shira
Member
I heard it costs more to make high quality 2D pixel art because so few people make it anymore. Games become 2.5D or a proprietary sick figure/hybrid type games.
All the new people are graduating with 3D art and animation experience
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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
All the new people are graduating with 3D art and animation experience
The solution is so obvious! So easy! Why aren't these poor devs just all making their own indie games?
In fact, why isn't ANY worker all over the world just making their own business? World economy saved!
Being creative director involves more than just writing.
Plus, writing for videogames is different than writing for other mediums. She had to collaborate with designers and try to mould the story around the interactive elements. I imagine this is a very iterative and time consuming process.
I get that, but what is Sony going to do, close down Naughty Dog for letting their devs see their children? I understand there are some extortionate publishers who do that, but it also seems to me there's a kind of broad fatalistic culture where this is seen as inevitable, or even something good (because the workaholics, the ones who survive, float towards the top). I think a good manager should always be mindful of his/her workers' mental health, and perhaps the first party studios with lots of gamer credit should be the ones leading the forefront of a more ethical culture. Not fucking lead the charge in crunch extortion. But then, that live to work culture seems ingrained in the American mindset and might be why Europe doesn't have much of a AAA game industry to begin with.
crunch is not exclusive to AAA game development.
But I agree with you about "content bloat". Less is more, at least for me.
Here's the Android link (RSS feed) for the podcast if anyone's interested:
https://www.idlethumbs.net/feeds/designer-notes
https://www.idlethumbs.net/feeds/designer-notes
Some developers like developing. Computer programming for me is a huge release, it's the most creative thing I do, even when I do mundane business applications. I enjoy the work, even if it's tiring and stressful and, ultimately, maybe not even worth it in the end. It takes a certain mindset. Like, I enjoy math, I like doing math problems. Programming and contributing to a large project can be ultimately fulfilling to people.
Coolio said if hip hop didn't pay he'd rap for free. There are many developers who feel the same way. It's just that... well, commercial development kind of sucks. Much in the same way being a commercial artist in any sector kind of sucks compared to just creating art in your spare time entirely for fun.
It's kind of like working out. Lots of people hate physical exercise, but plenty of people love it. But even the people who love it realize it can be a problem if you let it get out of control and take over your life. And software development for many companies is exactly that - letting development take over your life.
Because you want to see your name on a game. Also there are thousands of other people waiting to take your job if you don't get your work done.
Dangansona
Member
80 hours every week as a Creative Director? That sounds odd to me, but I don't pretend to know the ins and outs of game development.
I think enthusiasts and especially journalists need to stop the stigma they continue to feed that a game that doesn't take 2 years to develop is a complete mismanagement and probably a bad product. Games are art and sometimes art takes time, gets shelved, reconfigured, etc. And it would also help if we stopped announcing games so far in advance.
I think enthusiasts and especially journalists need to stop the stigma they continue to feed that a game that doesn't take 2 years to develop is a complete mismanagement and probably a bad product. Games are art and sometimes art takes time, gets shelved, reconfigured, etc. And it would also help if we stopped announcing games so far in advance.
Lagspike_exe
Member
This is brutal, but there are even more time intensive white collar jobs. Try ibanking where 100 hour work weeks are normal. Or biglaw.
More_Badass
Member
re: indie games
I've been following Rain World for years, so I'm a bit more knowledgable about that game. The devs were in crunch mode a few months ago (probably still). 3hrs of sleep a night, a self-described "death match", trying to reach deadlines (they're being published by Adult Swim) To the point that they were making sacrifies they weren't comfortable with to meet deadlines. They eventually had to push the game back to 2017. You can see the effects of late dev crunch in their devlogs. The progress updates they used to do often are rare, and the programmer/designer seems to working constantly.
I've been following Rain World for years, so I'm a bit more knowledgable about that game. The devs were in crunch mode a few months ago (probably still). 3hrs of sleep a night, a self-described "death match", trying to reach deadlines (they're being published by Adult Swim) To the point that they were making sacrifies they weren't comfortable with to meet deadlines. They eventually had to push the game back to 2017. You can see the effects of late dev crunch in their devlogs. The progress updates they used to do often are rare, and the programmer/designer seems to working constantly.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
It is crazy what is being demanded of AAA games nowadays, and in general also how difficult it is to create the visual quality required of them. It seems like the movie CG industry is the same way. It is mind blowing what is required and what is being done in both industries, but consumers pretty much take it for granted now, and there's obviously no going back.
