Secret developers of the video game industry • Hacker News Board

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#21

Post by pjmlp » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 9:41 AM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #14

vvanders wrote: post #3

Crediting is a much larger issue than just what's referred to in the article. I worked on a title for ~3 years, many of those being 6-8 months of 75-100hr weeks. Saw marriages destroyed on that project, people pushed to the edge. I left ~4 months before ship because I knew if I didn't it would be the end of me. Twice I blew the stoplight in front of our house because I was so exhausted. Yet it was insinuated that I d…

Gamedev has a special, and virulent, form of the same problem afflicting much of the tech industry. Because the jobs pay well and considered to be desirable there's a huge mass of folks wanting into the industry. So as people burn out and as talent evaporates away to find better working conditions those folks are easily replaced. To the people who are "in the trenches" it becomes very obvious that this is a problem,…

With the exception that in some countries, we do have unions that work, even in tech.

Sorry, but it is in German

www.igmetall-itk.de/index.php

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#22

Post by kraftman » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 10:18 AM UTC

com2kid wrote: post #16

vvanders wrote: post #3

Crediting is a much larger issue than just what's referred to in the article. I worked on a title for ~3 years, many of those being 6-8 months of 75-100hr weeks. Saw marriages destroyed on that project, people pushed to the edge. I left ~4 months before ship because I knew if I didn't it would be the end of me. Twice I blew the stoplight in front of our house because I was so exhausted. Yet it was insinuated that I d…

I hire a lot of ex-game devs. "yeah so in the two months leading up to RTM I might need ya'll to work until 10PM and occasionally another four or so hours on the weekend. I'll be taking dinner requests for weeknights and lunch requests on the weekend." Tired developers write /shit/ code. Every time we end up in bug regression hell it is because we (as a team) panicked and fixed something with too little sleep and not…

How can you say 'Tired developers write /shit/ code.' and then 'So there may be an occasional 60 hour week'?

Is that a 5 day week, so they're working 12 hours a day? Surely they will be tired after that?

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#23

Post by chkuendig » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 10:20 AM UTC

sdrothrock wrote: post #19

crocal wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can work on classified project and still mention them in your resume. I have plenty of resumes like that in the team. As long as I have a way to verify skills (by calling someone), it's perfectly fine. I don't need to know the details. No one should leave a blank line in a resume.

The article cites "white label" companies that aren't allowed to mention what they've worked on, though. I'm not sure how that would work other than you saying that you worked at X company, but not being able to cite a single product you worked on.

It's the same for management consultants.

Just use a generic project name. "Major RTS Franchise, 90% Metascore, ##M sales" and then list your responsibilities.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#24

Post by loup-vaillant » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 11:31 AM UTC

kraftman wrote: post #22

com2kid wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hire a lot of ex-game devs. "yeah so in the two months leading up to RTM I might need ya'll to work until 10PM and occasionally another four or so hours on the weekend. I'll be taking dinner requests for weeknights and lunch requests on the weekend." Tired developers write /shit/ code. Every time we end up in bug regression hell it is because we (as a team) panicked and fixed something with too little sleep and not…

How can you say 'Tired developers write /shit/ code.' and then 'So there may be an occasional 60 hour week'? Is that a 5 day week, so they're working 12 hours a day? Surely they will be tired after that?

Yes they would. But the fatigue takes a couple weeks to be so bad that productivity drops below your regular 40 hours work week. (On average. Studied on creative labour. Not guaranteed for knowledge work.)

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#25

Post by kls » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 12:05 PM UTC

scrollaway wrote: post #4

vvanders wrote: post #3

Crediting is a much larger issue than just what's referred to in the article. I worked on a title for ~3 years, many of those being 6-8 months of 75-100hr weeks. Saw marriages destroyed on that project, people pushed to the edge. I left ~4 months before ship because I knew if I didn't it would be the end of me. Twice I blew the stoplight in front of our house because I was so exhausted. Yet it was insinuated that I d…

The games industry has a worker abuse problem. All those companies proudly talking about their 18 months of crunch? Nooooope, shouldn't happen. This shouldn't be a thing you're proud of. You shouldn't be proud of your employees for slaving to death on those projects. It's very tough. Compared to the "regular" tech industry, people in video games can be so passionate about what they're making. It almost seems comparab…

When I was young, I was in the simulation industry in Orlando and the game industry was taking off there. Tiburon, who would become part of EA later, was snapping up the young simulation talent, in the area and I had an offer to move over. That was the day I decided that web development did not look like that bad of a tradeoff. Game dev was a cut in pay from simulation salaries, which where already well under web dev salaries and the work days my friends where pulling bordered on the insane, crunch mode for 12 months or more with no ownership stake.

Now I was young at the time and had no issue with a long day, I ended up in a startup, pulling similar hours but I had a small stake in ownership. My friends that did go into the field, on the other hand, have very fond memories of the work (similar to soldiers in battle trying to pull off a heroic effort) but they have a lot of regrets overall for entering the industry and feel that they have been damaged as an employee after they inevitably became disillusioned as happens when you life goals of your 30's and 40's start to materialize.

