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Is this a trick question or a trap?

I can certainly think of one such company that routinely exploits it’s employees with the throw away cop out of “That’s the way it is in the games industry”.

That combined with what amounts to management incompetence makes for some fun years of overtime.

They’re also in breach of the contract they forced us to sign. Which cleary states that time in lieu will be paid. Try bringing THAT up. It make for interesting conversation.

I find this bit of news interesting…

Does anybody else find it interesting that ‘management incompetence’ is always brought up as an issue?
Or that ‘the managers should have known it would take too long and cut the project down accordingly’?

Though it is undoubtably due to my position, it does get my goat that this is said time after time, when a quite standard response to queries on (for example) how long something will take to code is ‘I don’t know’ or ‘as long as a piece of string’. Yet managers are expected to provide a to-the-day accurate estimation of project length months in advance when other people can’t provide that information for one task.

I’d also like to point out that the ‘management’ is as much of a part of this industry as anybody else, put in just as many long hours as everybody else and are subject to the same rules, contracts and benefits.

When I first started making games (a long time ago), people worked long hours for crap wages because they wanted to produce cool games. They wanted to make games that THEY wanted to play. People that put their heart and soul into what they worked on achieved amazing results (Dropzone, Elite, Uridium, Zarch (Virus), Speedball, Xenon and many, many others). Guys like ‘The Bitmap Brothers’ worked long hours for sod-all because they believed in what they were making and they wanted to do something that was better than the other games on the market at the time.

I’ve watched this debate going on for a long time now and I’ve read the comments on ‘EA Spouse’. Everyone seems to be either complaining about being exploited workers or targeting ‘management’ and pointing out that they’re always wrong. I particularly liked the comments from the producer on ‘Mischievous Ramblings’; “I can bring in any project without making people work overtime”. That’s one of the funniest thing’s I’ve ever heard. He doesn’t know the scope of the project or the team he’s got working on it OR the state of the code, and he still thinks he can bring it in on time. What if it’s a triple ‘A’ title with three monkeys developing on a C64 because everyone else has quit (no doubt because they’re “exploited workers”)? Did you notice that he didn’t pause to mention whether the game would actually be worth playing?

Why are management always at fault? They’re not, they’re just the popular target for people who want to point the finger. The previous post from ‘Linds’ hits the nail on the head when he states that the average programmer can’t tell you how long it’s going to take to write the next three lines of code, but ‘management’ is supposed to know exactly how long it’s going to take the finish the entire project.

The whole problem is that projects grow and change as we develop them. The reason this happens is because the people involved in the projects (some of them at least) are constantly trying to improve on what ‘the other guy’ is working on. The reason we’re working long hours is because we’re competing with people who ARE putting their heart and soul into their projects and are therefore raising the standard. This has nothing to do with management, it has a lot to do with the fact that people making games don’t want to be seen as ‘second rate’ and will always keep trying to put more and more into a game to make it better.

In today’s market this whole area is known as ‘feature creep’ and is seen as a very bad thing because it causes to ‘o’ word (overtime). I prefer to think of it as making your game better than the others.

The only way we’re ever going to work ‘normal’ hours in the games industry is if everyone decides to stop competing and just do a ‘normal’ game that’s reasonable for the timeframe available, and that’s never going to happen.

I don’t care about whether the company wants me to work late nights to get the game done or whether the company is “exploiting me”, I care about making a game that people will like and I care about spending time with other people who want to do the same.

If you want to work from nine to five to avoid being “exploited” then you’re going to produce ‘middle of the road’ games and you’re not going to compete with the people who are prepared to put in the hours regardless of what they’re paid to produce something really special. You know, the people that actually believe in what they’re doing. People that don’t give a damn about the games they produce and care more about lining their pockets are generating this entire debate.

The amount of money that’s paid to developers and the amount of effort that’s required to produce something really cool do not go hand in hand. If you’re just in it for the money then go and write a database for someone and leave the games industry alone.

And Fred, how did they ‘force’ you sign a contract? Was there a gun involved?

Interesting opinion Linds, but I think you’re missing the point. No-one is hating management for merely underestimating project timelines. Ask anyone making any sort of software.. timelines are notoriously difficult to work out, and effective production requires constant and close communication between producers and developers.

The real issue is what happens when things go wrong. We’re yet to see evidence that forcing developers to work 7 days a week to make up the shortfall is any sort of real solution. In many industries it has been shown that extending hours like this only leads to less productivity. The EA situation is even more inexplicable because they don’t have a publishing company breathing down their necks - they *are* the publisher.

