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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
privitsan02
Member
And people wonder why games keep getting delayed. Project managers in the gaming industry, from what I've heard have it ridiculously tough. The industry was built on creatives and thus setting deadlines is very difficult if your boss came from the bottom as well, they know how it is and can relate.
It's frustrating as consumers, but we reap what we sow.
Best wishes.
It's frustrating as consumers, but we reap what we sow.
Best wishes.
Indies aren't that much better in that regard, if not worse.
A lot of programmers don't look at it that way though. What you are doing is yours even if you don't own it so you want it to be as good as possible. Some of the crunch in the software industry is not employer mandated.
Cool. Makes perfect sense. While you're adding to those requirements, more and more manhours will be spent to check off every box in that growing list and this cycle will continue where devs work more and more hours.
That last sentence of yours is the reason why dev hours will just keep on increasing.
Gotdatmoney
Member
It's not even a lack of empathy. It's delusional. What planet do you have to live on to think launching an indie game is not just as stressful and requiring hard ass work with long hours?
They all have to do the exact same shit. Indies just do it with less people. That's like literally it.
Yeah, this is the real problem. Like it's a good thing, a point of pride, like you said. "Look how dedicated I am" and all that.
Couple that with the arms race that is AAA games development, and crunch is just the status quo, which completely sucks.
It really is a huge catch-22 because in AAA if a developer doesn't crunch, their game suffers in comparison to the developer who does crunch, and the consumer doesn't know what goes on behind the scenes, so they just pick the better looking product. However, I do believe it's unsustainable in the long run. Games are getting more and more complicated to develop, and with that comes either a) even more crunch or b) much longer dev cycles with "regular" crunch. The churn rate on employees will get to insanity levels. People always wonder why there are only a handful of leaders in game development, and this is always what I tell them. You've got those that have almost always been at the top, and then you got the cogs that either burn out before they reach it, or they get laid off to bring in the next batch of crunchers.
I really do wonder sometimes what motivates AAA developers.
All that effort for alright pay and being listed as the fourth member of the UI design team.
Leafhopper
Banned
The fuck is this post.
Brewster's Wallet
Member
Well Mogwai got his/her intended reaction then. Surely no-one is that stupid.
I still think their needs to be a greater effort from the press in not exclaiming "where is game X, it's been 2 years already....." as well as the PR cycles not announcing games so early that puts the studios under extra pressure earlier.
And yes, ultimately, it's down to those publishing and running the studios to try and change the working practices around so that the situations in the OP don't carry on being the norm.
I still think their needs to be a greater effort from the press in not exclaiming "where is game X, it's been 2 years already....." as well as the PR cycles not announcing games so early that puts the studios under extra pressure earlier.
And yes, ultimately, it's down to those publishing and running the studios to try and change the working practices around so that the situations in the OP don't carry on being the norm.
More_Badass
Member
Wow. It's called having some empathy
And, no making your own indie game doesn't solve the problem. At all. Crunching, 3hrs of sleep, working for hours every day for years, is just as common among indie game dev
Really as a dev myself, sometimes its not even financial motivation but seeing users get immersed in worlds that you've created and get lost in. As a dev, when that sort of thing happens, it's literally one of the best feelings in the world.
They have a deep love for their craft, which makes them very easy to take advantage of.
Basically this. They made themselves the losers at the company. And they may be getting average to good salaries but anyway nobody enjoys life like that.
The reason dev hours keep increasing is because of shitty management and unrealistic timelines... trying to shift the blame to consumers for having standards is ridiculous.
I thought most people knew that the gaming industry is like the fast food industry on the lower end, churning new employees each year on the lower end with low wages, and expecting there salaried personnel to work 100 hour weeks to get the job done. If you want long term financial stability better enter health care or construction with not crazy hours daily.
Yeah she's right about the rising expectations for games. I played Prince of Persia: Sands of Time again last month. It's a really tight and well designed 6-8 hour game with no other modes. If it came out nowadays, people would be straight on here complaining about "lack of content".
The irony of your avatar, and that statement ...
AmuroChan
Member
Well, obviously you're going to need most people (and preferably influential game devs) to be on board so that the union has some negotiating power.