I'm not sure what the solution is really, but I don't think having smaller teams with more time to do work will work in most cases. That just seems like a recipe for making a game that will feel outdated by the time it's released, or will be caught in an endless loop of trying to catch-up with what's out there already.
Frankly, it seems like almost all white collar industries are prone to crunch, with practically everyone in the world fighting for your piece of work, it seems inevitable.
I'm not sure what the solution is really, but I don't think having smaller teams with more time to do work will work in most cases. That just seems like a recipe for making a game that will feel outdated by the time it's released, or will be caught in an endless loop of trying to catch-up with what's out there already.
Frankly, it seems like almost all white collar industries are prone to crunch, with practically everyone in the world fighting for your piece of work, it seems inevitable.
Places like ND probably rival Germany or even better it in offering time off and employee benefits. On average the US is terrible to it's employee's but skilled industries generally offer equivalent benefits. However we are raised to not use our vacations. It is seen as a badge of honor and offering more time won't fix that it is a cultural problem.
lol, when I was testing the steam controller for them, I was reporting to one person on their team to fill out controller profiles for basically every game on steam. This poor dude was working around the clock to fill out as many profiles for as many games as possible around the clock. He was in seattle, I was in Texas, and sometimes I'd hit him up at like 7 am my time and he'd still be in the office, filling out their profiles.
Valve crunches just like everyone else.
A good historical counter point to this is how Jason West ran the IW development team from 2002 through 2009.
Mandatory crunch was limited to a few 2 or 3 week sprints per game, for key milestones like e3 and alpha. Regular work hours were 10am to 7pm. Crunch work hours extended that to 10am to 10pm, Monday through Thursday. An extra 12 hours per week. There as no mandatory weekend crunch for Call of Duty 1, 2, 4, or MW2.
Individuals that wanted to work extra hours could do so. For myself, I did what I called "18 months off, 6 months on". Meaning I would have a life outside of work for 18 months, and then to ship I would remove myself from all other obligations and focus on the game. Even so, it would say really only three to four months were very very intense, and even then I didn't work that much on the weekends.
It's important to highlight that engineers were not tasked with more work than they could do without crunching. Not crunching was a top priority. Jason adhered to strict scheduling of the engineering department. He believed that over time, people are more productive not crunching than if they did crunch in the same period.
Since Jason stopped making CoD games, the number of hours it takes to make one has risen at least 6x, and probably closer to 9x.
Mandatory crunch was limited to a few 2 or 3 week sprints per game, for key milestones like e3 and alpha. Regular work hours were 10am to 7pm. Crunch work hours extended that to 10am to 10pm, Monday through Thursday. An extra 12 hours per week. There as no mandatory weekend crunch for Call of Duty 1, 2, 4, or MW2.
Individuals that wanted to work extra hours could do so. For myself, I did what I called "18 months off, 6 months on". Meaning I would have a life outside of work for 18 months, and then to ship I would remove myself from all other obligations and focus on the game. Even so, it would say really only three to four months were very very intense, and even then I didn't work that much on the weekends.
It's important to highlight that engineers were not tasked with more work than they could do without crunching. Not crunching was a top priority. Jason adhered to strict scheduling of the engineering department. He believed that over time, people are more productive not crunching than if they did crunch in the same period.
Since Jason stopped making CoD games, the number of hours it takes to make one has risen at least 6x, and probably closer to 9x.
I don't know in the US but here there is a saying "work dignifies". I may be a lazy millenial or whatnot, but having worked as a software developer for almost 7 years I start to think that is a new version of "work will make you free".
HandsomeCharles
Member
Although it doesn't legitimise the number of hours, it's probably worth noting that in pretty much any other software development job, programmers would be earning a significantly higher wage
(other disciplines are probably out of luck )
If everyone followed your "logic", you wouldn't have played the game you have as an avatar.
So give me a fucking break and learn to have respect for others that work so hard everyday to give you products that want to entertain you in your free time while also trying to comply with arbitrary and many times very hard release timeframes because if a game is delayed, the entire world seems to fall apart to some people...
AusRoachman
Member
80 hr weeks only for most of your work to be scrapped , that would definetely hurt .
Hopefully she gets a good work / life balance at her new job. I am fortunate that I rarely work more then 50 hr weeks .
I couldn't imagine doing regularly 80 hr weeks , it would be so tiring and depressing .
Hopefully she gets a good work / life balance at her new job. I am fortunate that I rarely work more then 50 hr weeks .
