, then it will sell - if it's a bad game, then it won't."

It's not quite that simple the reason dates are so important is because budgets is based on sales expectations. Ignoring the obvious quarterly variation in sales, often games are presold to major chains with significant penalties if dates are missed. Slipping a game is a major decision.

IMO part of the issue is process, companies don't cancel enough product early enough. The industry has to accept that it's difficult to predict the quality of a product from a design and a schedule and can stuff earlier in the process. We're getting into my what's wrong with development rant, but too much money is tied up in too few products, teams get too big too quickly, investments reach levels where cancellation is too expensive to be easy and bad games get dragged through development, then fail to make money.

There are cultural issues at play aswell, no one wants to work for a company that cans a lot of product, because cancellation is equated with failure. Most dev groups in large companies don't have control over staffing and as a result cost. Big companies should be throwing a lot of stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks, you can fund a lot of 2-5 person startups for the ammount it costs to fund one team of 50. I'm not saying you develop with 2-5 people, but you put the core in place verify the idea, then ramp up the staffing as appropriate.

Cancelling games early isn't exactly an answer either. For example with the original X-com game, it was a trainwreck just weeks prior to release. Had it been cancelled early with some product manager thinking, you know, I don't think this game is going to make deadline in the shape it's in, and it's virtually unplayable as it is now, we'd never have gotten this classic to play nor would it have spawned a bit of a lasting franchise.

However, it was allowed to continue and they somehow shoehorned in enough fixes in time that it released relatively bug free and mostly playable. Though even the dev admits it shipped still in a rough shape with unintended effects.

It's just the way how product developement works. Everything is a gamble. Some things are less of a gamble, some things are more of a gamble.

How a dev. performs can only hurt their chances, not improve them. Some game's that were released weren't going to succeed no matter how on time it was or how bug free it was or how polished it was, for example.

On the other hand, bad dev practices or unrealistic developement time cycles can hurt a product. One of my favorite examples is Hellgate: London. Brilliant game once most of the bugs were fixed and balance issues were resolved. Absolutely sunk due to the shape of the game it was forced to be released in (dev studio ran out of money to continue developement). Incompetant devs? Not enough funding? Bad management? Who knows, but it's a case of a good game ruined by releasing in a shape unfit for release.

Anyway, point being. You'll never be able to get rid of the inherent risk of releasing any form of entertainment product. All you can do is not sabotage your own efforts.

Regards,
SB

 

[MfA]

Realistically as long as there is an ample and willing workforce currently working and wanting to work under these conditions there is little that can be done. As long as employers have access to labor then work conditions are almost completely out of labors hands (and to a large extent the government).

Ignoring globalization for a moment government can very easily make it more expensive than it's worth ... for someone willing to jump the industry altogether (and with these conditions there are plenty of those) whistleblowing is a rather small step if the whistleblower is sufficiently protected (ie. defacto unfireable for a while).

 

[assen]

Ignoring globalization for a moment government can very easily make it more expensive than it's worth ... for someone willing to jump the industry altogether (and with these conditions there are plenty of those) whistleblowing is a rather small step if the whistleblower is sufficiently protected (ie. defacto unfireable for a while).

How do you differentiate whistleblowing from slander? Any lazy, incompetent asshole will become unfireable by starting to talk bullshit about his boss.

 

[Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.]

How do you differentiate whistleblowing from slander? Any lazy, incompetent asshole will become unfireable by starting to talk bullshit about his boss.

Proof is usually the differentiator. If labour laws are being broken and an investigation takes place, other employees will corroborate the whistle blower's story (unless they want to go to jail for for their bosses by obstructing an investigation, perverting justice or committing perjury).

It's now been proven that overwork or night work can have a real, detrimental effect to health. It's quite possible (at least in Europe) for company officers to be liable for breaking health and safety laws by not looking after the health of their employees.

I'm surprised no US dev house has been sued after some overworked and bullied programmer has had a full on mental meltdown. All it takes is for some state attorney to get involved as they did in the EA case a couple of years back when EA were forced to pay overtime.