She wants to make the best game possible with the limited amount of time and money that have been allotted to her by the publisher/investor/whoever. If she had an extra hundred million dollars or could push her game out another 2 years I'm sure she would.
Some customers have unrealistic expectations as well though. In the Dragon Quest builders thread someone said an 80 metacritic is too high for a game without multiplayer. I've also heard that some games shouldn't have a $60 price tag because they don't have some checklist of features. It's a toxic environment on both sides.
Im not really familiar with what was Amy's role while developing these games. I believe she was responsible for the story of the games, so I can't see how in the world did they need her there 80 hours a week for 10+ years. But I'm probably wrong and she did something else which required her to be there I guess, wouldnt make sense otherwise
I'm sorry for people like you who have to read shit like this. Really sucks that people are so ignorant about these things.
Kuro Madoushi
Unconfirmed Member
Crunch is always part of the cycle, so this isn't surprising. I wonder though how much of it she enjoyed. There are definitely people out there that would love to do that amount of work if it was something they absolutely loved and woke up for.
Personally, I don't think any job is worth it as my last boss said, your job won't be beside you on your deathbed.
Personally, I don't think any job is worth it as my last boss said, your job won't be beside you on your deathbed.
Raging Spaniard
If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
This happens a ton in the AAA game industry (and some on mobile), its one, if not THE one, biggest disconnects between devs and fans.
This is why devs get so angry when fans get outraged about a game being flawed or missing features. Zero empathy from your biggest fans and you're not even really allowed to explain why.
This is why devs get so angry when fans get outraged about a game being flawed or missing features. Zero empathy from your biggest fans and you're not even really allowed to explain why.
AmuroChan
Member
She's only the creator director. At the end of the day she still has to answer to the Publisher who not only controls the budget, but also decides when a game needs to ship by.
AAA needs to change. Right now everyone works themselves to the bone making games with dozens of hours of content that the vast majority of players never even touch.
Some of my favorite games ever are 16 bit games that are the length of a movie or shorter. This content bloat just spreads out the quality and dilutes the experience.
Some of my favorite games ever are 16 bit games that are the length of a movie or shorter. This content bloat just spreads out the quality and dilutes the experience.
AmuroChan
Member
This isn't just crunch though. She's saying 80 hr work week is the norm, meaning during crunch it's even longer.
MilkyJoe
Member
Cheers, I will have a looksie into that.
dave is ok
aztek is ok
People shit all over companies like Valve, but they probably haven't had to crunch since Portal 2 something
Some of your favorite 16 bit games probably also had huge amounts of crunch. Especially if they were japanese games.
Valve is toxic in other ways. But I am betting they also encourage long working hours if you want to get your project adopted by the company.
Game consumers standards are crazy nowadays though.
This is top five GAF posts.
Agreed. For every Witcher 3 there are a dozen of ubisoft style busyworkathons. Longer does not automatically equal better.
Oh, I can blame the shit out of consumers. Consider the storm of tantrums from gamer man-babies any time a game gets delayed, or doesn't have enough frames, or the thing someone was hoping would happen in the story doesn't happen, etc, etc. These people have a very real and evident power to actually ruin the lives of developers.
Yeah, that makes sense. You'd be hard pressed finding any other software developers as enthusiastic about what the get to do.
I feel kind of shitty reading these stories for obvious reasons. but also, because I always get a kick out of reading all the "aw shucks, you mean capital pulverizes labor into fine dust???" posts, hitting the back button and seeing 169012569117185882612 reply threads for this month's disposable AAA games on the forum page
Working conditions won't change if there is pressure to be profit. AAA (or game dev/publish in general) is a tough business as it is and consumers keep asking for more. It has to be an industry wide movement, either unionizing or monopolizing to offer less content in a game, like $60 single player only games are acceptable, and gamer won't like it.
Yes, it's ultimately a conflict between dev/pub and gamer/consumer.
Green Yoshi
Member
A while ago I read an article about working hours in the USA. People work more hours per week than in Germany, but they are less productive because Germans have 30 paid vacation days per year and Americans only 10. And 42% of the employees didn't take any vacation because of being afraid to lose their job.
If you want to have great employees, you have to offer great working conditions.
If you want to have great employees, you have to offer great working conditions.