The more you crunch, the less you actually get done. After a certain point, you are wasting more time fixing your fixes because of the mistakes you make during crunch.
Jason Schreier has heard it's impossible to find senior leads due to mass dev burnout
- Thread starter Nirolak
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The more you crunch, the less you actually get done. After a certain point, you are wasting more time fixing your fixes because of the mistakes you make during crunch.
I dont know why you would make that assumption, Im a workhorse that handles most aspects of art production and I am not trying to move away from that, dunno why you got the opposite impression.
If you find some of these easy art positions, feel free to send them my way
Because your portfolio is literally titled "visual development and art direction", and most of it consists of projects that have you pegged as a lead/managerial role. Looking at it, I don't get the impression that you're 100% a production artist.
The easy to get positions I'm referring to are mostly for high end production artist roles with very strong 3D portfolios. The market is dry for these sorts of people and many studios have great difficulty hiring senior talent there.
Abstrusity
Member
What's the big deal? Japan's in crunch time for everything and they seem to be doing just fi- oh.
Oh.
Oh.
thomasmahler
Moon Studios
Well, crunch is also handled stupidly by most studios out there. Crunch usually means just senselessly putting in 14+ hours every day, it's all about the hours, not about the actual results on a daily basis, so more often than not it boils down to mismanagement and a lack of trust in your talent. And you become 'dull' (for lack of a better term), which then leads to the mistakes you mentioned.
We also have 'crunch' periods at Moon - just times when we have a set deadline and things just need to get done and need to have super high quality at a fixed date. The last time we had to pull through like that was when we had to get the Will of the Wisps Teaser done for E3 - But I think our distributed nature helps a ton with making it not feel all too bad, cause there's a mutual trust between everyone and everyone knows about their responsibilities, but the way everyone gets to ship results should be up to the individuals, meaning:
If you need to take a nap to refresh yourself, go right ahead. If you need to take a walk in the park, fine. If you need a day off cause you just worked your butt off and want to spend time with your family, sure thing. Taking Moon as an example, we expect a lot from everyone in the team, but we also let people manage themselves and I think that's crucial, especially when people have a ton on their plate.
I've worked at studios where crunch was just about sitting in your chair, trying your darndest to get something done, even if your mind is already wandering and you really need some breathing room to just become efficient again. So just jailing people and making them put in the hours without actually measuring results should be the first thing that should get fixed, cause at the end of the day the results are what matters - and people aren't dumb, everyone knows at the end of a long, but result-less day that they could've been more efficient if they'd just be allowed to do X. But they can't, cause it's not allowed, most of the time. That, to me, is just gross mismanagement, it shows a lack of empathy and displays the stupidity of management layers not understanding how their talent actually gets shit done.
calavera_jo
Neo Member
Yes, this, totally
Raging Spaniard
If they are Dutch, upright and breathing they are more racist than your favorite player
Ah I see. Things are labeled that way because thats what I did (not a fan of putting a million descriptions when I do a lot more than concept art) Since I work on small teams I direct, concept and execute a lot of art myself. Good feedback though, thanks for taking a look!
DominusLeges
Member
I think this is also due in large part to the large scale consolidation of spending and play time in the market. When you have the industry moving towards GAAS where Post release monetization and constant content release schedules are designed to keep people engaged with a product for months and months on end of course less money and time is going to be spent on many of the other games in the market. The AAA publishers are basically perpetuating the need to increasingly inflate marketing costs just to ensure they can grab a piece of that consolidated spending pie abd it's only going to get worse as time goes on.
TLDR: in an effort to chase larger profit margins in the short term using GAAS publishers are actually increasing their cost and limiting their audience in the long run.
I went to a school that focused on video game development, and took the programming course. They constantly liked to remind you how we, especially as programmers, were going to be subjected to 60-80 hour work weeks. As such, the school felt it was best to emulate the feel of crunch by making things -worse- than they were in the industry so that when we joined the work force it wouldn't come as such a huge shock. This isn't speculation either; They told me and many other students that's how they do things.