Linds, you’re right that many people in management are subject to the same rules and benefits, and may be pulling the same long hours as a result. So my question to you - seeing as you are in a better position than most to effect change in your working conditions - what, if anything, are you doing to ease this trend towards further exploitation? Do you expect to have a life of your own outside work or are long hours and burnout just a fact of life you have accepted?

I’m not missing the point to all the discussion, was more following a tangent :)

For the future, there’s more planning, better workflow, increased team feedback and learning from our mistakes. It’s not going to get it right all at once, but in my experience developers don’t WANT to run their staff into the ground, and will do everything they can to avoid it.

That said, things will go wrong along the way, and I guess the real trick is to how to limit the damage when this happens. There’ll never be a cure-all solution for this part of it, as you never know what’s going to break, but I guess all I can say is that people will be trying their hardest to avoid the crunch.

Yes I want a life of my own outside work, but I accept that there will be periods where some extra work will be required, because, as they say, sh#t happens. What I’m concerned with is trying to make sure that the period isn’t measured by the seasons :)

I’d also like to point out that I feel that ‘exploitation’ is a harsh word to cover all situations that are being discussed (not all of course). With everything that’s been happening, posted etc lately, I think that people are glossing over that there are benefits as well.

In my experience, producers are lumped into the same pool of rubbish as the rest of us, but for some reason they still tow the company line (perhaps it’s the bonuses for making milestones). They are given the same useless “spec” (what a joke) and idea of what the game is, and told to make it happen. That idea and “spec” (mostly invisible and in someone’s head) is then changed often and repeatedly, not because of “shifting goal posts” (another favourite cop out) but on whim.

The people who suffer from that aren’t those with the whims, but the hands on developers and producers (who seem to get reamed the most). For some inexplicable reason the producers keep on towing that line, and those with the whims go home at 5:30.

Poor planning in my experience is the major cause. It leads to directionless development of hackneyed ideas. If you have no notion of what you intend the end product to be you can not possibly produce something of note. Something more than average.

Perhaps things would be better if producers and managers weren’t in their positions by accident and actually thought planning and design were valuable. A little project management training would go a long way in this industry.

Do you honestly think those shinning examples of “Triple A” games that we all chomp at the bit to play are developed with no direction and random whims?

An undeniable fact is that the methods currently employed are bad. They are bad from every perspective other than the short term making of money for the employer. They are short sighted and unsustainable.

True they are partially born out of necessity. Have you ever stopped to consider what created that necessity?

Oh, and I’ve never been asked how long a task will take. Generally they do take “as long as they take” but a good lead given a well defined task (rare) will be able to give you a decent estimate of time, given the task and skill of the developer it’s assigned to.

Of course things change and overtime can never be eliminated, but to suggest it’s necessary in the current form and imply it’s only occassional is fibbing and ignoring the problems that are causing it.

Most developers would be more than happy to work overtime if they received some form of compensation. But they generally don’t.

I hope you’re right and things are changing in your company Linds.

As for simon, you’re attitude is why we get exploited in the first place.

Passion is lost when people spend crazy amounts of THEIR time fixing the mess created by poorly defined goals and bad planning and receive sweet fa in return. In some regards this is caused by the employer being exploited too. They sign ridiculous contracts that the publisher and they both know means their staff will have to work 7 days a week to achieve. That’s an issue higher up the chain that should be explored too.

Working overtime beyond a certain amount per day and week over an extended period does NOT improve a piece of software. That is an undeniable truth with stupendously large bodies of study to support it.

We aren’t talking about crunch time here, we are talking about general development. We are talking about every day for months.

It can be avoided. In fact the last project I worked on had limited overtime. It was also the best planned project I’ve worked on. Not perfect, but a lot better than previously. Perhaps that means things are changing, I hope it wasn’t an anomally.

Interestingly though, “management” kept saying things like “they aren’t working enough overtime, what are you guys doing? Find something for them to do on the weekend”.

I would suggest that “congratulations” would have been more appropriate. Instead management’s intent to exploit us and their belief that if we aren’t working 60 hour weeks they aren’t getting their monies worth, was laid bare for all to see.

Here’s hoping those sorts of attitude change.

Is the problem Overtime itself
or Overtime with inadequate or non-existant compensation?

I can live with the overtime if the company can live with paying the overtime. Where I work- lets call it Copperart- they did away with monetary bonuses this year after a very punishing schedule. I find that deplorable and I guarantee the majority of Copperart employees won’t be willing to pull those hours for next year’s crunch time. My lead will be told politely to go fuck himself when he starts quoting from Office Space, sif that’s going to make it better.

