How Game Development Standards Are Inherently Harmful

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This article doesn't paint a very flattering picture of game developers at all. :(

In the end, there is no clear initiative in game development to genuinely take care of the people working in the industry. It’s still about the project, not the individuals of the team that created it. Employees still aren’t seen as assets – most of the time they’re anonymous contributors that can be replaced in the blink of an eye.
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I have 3 friends in the VG industry that deal with this shit all the time. Project done, GTFO.
 
That may be the rule, but there are exceptions

Activision Blizzard and Riot Games were just announced as being in the top 100 companies to work for.


I know a lot of people in the gaming industry and I know how bad it can be. Developers disappear weeks to months before launch. There is a bad mentality of hire/fire cycles in tandem with game development life cycles. Being a software engineer in a game development company is very unstable because the product cant be well defined. You have to change direction if you find the game not fun, and usually that that can happen very late in the game. Making video games isnt easy, and for most it isnt a well paying job. Some put up with it because it is their passion, others do get paid well, others actually have a good environment to work in. But this can pretty much be applied to any industry, under bad management working sucks. You can treat it only as job and just deal with it, fight your way to the top so you're not on the receiving end, or leave the company and go somewhere better.
 
DocSavage said:
That sounds like nearly all jobs. It's not like Bill Gates is out there coding Windows 10 for us. And who the heck at McDonalds is putting my cheeseburger together?
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The video game industry doesn't have nearly as much job security as a position at MS. The gaming industry was never a great paying industry (20 years ago, it wasn't uncommon to find a highschool dropout working on games) and those that go into it, do it because they love it. Businesses can and will take advantage of that. It happens the the regular business world, but I've read a few articles about people who bounce from job to job because projects end or they're cancelled. I've never seen anything like that in the business world.

I read articles about the gaming industry when I was in college (early to mid 90s) and I quickly decided that wasn't the industry for me. I knew someone else who left CS entirely because that was the only reason he wanted to get a CS degree.
 
I used to want to do this for a living but fell in love with the hardware side of things and made a career out of it.

Not that its THAT much better being a PC support tech with all the outsourcing and contracting agencies promising you contract to hire jobs that they know full well won't be converted to FT.

Still, its better than the gaming industry.
 
More like video game industry is like any IT job. Weather its a game dev, web dev, network engineer, systems admins, and even desktop support.

They outsource to india, treat the US IT workers like dirtbags. No permanent jobs any more. All contracts. When the project is done, GTFO.

When layoffs come, IT is first to go. Ask me how I know this.
 
Wow, those video game "managers" and "leads", with those attitudes, can go work for a collection agency. Same shit, different industry.
 
Motley said:
More like video game industry is like any IT job. Weather its a game dev, web dev, network engineer, systems admins, and even desktop support.

They outsource to india, treat the US IT workers like dirtbags. No permanent jobs any more. All contracts. When the project is done, GTFO.

When layoffs come, IT is first to go. Ask me how I know this.
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This so is not my experience. We've had contractors, but in most cases the people are specialists on a specific product. That doesn't mean they don't treat us like shit, but the vast majority of developers/engineers are full time employees. We do contract to hire, but unless you suck, they'll eventually hire you (though they'll put it off until the latter part of the year in most cases). Of course I guess it may depend on what type of development you do.
 
Holy shit, who works under management like that? This honestly sounds like a white collar problem. Do people not get their ass' kicked for being fuckheads anymore? I betcha the majority of these companies with locations in the U.S. are either in New York, or California.
 
DocSavage said:
That sounds like nearly all jobs. It's not like Bill Gates is out there coding Windows 10 for us. And who the heck at McDonalds is putting my cheeseburger together?
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I was about to say that sounds like majority of software shops, including tech companies.
 
nilepez said:
The video game industry doesn't have nearly as much job security as a position at MS. The gaming industry was never a great paying industry (20 years ago, it wasn't uncommon to find a highschool dropout working on games) and those that go into it, do it because they love it. Businesses can and will take advantage of that. It happens the the regular business world, but I've read a few articles about people who bounce from job to job because projects end or they're cancelled. I've never seen anything like that in the business world.

I read articles about the gaming industry when I was in college (early to mid 90s) and I quickly decided that wasn't the industry for me. I knew someone else who left CS entirely because that was the only reason he wanted to get a CS degree.
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You are dead on that a lot of us get into the industry be we love what we do. At the end of the day I do it to put smiles on peoples faces. As to the abusive nature of the industry a lot of that is at the Big level between publishers and the giant stand alone development houses.

