take that!

  OWCH!

  Yeah, so here's my quality-of-life post (hopefully, a quick one..) Inspired by a recent thread on gaf, "why do developers leave the game industry?" Notably, the videogame industry is notorious for overworking their staffs with long hours and insidious crunch times and blah blah blah. Burnout being the eventual result, and dissatisfied people quitting their jobs to go and do something "normal," in order to have more time for social and family life, stuff like that.

  Sigh.

  Every job I have worked a has had some kind of overtime, "crunch" or "hardcore" periods where the staff was expected to put in extra hours beyond the (legal) call of duty to get a game done in a relatively tight schedule.. and the higher-ups will usually dangle some carrot or other in front of everyone's heads "if you do this for us, then 'good' things are going to happen!" Well, yeah, but define "good," please.. anyway anybody in the biz knows people who've done quite well, if not for working on a bonafide top-rated franchise then at least one that's moved a lot of SKUs, and so we all have friends who are "rolling in the dough" relatively. I remember moving here to LA 7 years ago, hearing how it was the land of milk and honey.. I didn't hear wrong....

  So what happened? Why are people so bitter about crunch? Isn't it worth it, for a few years of your life, to pretty much just suck it up and play a little hardball? Sleep is for wusses, right? I have sort of got a reputation among those who know me as a workaholic, and yet you don't see me cruising around town in my canary yellow murcielago. Well, that's because i am a hoarder and i keep it all in coffee cans. no wait, i am extremely generous and i gave it all to charity. to ell the truth, i blew it all on blow and ho's, and don't you forget it. Well honestly, i've just not been in the "right place ad rigt time" (yet), but that's another story. Anyway i have already picked out my future mansion(s), wife (v/s), and cemetary plot (well at least that one is true). I am just waiting for the backend.

  Anyway back to the point.. I find it ludicrous, the number of people who whine about hardcore. Yeah it's tiring. yeah it's not for everyone. Yeah it's... illegal in some cases. The morality of it is a different story. But there is no "slave industry.." no one is MAKING you do this. The compensation is not quite as evenly balanced as it, erm, could be, but still.. you are making leisure products! There is a future in it for anyone who has the nerve to hold on for awhile. If you can keep your metabolism from going belly-up, and you honestly enjoy your part in what you do, then just keep as (unfinished)