But even at Copperart, things weren’t anywhere near as bad as EA wife descibed which was constant crunch from day one at some of EA’s US studios. Its just that the place has started handling these issues very, very badly.

I would say it’s three things:

1. An expectation of overtime for it’s own sake
2. Overtime arising from bad decisions and/or lack of planning
3. No compensation

I’ve also noticed that there’s a perception that length of time in the building equates to good employee, rather than quantity and quality of work produced.

And regardless of compensation past a certain point overtime is hurting both the employer and the employee.

On the point about management being blamed “unfairly”, it was neatly omitted that management generally are privvy to more compensation and built in bonuses along the way - that is part of the deal of management in many workplaces. And those benefits are not necessarily enjoyed by the other poor plebs the manager is ordering into exhorbitent overtime with the threat of eventual dismissal if they do not comply. Sorry, but that *is* extortion - it’s the very definition of it.

However, having said that, Linds is really talking about middle management (Producers etc.), and although they do generally get better deals and more perks they are also another cog in the wheel being turned by those higher up. They are in the same boat, only they must not only try to make sense of the insensible, they have to assume responsibility for it, communicate and sell it to their team, AND lie to the publisher about things when they go wrong. A horrible job, what I’ve seen of it, but one they agree to when they accept the paycheck (thereby feeding the process, and so I’ve got little sympathy).

We do need to be careful here though. Not all companies work in this way. I already know where many of the respondents to this thread work just from what they are saying, and whatever you have been lead to believe, the entire industry does not behave in this fashion. Management can be both structured, human, empathetic, competent, and resonable. Games can be well managed and creative at the same time (in fact, you can hardly afford the freedom to be creative without some type of effective management). Bad management doesn’t encourage anything except inefficiency and wastage. In order not to be a bad manager, you have to take management seriously. Have you seen any books on management on the desks of those managing you? No? You’re in trouble.

Most people in this industry don’t mind working overtime if they believe in what they are making. We do mind when that willingness is factored into contracts as they are signed, abused all the way through the process, and other people get the reward for the price we pay both personally and professionally. Thankfully, especially in Australia now, there are options when choosing an employer.

BTW, it’s understood independent development is brutal, and often the companies are just doing everything they can to maintain a level of success in a very difficult industry. That is no excuse for some of this stuff, but it explains some of why it is here.

Being “management” myself, I’d like to jump in and play Devil’s Advocate here if I may.

There are a number of reasons why game projects often end up requiring overtime. These could include internal factors (poor planning, poor managment, poor task estimation, inconsistent staff productivity, overconfidence, underresourcing etc) and external factors (publisher feature creep, feature creep due to competitor products, poor middleware/tools support, financing issues etc). Therefore, if a project ends up requiring lots of overtime, its difficult to point the finger at any one cause or at any one person.

I’ll add, to some degree it is the responsibility of every team member, not just the producer, to get a project in on time and budget. Team members should strive to keep on top of their tasks, revise estimates and ask for help where appropriate, and be proactive about raising issues (existing or potential). Producers and management are not omniscent, so bottom up communication can be very helpful in keeping a project on track.

On the issue of compensation, thats a tricky one, and I can understand why smaller companies have to fall back on the “we can’t afford to pay overtime” line. At the bottom end of the developer market, projects are very hard to come by and profit margins are razor thin. If a project blows out then any potential profits can evaporate, and the whole company is at risk.

For the Australasian development community, I’d suggest most overtime is more about survival and lack of experience than exploitation. Most Australasian companies live from project to project, and overtime is the only way to compete. You then have to consider how working overtime within such a smaller company will impact your career over the longer term.

On the other hand, overtime of the type which is described by “EA_Spouse” is pure exploitation in that it appears to be built in from the beginning (bear in mind the EA_Spouse story is legally unproven at this stage). When even a company like EA is reportedly relying on excessive overtime, it makes it very hard for the smaller studios to keep up. Its a vicious cycle.

My advice for game production staff concerned about this issue is to make sure you understand the parameters surrounding overtime well before it happens so there are no surprises eg will I be compensated or not? will I get time in lieu? is overtime expected at some stage during the upcoming project? is overtime expected on the weekends?

Having some goals to work towards also makes overtime more palatable eg how long is the overtime expected to last? what impact will this work have on the quality of the game? how will this affect job security? how will the company benefit longer term? what opportunities will arise if we ship on time and budget? Make sure management is held to account for how they answered these questions in a post project review.

