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

[RobertR1]

the hard part here is actually changing the culture so that developers accept having titles cancelled as a normal part of the process.

There seems to be a fair bit of bravado in the development industry. From "we dont' cancel our projects!" to "we burn the midnight oil till the last day" type stories seem to be heralded where as good business sense is often sidelined.

It should be understandable that this faction of entertainment industry would have a lot of failures. It's not unconventional by any means as it's the norm in other arenas such as movies and television. Why keep feeding money pits for the sake of chest thumping when you can better allocate those resources (time/money/personnel) to other projects?

 

[AlNom]

hrm... I'd have thought stage-gate models would have caught things early enough, or maybe it's much harder in this industry :s

 

[Richard]

Anecdotally, I'm amazed there's people that want to work in the gaming industry. I had a shot at it when I was young (was too young, in both senses of the word) but in a way I'm glad fate pushed me in the other direction.

I personally know a programmer who works in the industry (the casual one, most of "his" games are published by [strike]strike that[/strike] a big casual games publisher) while I work as a programmer on the "casual-gaming" equivalent of software house. In fact, scratch that, I work in a relatively small place. Yet, I make more money that he does and work less hours. I have a 9-5 schedule while he stays in the office usually up to dinner, sometimes beyond that. He has worked saturdays on occasion but only after the project manager asked very nicely and all team members agreed.

While I'd probably enjoy my work more if it was games I don't think the moderate difference in motivation is worth the huge discrepancy in pay/hours/chance of mental breakdown. Evidently I don't know how AAA devs are, other countries, etc. etc. etc.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Was that with overtime, the 10-12?

I'm not entirely sure if they got time and a half overtime, but they were paid for the extra hours. I was one of the rare workers that opted to just work 8 hours. In the industry I was in, there wasn't an option for working late. So getting those 10-12 hour days (majority of workers) meant coming in 2-4 hours early. Also, those that put in the long days were also, not surprisingly, the ones that got the biggest bonuses (paid every 3 months).

The office workers however would generally stay about an hour later than the rest of the workers. But interestingly enough, even after working on the clock for 10-12 hours, most of those workers would then stay that additional hour after clocking out to chat with the officer workers.

And when things got really busy, the workers would ask to work on Sunday and get in a 7 day work week.

Regards,
SB

 

[Sxotty]

I have seen data suggesting the 10*4 work weeks are actually quite decent for an employee.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I have seen data suggesting the 10*4 work weeks are actually quite decent for an employee.

I actually like the alternating 12*3 - 12*4 work weeks. I've only had those hours at one job I worked, but it was great when I was young.

Regards,
SB

 

[ERP]

hrm... I'd have thought stage-gate models would have caught things early enough, or maybe it's much harder in this industry :s

If I showed you what most games look like 6 months into development, you'd be shocked. It's one of the reasons I bemoaned the passing of E3, as much as I hated the distraction it was at least a forcing function for games to be presentable.

There are a lot of efforts to quantify development, but because of the nature of games, playability, the constant itterative adjustments etc, most of the games development I've been involved in I could have made every milestone on the development schedule and still missed the ship date by a good 6 months. Milestones or gates used badly are a really good day for project management to lie to themselves.

On the "bad project management" front.

I once worked on a project where asset creation was very well quantified by historic data, the design called for 350 new assets, I pointed out that from the historical data, the staffing and the timeline, we couldn't possibly ship more than 50. I fought that battle up to the month we shipped because design and production didn't want to cut "too early", we shipped with about 50 new assets, and a mad scramble to fix the design given the "new" constraint.

People who build games care too much, they get emotionally attached to features, when push comes to shove, they make bad decisions like lets cut part of all of the features rather than implementing the right subset of features well.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

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.

I quit my job and started my own workplace just because of this problem.
Working for the company, and yes I used to be proud of my hard work like you said as I was trying to shape my destiny, ended me in a state where my eyes would pain by looking at the screen for half an hour, my hands would go numb if I sat in the PC posture for 10 mins. I was, am still, young and thought working hard is good, but apparently balance is everything. I myself am a living proof of the fact that a balanced month gives more output than a overloaded month. Especially if you expect to keep working for the next month too.
Thanx to Art of Living and meditations, I am back on track again !
I am being called by companies even now, but I choose not to go, as now that I am doing my own work, I can manage my work so that I don't bite more than I can chew.

It also reflects a short term thinking by the company management, where they just want to suck every bit out of a person and throw him away and fill his position with a new "passionate" fresher to repeat the cycle again. Companies are not looking for long term associations with an individual anymore. There in lies the problem. At its base is a depletion of human values and increase in greed. If management studies remove the human element out of everything and promote profits as everything, this is bound to come up. Today, one protects only one's own family, rest is all "expendable" to them. Thats not the way a "society" can thrive.

 

[MfA]

I am being called by companies even now, but I choose not to go, as now that I am doing my own work, I can manage my work so that I don't bite more than I can chew.

This seems to me to be the main problem ... yes these studios can open a new can of college grads each year, but they are self selecting against experienced talent (which can get a job anywhere).

How do companies like Epic do this? I can't see Tim Sweeney doing 70 hours each week any more, at the same time him clocking in nine to five while everyone else is supposed to do 70 would kill morale really fucking fast.

