5 ms·

Having worked in the industry they believe it's necessary. I got yoked into a mandated long weekend and was laughed out of the room when I demanded a retrospect

Having worked in the industry they believe it's necessary. I got yoked into a mandated long weekend and was laughed out of the room when I demanded a retrospective. Long hours is a failure, we should know what failed so it doesn't happen again. Their response? That's just the way it is in games. Absolutely zero desire or acknowledgement that it should be different.

lovetocode 8y ago
It’s toxic culture at the leadership level. When my employer asks for some outrageous development on a compressed time schedule I speak my mind. Maybe that’s why most AAA games suck these days.
- krageon 8y ago
  If you can still compensate or halt it by speaking your mind, your leadership still has a long way to slide down the toxicity scale.
  - lovetocode 8y ago
    You are right. And to be clear my current work environment is not toxic which is why I can do this as you said.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  In my experience it was the ic level. Leadership would say, what's a reasonable timeline for feature x. The engineers would spend two hours arguing that estimates are bullshit, then give a trivially small (and obviously wrong) estimate. Leadership would say, are you sure? Engineers would basically flip them the bird and say yes. Then inevitably be late. I get it, estimating is inexact. But there's a clear difference between "I broke this down into little tasks, and I think we're looking at x" and "implement multiplayer? Four days."
  - whatshisface 8y ago
    Why wouldn't they give a trivially large (and very safe) estimate? Telling someone you will be finished tomorrow puts the onus on you to explain why your estimate was wrong.
    - philipov 8y ago
      Insecurity combined with spinelessness causes people to give the answer they think their superior wants. This is a response that is trained by managers using microaggression.
    - Pfhreak 8y ago
      Great question. They have pet features. Features with long estimates are targets for being cut. Give a long estimate, you risk not being able to build your feature. I once asked, how long to add analytics to your code? (I wrote a one line utility that could bundle up objects and fire them off for you.) The response was "three weeks per event". Guess which part of the code didn't have analytics. Now, at some level this is leadership's fault. They own the culture, but many of the engineers I worked with in games were the least interested in being a part of a team I've ever seen.
      - gowld 8y ago
        If the people you hire refuse to build what you hired them to build, and you insist on paying them anyway, you've got a lost cause.
      - midnightclubbed 8y ago
        This and so much this. To elaborate on your point, say a programmer and a designer brainstorm an amazing new jetpack feature for the game. They spend a day (when they should be working on less interesting but planned features) on a quick first pass and show it to their PM. The PM asks how long it will take to complete, they say 3 weeks (2 days of UI/UX time to add the fuel bar, a week to tweak the feel and mechanic, 2 days of FX artist time, 2 days of artist time to make the rocket pack model). The PM says that the feature is unplanned and that is too long, so they say they can cut some corners because they really want the feature in and its more interesting than working on their planned tasks. The PM agrees because he wants the team to be creative and take control and pride over how great their game is. In the end the feature stays in and takes 2 months of development time since it requires modifications to world collision geometry, each selectable player needs a differently modeled jetpack to fit their geometry, a jetpack upgrade system is added, loot box unlockable color customization gets introduced, bots need to be able to fly too and so pathing and behaviors need extensive modification, a tutorial needs adding, sound effects need designing and adding, QA has to do a pass of finding everywhere in the world that the jetpack can be used to get out-of-bounds and to avoid gameplay trigger volumes, and someone has to triage and fix all those issues. And I realized I probably vastly underestimated... do we slip, missing being part of this quarters revenue and cancelling our ad-campaign or have we just pushed into development hell?