If the answers to those questions aren’t to your satisfaction then consider a shift to another studio with policies to your liking, or leaving the industry entirely. There are much easier places to make money than the game development industry if that is the key motivator.

Some good points there Mario. There are definately two distinct sets of factors that influence overtime. With regards to the external factors:

1. Do you think it’s appropriate or fair to require your staff to work overtime for no reward?

2. If the success/failure of your company is tied so directly to your employees willingness to sacrifice their own private lives, don’t you think they should receive some form of benefit tied that sacrifice, be it stocks, time-in-lieu, overtime pay or some other benefit agreed to be the parties involved?

“1. Do you think it’s appropriate or fair to require your staff to work overtime for no reward?”

I think it depends on the company situation to be honest. If overtime ‘rules’ are outlined clearly in the employment contract and are adhered to, if enough advance notice is given, and if the overtime is done with specific goals in mind (rather than overtime for the sake of overtime), then I believe it is reasonable.

“2. If the success/failure of your company is tied so directly to your employees willingness to sacrifice their own private lives, don’t you think they should receive some form of benefit tied that sacrifice, be it stocks, time-in-lieu, overtime pay or some other benefit agreed to be the parties involved?”

Yes, there should be some benefits, but again this will vary from company to company as each different studio will have limitations on how they can reward staff.

Its also important to remember some of the more intangible stuff that could be considered a benefit though such as job stability, how much standard leave you get, is the work challenging or prestigious, what training and experience are you getting etc.

For some, working 10 hours or more a day for months will be okay if they are extending themselves, working on a satisfying and high quality product, can rely on getting paid every single month, and never have to worry about their job. Others might feel cheated under similar circumstances, without additional direct financial compensation. Some fit somewhere in between.

Each individual has to make their own mind up really, and if they feel they are being exploited or not compensated properly then they should move on whether it be to another studio or to another industry entirely.

(bear in mind the EA_Spouse story is legally unproven at this stage)

… a moot point as I don’t think anyone has yet had the temerity to suggest it isn’t true, and there are hundreds of current and ex-EAers corroborating the account. It would hardly have created the enormous storm is has if it were false.

I agree though that the onus for changing the situation rests with the employees. Bruce said to me years ago that the majority of IT companies rode to fortune on the talent of their employees, and most IT workers heavily underestimated their worth. I didn’t really understand at the time, but I do now. Game developers must realize the companies making money off games could not possibly do so without them, and all that overtime and stress is largely lining someone else’s pocket. If there isn’t payback via experience or training (failing just monetary compensation), it’s not worth the pain and time. That realization changes everything.

I think we should define some of the terms of this subject

Exploitation: Your employer driving around in a Porche while you work unpaid overtime

Dedication: you don’t want to ship shovelware and want to stay back to finish what you started

EA_Spouse: well-informed partner of EA_employee, upset at
EA_employee’s exploitation at the hands of EA.

EA_employee: Cheating on his partner with EA_receptionist. Telling EA_Spouse he has to work late or else he’ll get fired.

EA_receptionist: Hoping EA_employee will leave that frigid cow.

Crack the Whip: Employer expecting overtime whether you need to or not

Pot calling the Kettle Black: You’ve asked to stay back to finish your work and whinge about it. How much time did you really spend browsing the web during office hours?

IGDA: Jump on the bandwagon. Then jump the shark

Legitimate Beef: 60 hour weeks, no comp time, no bonuses, no extra pay

Illegitimate Beef: Maccas left out in the sun for three days

Pointless Exercise: See “Planning”

Union: Something poofs play

Linds: Someone with a girl’s name.

Bonus: Not in your lifetime

Planning: See “Pointless Exercise”

Firearms Licence: Needed when someone asks you to “check out these guns.” Decline. Politely.

MMO: See “Union”

AHAHAHAHAHA Best Glossary ever! :)

As for the more serious stuff, I think its a fine line between exploitation and commitment to your work. We wanna make a good game so we put in the hard yards, but to recieve nothing but more work cause you worked harder isn’t the reward your looking for.

Heavy Overtime 60+ hour weeks should never go longer than 2 weeks at worst after that your genna have mindless idtiots burnt out playing games or browing the web, like this site :)

There was a study done in America on overtime and productivity, as to whether it was effictive in any long term goals or projects. The result showed (as you all can guess or know) that the gain was only short term. The more overtime people put in, the less effective things became. People get tired, cranky, work becomes sloppy and ad-hock and in some cases too much overtime actually is less productive then normal hours. Added to this is the risk of loosing valuable employees and team members at crucial times due to illness, accidents or just sheer frustration.

