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In her latest column Jessica Mulligan takes a bite at some of the myths in the gaming industry on the developer/publisher retationship and why games are so expensive to make.Point the Third: Most developers work long hours because they want to.
Sure, every project has crunch times where everyone puts in 18 hour days and there is certainly an unspoken industry rule that everyone should put in obscenely long hours. It is generally expected that dev team members will routinely put in 50-60 hours weeks (which is not unusual in any US business today).
On the other hand, that expectation is there because that has been the choice of developers since day one; it has been part of the culture forever. Anyone who wants to work 9 to 5 can, because computer game project tasks are generally scheduled around an eight hour work day. Most of the developers I’ve worked with are young, lack busy social lives and just plain get off on what they do for a living. When they get their teeth in a game, they just work, sometimes for days straight without a major break (including shower breaks, which is a whole other story). Sometimes I think half my job is convincing 25 year old coders that there is a life beyond that reflected in a monitor screen and that that life includes Irish Spring.
Yes, everyone bitches and moans about the long hours. It is a point of honor to moan about the latest 80 hour week, because outright bragging about it — which is what is really going on — is considered déclassé. It is a custom, just as it is a custom in the military to moan about the stupidity of the commanding officer... and then to kick the butt of anyone outside the unit who dares say the same thing. |
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Exploding the Myths
