5 ms·

We were sane about it, family obligations always took priority. There is a difference between a sprint to the end and a death march like Rock Star.

vvanders 8y ago
Just so you know, this is the knife edge that leads you down to crunch. Literally every time I had a 3-4mo 80-100hour crunch it always started out with "we're going to push for a week or two" which just transitioned into "just one more week" for the next 3 months. Also, shame for celebrating a crunch. You may have enjoyed it but there's a high likelyhood someone else went along just to not "rock the boat". I don't care who you are putting in more hours puts stress on other parts of your life. I just don't understand how that industry has their head up their ass from top to bottom for such a long time. There's some interesting problems in that space but after my 6 years I'd never go back.
- hesdeadjim 8y ago
  Shame for celebrating a crunch? I'm talking 50 hours a week instead of 40 for a period of a few weeks. It is possible for a company and project to need that extra work and not turn into a sweatshop afterwards. I am 100% against the crunch that is par for the course in so many studios, but I am also disappointed by an attitude that work is always just work and god forbid it ever intrude on life outside. I worked for five years at early and late stage startups before transitioning to games, and I cannot recall there ever being a time when extra work was not needed to get over the finish line. If a union ends up being the only way chronic overwork can be addressed in the industry at large, so be it. Perhaps the real solution though is a legislative one, as suggested below.
  - eropple 8y ago
    Did you compensate your people for the extra work? Because otherwise it had certainly best not be intruding on life outside of work.
  - vvanders 8y ago
    > but I am also disappointed by an attitude that work is always just work and god forbid it ever intrude on life outside. Fuck yeah it's "just work". I want my employees and coworkers to be happy, healthy and well actualized so that when they're at work they're focused and giving it 100%. Plenty of hard business data there shows that when you make sure someone's time outside of work is well respected they'll perform much better on the job. Burnout and turnover can have a brutal impact on an company/organization's ability to execute, the list goes on. You're also self-selecting for a workforce that has the flexibility, which means your viewpoint is a lot less diverse. This is the same crunch bullshit I got fed before in that industry.
    - hesdeadjim 8y ago
      I've got a kid, wife, friends, and hobbies that I place very high value on. Can I do a few weeks of extra hours? No problem.
      - vvanders 8y ago
        Yup, but that's a place of privilege that lets you do that. What if you were a single dad? What if you had an elder family member to take care of? What if you were living paycheck to paycheck and had a second job to be able to make rent? I've found some of the best teams I was on had a diverse set of people who bring their unique perspectives into the fold. Otherwise you could end up with a racist soap dispenser[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PlUf30rvyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PlUf30rvyA
        hesdeadjim 8y ago
        You can imagine me to be as privileged as you wish if it helps your argument. > What if you were a single dad? > What if you had an elder family member to take care of? As I mentioned above, family takes priority. If your team is so immature that they feel resentful when another member can't work those two extra hours a day because their Dad is sick, you've got another set of problems. > What if you were living paycheck to paycheck and had a second job to be able to make rent? This is a bit of a stretch. We are limiting the scope of our discussion to workers in the game industry. If you need two jobs to make rent in this scenario, find a way to cut expenses.
  - watwut 8y ago
    > I worked for five years at early and late stage startups before transitioning to games, and I cannot recall there ever being a time when extra work was not needed to get over the finish line. I worked at such company too. It had zero to do with need for overtime and and a lot to do with people wanting to work this way. E.g. unwillingness to prioritize, unwillingness to negotiate, wish to be seen like the one who stays late and thus finding work to stay late when not needed. Overtime is not seen as failure of organization, so the organization does not learn how to do it. People staying late are seen as heros and people managing projects so that overtime is not needed are not rewarded, so latter leave and former create culture. To large extend, people who stay in such companies don't believe it is possible to make deadline without overtime, so they are not even trying.
    - hesdeadjim 8y ago
      It's trivial to never have overtime if you either 1) have no deadlines or 2) have a project so unoriginal you can plan its schedule to the hour. Show me any project with dynamic requirements that has some sort of deadline, be it time or money running out, and I guarantee there has been some extra work at some point.
      - watwut 8y ago
        I am not saying it is trivial. I am saying it is not rewarded. It takes skill and willingness and some companies are not motivated to do it. Nevertheless, it is quite possible to not cruck when you decide you don't do that, period. Prioritization, negotiation and saying no. Estimates large enough that they have buffers. You don't need on hour predictability. It is precisely when you have dynamic requirements when you are supposed to use tools like that. After crunch, there are typically many bugs and convoluted code. It just adds to overall time in long term. Pretty much all studies found crunch to not be effective. It is not about achieving more.
- andonisus 8y ago
  Shame for you telling other people how they should feel.
watwut 8y ago
Family obligations are quite clearly not taking priority when you are crunching. By necessity, the partner is doing all household and kids related work at that time. Obviously missed deadlines happen outside game development too and the partner is likely to have period where she/he has more work to do too and the other one takes it. But crunch is normally defined as sustained overtime - articles I seen it require it to be over 6 weeks. So it is quite a lot of time.
- hesdeadjim 8y ago
  Yea exactly. The difference between crunch and extra work to hit a deadline is entirely one of frequency and duration. My wife couldn't work in a more different industry than I do, but she is also subject to the occasional bout of extra work. We support each other and it's no issue. If I wanted a predictable job that always has upfront hours, I suppose I could go back to making hourly minimum wage with zero benefits.