It was also noted in this study that in America bonuses, promotions and expectations of a ‘good employee’ are not based on ability or effort but hours. Somehow the whole thinking has slid into more hours = more dedication, productivity and effort when a competent person can do in 8 hours what a not so competent person may take 12 is not accounted for.Its the hours of incompetency that is getting the rewards now.

That mentality of more hours = more dedication has also entered the Australian industry. That coupled with poor management, the almighty profit margin and the need for companies to ’shift thier titles’ spells only pain for the employee unless that stand up for thier rights and dont allow themselves to be exploited.

What does your 12 hour days 7 days a week do for you as an employee? What benifits does it gain you personally? It is not I buying the new house, the plasma screen television or the newest luxury car. The real catch 22 is the fact that once you put in the long hours to achieve a milestone, goal or project it now becomes the expected norm for the next project. Milestones become shorter, goals become bigger, but the rewards stay the same, or even in some cases become less. If, as Mario has stated, it is crucial for the companies survival to run on a tight schedule and budget, then in all fairnes should it not be the responsibilty of the employer to consult with its employees regarding the project rather then take it on assumption that they’ll be all willing to ‘overtime’ for the companies benifit?

Willingness to accept poor direction or decisions and put in the extra hours out of ‘devotion’ to a game or the company becomes a horrid trap and pitfall for the employee.

My benifit from all the free overtime I put in at a low wage. I sit at home, attempting to live on sickness benifits and struggling to pay bills because I burnt out and ended up in hospital. I recieved little compensation for my effort and next to nothing when my illness forced me to leave. This is the reward for the dedication if you let it drive you too far.

“The real catch 22 is the fact that once you put in the long hours to achieve a milestone, goal or project it now becomes the expected norm for the next project. Milestones become shorter, goals become bigger, but the rewards stay the same, or even in some cases become less.”

I don’t think that has to be the case at all. If a project blows out (for whatever reason) and management doesn’t take that into account for future projects, then that is an example of bad management plain and simple.

Using team wide post project reviews is a great place to identify what went wrong from everybody’s perspective, and an opportunity to put processes in place and fill skill gaps to reduce the likelihood of issues on the next project.

If your studio doesn’t do post project reviews, then request them. If the studio refuses to learn from their mistakes, then move on. In the immortal words of Captain Planet, the power is yours.

Mario, another question then:

Given the difficulty in simply getting funding and projects from a publisher and the pressures of delivering them in such short time frames, how can a company take these issues into account when setting up the new project?

A point of clarrification:

I’m talking about the production issues that would typically be raised in the post mortem phase development and they can be taken into account and reconciled with the next project.

Every individual studios situation will be different, but here are some things to think about

1. Don’t be afraid to push back on publisher feature creep. Sometimes publishers suggest changes for the sake of making changes or want features to be implemented without considering the full impact on development. Having open discussions with a publisher about potential changes can see a lot of requests dropped or scaled back. Having an agreed design document in place which list the minimal ship features can aid this process.

2. Recognise and avoid internal feature creep. Developers can be their own worst enemy sometimes, so while the team may constantly be bringing new ideas to the table you need to be careful about what and how much is added to the production.

3. Plan out minimal feature set and those features which can be dropped from the start (and be prepared to drop them). If you rank features in order of importance from the outset, then if production starts running over you can identify and drop the less important ones quickly.

4. Develop and monitor task estimation skills for all disciplines. This helps with your planning accuracy as well as ongoing management of the project.

5. Plan thoroughly, and build buffers into the plan. Check and recheck estimates from the leads, plan for the PS2 gold master to be bounced by Sony, factor in a couple of weeks approval time on milestones, build in extra time if there is an external licensee involved (eg Disney), allocate time for bugfixing and tweaking etc.

6. Try and anticipate production risk areas. Look at the development and note those areas of creative and technical stretch (new platform? new genre?) and make sure those areas are managed more carefully and have more buffer time factored in.

7. Allow enough time for preproduction. The more research, process development and planning that can be done up front, the less surprises there are down the track.

8. Turn down projects which are well beyond the capabilities and experience of the studio.

9. Research your prospective publishing partner. Are they a company which views development as a partnership, or are they a company which squeezes the lifeblood out of a developer before moving on? Don’t work with the latter, no matter the temptation.

Does that answer your question? Happy to kick in more ideas if you want them.

