Game Industry Veteran Defends Poor Working Conditions

Megalith

Megalith

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This guy thinks that working in the game industry is such a privilege that developers should suck it up when it comes to unfair pay and long hours.

I know I’m going to offend a lot of people by saying this, but I do so with the hope that a few will wake up and shake off their mental shackles. I’ll grant that it’s been 23 years since I used an outhouse or had to hunt for dinner, but I’m still thrilled by the incredibly decadent luxury of porcelain toilets and fast food. I can’t begin to imagine how sheltered the lives of modern technology employees must be to think that any amount of hours they spend pushing a mouse around for a paycheck is really demanding strenuous work. I’ve hired thousands of people over the years and can’t help but notice the increasing frequency with which I encounter people with a wage-slave attitude toward making video games.
 
How dumb. It doesn't matter if the work is labor intensive or not. This idjit doesn't seem to know what "mental" stress is. Just because all you're doing is pushing a mouse around doesn't mean that you aren't stressed the fuck out by deadlines, bosses breathing over your shoulder, having to work 6-7 days a week for 12-14 hours a day, etc.

People who say the shit this guy says aren't even worth the time listening too.
 
"Don’t be in the game industry if you can’t love all 80 hours/week of it"

Basically, now that he is at the management level, he wants people to give up their lives working for him. IOW, shut up and know your place, slave.

The early game industry where people worked long hours was a different time, when those people owned what they were developing. Still happens for Indies.

But now game development is often just a job, working for big corporations, trading wages for work. You really can't expect people to give up their lives simply for corporate wages. The people complaining are usually those working for the big corporations (EA).
 
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80 hours a week is very unhealthy, and it affects your productivity. No reasonable employer would want their staff working that much, people would be falling asleep at their desks and making lots of mistakes. Not even the games industry actually does that for sustained periods of time. Alex St. John has been a manager for a long time and I'm not ever sure he ever was a game developer (writing APIs doesn't count) so this article seems more about him shouting pronouncements from his ivory tower more than anything else.

"I hath decreed that my servants shall work not less than 80 hours per week" - King Alex.
 
Turns out he is also a massive hypocrite:
Alex St. John, President, CEO and Co-founder of WildTangent featured on Information Technology Leaders
"But St. John started to burn out. He would pass out at his keyboard and straggle into morning meetings with key marks on his face. Worked sucked everything out of him; his marriage disintegrated. In 1997, he succeeded in getting himself fired, as he tells it, "and walked out of Microsoft feeling 100 lbs. lighter."

Basically he left Microsoft wealthy, and the former slave, is now the slave master, and he looks for workaholic employees to abuse, and is upset when he gets push back:

"As a CEO, St. John makes sure his staff is populated by younger versions of himself--smart, energetic, creative problem-solvers with workaholic tendencies--and hires sharp managers to tame them"

Yep, got to have workaholics and sharp managers to wring every last drop from them.

Douche-bag of the universe...
 
I hear him talking at pax one year and bailed. Fuck that guy. Complete jackass. He was smoking on the stage and wild tangent is one of those shitty game companies. I second that he is a complete asshole.
 
Wow, I havent seen a shitty Wild Tangent game in years.

Looks like they are still up to making garbage. Who the fuck would want to work 80 hours a week on making shitty games? I could understand if it was a good game but cmon.
 
What an idiot hes basically devaluing a job because you sitting at a computer. By his logic we can say doctors don't do shit either sit down all down writing on pads. knowledge is power especially in the IT industry.
 
So I get the Privilege of working on your crappy game, for crappy pay, and never get to see my family...

I'm not seeing the benefits here..... wait.. are there benefits? No? ... yea like I said...

Axe
 
His message is get out and do your own thing if you don't like you situation. Bitching about it isn't going to change anything, I would think that with the success of many independent developers over the past few years he is on to something. He does sound like he is preaching from an ivory tower but he does have some points. If you want to make games AND get paid you better eliminate the management overhead and start your own venture, or join a company that doesn't subscribe to his ethos. We live in a country fraught with opportunity, you just need the motivation and the skills to capitalize on it.