On the small to medium size dev houses they are a lot like a family and will go through hell to not lay people off. I've been through that a few times. At one point an 80% pay cut so others had enough to survive while we got the next deal. I'll even throw out that some smaller publishes back in the 90s were family too. I know the later days as things fell apart Interplay got a pretty bad rep but through most of the 90s it was a family. One guy developed MS and was kept on at full pay as he was getting it under control and getting his life adapted around it. Another person in the sales department developed/was diagnosed with late stage 4 terminal cancer. She was on full payroll to the end. Fargo really took care of his people during those times.

I wish we could see that with the Bigs these days, unfortunately everything is driven by keeping Wall Street happy and the Magic Little Elves who actually make the games are disposable. The problem with that is every very talented person that fits the teams culture you let go you may not be able to replace regardless of what some MBA in management thinks.

I'll stop rambling now

Croaker
 
jon666 said:
Holy shit, who works under management like that? This honestly sounds like a white collar problem. Do people not get their ass' kicked for being fuckheads anymore? I betcha the majority of these companies with locations in the U.S. are either in New York, or California.
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Most are in California. The problem is that a lot of upper middle management and upper management that is be brought in know f**k all about development or developers and suffer from what I call MBA sickness. Actual workers are numbers and widgets not people. One breaks just get another one. We have too many get rid of a bunch. Need bottom line get rid of more. I don't want a pay cut or lose my bonus.

Croaker
 
Though this article pinpoints game development, soooooo many other sectors of industry are very similar in human behavior.

Knowing and taking with people in game development, the article is very unfortunately dead on. At least in a few big dev companies.

When you sit down in front of your rig, maybe take a minute to think about the people used as cheap labor to make the hardware, then think about what some other people went through to make the game you play.
 
now, I like my current job. They have treated me well. It is a big business (fortune 500 range) and about as far from a game developer as an industry can get. I would guess 80% of our IT staff is contract. We have about 200 IT workers on staff though with maybe 50 of them developers. Of those, a handful have more then 25 years with the company but I think the average is closer to 2-3 years. I have seniority on my 6 man dev team with 4 years at the company. The Team is 10-15 years old, but churns through staff pretty fast. No faster then the other groups here though. Projects start, hire people. Project ends, layoff time.
 
This is why we need a growing economy so that it is the employees in control instead of employers.

Of course, the Master BLEEP Artists only worship the bottom line, not realizing that there are people behind the numbers.
 
jon666 said:
Holy shit, who works under management like that? This honestly sounds like a white collar problem. Do people not get their ass' kicked for being fuckheads anymore? I betcha the majority of these companies with locations in the U.S. are either in New York, or California.
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There's a LOT of industries where this type of behavior is common. The ones that advance are the ones able to manipulate management the best. There's no accountability, simply advancement based on how much you are liked. I have stories man.
 
Yep. Welcome to the 21st century. Glad to see they've caught up with the rest of us in "normal" jobs. :(

Its all about
that BS
'bout that BS.
 
Dunno, the article sounded like just one long bitch-fest, woes me! Then halfway through mention of disability and more complaining.

Honestly my impression of the writer is one who's life is always unfairly against them and never can catch a break... You know those people eternally negative and its always THEM getting offended.

While I am certain the game industry isn't perfect and I don't doubt some of those management tactics are used but this article doesn't earn any credibility for me.

It just sounds like a little person complaining how unfair NBA is. I mean come on, if you have an anxiety problem why would you think to work for such a business with well known timeframe/scheduling problems and pressure. I don't know much about the affliction but deadlines and rushes to meat those deadlines seem like something that would make anyone anxious. Just read any forum about customers complaining about pushbacks and deadlines.
 
Oh and a notion that companies care about their employees, is not exclusive to the "gaming" industry.

I have worked for private corporations, small non-profits, and local government... In all cases the company itself has policies that don't "care" for the employees. From what I have seen, HR best practices are just built that way. Its obvious its to improve the employer (duh) not the employees. Sure you get a good boss here and there or a smaller company (or big rich company) but everything else in-between you are just a capital asset, one that can be replaced at any time.

One HR example: Everywhere I work, each HR says the same... retention is important! Training new hires is expensive! Yet everywhere I work, outside hires always get more money for any position. My girlfriend had a rule of only working somewhere for 2 years at most, she at one point went back to the same company, same job after 3 years away and got something like 30% bump in her salary then before. Had she stayed 3 years she would have gotten 10-12% with yearly raises.