I couldn't imagine doing regularly 80 hr weeks , it would be so tiring and depressing .
i'm an attorney and i'm in a union, but that is because i work for the government. don't think many private sector attorneys are unionized
Gotdatmoney
Member
The dev hours can go down if you hire more people but you balloon the cost of your game. Gamers arent going to pay 50% more per game to allow that. Project nanagement doesnt work like "oh hire double the people and it will go twice as fast!!" They are weighing cost to benefit here. Its a rock and a hard place. You're simplifying it. Consumer expectations totally play a role here. The market is so large and ganes are so disposable you cant expand the time you spend on projects by 50%.
HAHAHAHAH.
It's not at all uncommon for indies to work longer hours for less pay and deal with insane personal stress with your entire existence being tied to whatever you are working on.
Source: Me and the shitloads of indies I know. Crunch is bad everywhere.
DragonKnight
Member
Empty words in my opinion. What can we as gamers do to combat this? I can choose not to spend money on games made by studios who practice crunching but I am only one person.
Would love to be a part of the solution
In a lot of cases it is. I worked for one of Sony's first party studios for about a decade and a half, and I've seen first hand how much production processes evolved over that time period. Initially it was mostly Gantt and waterfall planning (if there was any planning at all) which never really reflected the rapidly-changing nature of software development. The last few games I shipped had evolved from hardcore Scrum through a variety of different Agile and Lean practices to arrive at, essentially, a toolbox of different production techniques that were used depending on which feature team we were working with.
The absolute golden rule here is to trust your team and work with them to ensure they are maximising their effective time on project: removing blockages, giving clear direction, killing dead-end features. Agile teaches you it's okay to be uncertain, but as soon as deadlines start to bite, executives get twitchy and begin to distrust their teams. It's then that the micro-managing starts, and nothing kills a project like needless overhead. I've done plenty of crunch in my time, and most of it could have been avoided if we'd have maintained the same discipline through the end of the project that we began it with.
I missed this post earlier, but that's essentially my point. I know we weren't the only studio able to do it, so it's nice to know that there are other, more forward-thinking developers out there. I'm pretty sure it does just come down to trust, though: trust in your team, trust in the data coming out of that team, and trust in the checks and balances in place to nudge things back on track when they go west.
Edited to reference Argonomic's awesome post.
I'm not sure if you're allowed to say, but how is Respawn on this front?
I mean more so for Titanfall 2 than Titanfall 1. I realize the first game had a lot of extenuating situations around it.
Accept less content for the same price, $60 for MP-only COD, or SP-only Uncharted, will you be ok with that? Or a MP-only Titanfall 2, just to follow up on the post above me.
partyphone
Banned
yeah. the attitude seems to be "I'm smart and amazing there's nothing a union could do for me".
*works 80 hours a week making childrens toys*
mocolostrocolos
Member
As a software dev i have to say::
It doesn't stand only for videogames development.
Any form of software develpment is likely to be cursed by overtime and crunching.
It doesn't stand only for videogames development.
Any form of software develpment is likely to be cursed by overtime and crunching.
inpHilltr8r
Member
Probably because if you find a studio you can work with, it's still an amazing job. Just not, 80 hours a week worth it. At least not for many of us. I have plenty of senior level friends in the industry who work at studios that don't crunch like that, and sadly, a couple who still do.
Green Yoshi
Member
Are there unions for people in the gaming industry? If you only fight for yourself the system won't change.
Could've just said, "I have no idea what I'm talking about" and your post would have sucked a lot less.
This is a flakey assumption when it comes to software development and I never suggested it in the first place.
Then companies need to learn to manage expectations and not let them run wild e.g. Hello Games. I stand by what I said, it's not constructive to blame consumers for their expectations, especially when it's as reasonable as wanting 60 FPS for a PC game which is what 'sparked' this little side discussion.
WoolyNinja
Member
I feel like this is a failure at every level - publishers, management, developers, etc. I'm a (non-game) developer and everyone I've ever worked with at all levels knows that anything beyond about 45 - 50 hours a week is simply wasted effort. You become tired. Your programming becomes sloppy which means you're redoing the same thing over and over to get it right. You stop caring about what your doing. Etc.
It's basically false extra effort that in the end slows you down and it makes no sense that anyone is still doing it this way.
It's basically false extra effort that in the end slows you down and it makes no sense that anyone is still doing it this way.
Yeah, it's never worth it.