Shit, the foundation of Activision as a company was directly a result of Atari shitting on their employees, I find it incredibly funny that they eventually became that which they most despised but ehh, the cycle is already starting again.

The whole purpose of a company is to extract value from the productivity of your employees, the degree of success is directly proportional to the difference in what you are paying them and that value they create. Unfortunately, there is no moral compass when it comes to capitalism.

He is absolutely right that your skills might be more valuable in another field. For instance, I know a programmer that earns a 6 figure income at a major financial company, with his skill set he could easily be developing games for half the wage.

Unfortunately, with video games there isn't an easy way to just keep increasing prices to pay for higher wages as the market has shown it is only willing to bear a $59 price at most right now and in the last 25 years this price point has only increased once. Consequently, your games have to be incredibly popular or cheap to produce to be profitable for the company, this is an enormously risky undertaking, similar to making a movie. For every billion dollar movie there are thousands of bombs.

I am not defending the guys business plan or personal ethos, but he does have some points.
 
If you're working 80 hours a week, the only good reasons are:

1. You're obsessed with a project of your OWN trying to make some deadline.
2. You're in a crunch scenario, but you're being rewarded greatly for it.
3. You actually are an entrepreneur and this is the only way to get your business / project off the ground. In other words, it's a temporary state.

To expect anything else of someone just makes you King Shithead pretty much.
 
What a joke. Top shelf developers do not work for a fool who believes they can extract 80 hours/week from them. The only devs I've ever seen work 80hours consistently were shit devs who couldn't solve a basic algo or design pattern (CODE MONKEYS). The geniuses of the dev industry rarely work over 40 hours and for good reasons.
 
Chaos Machine said:
His message is get out and do your own thing if you don't like you situation. Bitching about it isn't going to change anything, I would think that with the success of many independent developers over the past few years he is on to something. He does sound like he is preaching from an ivory tower but he does have some points. If you want to make games AND get paid you better eliminate the management overhead and start your own venture, or join a company that doesn't subscribe to his ethos. We live in a country fraught with opportunity, you just need the motivation and the skills to capitalize on it.

Shit, the foundation of Activision as a company was directly a result of Atari shitting on their employees, I find it incredibly funny that they eventually became that which they most despised but ehh, the cycle is already starting again.

The whole purpose of a company is to extract value from the productivity of your employees, the degree of success is directly proportional to the difference in what you are paying them and that value they create. Unfortunately, there is no moral compass when it comes to capitalism.

He is absolutely right that your skills might be more valuable in another field. For instance, I know a programmer that earns a 6 figure income at a major financial company, with his skill set he could easily be developing games for half the wage.

Unfortunately, with video games there isn't an easy way to just keep increasing prices to pay for higher wages as the market has shown it is only willing to bear a $59 price at most right now and in the last 25 years this price point has only increased once. Consequently, your games have to be incredibly popular or cheap to produce to be profitable for the company, this is an enormously risky undertaking, similar to making a movie. For every billion dollar movie there are thousands of bombs.

I am not defending the guys business plan or personal ethos, but he does have some points.
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I agree completely that anyone who doesn't want to be abused by employers should not go into game development for a major company and instead should try to do their own game on the side, however he's mixing that message with a "you get what you deserve" attitude in an industry known for exploiting its workers.
 
Chaos Machine said:
His message is get out and do your own thing if you don't like you situation. Bitching about it isn't going to change anything, I would think that with the success of many independent developers over the past few years he is on to something. He does sound like he is preaching from an ivory tower but he does have some points. If you want to make games AND get paid you better eliminate the management overhead and start your own venture, or join a company that doesn't subscribe to his ethos. We live in a country fraught with opportunity, you just need the motivation and the skills to capitalize on it.

Shit, the foundation of Activision as a company was directly a result of Atari shitting on their employees, I find it incredibly funny that they eventually became that which they most despised but ehh, the cycle is already starting again.