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  I think AAA scale in general leads to some of the "suckage" issues since the problems occur in all large productions. With the capital comes risk aversion and to recoup the costs they go more lowest common denominator in addition to coordination issues with large teams and scaling. Even less overtime intense efforts like live action movies show these flaws. Now they certainly do have unique pathologies related to their "cheap" talent pool churn - the lack of experienced people leads to some shockingly bad mistakes reoccurring, and lack of attention to detail from passion often shows. Later Civilizations (V and later) for instance often came out with some shoddy AI doing things like pathing algorithms clearly designed before they added the one military unitn one civilian unit per hex limit, spamming absurdly bad trade deals, or deciding the proper thing to do against a technologically advanced power who thanks to game mechanics gives research points for every technology they lack is embargo them over conquest of one militant city-state, making it even harder to catch up.
  - gowld 8y ago
    And earlier Civilizations had game-breaking exploitable bugs. People have been pining for the mythical good old days since the age of Pliny.
    - Nasrudith 8y ago
      The issue isn't that they had flaws - it is that they had them despite the budget and man-hours involved showing 'they just didn't care' aspects. Whereas the older ones did it with smaller teams and more constrained resources where seeking efficiency had some weird side effects - granted there were also plenty of 'shovelware' examples from the past.
- gowld 8y ago
  > Maybe that’s why most AAA games suck these days. This comment shows lack of historical perspective. All of these complaints have been hot topics since before the term "AAA game" was invented. AAA games "suck" (if they do, which the customer base's wallets seem to to think so) because they have gotten too good at making money even against their customers' stated preferences, not because they are bad at anything.
  - overgard 8y ago
    Popular and profitable isn’t always the same thing as good.
whatshisface 8y ago
If they're wrong in thinking that it's necessary, then anyone who comes in with an enlightened view will put them out of business and take over the market.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  Some shops are doing well and are crunch free. Not sure at the AAA level yet, but definitely at the big indie level.
  - jtms 8y ago
    I’m glad to hear that seeing as “big indie” is where all the best gameplay innovation tends to come from. Many AAA titles are actually quite dull and repetitive affairs. They get wrapped in a super pretty and eye candy laden veneer so you don’t notice the underlying mechanics and gameplay are actually exactly the same as the previous 400 entries of whatever franchise
- jbattle 8y ago
  Game developers don't stay in business by being great places to work. They stay in business by staying afloat long enough to get one .. more .. game to market. I know Firaxis (makers of Civilization) has at least once laid off large parts of their development crew once the game is substantially complete.
collyw 8y ago
Isn't there an element of supply and demand to it - lots of gamers become programmers and want to work as games devs. Databases on the other hand aren't cool, but businesses need them.
vonseel 8y ago
Long hours is a failure, we should know what failed so it doesn't happen again. Their response? That's just the way it is in games. In my experience, that attitude is common and not limited to game developers or even programmers in general. American working culture tends to respect those who go above and beyond, or at least maintain the appearance of doing so.
- lovetocode 8y ago
  You hit the nail on the head!
- djsumdog 8y ago
  I've only worked at two places that were like this and they were both shit shops. I think people who stay at these places don't understand it isn't by any means normal.
- slothtrop 8y ago
  Sad that working free overtime is seen as a virtue
pjc50 8y ago
The tech industry in general has a bit of a toxic machismo problem, but it seems to be far worse in games. Probably it's coupled to the wider culture there.
- UnpossibleJim 8y ago
  LOL, WTF do machismo and the tech industry have to do with each other? That seems a bit of a stretch to try to connect two disparate topics into a connected "issue". I get the whole problem with Rockstar Games (if that was where you were pointing - I can only assume), but that was a singular studio. As someone who works in the game industry, and has for almost 20 years, that is not representative of the vast majority of game studios. Meek is the work you are looking for, when it comes to game studio employees, at least on the west coast. And that falls in line for most of my acquaintances in the tech industry in general. The only ones who approach "toxic masculinity" (and even then... a hard stretch) are the sales guys.
  - Pfhreak 8y ago
    I only spent ~3 years in the games industry on the west coast. I was surrounded by machismo and toxic masculinity from the engineers. It wasn't everyone, but it was definitely present to a non-trivial degree.

