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Three and a half years after EA_Spouse, what's changed?
LibrarianThorne
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Firstly, this is a thread related to the current cover article over on Gamasutra. Check it out if you haven't.
As a student graduating this year and looking to land a job in the industry, quality of life is something I've been thinking a lot about. I've got two games I'm developing as student games, and the workload has been far above any other coursework I've ever taken. Still, I happily dedicate myself to the work in the knowledge that this is exactly the thing I've waited over a decade to do. Making games is, in short, my personal dream and I'm willing to sacrifice a lot to accomplish that.
However, above and beyond the demands of crunch time, I've noticed several trends. Game industry workers are, by and large, comparitively underpaid. They work extremely long hours in one of the highest stress industries around. I imagine that just about everyone in the game industry feels similar to myself, that putting up with the hours and the stress is worth it for the goal of getting a game out.
Yet, I wonder if there might be a different way. For some time I was in charge of working on scheduling for this massive student game, and I talked to a lot of people at this past GDC about it. One of the guys I talked to, a producer for Battlefield: Vietnam, said that crunch time isn't the necessity the industry sees it as, that it is instead the result of poor planning and scheduling. It was a pretty eye-opening conversation, and I was surprised to see such a point of view expressed by an ex-EA employee.
So, I have a question to all those in the industry now and those looking to get in. How much does quality of life matter to you? Would you accept lower pay and longer hours as, say, an artist if you got the chance to work on video games? If so, why?
For me, quality of life matters, but not necessarily in terms of pay scale. I'd rather work at a job I can give a damn about with people I can get along with and then deal with pay, rather than be well-paid at a job I don't care about with people I could do without. This is part of why I want to be in the industry, and another part is that ever since I played Civilization II in 1997 I knew that making games was what I wanted to do. I've done acting, I've done office jobs, I've done fast food and manual labor, and from all those I know that I'd be happiest making games. So, what it boils down to is that I'd rather be happy and low paid than well paid and miserable, and that whatever I work on I want to care about it. Games are that job, at least for me.
TL,DR; Would you kindly read the fourth paragraph and answer those.
As a student graduating this year and looking to land a job in the industry, quality of life is something I've been thinking a lot about. I've got two games I'm developing as student games, and the workload has been far above any other coursework I've ever taken. Still, I happily dedicate myself to the work in the knowledge that this is exactly the thing I've waited over a decade to do. Making games is, in short, my personal dream and I'm willing to sacrifice a lot to accomplish that.
However, above and beyond the demands of crunch time, I've noticed several trends. Game industry workers are, by and large, comparitively underpaid. They work extremely long hours in one of the highest stress industries around. I imagine that just about everyone in the game industry feels similar to myself, that putting up with the hours and the stress is worth it for the goal of getting a game out.
Yet, I wonder if there might be a different way. For some time I was in charge of working on scheduling for this massive student game, and I talked to a lot of people at this past GDC about it. One of the guys I talked to, a producer for Battlefield: Vietnam, said that crunch time isn't the necessity the industry sees it as, that it is instead the result of poor planning and scheduling. It was a pretty eye-opening conversation, and I was surprised to see such a point of view expressed by an ex-EA employee.
So, I have a question to all those in the industry now and those looking to get in. How much does quality of life matter to you? Would you accept lower pay and longer hours as, say, an artist if you got the chance to work on video games? If so, why?
For me, quality of life matters, but not necessarily in terms of pay scale. I'd rather work at a job I can give a damn about with people I can get along with and then deal with pay, rather than be well-paid at a job I don't care about with people I could do without. This is part of why I want to be in the industry, and another part is that ever since I played Civilization II in 1997 I knew that making games was what I wanted to do. I've done acting, I've done office jobs, I've done fast food and manual labor, and from all those I know that I'd be happiest making games. So, what it boils down to is that I'd rather be happy and low paid than well paid and miserable, and that whatever I work on I want to care about it. Games are that job, at least for me.
TL,DR; Would you kindly read the fourth paragraph and answer those.
LibrarianThorne on
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I'm currently working in the industry. Just to give you some background, I'm a Lead SDET (think "QA Developer) in the MS games group, specifically on the platform side of things. I've been doing this for just over 6 years now.
