So You Think You Want to Make Games for a Living?

[darksnowman]

Back in the their glory days and I was a school boy, I imagined I'd go through my education and end up working for Rare, making the greatest DKC games ever conceived. I often read interviews about them having to work long hours here and there to get their games finished in time for the release dates, I thought it sounded dramatic to have to push yourself right to the end. It felt like developing games mirrored the process of anticipating them -getting more and more frantic as that games release creeps up.

 

I'm sure plenty of people around here harboured similar dreams, and maybe still do.

 

Sadly, it seems that nowadays, this overtime culture has gotten out of hand. Team Bondai, the makers of LA Noire reportedly spent over a year in "crunch time" to get the game onto shelves. Normally, this crunch time is the frantic rush right at the end of the development cycle where the team is getting the game polished up for release. However these guys did 60 hour weeks constantly for over fifty weeks in a row, thanklessly.

 

A few weeks ago on Pach-Attack when this Team Bondai stuff was current, someone asked Pachter if games developers should have a union to prevent this kind of stuff. His response was pretty harsh. To paraphrase, he said stuff like, if developers make a successful game, they will be compensated with bonuses when the money starts rolling in. Fair enough, but what if you work yourself to the bone and don't see any sales success? Pachter has no sympathy for you. "Get a job making automobiles in a factory if you want job security," basically.

 

 

It seems like the games industry is a rich place for the fat cats, but for the little guys it could be a life spent on the bread line. Would working for the artistic joy of it be enough for you? Its a romantic idea to live for nothing more than your craft, but would you be willing to do it to the point of exploitation?

 

Or maybe this Team Bondai case is an isolated example?

[daftada]

I worked for Blitz games for six months in 2003/04, working on Pac Man World 3 and Possession (which never got a publisher), and that was a horrible experience. Working 8am till 9pm weekdays and any other hours I could spare at the weekends. The team was great fun, but the work itself was soul destroying - we all knew we couldn't hit the release deadline without all pulling 60+ hour shifts, and the whole game was a mess. The sad thing was the guys working on it from the start were genuinely taented and had some really great ideas but Namco kept shooting them down, and giving us ridiculously tight milestones.

 

As a developer you have to take so much shit from publishers, critics and even gamers just to make ends meet. No one in the industry wants to work on shitty licences or release a game that's crap but they pay the bills (while destroying your very soul...), and as for buggy games, blame publisher deadlines.

 

Bottom line is: If you are serious about getting in to game development think carefully about whether you want to work in a faceless office churning out crap for long hours and low pay.

[Magnus]

So, um... does everyone get a bonus when a game does well? Like, even the code monkeys? And at some point he's all, "this game made [this much profit], so that's $800,000 for everyone who worked on the game", which makes me think he's slightly insane. So, what - a game does well and the publisher just gets back their initial investment and gives away the rest of the money? That's... not how I thought these things worked.

 

Also, it's all well and good if a game does well. Yeah, sure L.A. Noire sold well and made a lot of money, but what about if there are developers who are in crunch time for a year and the game flops?

[Dcubed]

Sadly the "crunch culture" is pretty much the norm in the industry. Some are worse than others (EA Spouse and Rockstar Wives anyone?) but pretty much all of them treat their employees like shit. Hell there are developers that actively revel in how much they can screw over their employees (Gameloft just recently, http://www.tsumea.com/australasia/new-zealand/news/180711/developer-blows-whistle-on-120-hour-weeks-and-crunch-at-gameloft) (Ferguson's famous "you can't make a good game without crunch" speech at GDC 2010 http://gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22945)

 

Overtime is almost never paid either (Free Radical used to pay overtime though, before they shut down and became Crytek UK)

 

The only western developers (Japanese devs aren't exactly forthcoming with their work conditions, but work culture there leans towards workaholics anyway) that I know of that actively avoids crunch are Next Level Games (http://www.gamasutra.com/newswire?story=23616) and 5th Cell (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/34628/5th_Cell_Delays_Hybrid_Avoids_The_Crunch.php) and they're easily two of the best western developers in the business. Not only do they make amazing games, they make them on time and on budget.