 

[obonicus]

There's lots of different Epics, though. A lot of the more unpleasant gruntwork might be assigned to Titan Studios or People Can Fly or wherever.

 

[Rotmm]

How do companies like Epic do this? I can't see Tim Sweeney doing 70 hours each week any more, at the same time him clocking in nine to five while everyone else is supposed to do 70 would kill morale really fucking fast.

I know one of the guys down at Epic and he doesn't do anywhere near 70 hours a week. It's pretty much a 40 hour working week with very occasional periods of "crunch". It's all to do with planning for (and hitting) milestones.

And, of course, those rare periods where 60 h/wk are worked become far more tolerable because of the renumeration packages on offer.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

This seems to me to be the main problem ... yes these studios can open a new can of college grads each year, but they are self selecting against experienced talent (which can get a job anywhere).

How do companies like Epic do this? I can't see Tim Sweeney doing 70 hours each week any more, at the same time him clocking in nine to five while everyone else is supposed to do 70 would kill morale really fucking fast.

I wouldn't be surprised if Tim Sweeney was still doing long hours both at the office and at home on the engine. After all, it's both his job and his hobby. And has he gotten married yet? Last I saw he was still single with no other hobbies other than programming. His house is filled with things he's bought and collected, but he didn't seem to have much of a social life, if any...

Regards,
SB

 

[specwarGP2]

These guys must get paid really well if they continue to work under such horrid conditions.

 

[whome0]

Its all they think of they can do so must keep doing it. Current worldwide (gaming) economy situation does not encourage to make a radical steps.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

These guys must get paid really well if they continue to work under such horrid conditions.

Could also be just that some people get used to doing something and there's a comfort level of doing what you're familiar with even if there's a possibility of better pay/working conditions at another place.

Also, in the current economic climate, unless you are one of the top programmers and have a decent nest egg saved up, then leaving for another job could be a bit risky.

And then there's always the fact, that they may have faith that the game they are working on might turn out to be the "next big thing."

Not to mention not ALL companies are horrible. While I'm sure quite a few are really bad, I'm sure for most it runs the gamut from bad to good with everything in between.

Human nature being what it is though, we tend to focus only on the extremes.

Regards,
SB

 

[NRP]

Well I hope after reading this thread people will stop with the whole "lazy devs" nonsense.

 

[joker454]

Could also be just that some people get used to doing something and there's a comfort level of doing what you're familiar with even if there's a possibility of better pay/working conditions at another place.

Yeah, plus some people really don't care, notably young single males. When I first got started way back in the early 90's, my first gig was literally "welcome aboard, we're on crunch, 6 days at 12 hours, and Sundays for 5 hours". Sounds horrific, but truth be told at the time I had just moved to the USA and was new to games so I was thrilled to be in the biz. And woohoo, they were giving me free food! I was largely penniless back then so the free food perk was bad ass. Fast forward many years and one wife later and, well, my tolerances and priorities have changed dramatically. But I don't doubt that a lot of the new young single males entering the biz tolerate crunch because they feel just like I did when I first started.

I think by and large even though the industry has matured, the development side of the biz is still a young mans game. There is a "gaming life expectancy", I believe the figure was around 10 years after which one gets burned out and exits the industry. I personally know of at least 3 co-workers over the years that got divorces because of game biz hours. It's just not compatible with being older, especially if one has a female in their life.

Well I hope after reading this thread people will stop with the whole "lazy devs" nonsense.

Haha, yeah right

 

[Cheezdoodles]

Um, this situation is pretty much the same for everybody who has a job that has deadlines and has a salary high enough so you dont get paid overtime. Not really something particularly special, lots of industries that has similar working conditions.

 

[obonicus]

It's not the norm in software development, though -- not that people don't work heavy hours, but rather it seems since every game has a crunch period, then the majority of these games are poorly planned and probably mismanaged.

 

[assen]

It's not the norm in software development, though -- not that people don't work heavy hours, but rather it seems since every game has a crunch period, then the majority of these games are poorly planned and probably mismanaged.

This is similar to the "lazy developers" mantra, but in the "incompetent managers" form.

And just as I take seriously "Cell/PS3 is easy" only from proven PS3 developers, I accept "game companies crunch, because games are mismanaged" only from proven studios who don't crunch and who make money from their games. (I know studios that don't crunch, that exist purely as a side project of a bigger entity - be it someone's hobby, someone's bad investment, someone's money laundering scheme.)

The crunch I've seen around me happens because of the combination of two factors:

- first, the business model is broken; publishers simply don't pay enough for a game to be comfortably produced without a strain; sales for most categories except the very top of the ladder go down, art budgets go up, the expectations keep going up (try making a FPS without online MP, saved films, coop, Horde mode etc., for example)

- second, most people in a game studio would rather go one additional day to work 12 hours, than see the studio go down in flames. See: young, single males without a life, in joker454's post above. Nobody signs up for years of crunch; it always is just this milestone, which is just a few weeks away.

The one studio I've heard of that doesn't crunch, and kicks everybody out of the door every day at 17:30, is Neversoft; the legend went that they shipped every year their Tony Hawk on the 30th of September to the factory, took one month of vacation, did one month of preproduction, and on the 30th of November pitched the new Tony Hawk to Activision. This is probably why Activision chose them to take care of the golden goose aka Guitar Hero.