Developer Stress Crippling Game Innovation? 355
hapwned writes "Jason Della Rocca, the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), looks at the big picture of the grim, dead-end careers of game developers. From the article: 'More fundamental is the notion that immature practices and extreme working conditions are bankrupting the industry's passion - the love for creating games that drives developers to be developers. When the average career length of the game development workforce is just over five years and over 50% of developers admit they don't plan to hang around for more than 10, we have a problem. How can an industry truly grow, and an art form evolve, if everyone is gone by the time they hit 30?'"
You claim.. (Score:5, Funny)
Stress level B is a different job (Score:2)
Re:Stress level B is a different job (Score:2)
The amount of stress people feel are relative to what they are doing. Some people feel incredibly stressed when they have to submit a proposal to a project within a day. These type of people should become a highrise construnction worker for a week to get a more realistic idea of what "really stressed" is. I can think of many similar jobs that would make a project deadline seem like a walk in the park.
Re:Stress level B is a different job (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to get quite stressed working in Burger King, for example, because we had hard-limited resources (fixed number of staff, fixed number of burgers, fixed rate of production etc) but very variable demand (we were in a place which could be either totally dead quiet, or hyper busy beyond our ability to serve). Now the job itself wasn't what made it stressful, it was dealing directly with customers who got irate because we were in a train station and if we didn't serve them quickly they could miss their train.
Similarly, I often get a bit stressed in my job as a games developer. Not usually because of the work I have to do, but often the circumstances which I need to do it in. But not because I have game-buyers sitting around me telling me the game is gonna suck, either. Things like last-minute new content, demo work for shows like E3 or TGS conflicting with game production work, schedules which bear no relation to reality.
Yeah, my job isn't dangerous like someone on a construction site, except when I plug a 110V American devkit into a 240V UK mains supply without a transformer (oops), but when I get stressed I do feel it just as much as I did in my no-thought-required job.
And working at EA is the best job in America... (Score:2)
Re:You claim.. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:You claim.. (Score:2)
Re:You claim.. (Score:3, Funny)
Open Job Security (Score:2)
So how do they get paid? (Score:2)
Re:Open Job Security (Score:2)
They basically touch fields such as rendering, networking, AI, performance & realtime, memory management.
In the end, are you telling me that someone with even some of those skills could not find a job outside the gaming indust
Re:Open Job Security (Score:4, Informative)
That's not true.
Take John Carmack for example. He releases all his code with games after a while. Not only that... He's pretty much licensed out his engines to other companies before he does that. Yet we didn't see every single game using code from Quake or Doom and then ditching all their devs. In fact we usually see this companies hire on more.
Secondly, most companies do this already through licensing... These days either they are licensing the Doom3 engine or Unreal Engines.
That and others build from scratch depending on their needs.
However, I would say that making this open source really helps fledgling devs to figure out the "how'd they do that?" kind of questions.
Define License (Score:2)
Re:Define License (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quake#Source_code [wikipedia.org]
The source code of the Quake and QuakeWorld engines was licensed under the GPL in 1999. The id Software maps, objects, textures, sounds and other creative works remain under their original license. The shareware distribution of Quake is still freely redistributable and usable with the GPLed engine code. One must purchase a copy of Quake in order to get the registered version of the game which includes more single player episodes and the deathmatch maps.
Sure its not free as in BSD, but doesn't cost anyone to download and use (and even release a commercial game) as long as they adhear to the GLP license.
Re:Open Job Security (Score:5, Insightful)
Your argument is a variation of the broken window fallacy [wikipedia.org], because you're saying that making things less efficient is good because it creates work. It's incorrect because if things were more efficient there would still be plenty of work, but it would go towards making progress rather than maintaining what we already have. If that's a problem, then someone would hire programmers again to make new kinds of games.