The whole purpose of a company is to extract value from the productivity of your employees, the degree of success is directly proportional to the difference in what you are paying them and that value they create. Unfortunately, there is no moral compass when it comes to capitalism.

He is absolutely right that your skills might be more valuable in another field. For instance, I know a programmer that earns a 6 figure income at a major financial company, with his skill set he could easily be developing games for half the wage.

Unfortunately, with video games there isn't an easy way to just keep increasing prices to pay for higher wages as the market has shown it is only willing to bear a $59 price at most right now and in the last 25 years this price point has only increased once. Consequently, your games have to be incredibly popular or cheap to produce to be profitable for the company, this is an enormously risky undertaking, similar to making a movie. For every billion dollar movie there are thousands of bombs.

I am not defending the guys business plan or personal ethos, but he does have some points.
Click to expand...

You mean the success of a, relative, handful of indie dev right? What about he hundreds that release games and fail to make it? The ones that don't get LUCKY enough to release the right product, at the right time, to the right group of people? You can't just go off and become successful by sheer force of will. That isn't how the world works. Also, how does any of that excuse the shit working conditions in the industry? The asshat is telling people to just shut up and accept it. That they shouldn't expect companies to have proper management. Instead developers should give up their lives for their job. Fuck that. No job has the right to demand that an employee become their bitch and give up everything just because their management are fucking asses that can't properly manage a project. Developers can literally spend MONTHS in a row pulling 70-80 hour weeks. Not by choice either, the company makes it mandatory or pressures them into "volunteering". There is no situation in which that is healthy for a person. An employer that pushes people to the point where the job is dangerous to their health and to the point where it causes passionate, creative, people to get burnt out is a pretty fucked employer. How many great minds do you think the industry has lost because of the way companies handle employees? I'm betting a hell of a lot.
 
"The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery" - Bertrand Russell

Just think how many more jobs would be created if we all worked just 4 hours per day.
 
Snowdog said:
Turns out he is also a massive hypocrite:
Alex St. John, President, CEO and Co-founder of WildTangent featured on Information Technology Leaders
"But St. John started to burn out. He would pass out at his keyboard and straggle into morning meetings with key marks on his face. Worked sucked everything out of him; his marriage disintegrated. In 1997, he succeeded in getting himself fired, as he tells it, "and walked out of Microsoft feeling 100 lbs. lighter."

Basically he left Microsoft wealthy, and the former slave, is now the slave master, and he looks for workaholic employees to abuse, and is upset when he gets push back:

"As a CEO, St. John makes sure his staff is populated by younger versions of himself--smart, energetic, creative problem-solvers with workaholic tendencies--and hires sharp managers to tame them"

Yep, got to have workaholics and sharp managers to wring every last drop from them.

Douche-bag of the universe...
Click to expand...
Lol what a shithead. Things look mighty different when you're the one benefiting, huh?
 
Derangel said:
You mean the success of a, relative, handful of indie dev right? What about he hundreds that release games and fail to make it? The ones that don't get LUCKY enough to release the right product, at the right time, to the right group of people? You can't just go off and become successful by sheer force of will. That isn't how the world works. Also, how does any of that excuse the shit working conditions in the industry? The asshat is telling people to just shut up and accept it. That they shouldn't expect companies to have proper management. Instead developers should give up their lives for their job. Fuck that. No job has the right to demand that an employee become their bitch and give up everything just because their management are fucking asses that can't properly manage a project. Developers can literally spend MONTHS in a row pulling 70-80 hour weeks. Not by choice either, the company makes it mandatory or pressures them into "volunteering". There is no situation in which that is healthy for a person. An employer that pushes people to the point where the job is dangerous to their health and to the point where it causes passionate, creative, people to get burnt out is a pretty fucked employer. How many great minds do you think the industry has lost because of the way companies handle employees? I'm betting a hell of a lot.
Click to expand...