I remember working 70-80 hours a week, 7 days, when I worked at Konami. Activision too. They work you to the bone and then some. Then they have the nerve to get pissy if you call in sick or can't make a shift because you're exhausted. I never saw my wife, because I worked the night shift, and by the time I got home at 11am, I went to sleep, then woke up around 3pm to hop on the bus to head back into work and work from 7pm-7am. It was a nightmare, and it's not like we were working on games that ended up being worth a damn. It would maybe have been a little more tolerable if we were working on something that ended up being a classic. But it's fucking Activision, or Konami (and not a Metal Gear title).
The best place I've worked in the industry besides Capcom was Obsidian. Those guys and gals were awesome, and it was a very positive, familial environment. Feargus Urquhart was a really cool, affable guy that I enjoyed talking with. The other companies I've worked for weren't nearly as pleasant.
We work our asses off to create what we hope is going to be a fun, entertaining game that's worth your time and money, but we're also sacrificing our health and relationships to do so. It really isn't worth it. I love working in this industry, but it takes a whole lot out of you. I've been in it about 11 years now, and thankfully, my current role doesn't require back-breaking hours, so it's been wonderful.
I remember working 70-80 hours a week, 7 days, when I worked at Konami. Activision too. They work you to the bone and then some. Then they have the nerve to get pissy if you call in sick or can't make a shift because you're exhausted. I never saw my wife, because I worked the night shift, and by the time I got home at 11am, I went to sleep, then woke up around 3pm to hop on the bus to head back into work and work from 7pm-7am. It was a nightmare, and it's not like we were working on games that ended up being worth a damn. It would maybe have been a little more tolerable if we were working on something that ended up being a classic. But it's fucking Activision, or Konami (and not a Metal Gear title).
The best place I've worked in the industry besides Capcom was Obsidian. Those guys and gals were awesome, and it was a very positive, familial environment. Feargus Urquhart was a really cool, affable guy that I enjoyed talking with. The other companies I've worked for weren't nearly as pleasant.
We work our asses off to create what we hope is going to be a fun, entertaining game that's worth your time and money, but we're also sacrificing our health and relationships to do so. It really isn't worth it. I love working in this industry, but it takes a whole lot out of you. I've been in it about 11 years now, and thankfully, my current role doesn't require back-breaking hours, so it's been wonderful.
mocolostrocolos
Member
inpHilltr8r
Member
This is known. Respect is due.
justsomeguy
Member
Strikes me that game studios are forever caught in a battle of spiralling costs (mainly due to wages) and an increasingly-demanding fan base. It's feast-or-famine (see also: "the death of AA gaming").
So the pressure / demand is real to burn every hour in the pursuit of perfection.
Ironically anyone who works 80 hours a week for 10 years (... or even for 3 weeks) will start delivering poorer quality work and do it more slowly - because they're exhausted. I used to order my team members home (non-gaming) if they'd been doing longer hours (50 hour weeks/6 days a week, whatever) for more than a fortnight. It always paid off in productivity/quality gains in the long run.
So the pressure / demand is real to burn every hour in the pursuit of perfection.
Ironically anyone who works 80 hours a week for 10 years (... or even for 3 weeks) will start delivering poorer quality work and do it more slowly - because they're exhausted. I used to order my team members home (non-gaming) if they'd been doing longer hours (50 hour weeks/6 days a week, whatever) for more than a fortnight. It always paid off in productivity/quality gains in the long run.
I've always considered my dream job to be working in the games industry. especially for a company like naughty dog, but the reason i have never pursued it is because i knew this is the reality of it, and i just don't think it's worth it. i'll stick to being an illustrator for a marketing company. it's a lot less stressful.
All of them? Try releasing a 15-minutes movie in theaters. People will feel ripped off and complain. Music is the same, though more flexible (sometimes you have EPs that last more than "full length" albums). AAA games are much more expensive than movies and music so people ask for more.
SmokedMeat
Gamer™
Perfect example. Someone commented about it reviewing poorly for a Gears game as well, despite the great reviews.
I'd want to throat punch these people if I were a developer.
DR2K
Banned
It's not the customers fault if you release a busted game.
Hasphat'sAnts
Member
Also in case anyone thinks crunch is directly related to quality, I worked for at least 3 months at 100+ hours a week on this http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/stormrise
That was along with dozens of others working those hours in a team of ~100, and we also crunched hard the prior 6 months but not that extreme.
That was along with dozens of others working those hours in a team of ~100, and we also crunched hard the prior 6 months but not that extreme.
JimmyRustler
Member
I don't get the outrage. I think it's pretty much common knowledge that you work these hours in the gaming industry. I wouldn't join the movie industry either and expect to do a 40 hour week. Doing such an artistic job always comes with a price.