Re:Open Job Security (Score:3, Insightful)
Education (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Education (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Education (Score:3, Insightful)
So, put another way, few coders over 30 is stupid enough to work for a game development outfit. That's like saying McDonald's discrim
Re:Education (Score:2)
Bingo! That's the point I was attempting to make in the first place. Game companies aren't discriminating against older coders. They're just selecting for suckers...who happen to be disproportionately young.
Re:Education (Score:2)
Or maybe also because it's harder to get a job without a lot experience?
Re:Education (Score:3, Insightful)
You've never worked in fast food, have you? The job get *very* stressful when demand exceeds the fixed ability of the kitchen to produce. It's just a different time-scale.
Re:Education (Score:5, Insightful)
I think THIS might be a little closer to the explanation than any "loss of creative spark." A 30-year old developer likely has a wife/husband and is approaching the age where they either have kids or don't. That urge to reproduce has moved more than a few high-stress-job professionals to seek jobs with less stress/hours required because they decided a pile of money doesn't balance out "No family life whatsoever."
Funny how that "no family life" thing isn't in the ads/job descriptions for these positions...
Re:Education (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Education (Score:2)
For example, Java has available to the public since 1994. I happen to be a Java developer. I work with a person who has been developing for much longer than I have (in another language). We both started with Java at the same time. So, after 5 years, we both have 5 years of experience with the language (whi
Re:Education (Score:2)
Because he knows the company, the industry that the company competes in, and the company's systems. All are very valuable commodities that can on
Re:Education (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe this is a good thing in the long run (Score:5, Interesting)
Now these people must have got into it initially for the love of games - and even if they jack it all in and get a 'real' job, I assume they'll still like games.
We're going to end up with a huge glut of people with real jobs (i.e. can do whatever they want) moonlighting in the evenings making quality mods, small games for online distribution etc etc.
Much more what I want to buy anyway and should be a nice bit of fresh air
Re:Maybe this is a good thing in the long run (Score:2)
gotta stay with the times! (Score:2)
developer stress (Score:5, Interesting)
There aren't enough investors out there to put money on risky software development projects, so we are often forced to take big risks ourselves when it comes to ideas we are passionate about. And frankly, people with lots of money often don't understand what we're doing.
Re:developer stress (Score:2)
sorry, but game-dev shops are worse (Score:3, Insightful)
During my last project, we were actually told by management that a 60 hour week was now mandatory (with all of us being salaried). That's when I gave them my 2 week notice.
Note that I often put in more than 60 hours in a week before that. But it was my choice, sort of. I needed to do it to get the work done but no one was saying I had to punch a clock.
This sort
Make your own company (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Make your own GPL Project (Score:2)
Re:Make your own GPL Project (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been thinking about this issue lately, and I'm stuck with a conundrum: Why are people so interested in modding commercial games, when they could use a Free game engine instead and have their work more widely available?
There are a couple of possible explanations for this:
However, none of these reasons seems to provide a complete explanation for why there isn't even a single example of an extremely popular GPL game. I mean, there's no reason whatsoever that the next Counterstrike couldn't be built on Cube or the GPL'd Quake 2 source... so why isn't anyone doing it?
Re:Make your own company (Score:2)
Ubisoft
Sad but true... (Score:5, Insightful)
I partially agree with you (Score:2)
As technology marches into the future, the number of people required to make a game has increased - there's simply more work to be done. This doesn't mean the proportion of people required to make creative input has increased in line with the overall rise in the team size (nor should it).
Re:I partially agree with you (Score:2)
Re:Sad but true... (Score:2, Informative)
Now, you can't entirely blame the corporations since there's a 500lb gorilla, better known as Wal-Mart, stomping around and dictat
Re:Sad but true... (Score:2)
Especially in creative markets like Movies/Games/Software, there is always room for companies who develop quality product.
Re:Sad but true... (Score:2)
I suppose there's also no room for innovation in electronics because you can't build a Blackberry clone without getting slapped with a patent suit.
Re:Sad but true... (Score:3, Funny)
You save money on rent by sleeping at the office.
