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Amy Hennig worked 10.5 years of 80+ hour weeks at Naughty Dog, says AAA not worth it
- Thread starter Nirolak
- Start date
Probably lots of reworking based on things that can or cannot be done due to technical issues or time, changes on gameplay or flow that affect the scenario, also all the random lore and whatnot plus probably stories for other prototype titles and whatnot? Plus I wouldn't be surprised if she was doing something else besides writing stories.
Edit: Oh yeah she was a creative director? Then as Massive Duck said before, lots of paperwork, management and whatnot.
She must have been doing other stuff as well as there is no way you could spend 80 hours a week for years just being a writer at ND. I love the UC games as much as the next guy but those stories or any stories shouldn't require that much work.
NervousXtian
Thought Emoji Movie was good. Take that as you will.
Wow, that's some bullshit. Fuck that. Most of these guys aren't being paid near enough to be classified as exempt considering the hours worked.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
-Meetings
-Revisions
-Paperwork
-Paperwork
-Paperwork
-Task management
-PR
-PR prep
-Research
-Brainstorming
-Iteration
-Missions
-Mission structure
etc.
Chiggs
Gold Member
This x 100.
cartographer
Member
That she was creative director?
Yep sure, that could be it. I'm not trying to be negative, just curious.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
Creative director entails a lot more than just "writing stories." Even people who are exclusively story writers have to deal with most of the things in that list plus more that I can't immediately recall.
I missed the part about her being 'creative director'.
Poetic.Injustice
Member
I think the industry has already changed. We're not seeing that many AAA games being made anymore compared to last gen. As much as people here like to deride mobile gaming it's been a boon for companies and indie devs helping them keep their budgets and time investment low.
badnewsbeers
Member
StrongBlackVine
Banned
Sounds like a fucking nightmare. I couldn't do it.
Speaking as someone in tech but outside the games industry: Many companies will only pay people 40hrs a week with no overtime yet expect 55+hr weeks from them.
My previous manager expected 70hr weeks from me, at a minimum, and got that from me for 18 months. I "quit" into a promotion on another team where I'm expected to actually work only the 40hrs I'm getting paid for.
CraigerGamer
Member
I wonder if something as simple as requiring developers to publically share the amount of person hours/day either on their website or in the description of their game on steam/psn/live etc would help solve some of the problem? smarter people than I would have to decide the regulations so game companies and publishers can't skirt the rules, but many of us simply have no idea the pain game devs go through to get a product out the door.
Just from this thread alone hearing the positive stories from SOME companies about their lack of crunch makes me want to buy their game out of support for human rights.
Just from this thread alone hearing the positive stories from SOME companies about their lack of crunch makes me want to buy their game out of support for human rights.
Wowfunhappy
Member
I mean, generally speaking, I can think of a couple things:
• Exploring space.
• Fighting massive forest fires.
• Maybe defending your country, depending on the circumstances.
Not games, though.
The context was getting started or going indie -- unless you already have a huge fanbase, crowdfunding is going to be really tough -- the idea is to find an alternative to the 80 hour work week, right? Kickstarter isn't going to be an easy fix. It's hard to find exact numbers, but I'd bet the majority of video game projects don't meet their funding goals -- a lot of the ones that do reach their goal were lowballing and that money doesn't end up being enough.
When giving general advice, I don't think it's wise to just point to the outliers that manage to be super successful -- you want to look at average outcomes, and those aren't good. Backers are getting pickier about what games they back -- in some ways that's obviously a good thing, but it will generally hurt indie developers that are trying to break in.
(if you want to get into physical board/card games, kickstarter still seems like a great place -- at least on a surface level)
Fantastical
Death Prophet
I work 40 - 50 hour weeks. Not worth it.
ninjaboyjohn
Member
(disclaimer - I worked with Amy on Uncharted 3)
She also would be at the mo-cap stage on many days, and ND games have months of capture sessions for everything from cut scenes to set pieces to navigation mechanics. So imagine spending a full work day directing, improvising, and writing with actors on set, and *then* returning for all the email, reviews, meetings, planning, etc that you didn't get to while on set.
Wowfunhappy
Member
So... for me, a more interesting question here is, do these ridiculous working hours result in better games being made? Would the Uncharted series be what it is today if everyone worked 40 hour weeks with no overtime?
Personally, my preference would be for these games to just get more development time—but that would probably necessitate paying people less. Which kind of opens up another question—if Naughty Dog cut salaries in half, but also doubled dev cycles and completely got rid of crunch—could they still get the talent they do? I know that I would rather work less and make less, especially when we're talking about an engineer's salary.