You absolutely can be successful from force of will. I don't understand your point, what should be done about the hundreds of games that failed to make it? Most of the time it is not about luck, if someone like Derek smart can put put out the shit games he does and still live comfortably, surely someone with more motivation and talent can do the same? Again, you are missing the point, if people actually stopped taking crap from these companies nature would take its course and they would have change their employment practices. Developers have other avenues to protect themselves such as forming a union like the film industry has done. Yeah 60-80 hours a week sucks, but it's your own damn fault if you don't do something about it. I am certainly empathetic to anyone who has a shit job with not much they can do about it(convicted felons as a youth for instance, try getting a good job with that on your record) but I don't for someone whining about their dream job not being as advertised.
 
No thank you. My "low prestige job" permits me to have a life and to take care of my family. A lot of people don't understand that working 80 hours nowadays is slave work and that management is simply milking its employees. They should instead defend their rights as human beings instead of just accepting 80 hours slavery a day.
 
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Chaos Machine said:
You absolutely can be successful from force of will. I don't understand your point, what should be done about the hundreds of games that failed to make it? Most of the time it is not about luck, if someone like Derek smart can put put out the shit games he does and still live comfortably, surely someone with more motivation and talent can do the same? Again, you are missing the point, if people actually stopped taking crap from these companies nature would take its course and they would have change their employment practices. Developers have other avenues to protect themselves such as forming a union like the film industry has done. Yeah 60-80 hours a week sucks, but it's your own damn fault if you don't do something about it. I am certainly empathetic to anyone who has a shit job with not much they can do about it(convicted felons as a youth for instance, try getting a good job with that on your record) but I don't for someone whining about their dream job not being as advertised.
Click to expand...

My point is that running off to make your own game isn't the solution you seem to believe it is. Only a handful of those studios become successful. The rest end up as little more than dust in the wind after their first title, or they limp along for a few years before going belly up. Luck is a factor in being successful in the game industry. Right game, right time, right people. Getting all of that requires skill, intelligence, and luck. Not to mention you actually need the money to spend 1-2 years working on a game without getting a paycheck. Unless you're lucky enough to secure a publisher early in development. The options for 90% of the people in the industry are: Try to survive the shitty experiences or starve. Life isn't as simple as "up and leave" for most people, dude. If you think it is you are seriously out of touch with reality.
 
rezerekted said:
"The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery" - Bertrand Russell

Just think how many more jobs would be created if we all worked just 4 hours per day.
Click to expand...

And just think how little we could afford if we only got paid for 4 hours a day.
 
Mereo said:
No thank you. My "low prestige job" permits me to have a life and to take care of my family. A lot of people don't understand that working 80 hours nowadays is slave work and that management is simply milking its employees. They should instead defend their rights as human beings instead of just accepting 80 hours slavery a day.
Click to expand...

If you are young, and working your way up the ladder, then 60-80 hours a week might make sense, at least for a few years.
The older you get, and the more responsibilities you have (like a family) the more impractical this becomes.
The idea is to learn and make yourself valuable enough that you can usually work 40 hours weeks, and still command enough pay for a good life.
 
rezerekted said:
"The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery" - Bertrand Russell

Just think how many more jobs would be created if we all worked just 4 hours per day.
Click to expand...

Should we, as a species, work towards or against that goal?
 
I mocked places like Germany for implementing a 38 hour workweek, but honestly 38 hours of hard work beats 60 hours of screwing off half the time. I wouldn't mind if the US setup a 40 hour work week limitation as well, as even though I enjoyed the overtime money when I was working 60+ hours regularly, it makes more sense to just bring on an extra person, which also reduces unemployment.

Makes sense from a macro perspective as well, rather than have three guys working crazy hard, while one guy is literally sitting on his ass jerking off all day and then getting part of the other three guy's paychecks.
 