 

Sadly, most publishers/developers actively ignore decades of sociological research that shows that productivity hits its peak at 40hrs a week and that after 60hrs you actually start getting negative returns (where programmers/artists actually start making more mistakes then they're fixing)

 

Here's a nice repository to see what developers/publishers have done to actively screw over employees (http://ilovecrunch.co.uk/?page_id=2)

 

It's been this way for a while. Recently with the start of this gen it's gotten much worse, but that's alright, the AAA blockbuster driven part of the industry is due to collapse soon enough anyway.

Edited August 10, 2011 by Dcubed

[S.C.G]

I find it amusing that most of the 'AAA Games' which according to 'the masses' are all on Xbox 360/PS3 get released and often only have gameplay which I'd consider to be 'B' rank at worst and 'A' at best - with the exception of Mass Effect - and yet...

 

The majority of Nintendo games seem to be regarded as just 'A' releases by 'the masses' and yet most of the time these are the true 'must-have' titles because they have the 'AAA' gameplay to back it up.

 

While I will of course be buying many Xbox 360 titles over the next few months, the games that I am truely looking forward to are all on Nintendo consoles...

 

The Legend of Zelda : Skyward Sword

Xenoblade Chronicles

Super Mario 3D land

Mario Kart 7

Starfox 3D

 

Jus' Sayin'... :wink:

[nekunando]

When I was growing up, I too had the desire to design games..

 

Back when the interest began, it was the days of the SNES and Mega Drive where 2D was the order of the day and, in my young mind, anything seemed possible I often created my own "Paper Games" based on my favourite games of the time such as Super Mario World and Streets of Rage.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have any of these laying around anymore I'd love to have been able to look back and see what I had created back then, but I'll just have to go from memory! My "Paper Game" inspired by Super Mario World, for example, involved a level being drawn out where, using a dice, you would take it in turns to roll in order to make your way across and up the level to be the first to reach the goal at the end. There were pits to fall down, enemies, power ups and checkpoints.. and even as I think about it now, it was pretty cool

 

Fast forward to the games of today and there is just so much going on.. so much detail.. so much work.. so many people! As nice as it would be to be involved in the creation of a big, blockbuster franchise, it doesn't hold the same appeal as it perhaps would have done during the 16-Bit era..

 

With that in mind, creating games for something like the iPhone, XBLA or DSi Ware is perhaps a more interesting proposition. As a computing graduate, I spent the best part of my final year creating a couple of XNA games. Given the time constraints and other coursework for the year, neither could truly be amazing but I was happy with what I produced in that time.. and they were solo projects.

 

With that foundation, I felt that the opportunity may be there to perhaps develop a game some time that I could eventually have for sale on XBLA, for example. I'm not even sure where you would start, to be honest, but some of that desire is still there despite being somewhat grounded in the "real world" these days..

 

In fact, wouldn't it be cool if a few N-E members teamed up together to create a game that could be distributed..?

Edited August 10, 2011 by nekunando

[Ellmeister]

I read a story in a magazine about this sort of thing years ago. It was compared to everyone's dreams to become a singer/actor usually as a child, very few make it into the big leagues in the end, and you have to have determination to keep going when things get tough.

 

Also those 60 hour weeks are crazy. I can understand a few heavy ones but a whole years worth? Jeebus.

[Aimless]

I find it amusing that most of the 'AAA Games' which according to 'the masses' are all on Xbox 360/PS3 get released and often only have gameplay which I'd consider to be 'B' rank at worst and 'A' at best - with the exception of Mass Effect - and yet...

"AAA" is more a nebulous measure of budget rather than quality. It's similar to summer blockbusters in cinema: the term is applied based on production values and spectacle, not the underlying script or camera work.

 

As for the topic at hand: bad management is bad management, I don't care what industry you're in. Some amount of crunch is inevitable given that not all the pieces of a game fall into place until the end, but there's lots of ways to mitigate its necessity and generally soften the blow.

[Hero-of-Time]

I have loved games all my life but have never had the desire to work in the industry. Reviewing games means you have to play through tripe, testing games means you have to play the same thing over and over....and over again and making games seems like hell, especially in this day and age.