Personally, my preference would be for these games to just get more development time—but that would probably necessitate paying people less. Which kind of opens up another question—if Naughty Dog cut salaries in half, but also doubled dev cycles and completely got rid of crunch—could they still get the talent they do? I know that I would rather work less and make less, especially when we're talking about an engineer's salary.
How About No
Member
Can I have your autograph
Paw print will suffice
Seriously thank you for the further insight
This comment is what is wrong with this generation of gamers lol
"It's just x..."
"They had x amount of time...."
"They said this would be x....."
Yeah try fixing all of that when you're 80 hours into your work and you have to reverse course when you cannot
I understand people are just curious or asking but my assumption is this:
put a group of strangers together obligated by getting paid and sometimes loving what they do while also determining how much they want to work based on their own perception of what's asked of them and what they want to do.....first....
Then take 200 or so of these people and ask them to work together in a timely manner.
I've never worked at a place where someone doesn't mess up, doesn't get sick, doesn't decide to leave a company etc and every single one of those natural unintended things has a massive impact cuz each of those people represents 40-80 hours of work and now someone else has to pick up the slack
Also people don't always do what they say they can and sometimes they simply cannot which is just something that happens
Now demand that a game be perfect and delivered exactly how they said
Am I wrong that that's the rub of game design? group shit is tough, unforeseen changes complicate this further, and getting hundreds of people unified to produce one thing is very very very very very very tough correct?
this is any game company not naughty dog but it begs the question whenever I see things like "I don't get it they only had one thing"
so I guess the question is who doesn't understand this or assume this? And why is it in this realm it is demanded that the crazy amount of work people put into AAA titles be perfect without any understanding of the underlying process?
industry needs to change imo people shouldn't be worked this hard and expectations need to be reset
Dreams-Visions
Member
lawd.
She was the creative Director up until partially through Uncharted 4. She pretty much shaped the entire series and did way more than writing.
As someone that works 45-50 hours per week and hard it, I can't even imagine working 80 hours. It's absolutely insane. With what I work I'm drained every day including the weekend and it kills me desire to do many things outside of just tuning out on my couch and playing video games all weekend. In the US we work way too much and it's a huge problem imo.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
brandonh83
Banned
Damn... love Amy. Hate that she had to work so much but we all care and love what she did.
Same experience
Mass_Pincup
Banned
They sold well based on their expectations, I don't think that either of those games sold as much as UC1 did.
Sniffynose
Member
That's bloody terrible, as it is 40hr weeks barely leave enough time for family and a life outside of work. Money is everywhere but you can never get back that time so use it wisely!
GenericUser
Member
If every guy in the game dev business knew this before they choose this career, I guess some players wouldn't have to worry about a huge backlog. Glad I made the right decisions for myself.
brandonh83
Banned
Yeah context is critical in these debates.
No lies detected
Why do they need to sell as much as UC1 though? What I can infer from her sentence is that big budget games with only single player mode isn't viable in this day and age and both of the games I mentioned have high production values.
Compsiox
Banned
It helps when you love your craft.
Blueingreen
Member
What are the turnover rates in this industry like, are dev's fully aware of the work load/ conditions prior to employment, and is the pay sustainable? I ask because from reading this being a developer the end's don't really justify the means.
Final Verdict
Member
Wow, if accurate, and I wouldn't know as I am not in the industry, but that is simply not good.
But, when I read something like this it does make me glad that I decided against going into the video game industry. Making a polished product really does take so much time....
I spent an entire school semester just making and animating one character in Maya....and games require lots of these made at a super high level.
Hopefully game environments will be able to improve as technology and tools get better.
But, when I read something like this it does make me glad that I decided against going into the video game industry. Making a polished product really does take so much time....
I spent an entire school semester just making and animating one character in Maya....and games require lots of these made at a super high level.
Hopefully game environments will be able to improve as technology and tools get better.
Maximus.
Member
It is sick that this type of workplace and deadlines are acceptable at all. Human life is more important that making money and making products. Perhaps have more staff, more realistic deadlines and product pipelines and stiffer laws. Too bad the laws work for the employer, rather than employee in most situations.
wapplew
Member
They can't make new uncharted like that if they want to sell over 5m.
zombieshavebrains
I have not used cocaine
No one else in the company could handle doing the first half or the second half of what you wrote down?
NipplesAndToes23
Member
Whoo I don't see how she did that for ten years. Ain't going to scare me though. I'm still heading for that path and going to have mine! I don't see anyone else out here making the moves so I got to be the one to change things and I can't live with never seeing my ideas coming into fruition.