Developer Stress Crippling Game Innovation?

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..

[romka1]

You publish an article that software designer [slashdot.org] is the one of the top 10 jobs to have :)

So this is why?

[umedia]

And here I thought cloning the same old games year after year was the problem... my bad. Well that and the fact Duke Forever isn't done yet...

Impossible!

[ml10422]

Software Developer is the best job in America: http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/0 4/12/1353238 [slashdot.org]

Re:Sad but true...

[telbij]

Since then, though, I've realized that the job at Maxis would have been high-hours and low-pay in a location that would have been way too expensive to live in.

You save money on rent by sleeping at the office.

Re:You claim..

[a_nonamiss]

You must be joking! A game like that would never sell! Rape, murder one, grand theft auto... nobody would want to commit these crimes in a virtual setting. Now maybe if you added some sort of hack that enabled you to go get some hot coffee or something...

Re:how about nintendo devs?

[asuffield]

Anyways, I'm rambling. Just wondering if the japanese devs feel the same? Anyone have any insight into this?

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.