First of all, I wanted to point out that it's a bit of a misnomer to think that every games industry job has horrible crunch periods. That's not always the case. I've been fortunate enough to work in a group that doesn't have regular horrible crunch schedules. And our quality of life is, as a matter of fact, quite good. That said, I'm on a platform team which runs a much different schedule than typical games. However, I know of some game teams that don't have crunches and platform teams that do.
What causes crunch? It has to do with a lot of factors ... the type of product you're working on, the size of your group, the culture, your schedule, management, etc. Personally, I think one reason why game-related projects tend to have crunch or long-hours is because people genuinely enjoy the work they're doing and the product they're making. There have been many times where I've stayed late to work on something not because I had to, but because I really wanted to. In fact, I sometimes have the problem as a manager, where I have to almost force people to take time off (vacations, etc.) so that they don't burn out.
I guess the opposite situation is where I'm working on a product (say some contract work for the government) that I don't personally care about. I've been in that situation. While I'm professional about it and will put in my 100% effort and such, at the end of the day, I'm not personally passionate about it, and it's much easier to adhere to a "9-to-5" schedule.
Anyway, I guess I'm digressing. Yes, quality of life matters to me. But I also know that many game groups are realizing that crunch is bad, so if I had the opportunity, I'd much rather work on a team that knew how to schedule work appropriately versus a team that did not. That's a good question to ask in an interview. (Remember, interviews don't have to be entirely one way ... you should use the opportunity to determine if the company is right for you)
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Crunch has burned a lot of people out, but it has also conceived some of the best ideas and best work from the games industry.
It is wrong to paint it with the one brush that it is a horrible experience. For some, it is the best thing, for others, a pain.
If you're absolutely sure it's what you want to do with your life, I say dedicate yourself to it all the way. Work the hours, take the pay, do whatever you have to in order to make it work. But the instant you realize it's not what you want to do, or that the minuses outweigh the pluses, get out immediately. It's easy to lock yourself into a situation and convince yourself it'll get better "eventually". That's probably the worst position of all.
Like they say, find a job you like and you'll never work a day in your life.
Very good point. There are some people that are certainly "addicted to crunch". Personally, I actually enjoy the times right before a release. Yes, it's stressful and lots of stuff is going on, but it's immensely awesome when you're tackling issues left and right and everything eventually comes together. I prefer times like that versus the long-stretches of down periods where it seems nothing is going on and I'm bored out of my mind.
Of course the downside of being busy is less time to lurk and post here.
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I dont work in the games industry, as a developer or whatever, I kinda work around it as a journalist.
We have deadlines far more frequently than, say, a 3 year development game.
Deadlines totally focus me. I definitely produce my best written work when my back is to the wall. I enjoy deadline period. It's hard fucking work, sure, but goddam that period of about 3-4 days after the magazine ships is worth every second.
I imagine this is mirrored for a developer, only magnified - in terms of work and satisfaction.
cuts your social life out of the loop but your friends will be there when crunch ends
you wipe blood on your mouse and name him wilson.
Yup. However, if this crunch time lasts for a long time ... like months at a time ... that's bad. I call working late as "burning the midnight oil". Well, there's only so much "oil" that any given person has, before the quality of work starts decreasing. In fact, studies have shown that working over 9 hours a day is actually less productive than someone working a standard work day. I can believe it. If you know you're going to be staying late, or over the weekend, to work on something day-in-and-day-out, it's not surprising that you might be a little bit lazy or more careless about how you do your work. "Ohh, I'll just take care of that later."
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, it seems like more and more game companies are "growing up". Frankly, a lot of developers now have families and kids, and they can't work the same insane hours they used to. Fortunately, lots of things have changed over the past decade or so: a better (more mature) work culture, improvements in software engineering management (Go Agile! Go Scrum!), more money, more resources, more headcount, etc. This all means long and insane crunches. That's a good thing.
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Any one here in the game marketing field that can give some insight into that aspect?
Currently Playing: BFBC2
That being said, I could make more money doing lots of stuff but don't want to because the job I have is pretty friggin sweet. I could never support a family on it, though.
Not a huge concern for me at the moment, but yeah money has a factor in quality of life, it just isn't everything. I'm sure there are a lot of few happy people who don't make a lot of money. I know quite a few myself.
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I wonder where perks like "free stuff!" would fall on that? I know some people that love the free swag they get.
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I wonder where they put "anything", as in anything is better than the near-minimum wage job you work with no benefits.
