SICKENING ARTICLE ABOUT GAME DEVELOPMENT AND THE "WAGE SLAVE" ATTITUDE

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Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/16/game-developers-must-avoid-the-wage-slave-attitude/

This little piece by WildTangent founder Alex St. John makes me want to vomit. It's been a while since I've read a piece by someone so clearly disconnected with the grunt work of game development despite (or probably because of) owning a game publishing company, that my brain is literally on the verge of short-circuiting.

Some choice quotes:

"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."

"{Game industry veterans} are smarter, more experienced, more talented, better trained to produce amazing games and they’re still working for paychecks and whining about avoiding long crunch hours to finish big titles or about not being paid fairly by some big employer."

"Apparently people can even 'burn out' working too hard to make... video games..."

"Don’t be in the game industry if you can’t love all 80 hours/week of it — you’re taking a job from somebody who would really value it."

If working on a game for 80 hours a week for months at a time seems “strenuous” to you … practice more until you’re better at it.

What this guy is doing is calling people who are trying to normalize the insane work hours for game development selfish and entitled. He believes that the concept of a work-life balance doesn't apply to them, and that game development is a piss-easy job that demands nothing more than sitting at a computer moving a mouse around.

In the same post that he pushes the idea that creativity cannot be accomplished when your employees are miserable due to burnout, he dismisses the very concept of burnout in a creative job.

Crunch time is crunch time when the deadline draws near. Crunch time is not normal working hours, and should never be normal.
slash
APATHY IS FOR COWARDS
4158
Read this guy's piece earlier and it's really, extremely shitty. Worth noting, this is the guy who wrote DirectX and made a ton of cash working at MS in its early days. Maybe it was possible to get lucky working 120 hours a week back then, but even still - how many people don't get lucky? Nearly everybody else will burn out and switch to any other career that treats them with more respect. Crunch and overwork and low pay is not worth it and it's not what we should be encouraging, and artists have to eat just like anyone else.

Anyway, Rami Ismail of Vlambeer countered this guy better than I could: http://ramiismail.com/2016/04/an-inline-response-to-wage-slaves/
Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
I’m talking about kids who made some of the worst games you can imagine and got rich accidentally, working in their parent’s basement in the Florida Everglades. They make their first game, get rich, and they’re gone, never having attended a single networking event at the Game Developers Conference, done.

This bit is what really gave me the sense that he doesn't have a damn clue about the actual game development process, let alone the reality of marketing.

Yeah, I could care less about the life story he presented initially, it's great that he got himself out from a dump, but that doesn't excuse the flagrant ignorance this article displays. I feel for you, man.
Don't you know? You can only create art if your hungry and miserable. It's just not art if it's created in any other condition!


Bah. It's crap like this that makes me wary of the game industry.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=slash
Read this guy's piece earlier and it's really, extremely shitty. Worth noting, this is the guy who wrote DirectX and made a ton of cash working at MS in its early days. Maybe it was possible to get lucky working 120 hours a week back then, but even still - how many people don't get lucky? Nearly everybody else will burn out and switch to any other career that treats them with more respect. Crunch and overwork and low pay is not worth it and it's not what we should be encouraging, and artists have to eat just like anyone else.

Anyway, Rami Ismail of Vlambeer countered this guy better than I could: http://ramiismail.com/2016/04/an-inline-response-to-wage-slaves/

I think "get lucky" is the real takeaway here. For every one person who got lucky, I'd bet money there are at least 1,000 people who don't, due to the very nature of getting lucky. To me, Alex's claims are similar to Bill Gates going, "Just make something as popular as Windows. That's easy, right? You just need to put in the effort."

Thanks for the link to Ismail! That was a very entertaining read.

author=Ratty524
I’m talking about kids who made some of the worst games you can imagine and got rich accidentally, working in their parent’s basement in the Florida Everglades. They make their first game, get rich, and they’re gone, never having attended a single networking event at the Game Developers Conference, done.
This bit is what really gave me the sense that he doesn't have a damn clue about the actual game development process, let alone the reality of marketing.

Yeah, I could care less about the life story he presented initially, it's great that he got himself out from a dump, but that doesn't excuse the flagrant ignorance this article displays. I feel for you, man.

If anything, I'd say that makes it worse. Since he went through the grueling hours to get himself to where he is now, one would think he could at least, at the very least, empathize with the voices of all the people who are overworked and underpaid.

author=Alichains
Don't you know? You can only create art if your hungry and miserable. It's just now art if it's created in any other condition!

... You know, the best kinds of jokes are ones that originate in truth. According to Alex, this isn't a joke, but a statement of fact. That's legitimately scary.
I know I’m going to offend a lot of people by saying this


This should have been the first sentence of the article.
I get where he's coming from to a degree. I mean, I do enjoy putting that much time into a game; my biggest problem with my workload is that it also involves another job, which I don't particularly care for. But, I can also see that the huge amount of time I spend on game development has had a major impact on my social life. It's not a big deal now, but I can feel the weight of myself aging, and I want to pursue a wife, kids, even just other hobbies like music--other areas of a happy and fulfilling existence besides work (even for something that I love). And, there's a lot of unfun parts to the game development process; there are so many different things that go into it that it's natural you'll enjoy some less than others.
your dreams are not what you think they are
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
It's true that some of us bust our asses to make our games become reality. But if we're talking about the game making industry, working conditions in the industry already suck unless you're very lucky.