Of course, when they gave us surveys for how we felt things were being handled at the school I told them that as a educational institution that we should be trying to find better and more efficient ways to develop games, improving work life should improve game quality and such. Either that stuff would get ignored or scoffed at so... Whatever. The instructors were people who worked on major AAA games too, in the past. Stuff like Need for Speed, Call of Duty, Simpsons Hit and Run, Diddy Kong Racing. It's not like the faculty had a lack of experience.
My take from it all is that the industry runs the way it does because that's the way it's always been. The people in charge don't know any other way of running stuff. A lot of these instructors (Who were producers) even kinda hinted at this; Nobody in the game industry actually KNOWS how to make a game, so they just tried to emulate the movie industry structure instead which shares a lot of elements. So you get this weird Frankenstein structure that's somewhere between software development and movie development, that doesn't really suit the game industry perfectly but hey, what else can you do? As a result, a lot of these incompatible developmental and management structures end up causing a lot of the crunch.
Like others, I also believe the camel's back is going to break eventually. Games seem to cost more and more, but they've also never been easier to make due to engines like Unreal and Unity. It's getting to the point where the people with talent and drive can accomplish what they want on their own without publishers breathing down their necks. I feel that indie games differ from indie movies in that a single person can find greater success thanks to the tools and outlets (Like Steam) that are available. Gamers these days even seem more accepting of lower quality visuals as long as the gameplay is fantastic. And with that, why would anyone with any good ideas work in a sweatshop studio? Studios will either have to change, or risk losing business over releasing lower quality products.
As for me, I also nope'd my way out of there as others in this thread have done. Haven't tried to get into a studio and honestly don't want to. I've decided to try my hand at going indie; If I'm to work 80 hours a week it may as well be for the game ideas I have that gave me the drive to get me where I am today in the first place.
Of course, when they gave us surveys for how we felt things were being handled at the school I told them that as a educational institution that we should be trying to find better and more efficient ways to develop games, improving work life should improve game quality and such. Either that stuff would get ignored or scoffed at so... Whatever. The instructors were people who worked on major AAA games too, in the past. Stuff like Need for Speed, Call of Duty, Simpsons Hit and Run, Diddy Kong Racing. It's not like the faculty had a lack of experience.
My take from it all is that the industry runs the way it does because that's the way it's always been. The people in charge don't know any other way of running stuff. A lot of these instructors (Who were producers) even kinda hinted at this; Nobody in the game industry actually KNOWS how to make a game, so they just tried to emulate the movie industry structure instead which shares a lot of elements. So you get this weird Frankenstein structure that's somewhere between software development and movie development, that doesn't really suit the game industry perfectly but hey, what else can you do? As a result, a lot of these incompatible developmental and management structures end up causing a lot of the crunch.
Like others, I also believe the camel's back is going to break eventually. Games seem to cost more and more, but they've also never been easier to make due to engines like Unreal and Unity. It's getting to the point where the people with talent and drive can accomplish what they want on their own without publishers breathing down their necks. I feel that indie games differ from indie movies in that a single person can find greater success thanks to the tools and outlets (Like Steam) that are available. Gamers these days even seem more accepting of lower quality visuals as long as the gameplay is fantastic. And with that, why would anyone with any good ideas work in a sweatshop studio? Studios will either have to change, or risk losing business over releasing lower quality products.
As for me, I also nope'd my way out of there as others in this thread have done. Haven't tried to get into a studio and honestly don't want to. I've decided to try my hand at going indie; If I'm to work 80 hours a week it may as well be for the game ideas I have that gave me the drive to get me where I am today in the first place.
I'm a lead gameplay programmer and it's certainly hard to find seniors or leads. Burnout is definitely part of it, but it's also been my experience that programmers tend to stay at places a lot longer than artists and designers. More than half of our gameplay guys have been here for 5+ years.
I also feel it's worth stating for all the people that have said they gave up on games:
1) I love my job. Making games is simultaneously invigorating and inspiring.
2) I think I get paid pretty well.
3) I have never worked a 100 hour week.
