[gameprogrammer] Re: crunch time
- From: Matthew Weigel <unique@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: gameprogrammer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 12:13:39 -0500
Alan Wolfe wrote:
I knew about the unpaid overtime going into game programming but 90
hour work weeks seem a bit excessive.
Yes.
Im curious to hear what people at different companies have experienced
and what the overall climate of the industry is regarding crunch time.
The climate has been shifting toward recognizing 40 hours a week as
reasonable for some time, but of course it varies from company to
company how in tune with the general climate they are. The reasons for
working fewer hours are many: some reasons, some companies are willing
to ignore, but that doesn't mean you as an employee should ignore them.
Burn out, family strife, the urge of employees to leave and escape *that
company* after the game has shipped... these might seem like minor
problems to a company focused on shipping a game. "Employee turnover"
never seems like a big problem until it is. Likewise, a reputation
among players for making buggy or unfun games never seems like a big
problem, until the reputation is hard to escape...
However, other reasons are more immediate and should be noticed by your
company: the enormous drop in cognitive ability from the implicit lack
of sleep, the separate drop in productivity from not being able to
'backburner' a problem while away from work, and the lawsuit risk all
mean that it's going to be a generally bad idea to work these kind of hours.
--
Matthew Weigel
hacker
unique@xxxxxxxxxxx
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