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No one will tell you game development is an easy process. As a medium that's still finding its way, developers are constantly learning about new ways to manage their teams and create a more efficient development process, while still maintaining freedom for creativity. That doesn't always happen, which has lead to the very real problem that game developers burn out quickly and leave the industry.
thatgamecompany (aka the indie studio behind Flower and flOw) producer Robin Hunicke directly addressed this issue during a panel at the Game Developers Conference today.
"It is not just the long hours that burn us out," said Hunicke. "It is the anxiety ... and the feeling that we're failing every day that makes us feel exhausted when we go home the end of the week and drives us into work on a Saturday or Sunday because we lost an argument, because we're not making that progress, because we're afraid of that conversation. We're driving ourselves extra hard and every time we do that, we're sapping ourselves of energy."
Hunicke's talk focused on ways to help game developers get along better, which thatgamecompany theorized leads to better games and developers who will be around longer to make more games.
"It's not just the hours," she reiterated. "It's our attitude about our jobs that makes it hard."
thatgamecompany is currently working on an unannounced new project for PlayStation 3.
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Comments
Displaying 1–8 of 8
jjdaybr
I'm just a hobbyist programmer in c# XNA and have no team or anything, and i feel the same exact way on an extremely small scale. Fortunately i have the great advantage of having no deadlines, no employees to manage, and of course... no paycheck at the end of the line... but it's the journey not the destination for an artist :D .
river_tron
That holds true for almost every job in the entertainment industry. I'm no game developer, but I've been working in video production for television for about 5 years now and the ridiculous hours, weekends and all nighters that YOU HAVE TO pull is enough to burn people out in a matter of a couple of years. The industry has a natural way of weeding out the people that can't handle (or choose not to handle) the crap that comes along with it. And their is ALOT of crap to put up with. They all sound like "cool" jobs at first because of what is made in the end, but people never realize how much of your personal life is sacrificed in the process. Eventually you do get to a point where you start asking yourself, "Is it REALLY worth it?"
I'm still trying to figure that one out myself, but when you really end up making something you're super proud off, you forget about all the bad. At least for a day or two. It's the nature of the beast.
kgsfrog1664
Lloyd12:
I guess it depends on how a person perceives the game industry and how you want it to evolve in future. I see the gaming industry as one necessarily filled with artistic creativity, and that creativity is what generates the games I really love. Give an artist a paint brush and a canvas and say "Keep painting for 12-16 hours every day" and I'm pretty sure you'll see a drop in the quality of that creativity (you sure would from me). You'll have a lot of paintings and if you're painting for Mr. Kotick, he will be a very happy man that Painting Hero 6 rolled out on time. At the end of the day, it's the games that have that extra something whether storywise or art direction or innovation that really satisfies me. With my bank account stretched to the limit, I'm much less forgiving of low quality content than I have been before. It sounds Jerry Macguire-ish crazy to say, "Fewer, better games, more satisified customers" but that's how I would like to see it. I firmly believe that no one wants to make a bad product. Perhaps some seem more concerned with making money first (hey, with any job I'VE ever had one of my first thoughts has been about salary), but I feel like most of the core developers (not publishers) want to create a little bit of something wonderful.
Having said that, I feel that no matter what the job, "grinding" people (although needed at times for deadlines) is never a good idea for very long. When one "emergency deadline" or "crisis" just blends into the next one it ends up losing it's urgency, sapping peoples energy, their desire, and the final product is less for that. And for ANY of us in any type of job where we're being ground up into industrial hamburger, I certainly have sympathy/empathy for. And even if it can't be changed, I feel it's the least I can do to show the appreciation I have for all of the hard work an experience like Mass Effect 2 or similar provides.
duhreetoh
Your job is likely not the same as a creative job. Creative environments really need to be free of these kinds of stresses in order to thrive. Look at the job culture at Pixar or any other creative studio.
Lloyd12
I'm sorry, but am I supposed to have sympathy, here? My job is every bit as exhausting and I bet I get paid a helluva lot less- not to mention the fact that most people who read this site would kill to work in the game industry.
Vultur
damn, i wish this panel was taped. sounds like an interesting discussion behind the quote. would have loved to follow that.
ProjektX13
Sounds pretty spot on for the emotions that a company goes through while looking at the countdown clock. But I just dont see how this affects them, come on lets be serious its not like flower was a AAA game that was super hyped like God of War, Gears 2, MW2, Halo 3, or Killzone 2.
gtrogers
Sad. Something's got to change. The gaming industry sounds like a brutal environment to work in.
Displaying 1–8 of 8
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