4) I have never done 7 day weeks for months on end.
5) The last extended crunch I went through was over 5 years ago, and we've been making real efforts to get better.
I guess what I'm trying to say is as a nearly 10 year veteran of AAA I love working in this industry and for this company.
I also feel it's worth stating for all the people that have said they gave up on games:
1) I love my job. Making games is simultaneously invigorating and inspiring.
2) I think I get paid pretty well.
3) I have never worked a 100 hour week.
4) I have never done 7 day weeks for months on end.
5) The last extended crunch I went through was over 5 years ago, and we've been making real efforts to get better.
I guess what I'm trying to say is as a nearly 10 year veteran of AAA I love working in this industry and for this company.
BriareosGAF
Member
3) I did a 100 hour week during SM once. The perils of being a platform engineer (Gamecube) and responsible for ensuring the disc mastering process was without issue, lots of hanging out babysitting builds and troubleshooting anything that comes up.
4) We definitely did a few months on the end of all of the SM titles. It's certainly not fun, although the spirit of shared suffering has a certain charm. On the plus side we had good profit sharing, and good comp time.
5) Yeah, I don't do crunch anymore, but since I typically work on the last several months of each title now as part of optimization support it would be suicide to roll between end-of-project-hours consecutively.
Does Riot still have an office in St. Louis? I doubt they need anyone in marketing if they do, but I'm a video producer who thinks he'd like to work in the gaming industry. I've always heard about the crunch problem, but does that apply to marketing as well?
We hired build engineers back in 2008 to prevent 3 from popping up again. Before that i have had to babysit a build machine for way too long.
Yeah, i don't mind occasionally pushing hard on something important. I worked a lot on polishing our E3 demo, but that was a few weeks. No weekends just some late nights.
That's why DICE is in Sweden, the top Ubisoft studios are in Canada and France, Rockstar is in the U.K., and so on. How prevalent is crunch time in European studios in countries with strong unions?
This is what I don't get. Yeah you're making, what, 150k? I don't know, just spitballing here, but that means you're making 28.85/hr, which is less than I am for 40 hrs/week and I'm sure I have a lot less stress.
Baraka Obama
Banned
Man I as a programming mayor this stuff makes me worried I'll ever get to work on a game 
I could imagine, yeesh the type of work I saw programmers put in was pretty insane. I was on the marketing side, worked under the CEO of a known company. Now I'm in pharma and my day ends at 5:00 sharp and Friday's are so quiet it might as well be a day off, oh and I'm paid way more. I do miss the lunacy that would happen during crunching for GDC and other trade-shows though, sometime sit was fun, most the time it was horrible.
SublimeO12
Neo Member
Ubi gets around this by using a lot of contract employees instead of full time in Paris. Crunch culture in EU is the same as in NA, they just drink WAY more.
I haven't found that it's the workaholics that necessarily get ahead. It's those who deliver consistent results and that other people like to work with. Neither of those has anything to do with working tons of overtime.
Bigmanatee
Member
I don't know about everyone else but there are so many games that come out each year that it's overwhelming for me to play as many as I like. Game pricing has remained flat since the 80s and several AAA and excellent indie games come out each month that I just read about and think "oh well that looks awesome but I don't have the time for that".
Do we need crazy crunch schedules that drive everyone in the industry away when so much comes out each month and most falls by the wayside? I know companies probably don't think that way but less production and more time given might equal better working conditions and better games. Better games usually = more money too.
Do we need crazy crunch schedules that drive everyone in the industry away when so much comes out each month and most falls by the wayside? I know companies probably don't think that way but less production and more time given might equal better working conditions and better games. Better games usually = more money too.
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
The main issue with promotions in the gaming industry at a lot of companies is that inevitably if you want to keep moving up the salary scale you have to enter management, and not everyone is cut out for that. So those who are great in their particular discipline but not great at being a manager and all the various additional responsibilities that entails (project/team planning, people management, performance reviews, etc) have no other recourse. Which is why you often end up with mediocre managers who are great at producing work in their area but not great at managing their teams, or more senior people jumping from company to company for non-management roles but higher offers since they've hit a salary wall at their current spot.