And after all that planning it doesn’t one one bit of difference if the guys at the top say to the producers it can be done in less time than you actually need so they get the project over competition. You have to cram it all in a small time frame, how to do that?

overtime….

“And after all that planning it doesn’t one one bit of difference if the guys at the top say to the producers it can be done in less time than you actually need so they get the project over competition. You have to cram it all in a small time frame, how to do that? overtime….”

Only if a studio isn’t creative enough to try and find better ways of doing things, and tries to solve issues and beat the competition by brute force.

Otherwise, if you have a problem with “the guys at the top” (which would be fair enough in this situation) then just go somewhere else.

and as they let it go to another company people get fired or worse whole company goes under.

gotta make games to stay in business…

and as they let it go to another company people get fired or worse whole company goes under.

gotta make games to stay in business…

A simple tool used to great effect in the professional software industry, the contractors friend…timesheets.

If you can’t track it, you can’t measure it
If you can’t measure it, you can’t estimate it

Of course it’s a double edged sword for shonky management because then there is an accurate record of time on task…

In my experience (10+ years professionally), timesheets don’t work in a creative industry like games development.

As Mario said, a document of agreed minimum shipable features is very helpful when controlling feature creep. Of course, publishers are much more likely to want to continue their relationship with a developer, particularly an independant, if they were able to perform miracles.

A lot of this discussion seems to be focused on blame. Who’s fault is it that I have no life outside of work due to ridiculous hours, or who’s fault is it I make less money than I deserve. If you think your work deserves more money, then ask for a payrise at the end of the next project. If you don’t want, or can’t get a payrise, then don’t work the hours. Stand up for yourselves. If you are worth more to your company they will pay you more. If you aren’t worth more then perhaps the problem lies more with your skills, and desire to find solutions to problems rather than complain.

“In my experience (10+ years professionally), timesheets don’t work in a creative industry like games development.”

gee…that must be why the QOL is so high at the moment.
and it’s not just a bunch of low skilled underpaid whingers complaining about having to work some unpaid overtime…it’s a demonstrated major weakness in an immature industry that fails to acknowledge that there may be better ways of doing things.

Have you ever used them?
Have you ever tried to adapt them to game development?
Have you ever had to debrief a task and been able to accurately account for ALL the hours spent, including reading email, web surfing, education etc etc?
Had to justify why something took as long as it did, but been able to break it down because you knew exactly where your time was spent?
or did you just pull some vague figures out of the back of your head?

Fact is people don’t like timesheets/tracking because of these very issues. It’s not about big brother or unrealistic expectations and taylorist production manchines, it’s about accounting for what you do with the time you are getting paid for, and management realistically allocating task times based on skills. Assuming your skills and productivity are up to scratch, they can also be a handy negotiating edge when pushing for more money.

Of course exploitative companies avoid them like the plague because who wants to be reminded every week that people employed on 40-hour week contracts are actually working 50/60/70 hours with the passion gap as unpaid overtime, possible toil, maybe a bonus, or “a pat on the back and a job well done”, or suck credits for the next promotion up the greasy pole.

It’s going to be interesting to see how this is handled when the new federal award kicks in next year.

How much of the so-called creative industry is “creative development’” and how much is process driven production?

It’s so simple I’ll repeat it:
If you can’t track it (honestly), you can’t measure it
If you can’t measure it, you can’t estimate it (and via tracking get better at estimating)

No one disputes new creative work is almost impossible to estimate, which is why it should be relegated to R&D or time-bounded conceptual/pre-production phases. The reality is that even in production phases new “creative” features will be thrown in, but this is a project management/contingency issue…see previous points about tracking and measurment.

I had to laugh yesterday. The local paper had an article about some QANTM students who won an award at AGDC.
One student says: “I can spend 16 hours a day on it. It’s never a job”. Come in spinner…

It was like the game company I had an interview it. Quite amusing to say the least. If you ever have a chance to go to an interview, don’t turn it down even if you feel like telling them to shove it. Go to the interview to see the inside of a games company because it is a real eye opener.

Just before the interview, the two guys interviewing me were brainstorming ideas with other employees to the point of delaying the interview and I felt like I was really inconveniencing them by showing up. It was really amusing to see disorganisation in full force.

As for Occupational Health & Safety in games companies, it’s time someone enforced all employees to wear some form of footwear. The number of bare foot workers I observed was unbelievable (and feral).

I run a small team that has spent the last eighteen months working on a variety of game projects. We use well established project management methods.

We don’t crunch, we don’t do overtime and on average we deliver our stable milestone builds a week early.