Bring back the old model (Score:3, Interesting)
flash (Score:2)
check addictinggames.com or the games section on collegehumor.com
2D games can still be lots of fun and they don't require teams of musicians, artwork, modelers, or motion capture to produce.
3D may get there with the open engines that are around, but it still takes a huge team to get a 3D FPS mod out the door. At least you can contribute your own skin, but to create your own mod would be a real bitch.
I would love to see more cool stuff done that is creative but
sturgeons law and dedication (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:sturgeons law and dedication (Score:2)
creative management (Score:5, Insightful)
So this is why? (Score:2, Funny)
I know how (Score:2)
Outsourcing. They'll hire people who don't think complaining is a job skill.
Seriously, it's a huge industry with tons of money. I bet someone figures out the answer, makes great games, and gets a lot of that money. I don't think they need Slashdot's help (or whatever it is Slashdot apparently thinks it has to offer).
same old stuff... (Score:3, Insightful)
Suits vs T-shirts (Score:2)
I'm not saying the t-shirts would do any better, but at least the t-shirt folks understand what the heck the development team is actually doing. The suits usually just see t-shirts as interchangable warm bodies.
Hahaha! I was right! (Score:5, Interesting)
As my profile states, I'm a reformed game programmer. I've written a couple of bitter posts on Slashdot about working in the game industry. I'm better now. :-)
But the stress caused by poor quality architecture and code cannot be understated. Coders begin to hate the designers and artists after awhile and that, as you can guess, really causes problems. If the designer wants that really cool scene or feature or art, but the coder is stressed out the kazoo with debugging the last 3 new features and hasn't seen his new born child awake since it was born, you can imagine how he would react to the new feature.
The solution is a self-learning development process. A.k.a., CMM [wikipedia.org]. I met some game developers who've only worked in Game Companies who sneer at that kind of talk, but the more seasoned veterans (working 10+ years) actually liked the idea. When you reduce the stress on the developers, and improve productivity, they can spend time making stable code that can be used to build cool, new features on it.
More importantly, it will rebuild the relationship between coder and artists, designers. That is the single most important relationship in the game process, IMHO.
Prescription (Score:3, Interesting)
OK. Looks like a classic case of square peg in round hole syndrome. Take two courses in Lisp and read up on a fractal generation algorithims.
And for Christ's sake kid, lay off the coffee.
Re:Prescription (Score:2)
Lisp won't solve the problems, and it hard for many people to understand. C++/Java are a much more easily grasped paradigm.
And for Christ's sake, lay off the maths for a few minutes and try looking at another way of thinking.
Re:Prescription (Score:4, Informative)
It's basically a mathematics-oriented language [wikipedia.org], and mostly useless for most things outside of that. An interesting intellectual exercise for geeks, useful if you're a mathematician, and that's about it.
Re:Prescription (Score:3, Informative)
Amoung others, [tech.coop] Naughty Dog use a customised version of LISP called GAOL(Game Action Oriented Lisp). It was used extensively on Jak 2, one of the most impressive games on the PS2, or indeed any console.
As the link mentions, the "difficulty" of Lisp, has lead to its sidelining all too often. The fact is, it is
Re:Prescription (Score:2)
Here's a challenge: write and finish a game with a good graphics and game play as say, Starcraft, written in LISP. Otherwise, I call BS on you. :-)
I blame consoles among other things... (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, I'm SHOCKED!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow.
And you mean companies get rid of people once they aren't willing to work 12 hours a day because they have a life and don't like being treated like slaves anymore?
Amazing, really, it is.
Welcome to reality for the rest of the world. At least here in America you get to wise up and have a life at 30. 90% of the world will slave away until they drop dead.
Why not unionize? (Score:2)
Re:Why not unionize? (Score:3, Insightful)
And don't start with the "Oh, developers are too independent, too maverick, too high tech to be unionized." That's the exact same way you could've described au
Re:Why not unionize? (Score:2)
Re:Why not unionize? (Score:3, Insightful)
Last I checked, the focus group and clueless executive professions weren't unionized.
