The overtime and crunch nightmare cycle was the reason I decided not to go into the games industry after I graduated from uni. I want to work to live, not the other way around, which is the wrong attitude when making entertainment software.
Well someone needs to pounce Bill and m$ thats why Im going for the robots I can hear you. Been there done that myself for a number of years. In the eighties it was fun computers were new and exciting by the 90's employers just started getting greedy and I finaly wised up. Lost communication with most my friends and family just was not worth it. Now I get paid more work less 45ish on hours a week and can telicommute in when I want to. Robots rock. hehehe hey you weren't suppose to tell anyone. Thats one of the you will learn things. Yeah people dont realize that part. normaly by the time any project is completed you rarely want to see it again when you have to put in so many hours with fair compensation Good for you. short crunch time can be fun if they are on the one or two week side and you have a fun team. The problem is when they drag on and you have no choice in the matter. You start feeling like a prisonar.
I think most high end jobs have times when a project leads to long working hours for a short term period, if you want to work your way up the ladder you expect it. It's the long term cycle that mess with you, especially if you want something close to a normal life and to get married and start a family. I have heard of plenty of marriages that have fallen apart because of crunch and the stresses related to game development. I've even heard of people going nuts because of it. It's a young man's profession, or a lonely man's :-(
The staff turnover in the games industry kind of says it all. I can't remember the statistic, but it was insane.
A lot of gamers looking in from the outside see the games industry as one big doss, a dream job. That's somewhat naive. It can be a lot of fun and very satisfying at times; but those times are stacked up with plenty of disappointment, frustration, exhaustion, bad health, repetition and a giant tub of elbow grease. More so these days you are just one link in a long chain and do your job without being a big part of the creative process. Of course it depends on where you start, but as a junior walking into the industry that is how things begin. The industry in some ways has changed a great deal but at the same time it hasn't evolved in others, especially working practices.
Yeah, this was what THQ was like, granted I was only a lowly tester (so the pressure wasn't as hard on us.) Still, during crunch time we would work 13 hour days, with only one day off per week. California law minimum for days off is four per month. Thing is sometimes they wouldn't start this schedule until half of the month was over, so you already had your four days off that month (two prior weekends,) Thus you'd end up working 13 hours a day, three weeks straight. Then if it were really crazy they'd start two shifts of this schedule, one from 9 am to 10 pm and the other from 9 pm to 10 am. Once last year there was a large brushfire across the street from the building, and there was smoke and crap all up chocking us to death, yet we stuck it out and worked through it, even though the flames were visible from the parking lot. They always promised us comp days, but we never got'em. The only time I ever got a comp day was after pulling an 18 hour shift, whereupon I just slept through the whole day off. Last time I ever do that shit. Thing is, if you understand what is going to happen and what you need to do, then really it's entirely your choice. Granted this is different than having your wages reduced from a job you've already established yourself in, or not being paid for hours worked, etc. For instance THQ used to give all permanent employees a week's paid vacation over Christmas but has just recently stopped (I didn't get this, becasue I was a "temp." You European guys think you got it bad, we here in the USA don't even have the rudimentary labor protections you guys do. Over here exploitation is the name of the game. Anyway...) It's really too bad, I really liked working there. I mean it's games, who wouldn't? But the hours were just too crazy, and the pay was pretty sad. My job now pays more than what I was making there even with all the crazy overtime, and I have normal, human-being type hours. So to sum up, I couldn't take the heat, so I left the kitchen and took a seat at the dining table.