 

At the end of the day gaming is my main hobby and I wouldn't want it to become part of my work as eventually I may end up hating it.

[Shorty]

Reviewing games means you have to play through tripe

Someone from metacritic recently pointed out, most online gaming blogs etc don't review crap games anymore. Used to pick up a games mag and it had plenty of 2/10 games getting slammed, but these days the big blogs don't tend to waste their time, unless it's a game that people thought had potential.

[Captain Falcon]

At the end of the day gaming is my main hobby and I wouldn't want it to become part of my work as eventually I may end up hating it.

 

The firsth thing my uni lecture told us about my games course is by the end, you'll never want to play a game again. He was probably exagerating a touch but that blurring between work and play eventually destroys them both. Plus, you only end up seeing flaws which you'll have ideas on how to fix.

 

The book I got from Rare, as posted in one of the other threads, was got after I sent them a left asking for the best way to get into games. I didn't go down that road back then (choose accounting... what was I thinking) but now I am.

 

Games programmer "burnout" is supposed to be fairly common and after a few years of slogging your guts out every day for average pay, it will put you off - especially when you know you could be earning twice as much doing half the hours programming financial systems somewhere.

 

I do think Team Bondi was a bit of an usual case. From everything I've heard from the staff members, it seemed to be that the more Rockstar got invovled, the harder it was for them to remain in control of any aspect of the game. But then that's publishers for you. Unfortunately, self publishing just isn't feasible for a lot of devs - funding being the biggest issue.

 

Bizzare Studios were doing fine before they sold out to Activision... and look what happened there. There is a big focus on original IP and that what developers need to retain control of as that's what gives them their bartering power instead of having to constantly deal with "finish game X by Y" and yet most will never get to work on one because they don't have the funding to get it to a point where they can show it to publishers to generate interest.

[Hero-of-Time]

I do think Team Bondi was a bit of an usual case. From everything I've heard from the staff members, it seemed to be that the more Rockstar got invovled, the harder it was for them to remain in control of any aspect of the game. But then that's publishers for you. Unfortunately, self publishing just isn't feasible for a lot of devs - funding being the biggest issue.

 

I'm sure this whole Rockstar business has happened before when making Red Dead Redemption.

 

* Looks on Google*

 

http://elder-geek.com/2010/01/wives-of-rockstar-employees-threaten-with-legal-action/

[Captain Falcon]

I'm sure this whole Rockstar business has happened before when making Red Dead Redemption.

 

* Looks on Google*

 

http://elder-geek.com/2010/01/wives-of-rockstar-employees-threaten-with-legal-action/

 

Well with Team Bondi being totally independant, I'm sure the staff there weren't expecting to have to deal with the same kinda of treatment someone who willing goes to work for Rockstar would endure.

[Hero-of-Time]

Well with Team Bondi being totally independant, I'm sure the staff there weren't expecting to have to deal with the same kinda of treatment someone who willing goes to work for Rockstar would endure.

 

Very true, but at the same time I would have been a little wary.

[Captain Falcon]

Very true, but at the same time I would have been a little wary.

 

Yes, I think there must have been a fair bit of naivety on the part of TB if they thought they could sign up with R*/T2 and think it would be smooth sailing all the way but I doubt any of them could have anticpiated this.

[Magnus]

Someone from metacritic recently pointed out, most online gaming blogs etc don't review crap games anymore. Used to pick up a games mag and it had plenty of 2/10 games getting slammed, but these days the big blogs don't tend to waste their time, unless it's a game that people thought had potential.

I loved Kotaku's article about the quote. Owen Good seemed extremely offended about the whole thing, complaining about how the Metacritic guy only wanted more free content for his website.

 

... Apparently he didn't see the irony in how Kotaku gets most of its content from other places.

[Dog-amoto]

I'm sure this whole Rockstar business has happened before when making Red Dead Redemption.

 

* Looks on Google*

 

http://elder-geek.com/2010/01/wives-of-rockstar-employees-threaten-with-legal-action/

 

Wait a minute...game developers can attract women??