 

[Scott_Arm]

One thing about the tech industry, at least the one I'm in, is that everyone seems to know each other. If you get a bad rep at one workplace, that can follow you. So no one will openly speak out against their boss. I mean, you get the gossip. We have an timesheet tool that limits the amount of hours you submit for a week. Admittedly, I don't work more than my standard hours very often, but I see the people that do. My job doesn't have deadlines. The engineers with deadlines work whatever hours are necessary to hit that deadline. It doesn't seem fair, really. The company promises something to the marketplace while it is in its infancy, and then some poor designer has to honour that date, even though he might have picked a date more reasonable. The worst situation I've heard was from a guy who's boss told him he couldn't have a day off for his wedding rehearsal because of a looming deadline. That guy told his boss to go f--- himself and found a new job very quickly. Because we're a multinational company, many people are very afraid to speak out or rock the boat, because we know our headcount could easily be moved somewhere else. I've seen people demo working products, six months of work, to high level executives, only to have those same executives tell them the very next day that they should start looking for a new position because their project is being cancelled and restarted somewhere else - even though the product was already in some early working form.

It's a tough life for programmers and engineers. It really is. You hear the young guys and none of them seem to care. They think pulling a 60 hour week is having a good work ethic, and frown on people who don't want to do it. Then they get married, and they have kids, and suddenly they start to realize what all those older guys were on about having a stable 40 hour work week. We don't get compensated for overtime anyway. That isn't to say everyone here is working overtime. A lot of people don't. It really depends on product line and the manager. I'm one of the lucky ones and I have a really good manager.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

One thing that's also interesting is comparing work hours between different countries.

In Japan for example it is absolutely normal for me to work 10-12 hours a day 6 days a week. It's quite normal and many companies expect that of their employees. My co-workers there were always a bit amazed when I told them back in the US I only work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day.

The flip side of that however, is that they also have more frequent short vacations or holiday days off. Lots and lots of holidays in Japan. And 10-12 hours wasn't a mandatory number of hours to work, but the majority of workers will opt to work the extra hours. 6 days a week however was mandatory. Also to compensate a bit for longer work days and work weeks, if the business isn't busy, the workers are allowed longer breaks. But on a normal business day it's still just 2 - 15 min breaks with a lunch break.

Regards,
SB

 

[obonicus]

Was that with overtime, the 10-12?

 

[woundingchaney]

Ignoring globalization for a moment government can very easily make it more expensive than it's worth ... for someone willing to jump the industry altogether (and with these conditions there are plenty of those) whistleblowing is a rather small step if the whistleblower is sufficiently protected (ie. defacto unfireable for a while).

The government can create a thousand rules and more, but it is ultimately up to the courts to support those rules. Labor law is typically a rather grey area. Realistically there is labor law breach by thousands of work places a day that is either gone unreported or even simply overlooked. In a capitalistic society I wouldnt imagine that any government is overly interested in having too much of an impact on labor (at least mine hasnt been for many decades, outside of some very umbrella type policies).

 

[ERP]

Cancelling games early isn't exactly an answer either. For example with the original X-com game, it was a trainwreck just weeks prior to release. Had it been cancelled early with some product manager thinking, you know, I don't think this game is going to make deadline in the shape it's in, and it's virtually unplayable as it is now, we'd never have gotten this classic to play nor would it have spawned a bit of a lasting franchise.

Sure there are exceptions, the game I referenced earlier that went Alpha 5 times sold millions of copies on the PC, that doesn't make it a model to emulate.

What I mean by cancelling games earlier is fail fast, a company like EA could trivially have 5 or 10 small teams start projects (somewhat riskier ones) have them run 3 months to prove out the core concepts and demonstrate the potential, can or shelve all but the one or two that standout. The hard part here is actually changing the culture so that developers accept having titles cancelled as a normal part of the process.

The problem with the current model is if as commonly happens you throw 20-50 people at a project from day one it'll be at least 6 months, and more likely just before ship before you even ge a solid feel for what's being produced, and cancelling it is too expensive to consider. This is where you get into the desperate scambling to save the invested dollars (not the game) that more often than not leads to the extended stints of stupid hours.

I've cancelled 2 or 3 games over the years and generally without exception in hindsight the decision could have and should have been made months earlier.

 

[MfA]

The government can create a thousand rules and more, but it is ultimately up to the courts to support those rules. Labor law is typically a rather grey area. Realistically there is labor law breach by thousands of work places a day that is either gone unreported or even simply overlooked. In a capitalistic society I wouldnt imagine that any government is overly interested in having too much of an impact on labor (at least mine hasnt been for many decades, outside of some very umbrella type policies).

Looking the other way isn't really the same as it being out of your hands.