vvanders 8y ago

Just so you know, this is the knife edge that leads you down to crunch. Literally every time I had a 3-4mo 80-100hour crunch it always started out with "we're going to push for a week or two" which just transitioned into "just one more week" for the next 3 months. Also, shame for celebrating a crunch. You may have enjoyed it but there's a high likelyhood someone else went along just to not "rock the boat". I don't care who you are putting in more hours puts stress on other parts of your life. I just don't understand how that industry has their head up their ass from top to bottom for such a long time. There's some interesting problems in that space but after my 6 years I'd never go back.

hesdeadjim 8y ago
Shame for celebrating a crunch? I'm talking 50 hours a week instead of 40 for a period of a few weeks. It is possible for a company and project to need that extra work and not turn into a sweatshop afterwards. I am 100% against the crunch that is par for the course in so many studios, but I am also disappointed by an attitude that work is always just work and god forbid it ever intrude on life outside. I worked for five years at early and late stage startups before transitioning to games, and I cannot recall there ever being a time when extra work was not needed to get over the finish line. If a union ends up being the only way chronic overwork can be addressed in the industry at large, so be it. Perhaps the real solution though is a legislative one, as suggested below.
- eropple 8y ago
  Did you compensate your people for the extra work? Because otherwise it had certainly best not be intruding on life outside of work.
- vvanders 8y ago
  > but I am also disappointed by an attitude that work is always just work and god forbid it ever intrude on life outside. Fuck yeah it's "just work". I want my employees and coworkers to be happy, healthy and well actualized so that when they're at work they're focused and giving it 100%. Plenty of hard business data there shows that when you make sure someone's time outside of work is well respected they'll perform much better on the job. Burnout and turnover can have a brutal impact on an company/organization's ability to execute, the list goes on. You're also self-selecting for a workforce that has the flexibility, which means your viewpoint is a lot less diverse. This is the same crunch bullshit I got fed before in that industry.
  - hesdeadjim 8y ago
    I've got a kid, wife, friends, and hobbies that I place very high value on. Can I do a few weeks of extra hours? No problem.
    - vvanders 8y ago
      Yup, but that's a place of privilege that lets you do that. What if you were a single dad? What if you had an elder family member to take care of? What if you were living paycheck to paycheck and had a second job to be able to make rent? I've found some of the best teams I was on had a diverse set of people who bring their unique perspectives into the fold. Otherwise you could end up with a racist soap dispenser[1]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PlUf30rvyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PlUf30rvyA
      - hesdeadjim 8y ago
        You can imagine me to be as privileged as you wish if it helps your argument. > What if you were a single dad? > What if you had an elder family member to take care of? As I mentioned above, family takes priority. If your team is so immature that they feel resentful when another member can't work those two extra hours a day because their Dad is sick, you've got another set of problems. > What if you were living paycheck to paycheck and had a second job to be able to make rent? This is a bit of a stretch. We are limiting the scope of our discussion to workers in the game industry. If you need two jobs to make rent in this scenario, find a way to cut expenses.
- watwut 8y ago
  > I worked for five years at early and late stage startups before transitioning to games, and I cannot recall there ever being a time when extra work was not needed to get over the finish line. I worked at such company too. It had zero to do with need for overtime and and a lot to do with people wanting to work this way. E.g. unwillingness to prioritize, unwillingness to negotiate, wish to be seen like the one who stays late and thus finding work to stay late when not needed. Overtime is not seen as failure of organization, so the organization does not learn how to do it. People staying late are seen as heros and people managing projects so that overtime is not needed are not rewarded, so latter leave and former create culture. To large extend, people who stay in such companies don't believe it is possible to make deadline without overtime, so they are not even trying.
  - hesdeadjim 8y ago
    It's trivial to never have overtime if you either 1) have no deadlines or 2) have a project so unoriginal you can plan its schedule to the hour. Show me any project with dynamic requirements that has some sort of deadline, be it time or money running out, and I guarantee there has been some extra work at some point.
    - watwut 8y ago
      I am not saying it is trivial. I am saying it is not rewarded. It takes skill and willingness and some companies are not motivated to do it. Nevertheless, it is quite possible to not cruck when you decide you don't do that, period. Prioritization, negotiation and saying no. Estimates large enough that they have buffers. You don't need on hour predictability. It is precisely when you have dynamic requirements when you are supposed to use tools like that. After crunch, there are typically many bugs and convoluted code. It just adds to overall time in long term. Pretty much all studies found crunch to not be effective. It is not about achieving more.
andonisus 8y ago
Shame for you telling other people how they should feel.

watwut 8y ago

Family obligations are quite clearly not taking priority when you are crunching. By necessity, the partner is doing all household and kids related work at that time. Obviously missed deadlines happen outside game development too and the partner is likely to have period where she/he has more work to do too and the other one takes it. But crunch is normally defined as sustained overtime - articles I seen it require it to be over 6 weeks. So it is quite a lot of time.

hesdeadjim 8y ago
Yea exactly. The difference between crunch and extra work to hit a deadline is entirely one of frequency and duration. My wife couldn't work in a more different industry than I do, but she is also subject to the occasional bout of extra work. We support each other and it's no issue. If I wanted a predictable job that always has upfront hours, I suppose I could go back to making hourly minimum wage with zero benefits.