Some companies do offer an IC path for advancement alongside the management track to help address this situation, but I'm not sure how widespread it is.
It's the same. They expect American work ethic without being willing to pay American wages.
This is absolutely an issue.
My impression is that it's also not an issue that is unique to games and can happen just about anywhere. Just because someone is good at a job doesn't mean they'd be good at managing that job.
FWIW we have a level above "senior" for those who don't want to go down the management track. I've also interviewed people from other studios that had a similar track.
ScatheZombie
Member
That's anecdotally accurate to my circle of AAA devs as well. There's a handful that stuck around and they are nearly all now lead/senior managers at well known AAA studios. But the majority have either left the industry entirely or moved to mobile development where there is significantly less (and less harsh) issues that come with AAA development.
And the drought of senior quality developers sounds about right as well, seeing as a year removed the industry I still get a handful of recruiter pings/job offerings each month from various sources.
1) Yep.
2) Hell no. With cost of living, I was making about the same as someone on minimum wage where I live now. And I know that because after leaving the industry that's basically exactly what I did, yet maintained the same basic standard of living. And I was consistently paid industry average. Sure, the numbers tend to sound good, but when you compare figures to non-industry relevant salaries (I could have made an instant 25-30% more taking a lower title at business software developer) and consider COL expenses, it's hard to argue the industry pays well. You don't get rich being a game developer.
3) I once worked 100 hour weeks, back to back, for 4 months straight.
4) Those were also 7 day weeks. There were a few other times I worked 80+ hour weeks, 7 days a week, for several months just before release.
5) The last real project I worked on before outright quitting the industry starting crunching 18 months before release and we never actually left the crunch cycle until more than 12 months after launch because of post-release support. Yes, literally more than 2 1/2 years of crunch. On one project. That I didn't get a launch bonus for because we missed both our sales and Metacritic targets, if only barely.
SentryDown
Member
Hmm what's the problem with youth ? I feel like there is a generation of game dev which accessed lead/director positions too early (around 30) and now 15 years later they still have the same role and feel burnt. Give the youngster the chance you had then move to a less demanding position maybe ?
In my experience this is not true at all. And yeah, in countries like sweden it would also be downright illegal. We have crunch over here, but there is a limit to how much, I have never ever encountered enforced 60+ hour weeks, 60 has been the max, in short sprints (still enough to burn people out severely, but no 100 hours weeks) I have worked way longer weeks than that, because I had to, but I have not seen it enforced.
Many companies goes through a cycle when they get successful where they try to oneup themselves, have to bring in more staff, realise that they are no longer as efficient because of the larger teamsize and resulting bad communication that always happens, and then try to counter it with more and more crunch. And in the end they have to take a step back, change their company culture and bring in even more people instead.
Um, if you feel the issue is that people reached lead positions around 30, then you presumably wouldn't be happy about the current situation where the vast majority of people have left the industry by 30, so that's all there is to pick leads from.
Obviously there are some rather old people around, but Nintendo Japan isn't the standard here.
Hypereides
Member
I'm already hearing the tight squeaking and cracking.
I haven't bought AAA games for some years now. I've switched to following amateur and indie game devs. It's kind of telling what the current state of the game industry is when a single person, or teams consisting of less than 5 people, can manage to deliver a quality product without publisher interference, without marketing department controlling it, and, without enormous budgets, yet still achieve more acclaim and success than the average AAA release.
The overreliance on marketing will do far more damage in the long term if this continues. There already seems be a disproportion between the quality of AAA games and the marketing campaigns.
Chronospherics
Member
But just burnout though, the money is also pretty poor compared to other industry.
Most people just want really good textures & highly accessible gunplay and/or a world-wide sandbox.
That sucks. I'm sorry too hear that you were so mistreated.
Do you mind if i ask where you were?
I feel like there are places that are trying too get away from this and people need to know about the studios that still actively exploit their workers.