Man, I gotta focus on my art.
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The crunch was never the problem.
The problem was that EA was violating California state law by refusing to pay overtime. This allowed them to put their employees in perpetual crunch, thereby burning their employees out and fucking them out of money they rightfully earned.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I've never been more serious about a job hunt, but looking ten years down the line I can't support a family on a tester's pay. For places like Austin, Chicago, San Fran, and other major metroplitan development areas (the ones i'm looking into heavily, as public transportation is of major importance to me), $20,000 a year will not cover living expenses adequately. I've got money saved up, sure, but maintaining a living standard where I can attend one or two conventions a year and have time off for tabeltop gaming is important to me. I could sacrifice them in a pinch, sure, but games are in many ways my greatest pressure release valve and losing that would be detrimental, I think. Is this a realistic standard to adhere to? Or, and this seems more likely, should I start cutting down on entertainment-related expenses?
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First of all, bravo for taking the time to think and plan your future the way you're doing. It's really smart.
Anyway, it depends on the testing jobs you take. Honestly, the bare entry-level testing jobs aren't that great and ideally you aren't in that level for too long. By the time you do want to support a family, hopefully you've moved up, either to a manager level or perhaps a more technical track, which are usually better paying.
At GDC, I attended a few workshops with other QA managers and we talked about the state of QA/Test in the industry. It certainly does seem like there's a lot more growth in technical testers. For example, even though I'm in Test, I actually end up writing just as much (if not more) code than many of my peers in Dev. How? Why? It's All About the Automation. There's also growth in other niche test areas, such as content validation, managing test labs, betas, etc. From my standpoint, it looks like the test field is growing so that testers aren't merely the people hooked up in front of games 12 hours a day, doing nothing but playing and reporting bugs. Don't get me wrong, there's still a need for those folks and skills, but that's more an entry-level position, and ideally you can grow and excel beyond that role after a while.
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Yeah, I live in South San Francisco instead of inside the city but its still like 1,125 a month. I'm actually thinking about making the leap from advertising to the client side (game industry) end of this year.
Currently Playing: BFBC2
Management is really, really important. This isn't just "getting the right people in the right places" or "setting a schedule"; it's about prioritizing changing feature spec, knowing when to RESIST change in feature spec, knowing when to cut features, knowing when to tell everyone to get the hell out and go home because nobody will be productive at this hour, etc. Staying on top of it all in the face of often preposterous amounts of unknowns is hard. Let's face it; how often does everything get figured out in preproduction? How often are programmer time estimates accurate? Sometimes it takes a little luck, and sometimes it takes a lot of luck. Getting things figured out sooner needs to be a priority, but oftentimes you won't know where the landmines are until you run into them... and sometimes, you'll make new ones yourselves along the way.
If any of you live in BC, you should try working the EA QA summer job sometime just for the experience.
If any of you have a programming background, you could alternately try to join there for a short-term engineering contract/internship. You will get some VERY different perspectives depending on which one you do, and depending on which side you are currently working in, you will probably hate the other side of it.
The magnitude of the crunch can vary.
Sometimes you will have big nasty crunches as a result of a sudden discovery of a whole slew of game-destroying bugs that are non-trivial, or the introduction of 11th hour feature changes that create a cascade of new issues that will ping-pong between engineering and QA, etc.
Ask people who have worked in some shipped titles about "finaling": it can be a lovely time or a very not lovely time.
I'm not certain that paying people overtime would improve the situation with respect to crunches. While there's certainly argument that the cost of massive overtime would be a strong deterrant to massive crunches and a motivator for much more rigorous planning, it's entirely possible that it'll just happen anyway. I do think that more companies should give it a try though, just to see what happens.
<shill>It's awesome. Quality of life is more than just a buzzword here and I suppose we have Erin Hoffman (EA_Spouse) to thank for a big part of that. EA's undergone big changes in the past year, in recognition of the way the industry is swinging- less hours, more money, longer cycles, more employee feedback and input, and a great atmosphere, all of which leads directly to better games and better sales. I really can't say enough nice things about the management here. It's not for everyone, but it's definitely for me.</shill>
"Crunch", to me, is no big deal. It's born of a desire to get stuff done. When you realize how much your work matters and how big an impact you can have on the quality of the game, you want to work a lot. Bear in mind there's a big difference between "crunch" and "death march", the latter being what EA was infamous for and what led Mrs. Hoffman to champion her then-fiance's cause on the internets. "Death march" is ugly, and it still happens a lot. I know people (not at EA, although I bet many here have back in the day) who've worked over 160 hours in a 2-week pay period. Hell, Origin Systems (back in the day) had something called "The 200 Club". I bet you can guess what got you in. Luckily for us, though, that practice is on its way out.