Business care about their business not their employees, game industry just has shorter lifetime (that of the single project).
 
Wasn't it the case in the past that there would be interviews with the game developers, as a game was being made?

Today there is very little of that. 'Just focus on the product', not who made/worked on it.

Websites would have interviews with the audio, art, AI developers. You got to read/see their passion for the game.

Today there seems to be a reduced connection with the laborer who worked on the game. So it becomes less about the people behind the scenes, and more about the actual product itself. 'Who cares about your plight. If you don't like it, find another job.'

The article says that if the stream of expendables stops, then it would be a problem. I doubt it. In today's economy, people want a job, they want to survive... even if it means becoming the lowest common denominator. There are also people who want to 'prove' something, so the stream will keep on going.


At the end of the day, I don't think people care about the harsh conditions developers go through. Just ask these same developers if they have an iPhone.... you know the iPhone whose factories have suicide nets constructed. Yet people still buy those phones, even though the conditions suck for the workers making them. People, in general, just want the product, and they don't really care how its made.
 
Only an issue if the employer promised something else when the person was hired.
 
People often have odd ideas about what jobs "ought to be like"...;) I suppose that a lot of people think that game development should be a lot of fun because games are fun--stands to reason, right? Nope, game development is w-o-r-k. Often very hard, tedious work. It's not difficult physically, but it is no doubt stressful mentally. It's the people who buy the games after their development who get to have the fun. Often, the guy who gets laid off six weeks before the title ships is the guy who had a job for the last eighteen months not because the company couldn't do without him but because somebody vital in the company liked him.

If you are after guarantees, well, the military will guarantee you an average of minimum wage & benefits for 24/7 jobs. Any honest work is honorable, of course, but people shouldn't expect a job to conform itself to them--it's the other way around, actually. It's quite possible to be an individual who loves playing computer games but would loathe developing them.
 
It is a job making VGs. Do you know how many self taught kids would intern for free to do this job? lots.

That is why the authors labor is not respected because there is a steady stream of similar skilled labor.

As for the health/ability to handle stress see above, as a manager in IT (not VG, but high stress) I work with my team members, as I deal with work that requires skilled IT at a level that is not easy to come by.

But when you are trying to work in a job that interns would do for free or a steady supply of hopefuls who will take your job for same or less pay, I would expect that being difficult or problematic (i.e. a whiner, not fitting in) would put you on the short list to be replaced.
 
HoffY said:
Yep. Welcome to the 21st century. Glad to see they've caught up with the rest of us in "normal" jobs. :(

Its all about
that BS
'bout that BS.
Click to expand...


Ya gotta give head to get ahead.

If you won't give head, you're overhead.

It's all about knowing who to berate and who to fellate.

Etc. Etc.

Ever since the hourly change in stock price became the measure of every single nut, bolt, brick, and living cell in a company that's the way it is.
 
DocSavage said:
That sounds like nearly all jobs. It's not like Bill Gates is out there coding Windows 10 for us. And who the heck at McDonalds is putting my cheeseburger together?
Click to expand...

It is like nearly all jobs. Look, the only areas that are really different are perhaps Medical, Legal, and anything unionized, the Government Sector is different too, at least at the Federal Level, the drone workforce.

Government contractors, well I started with a Defense Contractor when I first retired from the Army, they hired me to be an Instructor. The boss flat out told me, "guy's like me are easy to replace. This environment (sic: The Army Intelligence School Center), produces all they could ever need."
 
nilepez said:
The video game industry doesn't have nearly as much job security as a position at MS. The gaming industry was never a great paying industry (20 years ago, it wasn't uncommon to find a highschool dropout working on games) and those that go into it, do it because they love it. Businesses can and will take advantage of that. It happens the the regular business world, but I've read a few articles about people who bounce from job to job because projects end or they're cancelled. I've never seen anything like that in the business world.

I read articles about the gaming industry when I was in college (early to mid 90s) and I quickly decided that wasn't the industry for me. I knew someone else who left CS entirely because that was the only reason he wanted to get a CS degree.
Click to expand...

I have, Government Contract work is exactly like this. Contracts come and contracts go, it should be no surprise that the employees suffer the exact same fate. No one can reasonably expect a company to hang onto employees when they have lost those positions under a contract they no longer have. It's the nature of the business world.

