Truth about AAA-video-games industry working-condition

[LVUER]

For those who (still) wants to work in AAA video game industry and think how glorify it is to work there -> http://asia.gamespot.com/features/why-w ... m;ReadMore

For me, it's another reason to choose to work as indie rather than AAA one (or to be just a gamer rather than full-time video game developer).

[LateWhiteRabbit]

For those who (still) wants to work in AAA video game industry and think how glorify it is to work there -> http://asia.gamespot.com/features/why-w ... m;ReadMore

For me, it's another reason to choose to work as indie rather than AAA one (or to be just a gamer rather than full-time video game developer).

I'll say this much - I went to art school with a lot of people that wanted to get into the games industry. I did too. We were lucky to have instructors from the professional industry - who didn't do it anymore, which may have been a big freaking clue. By the time graduation rolled around, most of us had talked to enough professionals and seen enough glimpses of the inner sanctum of AAA development that most of us no longer had a desire to be in the "industry". We still wanted to make games, but the AAA route looked like a slow, painful death by a thousand cuts. The games industry is in a barbaric 1920-30s system of studio management and mistreatment that the movie industry broke out of decades ago.

You'll work 100 hour weeks for years, then when you ship a great game, (or worse a crappy or mediocre one) the publisher shuts the studio down and you're out looking for work again. Only - were you used to higher wages, and maybe some benefits for your family? Well, screw you, because a bunch of punk kids fresh out of school are willing to be paid in peanuts and get kicked in the gut to work in the game industry, so you have no bartering power for better conditions. The studio heads or publisher will fire you at the drop of a hat because they have a line of applicants out the door willing to work for less.

Oh, and speaking of working for less - what other industry has workers routinely go on working with missed paychecks? "Oh, sorry. We can't pay you this week. Maybe next week we'll get you caught up. Keep putting in those hundred hours though!"

No. I don't know why anyone would want to be a AAA game developer unless they are a foolish, doe-eyed idealist who has yet to be crushed by working conditions a 19th century robber baron would be proud to have created.

So most of my classmates became freelance artists, or indies, or some, like myself, got into the film industry. Which is marginally better. Special Effects artists are still treated like crap and have poor working conditions in the film industry, but no where near as bad as the game industry. I've still put in 60-70 hour + weeks and only gotten paid for 44 hours of them - two weeks late. Though it those cases it usually isn't the studio screwing you over - it's the major motion picture studios screwing your studio over. "That shot we told you to have done in 3 weeks? We need it in 4 days." "That quarter of a million dollar check we were supposed to give your studio? Yeah. It's in the mail. Well, it will be. When we send it next week. Oh, you know what? I think our accountant is on vacation. You'll get money sometime this month when we get around to it. Oh, and if those shots aren't finished, we're tearing up your studio's contract. Toodles!"

Yeah. I'm not bitter or jaded . . . It's like getting the chance to move in with your childhood idol only to find out they're an abusive alcoholic with a manipulative personality.

[KimiYoriBaka]

It's like getting the chance to move in with your childhood idol only to find out they're an abusive alcoholic with a manipulative personality

the moment I read this I though "oha- lucky!"

[Auro-Cyanide]

This might be interesting to some people: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/working-conditions

But yeah, there was a reason I choose to study graphic design.

[LVUER]

Yeah. I'm not bitter or jaded . . . It's like getting the chance to move in with your childhood idol only to find out they're an abusive alcoholic with a manipulative personality.

Yeah, I agree with this one. I have friends who works in TV station and I was also able to contact with such persons myself (there was an audition for TV station in my college). The more famous they are, (most of the time) the more jerk they are. Kinda like kids with bad temper and really love to throw tantrum towards the crews. They never realize without the TV crews, they can't make any shows.

[Sapphi]

Yikes.

Also, note to Disney: Please make animated musical film about video game industry. Bobby Kotick is Disney villain material. Thank you, that is all.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

Yikes.

Also, note to Disney: Please make animated musical film about video game industry. Bobby Kotick is Disney villain material. Thank you, that is all.

I can see it now - it'd totally have a villain song like this one as Bobby Kotick sold the naive young protagonist on the glamour of the AAA industry and got them to sign the contract:

[AnthonyHJ]

I did nearly four years of it, starting as a lowly level designer in 2006 and then losing my job as a design lead in 2010 due to financial difficulties.

I have to point out that the article is talking about the worst conditions. I probably spent only 25% of my time in crunch (working 60-hour weeks at worst and maybe 48 hours average) and getting paid was usually not an issue except just before a studio died (on one occasion, we all had to take a 'voluntary' pay-cut in return for only letting go of half as many people... at another studio we got paid in shares, though that was when Microsoft shafted us...)

I get paid more than three times my old salary, up to four times as much sometimes, working freelance. When I used to lecture, I got paid more for one night's work, a little under 2 hours' work in total, than I did for two days of 9am-9pm work in the studio. Actually, speaking of lecturing... My last salaried job, I got replaced by a placement student from a course I helped write and lectured for.

AAA is a mixed bag. When it's good, it pays the bills. When it's bad, it ruins lives. Indie will rarely make you rich (look, you are not Notch... you're barely likely to even make it to Christine Love levels) but it will make you free.

[Lishy]

I've always thought the game industry was elitist, but never realized the bad working conditions. Good thing I am going into psychology instead of games! :O

I would love to find a backdoor into the industry using a psychology degree though...

[Argeus_the_Paladin]

I am not surprised.

Any job that has "art" anywhere in its title, including the most glamorous like films and music, is paved with the blood, toil and sweat of nameless heroes i.e. art school graduates. That's because art producing is, for the most part, a risky business AND requires a ton of effort and commitment. You only earn money as a producer if people buy your thing, which isn't guaranteed. On the other hand, to produce anything that the world kind of like requires a kind of time and labor commitment unlike any other job in the market. The result is a rather unfortunate rift between effort and payoff.