Another team that I worked on previously didn’t use well established project management methods for many of the reasons listed in other posts.

We crunched, we did unpaid overtime and never brought a stable milestone in on time.

From my experience, good project management practices mitigate or prevent many of the QOL issues that are associated with life in games. I recommend Steve McConnell’s ‘Rapid Development’. It is an accessible and comprehensive book on software project management.

Ravi, in the creative industry the more comfortable you are the more creative you will probably be, if you comfy bare foot and it helps production, then so be it.

And I see why you didn’t get the job, relax more!

Sweet! I’m most comfortable when I don’t bathe for days and wear the same clothes without washing them for weeks. Is that okay? I’m much more creative when I stink, and don’t have to worry about tedious structure like personal hygiene and (facist) washing regimes. People complain, sure, but they just need to loosen up. Don’t worry about the bare feet… I don’t have tinea (all the time - and anyway, the carpet helps rub it off).

Monty, your taking the devils advocate approach we were discussing Bare feet in particular, if your personal higene is lacking that’s a personal issue, don’t be silly you cranky old man. :)

Hilarious monty!
Ravi, if you’re offended by something so trivial as bare feet.. then stay out of creative industries like game development. OTOH, if you’re put off by ridiculous working hours, feel free to join the industry and lobby for improvement.

>>And I see why you didn’t get the job, relax more!

Dude(ette), that is so, like, insightful!

Try this cool mantra while visualizing the brilliant golden flower (species: ceoBonusi) growing as you subvocalise:

Om mani work-ing hourzzzzzzzzzz
Om mani work-ing hourzzzzzzzzzz
Om mani work-ing hourzzzzzzzzzz

Visualizing the “flower” in the region of your perinium is an advanced technique you may use to relieve the pain in your nether regions.

On the other hand, to present a fair and balanced system of relaxation, producers might like to try this when their young and enthusistic hobbit programmers scurry up to submit the latest “magical” estimates:
Wow only a week to code ai from scratch
Wow only a week to code ai from scratch
Wow only a week to code ai from scratch

…

I can’t see the issue wih bare feet Monty, since when did you become the must wear shoes Nazi??

I think a relaxed working environment is fine, as long as people maintain the same standard that would be considered acceptable by society at large. I can’t see how a business suit makes you a better employee.

“I can’t see how a business suit makes you a better employee.”

No, but it does make you a bigger dork. Shoes! How anal is that. And Monty, ideally you should stink less less than your work :)

Project management is the key…a skill that seems to be sadly misunderstood and simultaneously abused within the game industry at all levels…from whip-crazy manager/producers to programmers/artists who still think you can make it all up as you go along because it’s a “creative” industry.

However, and a big however, project management comes in many forms and can be derailed for any number of reasons. Lightweight, agile methodologies seem to work best for creative, iterative, cross-skilled software intensive projects, but any process will really live and die by the application of soft skills - the human element of communication that flows through the company culture.

http://www.livejournal.com/users/joestraitiff/368.html is a good illustration of this, as it appears that while EA uses some project management it has been so warped by company culture as to be unuseable.

This is an issue where education needs to be “whole of company”. Sure, productivity/profitability will no doubt take a dip while this learning curve is undertaken…but the alternative is a continued “world of hurt” on many levels.

Personally I also think all sales and marketing people need to be put up against the wall and a fresh start needs to be done in this area:-)

It is a “creative” industry. Programmers and artists always make it up as they go along. They are given a task, or problem, and they make up the solution then and there. The time it will take is a guess. It can be a good guess, but it’s a guess.

That’s hard to counter with project management of any type.

Games are selling well, i.e. Sales and Marketing methods are working. Yes, they are morons, but their methods are working from a sales P.O.V.

Forgive me for flogging what appears to be a dead horse, but I’ve been considering an appropriate reply to commentors comment. One of the main inhibitors to diffusion of the more agile professional project management techniques within the game industry is due to the naive notion of “creatives” (at all levels of the production chain) that they are the only people on the planet who problem solve on the fly (because they are being “creative”… wtftm’s), and therefore it’s impossible to manage with any degree of process.