I just suppose some people let their dreams effect what they think reality should be and it keeps them from seeing what reality really is. This author is "wishing" for her better reality.

Dad told me;
"Son, wish in one hand and shit in the other. Now tell me, which one is full?"
 
^^^^
"Son, wish in one hand and shit in the other. Now tell me, which one is full?"
Click to expand...

This is actually a very old Chinese quote ...... I mean, where do you think the term "wishy - washy" came from ? :p
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Ya gotta give head to get ahead.

If you won't give head, you're overhead.

It's all about knowing who to berate and who to fellate.

Etc. Etc.

Ever since the hourly change in stock price became the measure of every single nut, bolt, brick, and living cell in a company that's the way it is.
Click to expand...

Oh so you're one of THOSE kind of employees. I'd love to see how much work got done if you were hired with a bunch of fellow fellaters. Sure the upper management would never get blue-balls and he'd feel pretty happy. Until it come time for the customer to collect and they got SFA due to everyone just being full of BS and not actually doing a job ( let a lone one properly).

Ya know.. because people that don't brown nose and just wish to do good work are such an overhead.
 
Look, here is my advice, for whatever it's worth, for surviving in this current job environment...
  • The only person you can truly depend on is yourself. Make sure you are an asset, not a liability.
  • Show up every day to work, on time, ready to work, and put in a full days work.
  • Know your state's labor laws, especially when it comes to overtime and paid time off. As an example, the state of California considers paid time off/vacation time to be accumulated wages that have to be paid upon separation no matter what the reason.
  • Know your company's benefits, especially when it comes to accumulated time off and paid holidays. Nothing is worse than finding out that you capped out on paid time off/vacation time.
  • At the very least, maximize the match for your company's 401(k), otherwise, that's leaving money on the table. If possible, maximize the yearly contribution. When you leave the company, make sure you transfer it to a traditional IRA, not another company's 401(k). Take advantage of the time factor in savings, as there is no longer any such thing as a "company retirement pension". (At least for the private sector. But, what makes you think that the public sector retirement funds are viable?)
  • Make sure you have money set aside for an emergency. Figure out how much money you would need immediately, how much can be obtained within one week and one month, and save accordingly.
  • Don't get into a situation where you are shackled to your paycheck. Enhance your skills. (Hint: Toastmasters is a great investment for developing speaking, leadership, and feedback skills no matter which field you are in).
  • Always have a plan B and a plan C in your back pocket.
 
It's simply the nature of game development.

Not many studios can afford to be UBisoft, where they have gigantic teams and multiple studios and always have new games in their pipeline and can shuffle people between projects.

For the majority of studios out there you have two choices.

When a product is near completion you can either:

1. Hope you have another game lined up to move all the people over to
2. Keep them on and have nothing for them to work on, thus draining a LOT of money for no reason.
3. Let them go (most obvious business choice if you have no new project lined up).

It's the same way with the movie industry, only they've adapted to it better, studios have people that work on one movie and as it wraps up they move to another production, it's not like the studio just keeps paying them to stand around doing nothing.
 
lcpiper said:
I have, Government Contract work is exactly like this. Contracts come and contracts go, it should be no surprise that the employees suffer the exact same fate. No one can reasonably expect a company to hang onto employees when they have lost those positions under a contract they no longer have. It's the nature of the business world.

I just suppose some people let their dreams effect what they think reality should be and it keeps them from seeing what reality really is. This author is "wishing" for her better reality.

Dad told me;
"Son, wish in one hand and shit in the other. Now tell me, which one is full?"
Click to expand...

Contract work is not the same. If someone hires you for a position, it's unusual to be let go shortly after starting. If a company is looking for short term works, then they should hire contractors. When you hire someone and move them to a new city and then let them go within a year, you suck. Your company sucks and since it's apparently common within the gaming sector your industry sucks.

Gaming workers (and IT in general if it's more generalized) need to get with the program and quit taking shit. If necessary, unionize and start walking out in mass. Unions can take it too far, but if this is common, then businesses have taken it too far and the only way to get the upper hand is by the masses operating as one. If you don't, then company always has the upper hand.

It's not even that they have tons of people to take an empty chair (I've seen positions go unfilled for months...but the company just pushes work onto existing employees, so it' a win-win for them). They take advantage of the Dilberts of the world...and there are far more Dilberts than Wally's, though I've worked with a few of them too (though non were as entertaining as Wally
 
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