It's a no-brainer (Score:5, Insightful)
The games people love are nothing like the process of coding them. Anything that is remotely fun and exciting in programming has nothing to do with what makes Madden fun and exciting. The average consumer can love Final Fantasy -- no, I'd even say there are many, many hardcore fans. But the vast majority of those that love that franchise are not meant to ever, ever become game developers. It's apples and oranges.
Playing games is exactly that -- PLAYING. But coding a game is no child's play. It's work -- and hard, hard work. If producing a graphical manifestation is the only joy you see in coding, I'd seriously reconsider the profession. There are other ways to contribute to creating a game without being the code monkey. There's marketing, story writing, graphics, concept designing, testing, and even managing.
If those don't appeal to you any more than coding does, then why choose coding? What? For money? That's a whole different can of worms that I'm sure you can already see is a repeat of what I just finished saying.
In my humblest opinion, programming is fun on its own, and it really doesn't matter what it is you're coding so long as it is challenging and stimulating. Sure, coding games can fit that, but to start on this path without actually loving the path itself seems risky at best and a terrible, life-long mistake at worst. In short, don't choose a path that makes you walk through shit and garbage. That path just so happens to be the rest of your life. You better damn well choose a route you'll enjoy every minute of.
Stress? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stress? (Score:2)
I will interview for a game developer job tomorrow (Score:2)
They'v
how about nintendo devs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyways, I'm rambling. Just wondering if the japanese devs feel the same? Anyone have any insight into this?
Re:how about nintendo devs? (Score:3, Funny)
Yes. You can't put time pressure on Japanese developers. The Japanese think that a 90-hour working week is normal; there simply aren't enough hours in the week to pressure them with (or at least not like EA do). They're a nation of workaholics.
Exaggerated? Well, a little bit - not all the Japanese are like that. Just most of the professional workers.
As an independent game developer... (Score:4, Interesting)
Game development is a creative art. You can't rush or schedule that kind of a process. No project management book or body of knowledge can overcome this. As long as game publishers drive for more efficiency and output, they will burn out their staff. Game development is a business that needs a bit of fat (free time). You need more freedom to develop and burn code to test new concepts. Investing in throw-away code is almost always a business "no no."
Business folks expect that all problems in computer gaming have known solutions. This idea is false. There's a ton of R&D for just about every algorithm. There's not necessarily a "one size fits all" solution to any given problem. And even a solid algorithm can often be implemented in over a dozen different ways.
I've worked for a couple of places that tried to run game development like regular software engineering projects. They did not succeed. Sometimes, entire industries need to ditch the MBAs and embrace what got them to where they are in the first place. Operating efficiency is only a good thing, so long as it doesn't negatively impact your staff, quality, and sales.
Building games is completely different that any other kind of software development. It needs to managed that way... special needs in mind.
Re:As an independent game developer... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's because of that kind of talk I've stopped looking at jobs in the game industry. I just can't see how every time a game is made, especially when so many of them are so similar, each problem is something new that hasn't been done before, and the whole thing is some huge creative endeavour. I'm sure that's part of it, and hopefully each game has something new and cool, but still - most of the code is, or at least should be, well-maintained, well-written, mature, and stable.
It should be engineered in such a way that adding new functionality doesn't mean starting from scratch or digging deep into the code and changing things at the lowest level, but rather it should mean working with a well-designed interface. There should be good test coverage, and you should be able to drop features from the product if you have to make a deadline, since that's better than half-implemented features that don't work or aren't tested.
I recently had a job interview with a game company, and had a list of questions about their engineering practices. After getting the pitch from the president, who talked about the hours they worked for the last title they shipped, and how they really really didn't want that to happen again - but he still said there'd be long hours - I knew that it would indeed happen again, and there was no point asking my questions since it was clear that the answer to a significant number would be "no."