People here on GAF still talk about developers as companies and not as the actual people involved. Blizzard, Infinity Ward, Bioware, Obisidian, Naughty Dog, DICE, Capcom, Square Enix, etc. As if a one company consisting of hundreds of different individuals who change over time remains the same over time.
Media outlets do the same. Rockstar this, Ubisoft that.
SlickShoes
Member
When I worked at Rockstar crunch was very real, the last 3 months everyone basically lived in the office and you only went home to sleep. That was over 10 years ago now though but I doubt very much has changed.
Everyone was given a month off after release back then to compensate for crunch, I assume things are different now since games need constant development and patching.
Always-honest
Banned
indeed. It's a company choice.
InquisitorAles
Member
If I'm not mistaken, he was working in Carbine, WildStar devs.That sucks. I'm sorry too hear that you were so mistreated.
Do you mind if i ask where you were?
I feel like there are places that are trying too get away from this and people need to know about the studios that still actively exploit their workers.
BriareosGAF
Member
Yeah, this was 2002, we were still a few years away from developing more rigorous process, shifting responsibilities to production, and then eventually to full-time build engineers. Nowadays you can generate a build with a click from a web interface. Kids these days have it so easy.
It's almost not about trying to find a solution at this point. It's about at least trying to. Saying "well we don't require crunch" is just such a bullshit way to dismiss crunch culture in games and not take any responsibility for the dire circumstances that you as a company are putting your employees through.
tokenflipguy
Member
My last project I only worked 50 hours a week when we had OT. It was strange and this was for a big AAA dev.
Polygon told me crunch was good
If people are already burning out after a decade or two, it's clearly backfiring.
ScatheZombie
Member
That sucks. I'm sorry too hear that you were so mistreated.
Do you mind if i ask where you were?
I feel like there are places that are trying too get away from this and people need to know about the studios that still actively exploit their workers.
Personally, this culture was prevalent at SOE (and pretty much all Sony studios) and Carbine (and pretty much all NCSoft studios).
From dev friends still working in the industry, it's also prevalent at... Microsoft, Riot, Rockstar, Bungie, most Ubisoft studios, most Activision studios, most EA studios.
Places it wasn't the norm were only really Trion, certain teams at Blizzard, and most mobile studios - even under the above mention publisher umbrellas.
There's enough literature and evidence out there to reasonably say that my personal experience in the AAA industry in regards to overtime, pay, mistreatment and work-life balance is far closer to the norm than your own.
Yeah, there's a handful of studios you can find that don't have these practices, but they are far and away the minority and often skid into poor working conditions/practices when put under enough publisher pressure. It may not be 100+ hour work weeks for months at a time, but it's still unreasonable to expect anyone to perform complex mental tasks for 60+ hours a week for any real amount of time.
But I've gone through this conversation enough times to know there's always one.
I don't really see it is as burnout at least not for me it wasn't. I was a lead for the majority of my career. Now at 45 you just realise its a young mans game. I'm not burnt out I'm just a veteran and you have a different perspective. I still love the job and can do the work but fuck if I want to waste all the time and energy on leadership aspect. We have lots of young guys to do that and lots of us older guys are around making sure. It's like athletes you don't see the veterans forward putting themselves in the kill zone you let the young rookies do that shit.
I think the issue is trying to put senior people in front of the line leadership roles. If companies are doing that they are doing it wrong. Like saying we are looking for an older super star goal scorer to be our franchise player. How dumb is that.
I think the issue is trying to put senior people in front of the line leadership roles. If companies are doing that they are doing it wrong. Like saying we are looking for an older super star goal scorer to be our franchise player. How dumb is that.
zenspider
Member
You have obviously never worked in software development.
BriareosGAF
Member
I just assumed this was very arch irony, like the person earlier in the thread talking about their experience at digipen/fullsail or wherever. We've had a few juniors in the past who came in with a chip on their shoulder about how we're obviously all idiots and should be doing things X way to solve all our problems.
Green Yoshi
Member
This.
Crunch only works if you fulfill repetitive tasks that don't require reflection.