So, to the OP. QoL in the games industry isn't always shit. It's possible, even likely, that you can find a job that pays well and doesn't work you half to death every dev cycle. You just have to be willing to ask the right questions and walk away if you don't like what you hear. Believe me, I know how hard it can be to turn down a job in the industry especially if you've been looking for awhile, but walking knowingly into a grindhouse is perpetuating the problem. Be part of the solution and hold out for the right gig, and don't be afraid to hit the bricks if it's not a good fit. You will work a lot but if you put yourself in the right situation you'll be there late and on the occasional weekend because you want to, not because you were ordered to or you're afraid you'll lose your job if you don't sleep under your desk.
zilo, it's my understanding that EA underwent a rather total and complete HR overhaul in the wake of EA_Spouse. Not too surprisingly, it sounds like EA is pretty much out and done with the "death march" phase but I hear the problem still occurs in isolated dev houses.
I agree with the earlier assessment that crunch isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's stressful and not really healthy at all but the core reason for every crunch I've seen has been to get things done the way you wanted them done in the first place. It's no small task to make a game and make it fun, and I firmly believe that nobody (not even Phoenix Games!) sets out to make a bad game. In that regard, I don't think there's really a way to get away from crunch and force the industry to a normal 9-5 schedule. Programmers, QA, artists, designers, everyone involved usually cares way too much to just put in the bare minimum and that's the origin of crunch, or so I believe. On the other hand, the number of people who are willing to work those insane hours are relatively few and the dedication to the work that games requires is far, far above most any other place I've seen.
I think I would. I've always wanted to be involved in game development on one level or another. Initially it was in 3d animation, which is what I've always wanted to do. But unfortunately, due to money constraints, and a slew of other issues I was never able to get into a focused 3d animation program. I was worried that it would cost me 20k of loans to take an animation program, and living in toronto, there might never be an opportunity for me to get a job in video games. So I ended up settling as a graphic designer doing mostly print advertising.
Ideally I've always wanted to be involved in the design aspect of video games. So if someone came up to me and said 'would you be willing to work 12 hours a day, for not a whole lot of money, designing a game,' I think I would jump at the chance.
In other words, there's legions of college-aged kids out there who are saying the same thing as KoolEagle: "I don't care what I have to do, I'll be someone's bitch to get a job in the games industry". So there's nothing forcing employers to compete for employees. They don't have to offer better pay, better working conditions, better benefits--people with college degrees are lining up to do QA for $9 an hour!
I'm not saying that good working conditions don't exist in the games industry. But as far as pure economics goes, there's no real impetus on the employers to offer working conditions. This is why they can be tough to find.
That's a lot of the reason why I decided that getting into the games industry wasn't a reasonable goal (if you look at my post above). I didn't want to put myself through years of training, and get really deep in debt without the guarantee of a good job on the other end. With the game industry sometimes it seems like not only is there no guarantee of getting a good job on the other end of school, but there's no guarantee of getting a job at all. Meanwhile, as a graphic designer, I've been employed for a few years now, and occasionally get e-mails from other companies asking if I want an interview.
I'm basically in the same boat as Dissociater, working on games has always been something I've wanted to do but because of how school ended up for me I've only got a college diploma when most game places seem to be looking for university degrees. I didn't find it terribly hard to find a job doing software development with what I've got though, and it certainly pays allot better than 9$ an hour. For the time being I think I'll stick with my non-games job and see if I can get a small game project off the ground in my spare time.
On the other hand I think, like Dissociater, that if someone offered me a job right now for not much pay, to do work on a full blown game I don't think I'd pass up the opportunity.
I've been a tester, designer, and am currently a programmer at various studios around Austin.
Employers not having to improve QoL due to glut of potential employees is only partially true. There is a glut of junior talent, and most of those people suck. They don't know what they're talking about and they're mostly unhireable. They just want in because they think it's cool. or easy, or that they can change the industry. Poor deluded bastards.