I understand that there are things that make games different from other types of software, but good engineering is good engineering, and it should be adopted by the industry. That almost every algorithm is mostly R&D rings false to me, since most games sure don't feel like there's much new in them.
If there's something that the game completely depends on, and no-one knows how to do it, then don't greenlight the game. Figure out how to do that critical thing first, get it working, and then invest in the game. That's how things are done in the rest of the software industry, and it's a very good thing: it means as cool as an idea sounds, if it can't be done, you don't want to waste a lot of money on it. Lots of new features in lots of software is almost all R&D, but it doesn't mean the product can't be scheduled or that gobs of money should be wasted on something that might not go anywhere no matter how cool it would be if it worked. How much better would Oblivion be, to take a random example, if they realised early on that the AI sucked and they needed to take a different approach, and designed around that? Instead you can burn someone's house down as they happily tell you plot points in the story (or so I've heard - haven't played it myself).
I don't doubt that there are elements of game design which are very difficult to schedule. But to say the whole game is like that sounds like a cop-out.
Impossible! (Score:3, Funny)
Always will be creativity! (Score:2)
Why not look to Hollywood? (Score:2)
More coders need to be involved with business (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want a life, you need to control the business aspect where money is generated. Otherwise the machine is going to use you up and spit you out, if there's one thing conclomerates like EA have shown, is you can beat programmers stupid and (new) ones keep coming back, begging for more.
Get involved with the business, own the IP, sit on equal footing.
Yes, business sucks sometimes. Coding sucks sometimes too. If you're able to distingush people with the clue from those without, use that to outbid people. Yes, there's big budgets involved - but there's also people with big pockets who will fund things that look like they'll make money.
Entrepreneurs: See the above? Find some really good programmers and PARTNER with them.
Otherwise? Well.. I'm sure there's a fresh crop of programmers to burn out next year.
5 years later.... (Score:5, Informative)
Up or Out (Score:2, Interesting)
If by "stress" you mean "producers"... (Score:3, Insightful)
Being a Game artist...SUCKS.... (Score:5, Insightful)
The industry supposedly makes so much money and yet the salaries are like 40k to 60k, while the work days are 12 hours.
Its not a fun job.
The days of garage games are pretty much over due to the amount of time it takes to make a good 3d game.
The game industry was great for artists and programmers, but then the suits came in. Yup those vultures from the entertainment buisness, such as the movie and music industry decided to get their hands on the gaming cash.
No longer are the days of the garage game developers who make millions making a hit game. Now you go and work for the suits if you want to make a game. You get shit pay and thats the way it is.
How much money did Halo make? How much do you think the guy who animated Master Cheif made?
Peanuts.
It's a shitty buisness thats been raped by the buisness majors.
which is why i've decided to leave it and go into film and advertising.
The Source of This Stress (Score:2)
Replacability (Score:3, Insightful)
Supply and Demand (Score:3, Insightful)
I lasted 4 years (Score:3, Insightful)
It is a fast-paced, high-stress, thankless, low-paying, non-creative field. It didn;t used to be this way, bottom lines and the almighty dollar used to still play a big part in things but now it is just insanity.
I have personally witnessed more innovative and fun titles get axed to move the talented folks on the team to work on some budget title or licensed product to meet a deadline than anything else. It is disheartening for everyone involved, and crushing to many. Who wants to work like that? Not creative talented individuals, but code pushers who just work in the confines of some pre-built engine and collect a meager check.
I really want to see the Revolution make good on their claims of open/indie development for the system. Online distribution and a free/low cost accessible dev system would produce so many great and unique games. Xbox 360 is still too expensive and has too many barriers to really take off in this area and will just be a haven for ports and such, the Revolution has a rela chance to break into new territory and if they do I think a real revolution will begin.
The industry needs to collapse and come down off of this Hollywood emulation they so desperately cling to, it has become derivitive, immature, inaccessible, expensive... and for what?