Hate to break the big news to ya, commentor, but task related “creative” problem solving is the guts of most industries…many with real life and death consequences far beyond getting the skin colour right on the latest alien monster thingy.
eg (from business application development)
“At the core of the contemporary Agile development methodologies is the concept of parallel design and development. You start programming before you fully specify the program. This technique flies in the face of traditional wisdom—that a design should be complete before programming starts—but many successful projects have proven that you can develop high-quality code more rapidly (and cost effectively) this way than with the traditional pipelined approach. At the core of parallel development, however, is the notion of flexibility. You have to write your code in such a way that you can incorporate newly discovered requirements into the existing code as painlessly as possible.
Rather than implement features you might need, you implement only the features you definitely need, but in a way that accommodates change. If you don’t have this flexibility, parallel development simply isn’t possible. ”

http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-08-2003/jw-0801-toolbox.html?post=825&lastpage=1#talkback

The first step to being a professional is to have an open mind…

Hey all, read the comments so far. I am an undergraduate at the University of Manitoba, I will be receiving my degree in C.Sci this October and want to make games. Preferably for a living but I work on game design now just for fun and will likely continue to do so.

My view on overtime in any industry is simple. If the company isn’t paying for it or compensating for it in some way, you don’t get it. Period. In terms of the games industry, my view remains the same. I think unpaid overtime is basically an attempt to grab cash on the part of whoever ultimately benefits from a project. The reasons ‘this is just the way it is in this industry’ and ‘there are so many other people willing to give their heart+soul to make a great game if you don’t work uncompensated overtime we can just go get another’ are just a convenient excuse that people unfortunately buy. From my point of view, my creativity, determination and desire to do my best to make a great game is what MAKES my time valuable, and thus worthy of adequate compensation.

The argument that game developers should be willing to work unpaid overtime due to dedication is also moot as long as there is a publisher or producer or someone at the ‘top of the heap’ who makes money directly from copies sold or delivery time or what-have-you. These people are also involved in the development process and I or anyone else should not swallow this precisely because the dedication argument does not apply to them. Think about it, if making a great game is supposed to be the overriding factor that developers take into account, then it should also be the overriding factor that the management/publisher types take into account. If it is, then they should be willing to split the dividends amongst all those involved in the project. (Many successful game companies appear to do this with profit sharing or other schemes, Bioware comes to mind immediately.) If it is not then barring some sort of insane motive then their issue is money. Simple.

IMHO, the issue of diminishing returns is the most practical reason to avoid overtime. Personally, I produce a maximum of about four hours of prime work in any given day (of course, I may have a twenty hour period where I am uber productive and then be incapable of doing anything for the rest of the week). The rest is usually devoted to supportive tasks, primarily communication. I imagine that this general concept applies to most people.

You also have to consider the bottleneck problem. To quote a professor of mine, no sexism intended on his part or mine: “If you want to make a baby, you need nine months no matter how many women you assign the task.” This just illustrates nicely how some tasks require a certain amount of time, you can’t compress it by assigning more people ie: more hours. (Though you will with any luck increase the amount of ‘productive hours’ I mentioned earlier that go into it. Of course, you cannot assign everyone on the planet to work for one second on a game and expect to get anything whatsoever even though the amount of time put into it is fairly large.)

I think that the issue can be dealt with entirely on the end of the publisher, or whoever is clamoring for the game to be finished on a specific deadline. I personally could care less about deadlines, I care about the game being as good as I can possibly make it and not have a perpetual development cycle and thus never actually releasing it for people to enjoy. (Though I am working on making designing games with profitable perpetual development cycles, if you are interested in hearing about it let me know.) It is no coincidence that the vast majority of smash-hit games out there had due dates of ‘when it is done’. I also do not think it is a coincidence that the vast majority of these games come from companies with some sort of profit sharing. Whether this increases motivation or allows the company to get the benefits of overtime while putting off paying for it until the game ships is up for debate, the fact remains though…

You will note that I carefully did not mention the cold hard fact that money does in fact dry up if development goes on too long. I think (but do not know) that this can be ameliorated to an extent by utilizing the minimal practical amount of management. My experience thus far in software development in general is that projects are -always- overmanaged. At my current job, I am regarded as one of the most productive employees. This is because no one hears from me, and no complaints result from my work. (I am segregated physically from the other employees, and my job is essentially to keep them from being bothered by the stuff I deal with on my end.) I see my manager basically whenever I decide to go see him, for whatever reason. Otherwise he leaves me alone entirely. I am currently studying formal software development theories and practices, and the implementations that we are studying seem to indicate that the most successful projects are the ones that involve the least formal management-type input. However, these theories presuppose that the employees are willing to do their jobs without being harrassed, and take initiative regarding dealing with changes in requirements and the schedule and so on. Wait a second… This describes dedicated game developers!

Incidentally, if anyone anyplace works someplace that is hiring developers or designers, or even if you want to comment on something I said here give me a shout.