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Secret developers of the video game industry

polygon.com

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Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#31

Post by thenomad »

patio11 wrote: post #9
crocal wrote: post #7

How cute. Sometimes you don't appear on credits. I have been working with more than 100 people on 2.9 millions of real-time safety critical code for nearly a decade. It has been unknowingly used by millions of people around the world and there will never be any recognition for any of us. Grow up.

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…

For more insights into the weird and wonderful world of film crediting, I recommend listening to Robert Rodriguez' conversation with Tim Ferriss, around the hour mark - http://fourhourworkweek.com/2015/08/23/the-wizard-of-hollywo...

Notably, Rodriguez is no longer a member of the Director's Guild Of America - with a number of knock-on effects including being unable to work for most of the major studios - as the direct result of a disagreement about credits.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#32

Post by novaleaf »

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…

FYI, You are lucky they credited you at all. If you left before the game shipped they do not have a legal obligation to credit you.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#33

Post by WorldMaker »

patio11 wrote: post #6

Related and interesting: the IGDA's guidelines on credits: http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.igda.org/resource/collection/6C...

It's particularly interesting to this conversation because it has no teeth. IGDA is hope and a dream. It took real unions a lot of hard work to get movie credits to accurately credit people. Presumably it would take the same for games.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#34

Post by scrollaway »

crocal wrote: post #7

How cute. Sometimes you don't appear on credits. I have been working with more than 100 people on 2.9 millions of real-time safety critical code for nearly a decade. It has been unknowingly used by millions of people around the world and there will never be any recognition for any of us. Grow up.

Nothing like a man who boasts about being humble.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#35

Post by port6667 »

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…

I love it too, read it every few years. Great book.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#36

Post by realquick81 »

kls wrote: post #25
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…

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…

I was 17 when I dipped my foot in the game development industry, and not even a year in I had done enough research to understand the slave path in front of me.

I didn't take that path and now I am thankful for it. In other words, your nephew is not a bright kid.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#37

Post by e12e »

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…

Power over ones life is very important. In Norwegian labour law there's strict limits to work hours and overtime (I believe the TL;DR is: 40 hour week, 4 weeks paid vacation, every other Sunday off, no "non-essential" Sunday work, along with some caveats for seasonal work (eg: ocean fishing) - a baseline of 100 hours of overtime a year per employee, with the option to apply for another 100(?) on a case-by-case basis".

But those do not apply to people that can decide their own hours - managers (that are actually managers, and that can choose when they are present), or people in an "especially free position".

The latter one is a bit woollen, but it generally means consultants that really are free to set their own hours.

While the particulars of what's reasonable hours/off-time etc is debatable (and could use more research), I think the core idea, that working hard for yourself is much less harmful than being forced to work hard. While the hours might be similar, the stress is different when you decide for yourself how to spend your time.

I'd love to see some research on that, though.

Re: Secret developers of the video game industry

#38

Post by crocal »

scrollaway wrote: post #34
crocal wrote: post #7

How cute. Sometimes you don't appear on credits. I have been working with more than 100 people on 2.9 millions of real-time safety critical code for nearly a decade. It has been unknowingly used by millions of people around the world and there will never be any recognition for any of us. Grow up.

Nothing like a man who boasts about being humble.

Stating measurable and verifiable facts = boasting. Faking achievements in credits or weak articles = career management. Nothing like reverse psychology.
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