That is why I have always been told that to maintain a decent living, anything art-related should only be a person's left-hand career. Unfortunately, that kinda sorta bars you from full-time industrial careers, but it is a good way to ensure you don't starve while working on your (or your big boss') magnum opus.

That is why we can't have nice things.

[LVUER]

I don't think it's really art related... but in this case, the problem lies on more supply than demands (so the manager can just fire you since there are plenty of fresh graduates eager to replace your position while get paid dirt for it). Similar to situation back then before we have labor union and other rules. There's still no union for video game industry worker.

[LateWhiteRabbit]

I don't think it's really art related... but in this case, the problem lies on more supply than demands (so the manager can just fire you since there are plenty of fresh graduates eager to replace your position while get paid dirt for it). Similar to situation back then before we have labor union and other rules. There's still no union for video game industry worker.

Bingo. It isn't art related at all. We know or have pretty good estimates for how long something will take - poor management and planning are responsible for "crunch time". Unfortunately, in the game and film industry, the individual studios have probably allotted their time and manpower appropriately, but the publishers or big movie studio will push up the dates on deadlines to make quarterly earnings reports, or to show something at a trade show, or they decide they REALLY want that shot originally due in a month to be in a trailer right NOW. Then, what can you do? They hold the purse strings.

You either sacrifice your time and life on the alter of the project to do 3 weeks of work in 1, or you have no job. Worse, your STUDIO could have no job if you flub it up. Other people's livelihoods are dependent on you putting in the insane hours. If it isn't the threat of fresh art graduates ganking your job that forces you to work hours that should be unlawful, its the guilt trip that if you don't, the studio won't hit this new arbitrary milestone and it'll lose the contract. Then it can't pay the bills and you and all your co-workers are unemployed . . . in a market dominated by young art graduates willing to work for slave wages.

And no union solution could ever work when a wave of fresh faced youngsters are waiting to replace you in the wings - there are more people wanting to get into the AAA industry than the industry can support. Supply and demand means your value is piss poor as an employee in that kind of industry situation.

I agree with AnthonyHJ - when its good, its pretty good. Getting to work on pop culture projects that will be seen and enjoyed by millions of people is pretty cool. When not in crunch mode, work is pretty fun. I never dreaded coming in to work - even IN crunch mode. But eventually your body just gets worn down and you become mentally fried. You stay perpetually tired. I've worked 24 hours STRAIGHT before to meet a shot deadline to send it to California. During crunch mode people would fall asleep at 2 or 3 AM at their desks, wake up the next morning, have coffee, and take a shower (our studio had showers installed), and then go right back to work for the entire day. Oh, and our studio had no windows. It could become a limbo. Because we worked on individual shots for so long, you'd often dream about seeing the shot clip over and over again, then wake up to have to see it over and over again as you worked on it. It could get pretty rough after you'd been in crunch mode for a while. Occasionally someone would just go, "Oh, God!" and rush outside to pace. Half an hour later they'd come back and sit down to continue work.

Apparently there is a LOT of burnout in the game and film industry. Most people have a 4-5 career life in the industry before they just can't take the conditions anymore. They all still love the work, but can no longer muddle through the baggage that comes with it.

[AnthonyHJ]

The issue with crunch is that you slow down. After 48 hours, your job will eat away at you and you become less efficient. You need time off to recover, a weekend ideally, or you'll find yourself taking 48 hours to do what used to take you 40. After a 60-hour week you end up working 72 hours the next week just to match your earlier output. Now you are even more burned out and it takes you 60 hours to do what you once did in 40, so the next week is 90 hours long.

I'm told that it was Henry Ford (i.e. the one who made all those cars) who worked this one out a century ago. He formulated a working week, with two-day weekends, that kept his employees sharp and able to work to the best of their abilities. The fact that this took off internationally should tell you something.

The other half of crunch, the poor time-management, is just bad management to my mind. I used to get asked for estimates on how long a task would take and then, having quoted a month, the producer would come back and tell me I had two weeks. The issue was that the publisher would say '2 years is too long, but call it 18 months and you have a deal' and the CEO would sign on the dotted line, ignoring the fact that it was a 2-year project, because the studio needed the money. Studios seem to walk a tight-rope. One missed deadline and nobody is getting paid. Two missed deadlines and employees come to work and find that the locks have been changed. In this kind of world, studios take the worst contract terms because not signing a new project would kill the company.

As an employee, you work the long hours because there is no budget for new hires, no spare cash to cover wages after a missed deadline. You don't fear getting fired or replaced; you fear coming to work and discovering that there's no studio left to work for.

[Duendain]

What I think is that if you really waaant to work in a AAA studio you need to crazy LOVE it. Also: The working condition is quite bad but I have been in three major studios and it have been alright with them. At least what they tell us. Sure they work a lot of overtime but get overcompensated for it and still love the work they do.

(the three studios in question is : Massive Entertainment in Malmö, Nowdays Massive Ubisoft I belive. Digital Illusions in Stockholm, owned by EA. And for short knowed as DICE.
and the third and maybe the most impressive so far is CCP from Iceland. They are themself thier own publishers so that might help a bit I suppose)

I would not mind to get work there as a senior programmer as my education might enable me to do that. Or parhaps even Technical lead. This might parhaps be naive, but hey it's fine by me

Not saying that would be the first Job I would go after, I rather have a work as a Systems architect in a government company. (you know, authorities and stuff) because then you could slack off immensly and still get paid very well.
Anyway, I would not say no if it's the right studio. And with other merits I could go to other branches of work too.