Crap like this is just making it worse and this is a disgusting way to treat employees. Yes, you may feel you're making art. That doesn't mean that the people under you have to suffer and have worse conditions that people in related fields just so they can have the privilege of working on a video game.
Zeigfried_McBacon
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
3820
This dude has probably burned a lot of bridges with that shitpile being considered an article. I could make points, but they'd all basically refer to basic human needs and rights.
this is why I don't pay anyone at RMN a wage.
Craze
why would i heal when i could equip a morningstar
15150
i'm more interested in the posts of anybody who doesn't think that this shittastic

Ratty524
The 524 is for 524 Stone Crabs
12986
author=unity
Crap like this is just making it worse and this is a disgusting way to treat employees. Yes, you may feel you're making art. That doesn't mean that the people under you have to suffer and have worse conditions that people in related fields just so they can have the privilege of working on a video game.

This is kind of an issue with the entertainment biz at large. Most creative endeavours require that you dedicate long hours + overtime to doing one thing in order to meet business schedules and it often doesn't get better until you work your way up. It's okay if you got the stomach for it, but in games it's sort of amplified to ridiculous degrees.

I generally concerned over the abuse of creative people in general in this entire society.
unity
You're magical to me.
12540
author=Ratty524
author=unity
Crap like this is just making it worse and this is a disgusting way to treat employees. Yes, you may feel you're making art. That doesn't mean that the people under you have to suffer and have worse conditions that people in related fields just so they can have the privilege of working on a video game.
This is kind of an issue with the entertainment biz at large. Most creative endeavours require that you dedicate long hours + overtime to doing one thing in order to meet business schedules and it often doesn't get better until you work your way up. It's okay if you got the stomach for it, but in games it's sort of amplified to ridiculous degrees.

I generally concerned over the abuse of creative people in general in this entire society.


True that. All the more reason that attitudes like this person's are repulsive.
TehGuy
Resident Nonexistence
1827
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


It's nice to know he boils his profession down to just "pushing a mouse around for a paycheck" and disregards the literal thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lines of code and countless things that need to be done to spit out art assets

These people are smarter, more experienced, more talented, better trained to produce amazing games and they’re still working for paychecks and whining about avoiding long crunch hours to finish big titles or about not being paid fairly by some big employer


When everyone's complaining about it, industry vets included, then I'm pretty sure something's wrong

Listening to them complain about it, you would they think that they are trapped in some disenfranchised third-world country forced to dig for blood diamonds to feed their families.


HEY GUYS PEOPLE IN AFRICA ARE LITERALLY STARVING WATCH ME TRIVIALIZE YOUR ISSUES

Any time I hear this stuff, I tell these people; quit, go make great games on your own, pursue your passion, you’re better equipped to succeed than any of the dozens and dozens of amateur kids I’ve seen retire early while you were still “trapped” in a job you hated and trying to rationalize mailing in a 40-hour work week making video games.


Just go ahead and quit your job and put yourself into an even more uncertain position. I wonder if he expects these guys to get the reception of Star Citizen and raise millions or something

… sitting … at a desk….


Sitting at a desk from 9-5 minus an hour for lunch is shit. I spent a summer doing this, can't imagine how it is for those that go for years. Someone should sit him to a chair doing menial tasks for several hours straight over a long period of time and see if he's still singing the same tune

Making games is not a job — it’s an art.


When you hire people to do something I think it becomes a job for them

You need to get an actual job producing productivity software if you want to be paid “fairly” and go home at 5 p.m. Anybody good enough to get hired to write games can get paid more to work on something else.


Let's just have all the game devs disappear then, that's cool. Let's just have everyone leave before we realize how shit the field is

If working on a game for 80 hours a week for months at a time seems “strenuous” to you


>80 hour weeks for months
>not strenuous?

What the fuck does he do

Alex St. John is the co-creator of the DirectX family of API’s at Microsoft and founder of WildTangent Inc., one of the world’s earliest and largest downloadable game publishers. He has over 20 patents related to online game publishing and is a speaker and technology columnist on GPGPU programming today.


oh, probably doesn't have to do dicks when he can rake in cash from 20 patents, write some articles, and say some things at a conference

Though this does reinforce my thought that publishers are largely disconnected from the actual development team

you’re taking a job from somebody who would really value it.


and then probably subsequently come to hate it
That's a shitty opinion, but if that really makes you physically ill then you don't have the fortitude to make it through life.
author=Jude
That's a shitty opinion, but if that really makes you physically ill then you don't have the fortitude to make it through life.


Wow, uhm... this is kind of a shitty and ableist thing to say. Not gonna lie.
TehGuy
Resident Nonexistence
1827
author=SgtMettool
author=Jude
That's a shitty opinion, but if that really makes you physically ill then you don't have the fortitude to make it through life.
Wow, uhm... this is kind of a shitty and ableist thing to say. Not gonna lie.


I think it's just a poke at the thread title
I didn't think of that. I hope it is.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Ratty524
This is kind of an issue with the entertainment biz at large. Most creative endeavours require that you dedicate long hours + overtime to doing one thing in order to meet business schedules and it often doesn't get better until you work your way up. It's okay if you got the stomach for it, but in games it's sort of amplified to ridiculous degrees.

I generally concerned over the abuse of creative people in general in this entire society.


To go a little off-topic, those business schedules seem to be the main issue from what I've seen. I'm clearly in the minority here, or at least different from the marketing teams behind big publishers, but I can't understand why delaying a game is such a terrible thing. If it's clear that 40 extra hours of crunch a week is necessary for the game to get finished on time, then just delay the game for another month to take the stress off your employees and improve it's overall quality rather than a rushed mess of patches. Anything to keep the devs from driving themselves into the ground. So much hype is built up when the games aren't even in a nearly presentable enough position that companies can't risk delaying games for fear of casting doubt among potential customers that the game might be bad.

Now that crunch has become normalized into the process, it seems that Stockholm Syndome is setting in.

author=kentona
this is why I don't pay anyone at RMN a wage.


They're paid in love and attention!
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