[Magnus]

They obviously got married before they went into game development.

[Jamba]

I personally think it is based on what kind of company you work for. I now have friends working at lots of different devs/pubs and I hear different things all over the place.

 

But let's be honest, any project like a game is going to have some kind of crunch or push at the end to get it finished. Even with very good management, you will need to push people to keep up the morale and energy to get it done. But the Bondai situation is a nightmare and I have been involved in projects where the devs have been in crunch for well over 3 months which is unsustainable.

 

My personal feelings on this are that the majority of management within the industry are amazingly poor. There is minimal communication, especially down to the lower echelons which are of course the people who will be picking up the slack for everyone else. This leads to a situation where the people who are being worked the hardest are the ones who are told the least which is obviously completely demoralising.

 

My experience with working for a publisher is that devs can be little bastards. They can be secretive, unhelpful and suspicious to the point where I wonder if they understand that the game doing well is in everyone's interest. For instance, the game I worked on first got started 3-4 months behind schedule. To me that's inexcusable.

 

Most games have a producer within the dev and one at the publisher (or equivalents). Now my experience of working on 8 games or so is that the producers/management within the dev are not serious about keeping the project on track and feel that going off on a creative tangent that shatters the timetable is a valid option. It is more important to keep your team happy and productive than it is to stress them out by trying to insert some bullshit game mode that no one will play.

 

There is the other problem, that projects are often taken underway before important questions can be answered. Such as:

 

1. Can we get the licence for all of the characters that we need?
   
2. What territories/languages will it be released in?
   
3. (If storyline based) Which bits can be cut/added in if we have time?
   
4. Can our engine do what we need it to?
   
5. Do we have a member of staff that can actually do the job required to implement our new key game feature?
   

 

This leads again to poor time management.

 

Oh and lets not forget that there will be a crunch for each milestone (e.g. Alpha complete, Beta complete) because apparently a lot of management forget about those dates at the beginning of a project.

[pratty]

Interesting topic. I found just working in Game one Christmas to be surprisingly soul-destroying and really tested my passion for games.

 

I bet working for a game magazine is a bit of a nightmare. I remember reading game magazines with apparently such small staff and thinking how do they play all these games and then put this magazine (sometimes with additional cheatbooks etc) together all in just one month?

 

I think when we gamers dream of working in game development really we just mean the creative process, that's probably the only fun part.

[heroicjanitor]

Team Bondi are bankrupt now anyway

 

It is worrying seeing things like this, there's only so much time you can spend crunching before you don't give a fuck any more. At the end I'm sure people would do it voluntarily, but otherwise the people enforcing it are idiots.

[Burny]

Well with Team Bondi being totally independant, I'm sure the staff there weren't expecting to have to deal with the same kinda of treatment someone who willing goes to work for Rockstar would endure.

 

Actually, skimming through a neogaf thread about the management at Team Bondi, I got the impression that's not necessarily just Rockstar's fault, but can also be blamed on their own management.

[Emasher]

In fact, wouldn't it be cool if a few N-E members teamed up together to create a game that could be distributed..?

 

I've been considering writing up a tutorial to teach people here very basic game programming (probably with XNA and C#). I'm just a first year CS student (not that I haven't been doing quite a bit of stuff on my own) though, so I'm not really sure I could put together something good enough. The idea of putting together a game as sort of a forum project is certainly an interesting idea though.

[nekunando]

The great thing is that not everyone would need to be able to program

 

Like myself, you have a little experience in this area, Emasher, but it would be great if other members were involved to take care of sprites, artwork and even music composition

 

It would certainly be a bit of a change working with others as I've always had total control of my individual projects in game design but I'm sure I'm capable of teamwork

 

I have had ideas floating around in my head for a couple of years now about the sort of things I would be interested in developing..

[Captain Falcon]

Actually, skimming through a neogaf thread about the management at Team Bondi, I got the impression that's not necessarily just Rockstar's fault, but can also be blamed on their own management.

 

It wouldn't surprise me if they were partially to blame but any problems that did exist were probably exasperated by R*s involvement and the ever increasing pressure on the game and studio as a whole.