Given everything I've ever heard about working conditions, pay, and benefits in video game studios, it seems more appropriate to think of them as opposite to the mainstream software industry rather than a part of it.
> What's up with gaming related jobs being at the top though
If I had to stereotype based on US gaming companies:
-Long hours
-Relatively low pay
-Typically located around urban centers (so a higher CoL)
-If the controversies at Riot, Activision Blizzard, and Ubisoft are any indication then many game related employees are emotionally stunted and immature.
> Why employees in the games industry put up with this sort of thing is frankly beyond me.
They typically don't, forever.
But there's an unending stream of fresh meat entering the game industry who will put up with anything to achieve their dreams of working on video games.
I've been lucky, in that I've done a lot of games, but haven't worked anywhere that routinely required overtime of me. The occasional project here or there would go south, or there would be a bad manager, but other than the last week or two of crunch to get a project finished, I've not done too badly.
This is a blurred line in the industry. Rarely does your superior walk up to you and tell you that you have to stay long hours or else.
Instead crunching in the games industry is much more passive aggressive. "Sure you can go home, but look at all the colleagues you are abandoning, I thought you were a team player, are we not a family? Do you not want this game to be the best it can be?"
And millions of small variations of that, praising only ever those that do crunch, building an atmosphere of immense peer pressure.
Your boss won't tell you to stay, he will actively build and nourish an environment in which you and your colleagues do that job for him. And that doesn't even include the whole topic of benefits, raises, and promotions.
Ultimately it is the same as "you have to", but still. Many have a false image of the way crunch is forced upon a team.
>Nothing about that arrangement attracts me, especially given the abusive nature of the industry and the frequency that they go through crunch, lack any real worker protections, no unions, etc.
I'd beg to differ on this point. Lots of changes have been made in game development culture including less crunch culture[0]. Worker protection/unions aren't exactly something that's afforded to many white collar jobs in the first place, not sure why that would be an expectation here. Even so, there have been improvements to this - e.g. the Game Workers Alliance. I encourage you to ask developers this question today.
>No game dev company out there seems to treat its staff well during a game's development, so even if I wanted to work on a game as part of a team, I'd be looking at a poor work/life balance and a stressful work environment. I'm too old for that kind of BS.
There are game companies that do treat their staff well! I don't think it's fair to make blanket statements like this when there are a ton of studios with a ton of varying cultures. It's not like solo development isn't stressful or immune to crunch either, even if you choose your own hours. Solo development calls for highly varying skills - it's one of those things you underestimate until you've actually tried it.
>If I can't build and release the game myself, then it simply isn't good enough to release. I cannot trust collaborators to not take control of my projects, nor would I entrust creative ideas to a for-profit entity without my cut.
Nothing good in this world gets built in a vacuum. A hyperbole, potentially (e.g. Stardew Valley, Rainworld), but game development really is a road best driven with a team - people to help out in different disciplines, lighten the load on others. Finding a good team is hard, but once you do, it's hard to want to forgo them. I don't think I can convince you on this front, but the vast majority of solo developers who don't release a game should be proof enough.
No hard feelings from me - I just wanted to clarify what the game industry is actually like today. The Kotaku articles can be frightening, but talking to people in the industry today and getting thoughts from different roles (e.g. producers, designers, engineers, QA, artists, etc.) and different industries within game dev (indie, AA, AAA studios,etc.) would help form a more informed opinion.
> If you're doing 70+ hours a week, you're working for the wrong company. Move.
Or maybe you're working in the wrong industry. The cynic in me cannot help but label enthusiasm for creation of games as a severe economic handicap - one that many companies have no qualms taking advantage of. You love games? That's great, you'll also love unpaid overtime.
Wow. How on earth do these people not sack up, tell their boss to diaf, and walk out the door? Because honestly, if you allow people to use you like a punk, stop whining when they do. At will employment works both ways.
From the article:
EA's attitude toward this -- which is actually a part of company policy, it now appears -- has been (in an anonymous quotation that I've heard repeated by multiple managers), "If they don't like it, they can work someplace else." Put up or shut up and leave: this is the core of EA's Human Resources policy. The concept of ethics or compassion or even intelligence with regard to getting the most out of one's workforce never enters the equation: if they don't want to sacrifice their lives and their health and their talent so that a multibillion dollar corporation can continue its Godzilla-stomp through the game industry, they can work someplace else.
But can they?
The EA Mambo, paired with other giants such as Vivendi, Sony, and Microsoft, is rapidly either crushing or absorbing the vast majority of the business in game development. A few standalone studios that made their fortunes in previous eras -- Blizzard, Bioware, and Id come to mind -- manage to still survive, but 2004 saw the collapse of dozens of small game studios, no longer able to acquire contracts in the face of rapid and massive consolidation of game publishing companies. This is an epidemic hardly unfamiliar to anyone working in the industry. Though, of course, it is always the option of talent to go outside the industry, perhaps venturing into the booming commercial software development arena. (Read my tired attempt at sarcasm.)
> The game industry is as bad an employer as it can get away with, because so many people are eager to join. That's why the game industry can mostly get away with low pay and crunch time.
This is the whole thing, you've laid it bare here. The games industry is exploiting it's workers' passion.
If there were game workers' unions, we'd see a lot less of this type of behavior, as has been shown time and time again.
it is if your work drives the company's profits and you can organize with your fellow workers and demand it!
> I prefer remote work and I'd only work for a full remote company, but in no way do I feel like it's my right to force a company to allow me be remote.
good for you, some of us see the employer beholden to the people who actually drive the company. try not to police your fellow workers while we advocate for better lives.
At a gaming company where people play the game they make at work, what happens to this boundary?
reply