My last job was working for one of the 10 largest software companies. I was a developer on their flagship product.
The unwritten rule was you were expected to work 50 hours a week minimum. Really, you should plan on 55-60 if you want decent performance reviews. We had several 80+ weeks - heck, I slept on my floor of my cubicle more times than I care to remember.
I will say I did get paid ok - there were raises & promotions to be had if you really busted your butt more than the guy next to you. Still, management suck the company. I left years ago and now work for a place that I put in about 40-45 most weeks. I don't get paid as much, but have a lot less stress.
I am married and have kids. My old job would have sucked the life out of my family. I'm surprised I even had time to date anyone back then (and eventually get married).
So, no its not worth killing yourself for someone else. If a company expects you to work a lot of extra hours, they should compensate you well. Chances are, they won't. Find a new job. Screw these people. You are working to make them more money. It is a free country, so if you don't like it, leave. I did!
 
I almost get what this guy thinks the point he is trying to make, that people in technology jobs don't know how hard other work and lifestyles not dependent on technology and modern amenities can be but his tone and the idea that overworked developers should just man up and make due because other industries are hard is really insincere.

Most people don't know how good they have it but game developers are smart enough to work using their mental skills and understand that they want more out of a job and don't settle for the idea of working way too many hours without the benefits they deem worthy of their time.

If they were making their own games I'm sure not even money would matter much, artists don't normally pursue their craft just to make money typically but these overworked Developers aren't making their own art on their own terms. They are being crushed in a unfulfilling office job for management that doesn't care.

Yes they are spoiled, the industry spoiled them and they want to live the dream they were sold, not be told work more and be happy you get this much.

People that have "harder" jobs don't pick them to be seen as working harder than other people, they do them to use their skills to make what they can make to live by. If given the option anyone would want easier work and better pay for less hours. Management's job it to figure out how giving employees a reason to work and a pay rate vs hours worked to produce at a level of output you want to hit your goals. Bad management blames their workers, good managment take the blame, they are paid to be in charge.

If the only way the industry works is to over work the developers, it isn't really working, I think this guy want others to step up and deal with it or quit instead of thinking about why they complain when this is a opportunity for him to step up and be a leader.

If he thinks they have it too good, take away all the things you think they aren't worthy or fire them. Do something to redefine their thinking, don't just complain about them complaining, that just makes it worse and shame on a leader that doesn't try to lead. Prove your ideal or realize you are wrong and address it.
 
Chaos Machine said:
You absolutely can be successful from force of will. .
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This is the real world not a comic book. For every successful indie game project, there are probably 100 failures, and it isn't a failure of will.

Most can't afford 51 failed games like Rovio did to have their "overnight" success.

If you are competing in any entertainment industry like gaming, you need a lot more than will. You need talent, money, and some luck pushing the right emotional buttons.
 
Work smart. It's tuff, but it's a choice.

Yup, as you get older you start viewing things differently...
 
Mereo said:
No thank you. My "low prestige job" permits me to have a life and to take care of my family. A lot of people don't understand that working 80 hours nowadays is slave work and that management is simply milking its employees. They should instead defend their rights as human beings instead of just accepting 80 hours slavery a day.
Click to expand...

Yep, you have to defend your rights, there is no one holding a gun to your head forcing you to work those 80 hours, finding another job is extremely stressful, I know first hand. That is probably the easiest route to go, otherwise you and your peers have to make a unionization effort to get something done about it.
Snowdog said:
This is the real world not a comic book. For every successful indie game project, there are probably 100 failures, and it isn't a failure of will.

Most can't afford 51 failed games like Rovio did to have their "overnight" success.

If you are competing in any entertainment industry like gaming, you need a lot more than will. You need talent, money, and some luck pushing the right emotional buttons.
Click to expand...

I am talking about success in general, not the video game industry. Yes there is going to be hundreds of failures for every success story, it is the nature of the industry, just like any other, how many restaurants fail within their first year? Probably half. Like I said, bitching about it isn't going to improve yourself, it's up to you and your peers to make change happen. I refuse to beleive that they are stuck in a slave-wage scenario against their will.
 
undermined said:
I almost get what this guy thinks the point he is trying to make, that people in technology jobs don't know how hard other work and lifestyles not dependent on technology and modern amenities can be but his tone and the idea that overworked developers should just man up and make due because other industries are hard is really insincere.
Click to expand...

