Feature: 'The Ultimate Challenge: Balancing Work and Personal Life'

The vital question of 'quality of life' for game developers was raised at the recent WIGI (Women in Games International) event in Dallas, leading to significant insight on the issues involved from a panel of developers from Ensemble, Aspyr, Stormfront, and BreakAway Games. Gamasutra was present to cover the discussion in detail. In this excerpt, Mike McShaffry of BreakAway Games shares his thoughts quality of life on the fine balance needed for personal and professional growth: “What quality of life means to me,” McShaffry said. “Is that you're just a generally happy person.” You have to have some level of happiness inside work, and outside work, in all the aspects of your life. These are going to ebb and flow, McShaffry concedes, but he thinks people are happiest at work when they are pushing themselves a little farther than they thought they could go. He warns there is a delicate barrier that you can easily push past. If you begin to feel yourself pushed way too far, whether by management, or your own drive to create ‘the thing that you just can't,' then struggling to attain what you cannot have is something that creates unhappiness. “We love to struggle to attain what we can have. But if you struggle to attain what you cannot, you will be unhappy.” McShaffry said. You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including a look at vital 'quality of life' issues from a variety of different viewpoints (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).