Re:Uh... yeah.... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Uh... yeah.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Uh... yeah.... (Score:2)
Thats not how it always works in 3d modeling with larger companies. Chances an full time artist will make a pre-design sketch of an elf the old fasion way with pen, paper, ink, paint, or what have you... This gets approved by art manager and then passed on to modeling. This usually involves a pose with front and side profile.
The 3d modelers take this art an
Re:Uh... yeah.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Balderdash.
Arguments such as these have been made hundreds of times over about every creative profession, and there are enough counterexamples to prove it's utter bunk. Take Cezanne [wikipedia.org]. He did most of his important, really revolutionary work in the last few years of his life. He was only actually discovered by the around the turn of the century, when he was finally honored with an exhibition. Monet himself came up to him and esposed his genius, saying he was, in fact, the greatest genius of them all. He said (T. J. Clark's paraphrase) "Maybe... but back to work!" Can I offer you, perhaps, John Milton, or Robert Frost, or, hell, Neal Stephenson (he's 46, you know)?
Young people generally have the advantage that they're poor, desparate to make their mark on the world, too inexperienced to know what they're doing is stupid. Their brains also have a higher degree of plasticity, but this countered on the other end of the scale by the experience and wisdom that comes with age. What happens to older artists is that they get rich when they're 30 and are too busy with the trappings of fame and fortune to really produce anything good after that. After all, I don't think the decline in the Harry Potter books is because Rowling (not a spring chicken, by the way, she's 40) is now incapable of true innovation, but because she's writing big sloppy books as fast as she can. She knows they'll sell and her dedication to the craft of writing has become lax.
Re:Uh... yeah.... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Uh... yeah.... (Score:2, Informative)
J.R.R. Tolkein
C.S. Lewis
J.K. Rowling
(In fact just think how many authors publish their first novel *after* turning 30: loads.)
And what
Re:Uh... yeah.... (Score:2)
This would make video game design almost unique in the annals of human creativity. I think the only field were the phenomenon of people doing their most creative work by 30 is actually well substantiated and documented is in mathematics, a very different field to game design and one much closer to programming, which you state is not subject to this effect anyway (and even in math, there are exceptions, c.f. Andrew Wiles [pbs.org].
Re:Uh... yeah.... (Score:2)
Interesting supposition, except for the troublesome little observation that truly* creative people get more creative with age. Like most skills, the more you practice it, the better you get.
Perhaps what you meant was, "Most of them (creative people working in game companies) have long since burned out by the time they're thirty anyway." which I would agree with.
And that's exactly the problem we're all talking about, so
Re:Uh... yeah.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Sorry. The average age of a gamer is 28 -- or at least it was three years ago when I needed that stat for a story. The Entertainment Software Association has been showing a steady increase in the average age of gamers for years, due to the fact that the original Gen X gamers are getting older but actually don't stop playing games, according to the head of ESA (who made this point a centerpiece of his keynote address at E3 in, oh, 2001), so I'm willing to bet the average age has risen by a year or two already. The ESA's current stats [theesa.com] indicate that 39% of frequent players are over 35 years old. So if the majority of gamers aren't over the age of thirty already, it won't be long before they are. Therefore, by your own logic, it'll be even more important to hang on to designers in their thirties.
just because I'm cynical, it doesn't necessarily mean I'm wrong.
It doesn't make you right either.
Re:too easy (Score:2)
It's like that wierd uncle no one talks to at family get-togethers.
Re:Should be the opposite, no? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Should be the opposite, no? (Score:2)
Re:Oh - and whilst this thread's a bit empty still (Score:2)
(The only exception is if it has an extremely large image, and even then he probably ought to scale down the image by using the width and height attributes on the img tag.)
Re:Regulation is to blame. (Score:2)
Re:Terrible article (Score:3, Insightful)
Jason Della Rocca, the executive director of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), is a clueless blogger?
This is actually modded +5 Interesting?!
Please...
(I will however agree that this is not *news* at all... Or even /. worthy.)