But that's the thing, it's both ways, just because you get to sit and program, doesn't mean it's easy. 80 hours of it, definitely is not easy. Different people have different tastes... generalizing it like that doesn't work.
 
Chaos Machine said:
I am talking about success in general, not the video game industry. Yes there is going to be hundreds of failures for every success story, it is the nature of the industry, just like any other, how many restaurants fail within their first year? Probably half. Like I said, bitching about it isn't going to improve yourself, it's up to you and your peers to make change happen. I refuse to beleive that they are stuck in a slave-wage scenario against their will.
Click to expand...

Bitching about it is often the first step. A few years back this was an issue that no one talked about. Now this hypocrite slave driver of a CEO, is complaining because he is getting push back from staff that actually are demanding more reasonable working conditions. Staff that perhaps now feel that with this issue being publicized, they have more reason to stand up for themselves.

It's reasonable to complain and shine light on terrible working conditions.
 
nutzo said:
And just think how little we could afford if we only got paid for 4 hours a day.
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Well, wages would have to be increased to fix that. Yes, I live in a dream world. :)

I used to work in printing and we worked lots of overtime and our regular hours were a 37.5 hour week but then the company asked for volunteers to work fri, sat and sun to decrease overtime so I volunteered. I then worked a 33 hour week in 3 days and had 4 days off every week but was still paid the full 37.5 hours. It was much better for me than how we used to work and and had much more free time to do things I wanted to do.
 
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The money almost always comes from a producer... most of those self made millionaires made games on 10am to 3pm scheduled using their trust fund they could not touch until they made something of themselves to pay a bunch of people to build their dreams... that old adage it takes money to make money well game is just the same. The wage slave mentality is likley the people who are paid less and told they will get profit sharing then fired before the game launches to avoid paying them... as far as I know the only team recently that made money from nothing was castle crashers... and they really never expected to. mojan had his parents money and had a couple million to work from. He made a game people had fun playing. It sold because people want games that are fun. Did he pay his employees well, he must have. Was he working from an indie budget... if only because he was not a well known developer and it was his budget. activision was financed by a dozen different companies over the years, they pay developers based on how little they can get away with because they were working for vendi which believes in maximizing profit, that is why all the toys were made in china as cheaply as possible. I've worked a dozen studios that were big studios all of them pay devs salary and then tell them that the twenty dollars and hour is based on 9-5 but you will work 7amto 3am during crunch even if something is delayed and you are sitting at your desk playing through levels waiting for the next build of the game. The self made millionaires... ya those were for the most part trust fund kids who paid themselves out of their trusts by buying many copies of their game to make people want to buy it... and some times getting lucky and having a fun game. Those guys complaining about wanting nine to five likely are working themselves to exhaustion for twice minimum wage while their boss comes in at 10 and goes home at four and screams the game is over budget and they did not hit a milestone... all while the hours being billed are going to the projects budget but not being paid to the developers who are unhappy because they are salary... so it is easy to figure out where the money went especially when the projects fail the billable hours of the people screaming work more hours. I have always said that people should be paid for the work they do based on goals not hours it takes to complete it. If you have to say write a widget to move a character across the screen to make the game and you pay someone ten times your profit to do it because he said it had done it a hundred times and had to outsource the work when you were not looking... well he is going to want people walking around like zombies not paying attention at all. Someone paid to get it across that runs into problems with some other system can at least say this is how I did it the last couple of times and these are the extra steps we need to account for... ya but most of the time it is the guy coming in at 10am and leaving at 4pm that says it is delayed because his people are idiots... which is why he has no idea if his people can or can not even do the job... and likely does not care since their billable hours are going into his funds to play with.
 
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