Simply put, the game industry has an almost inexhaustible supply of young bright talent that are falling over one another to get a break in the industry. My nephew being one of them, I literally staged an intervention with him and asked him to talk to several of my friends that left the industry. But he is young and cannot see past his 20's so he is well on his way in the industry. His college girlfriend just split on him over the hours, as she wants to go out and be 20 something, but that has not rocked his confidence in maintaining course in the industry. It is unfortunate, a lot of bright kids get sucked down that hole, I am thankful I was not.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#26

Post by ido » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 1:16 PM UTC

InclinedPlane wrote: post #15

scrollaway wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The games industry has a worker abuse problem. All those companies proudly talking about their 18 months of crunch? Nooooope, shouldn't happen. This shouldn't be a thing you're proud of. You shouldn't be proud of your employees for slaving to death on those projects. It's very tough. Compared to the "regular" tech industry, people in video games can be so passionate about what they're making. It almost seems comparab…

Precisely. And because of that enthusiasm there's always someone else in the funnel if anyone burns out or leaves. Also, because games are art the most successful franchises can get away with completely broken processes as long as it doesn't go over some threshold (which appears to be very high judging by the success of even very broken releases).

Might be better in some places than others (e.g. europe vs the us). I've worked in the games industry for about 5 years now (another ~7 before that mostly as a web dev) for several companies and never had insane crunches like that.

I mostly worked in Austria and Germany.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#27

Post by forgottenpass » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 2:34 PM UTC

pandaman wrote: post #11

patio11 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a few industries, for industry-specific reasons, who appears on credits and the exact contents of those credits actually does matter for career advancement purposes. Video games are one of those industries. Film and academia are two others. It is critically important to your future if you're an assistant professor or software developer working on the 3-D engine that your work get recorded in the industry-standard…

There is no industry-standard record of credits in the games, JFYI. Mobygames is a good collection of crowd-sourced info, but it is far from being comprehensive (even major AAA games and/or their credits can be missing). Without a proper record credits cannot be that critically important and they are not from my experience. Nobody is going to find the games you said you have been working on and play them through to g…

There is no industry-standard record of credits in the games

No, but that doesn't mean people don't use it as hiring critera. Some software companies use github profiles to screen candidates. Open source contributions in general, and github in particular are a comically inept way of evaluating candidates, even in comparison to credits. But it still happens.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#28

Post by sudoherethere » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 3:12 PM UTC

vvanders wrote: post #3

Crediting is a much larger issue than just what's referred to in the article. I worked on a title for ~3 years, many of those being 6-8 months of 75-100hr weeks. Saw marriages destroyed on that project, people pushed to the edge. I left ~4 months before ship because I knew if I didn't it would be the end of me. Twice I blew the stoplight in front of our house because I was so exhausted. Yet it was insinuated that I d…

I got into programming because of my love of video games. Unfortunately/Luckily, I couldn't get a job in game industry immediately out of college. As I started reading online forum about game dev, I realized almost every corporate game developer complained about it. I was no longer thinking making video games as one of the best job in the world.

I understand when you are sole developer or owner of the studio who is burning midnight oil. I have done that on some of my projects. But I could never understand how people would give up their lives to make someone else's dream come true for average compensation.

I still love video games but now I try to play good indie games and hardly ever play anything from big studios.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#29

Post by pandaman » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 4:32 PM UTC

forgottenpass wrote: post #27

pandaman wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no industry-standard record of credits in the games, JFYI. Mobygames is a good collection of crowd-sourced info, but it is far from being comprehensive (even major AAA games and/or their credits can be missing). Without a proper record credits cannot be that critically important and they are not from my experience. Nobody is going to find the games you said you have been working on and play them through to g…

There is no industry-standard record of credits in the games No, but that doesn't mean people don't use it as hiring critera. Some software companies use github profiles to screen candidates. Open source contributions in general, and github in particular are a comically inept way of evaluating candidates, even in comparison to credits. But it still happens.

It sure does not. People are free to use whatever criteria they want for hiring. Even illegal ones would be impossible to prove as long as they are not advertised. But neither this nor the fact that some companies outside the games use github as a criterion proves that credits are important. What you can do is important. What you have already done is too. Credits in movies and academia are an expression of these things. They are not in the games though.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#30

Post by AimHere » Thu, Oct 01, 2015, 4:37 PM UTC

SmellyGeekBoy wrote: post #17

port6667 wrote: post #12

It's interesting to hear more about the video game industry insides. I wonder if id's success helped start this atmosphere. (Read masters of doom) They were portrayed as rockstars, friends, who busted ass and made a popular game which made them all rich. I fell for that idea when i was young, luckily i never got into the industry. I later read some blog post of an EA developer's wife or something, going on and on how…

I love Masters Of Doom, it's one of my favourite books (make of that what you will). But I guess the main difference is that the id guys were pushing boundaries and working themselves to the bone on something they truly loved and felt passionate about. It was self-imposed and unlike the hordes of faceless developers working in sweatshop conditions to churn out the latest CoD or whatever, they actually received a huge…

That's a bad example. I'm sure the CoD developers generally think they're making some of the best games ever, and they have the sales figures and the plaudits to prove it. Gamers like to sneer at CoD, but I'm certain there's a lot of care and enthusiasm that goes into each iteration. It just gets sneered at harder than a lot of games, because it's perhaps overpopular for what it is.

The people making uber-cynical cash-milkers at Zynga or King, or those German shovelware job-simulator games with Microsoft-style trade dress are likely far more likely to fit your description than some blockbusting AAA bestseller like CoD.