It's a huge, multi part problem that only a few studios have truly solved. People aren't bitching about the hours, not really. Crunch time, even "The 200 Club" syndrome isn't the problem. It's lack of proper compensation for that time. I don't always mean monetary, though that would help. A LOT. A job has to be rewarding, whether through money or through the work done, and most of the time, the work in the game industry sucks. 10% of the people in the industry get to work on what they want to work on, the rest of us are working on Barbie Fucking Horse Adventures. Nobody wants to work on that fucking game and we're stuck with 12-16 hour days on that fucking game, with no compensation.
Secondly, most studios are work for hire. We get money from publishers, and they sure as fuck don't want to give extra money to pay people. In general, especially when it comes to existing IP, publishers just want mediocre games that they can market well. It's become more or less understood that good games don't sell. Marketing sells. Marketing composes anywhere from 25 to 60% of a game's budget, and is a much safer investment. It's a known quantity, if you invenst this much money, you will likely get this many sales, no matter the quality of the product. Don't think marketing works? Look at ANY major franchise and then look at the quality of said franchise versus other similar products or services.
Finally, there's the head in the sand problem developers have. We're sure as fuck not about to throw our bodies on the gears of the machine. We have mouths to feed and finding jobs in this industry is ALL about who's dick you sucked and how well you did it. How good you are at your job is almost secondary to how many dicks you sucked. Being a whistleblower is only going to burn bridges, and you NEED those bridges because you are going to be laid off. You want in in the game industry, get good at sucking dick.
So why the fuck do we do this. We're fucking batshit insane. Some of us are stuck here. Some of us don't mind working on Barbie Fucking Horse Adventures. Some of us still have the ignorant belief that we can change the industry and create something great. Those are the saddest bastards of all.
The whole indie movement with games, things like DICE becoming a major developer, these are EXCEPTIONS to the rule. In general, most people fail quietly. It doesn't MATTER how hard you try, or how good your idea is. EVERYONE has ideas. Ideas only become "good" when executed properly. To get executed, you need resources. To get resources, you better be a good damn good salesman.
So how to fix it? We want to not work ridiculous hours, and when we do, we want compensation. Where does that compensation come from? Independence through popular IPs and products wholly owned by the studio. Financial independence from publishers and from licensing. Valve is the solution. Blizzard is the solution. They're the goal. They're developer heaven.
Myself, I am currently a student whose finishing his third year in university in Canada. Anyways, my question to you guys that are in the industry currently is, how hard was it for you to get your foot through the door? What kind of things gave you an edge?
Currently myself I have been doing some projects(Source mods, graphics related stuff as well) mainly so that I can get a shot at internship at one of the studio's in eastern Ontario.(Silicon Knights, Ubisoft Montreal, EA Montreal).
edit: Sorry for the grammar, I am running off to lunch quick!
BC has quite a bunch of studios, so look out for openings here, too.
One thing I've noticed is that unless you either have a portfolio of (possibly) game-related work or have top-notch grades, it can be hard to get an internship with one of the heavy hitters for your first internship. There are a lot of smaller studios that you can try for (hint: see BC), and for internship/junior work, the experience is equally valuable. If you are bent on trying out with one of the big companies afterwards, having this experience will set you apart from the masses that do not have this experience (particularly relevant to software engineering).
Of course, I don't know what your major is.
If you're into visual arts, then a portfolio is MANDATORY, but you know that already. Being proficient with stuff like 3DSMax/Maya/etc. is also going to be important.
I am in computer science at Carleton University right now, third year.
Like you said though, apparently your portfolio is the biggest thing to have. Grades aren't as important from what I hear.
Degrees really, really, really don't matter if you want to be a developer. They're a foot in the door method, at best. What does matter, and this is very goddamn important, is experience. A developer will pick someone up with 3 games under their belt, regardless of education before they'll pick up a guy with a 4.0 GPA and no real work. If you're really serious about it, there's mod teams and indie developers and when you bust it right down, Torque Game Engine costs damn near nothing. Get experience, get proficient with software (if you're serious about 3D modeling/animation, for example, buy a book on Maya or 3DSMax and get the program and learn it yourself. Initiative is king), and get work done. I'm none too little irked by the fact that I'll graduate college with only one game done, which doesn't bode well for me landing anything.