lovetocode 8y ago

It’s toxic culture at the leadership level. When my employer asks for some outrageous development on a compressed time schedule I speak my mind. Maybe that’s why most AAA games suck these days.

krageon 8y ago
If you can still compensate or halt it by speaking your mind, your leadership still has a long way to slide down the toxicity scale.
- lovetocode 8y ago
  You are right. And to be clear my current work environment is not toxic which is why I can do this as you said.
Pfhreak 8y ago
In my experience it was the ic level. Leadership would say, what's a reasonable timeline for feature x. The engineers would spend two hours arguing that estimates are bullshit, then give a trivially small (and obviously wrong) estimate. Leadership would say, are you sure? Engineers would basically flip them the bird and say yes. Then inevitably be late. I get it, estimating is inexact. But there's a clear difference between "I broke this down into little tasks, and I think we're looking at x" and "implement multiplayer? Four days."
- whatshisface 8y ago
  Why wouldn't they give a trivially large (and very safe) estimate? Telling someone you will be finished tomorrow puts the onus on you to explain why your estimate was wrong.
  - philipov 8y ago
    Insecurity combined with spinelessness causes people to give the answer they think their superior wants. This is a response that is trained by managers using microaggression.
  - Pfhreak 8y ago
    Great question. They have pet features. Features with long estimates are targets for being cut. Give a long estimate, you risk not being able to build your feature. I once asked, how long to add analytics to your code? (I wrote a one line utility that could bundle up objects and fire them off for you.) The response was "three weeks per event". Guess which part of the code didn't have analytics. Now, at some level this is leadership's fault. They own the culture, but many of the engineers I worked with in games were the least interested in being a part of a team I've ever seen.
    - gowld 8y ago
      If the people you hire refuse to build what you hired them to build, and you insist on paying them anyway, you've got a lost cause.
    - midnightclubbed 8y ago
      This and so much this. To elaborate on your point, say a programmer and a designer brainstorm an amazing new jetpack feature for the game. They spend a day (when they should be working on less interesting but planned features) on a quick first pass and show it to their PM. The PM asks how long it will take to complete, they say 3 weeks (2 days of UI/UX time to add the fuel bar, a week to tweak the feel and mechanic, 2 days of FX artist time, 2 days of artist time to make the rocket pack model). The PM says that the feature is unplanned and that is too long, so they say they can cut some corners because they really want the feature in and its more interesting than working on their planned tasks. The PM agrees because he wants the team to be creative and take control and pride over how great their game is. In the end the feature stays in and takes 2 months of development time since it requires modifications to world collision geometry, each selectable player needs a differently modeled jetpack to fit their geometry, a jetpack upgrade system is added, loot box unlockable color customization gets introduced, bots need to be able to fly too and so pathing and behaviors need extensive modification, a tutorial needs adding, sound effects need designing and adding, QA has to do a pass of finding everywhere in the world that the jetpack can be used to get out-of-bounds and to avoid gameplay trigger volumes, and someone has to triage and fix all those issues. And I realized I probably vastly underestimated... do we slip, missing being part of this quarters revenue and cancelling our ad-campaign or have we just pushed into development hell?
Nasrudith 8y ago
I think AAA scale in general leads to some of the "suckage" issues since the problems occur in all large productions. With the capital comes risk aversion and to recoup the costs they go more lowest common denominator in addition to coordination issues with large teams and scaling. Even less overtime intense efforts like live action movies show these flaws. Now they certainly do have unique pathologies related to their "cheap" talent pool churn - the lack of experienced people leads to some shockingly bad mistakes reoccurring, and lack of attention to detail from passion often shows. Later Civilizations (V and later) for instance often came out with some shoddy AI doing things like pathing algorithms clearly designed before they added the one military unitn one civilian unit per hex limit, spamming absurdly bad trade deals, or deciding the proper thing to do against a technologically advanced power who thanks to game mechanics gives research points for every technology they lack is embargo them over conquest of one militant city-state, making it even harder to catch up.
- gowld 8y ago
  And earlier Civilizations had game-breaking exploitable bugs. People have been pining for the mythical good old days since the age of Pliny.
  - Nasrudith 8y ago
    The issue isn't that they had flaws - it is that they had them despite the budget and man-hours involved showing 'they just didn't care' aspects. Whereas the older ones did it with smaller teams and more constrained resources where seeking efficiency had some weird side effects - granted there were also plenty of 'shovelware' examples from the past.
gowld 8y ago
> Maybe that’s why most AAA games suck these days. This comment shows lack of historical perspective. All of these complaints have been hot topics since before the term "AAA game" was invented. AAA games "suck" (if they do, which the customer base's wallets seem to to think so) because they have gotten too good at making money even against their customers' stated preferences, not because they are bad at anything.
- overgard 8y ago
  Popular and profitable isn’t always the same thing as good.

whatshisface 8y ago

If they're wrong in thinking that it's necessary, then anyone who comes in with an enlightened view will put them out of business and take over the market.

Pfhreak 8y ago
Some shops are doing well and are crunch free. Not sure at the AAA level yet, but definitely at the big indie level.
- jtms 8y ago
  I’m glad to hear that seeing as “big indie” is where all the best gameplay innovation tends to come from. Many AAA titles are actually quite dull and repetitive affairs. They get wrapped in a super pretty and eye candy laden veneer so you don’t notice the underlying mechanics and gameplay are actually exactly the same as the previous 400 entries of whatever franchise
jbattle 8y ago
Game developers don't stay in business by being great places to work. They stay in business by staying afloat long enough to get one .. more .. game to market. I know Firaxis (makers of Civilization) has at least once laid off large parts of their development crew once the game is substantially complete.

collyw 8y ago

Isn't there an element of supply and demand to it - lots of gamers become programmers and want to work as games devs. Databases on the other hand aren't cool, but businesses need them.

vonseel 8y ago

Long hours is a failure, we should know what failed so it doesn't happen again. Their response? That's just the way it is in games. In my experience, that attitude is common and not limited to game developers or even programmers in general. American working culture tends to respect those who go above and beyond, or at least maintain the appearance of doing so.

lovetocode 8y ago
You hit the nail on the head!
djsumdog 8y ago
I've only worked at two places that were like this and they were both shit shops. I think people who stay at these places don't understand it isn't by any means normal.
slothtrop 8y ago
Sad that working free overtime is seen as a virtue

pjc50 8y ago

The tech industry in general has a bit of a toxic machismo problem, but it seems to be far worse in games. Probably it's coupled to the wider culture there.

UnpossibleJim 8y ago
LOL, WTF do machismo and the tech industry have to do with each other? That seems a bit of a stretch to try to connect two disparate topics into a connected "issue". I get the whole problem with Rockstar Games (if that was where you were pointing - I can only assume), but that was a singular studio. As someone who works in the game industry, and has for almost 20 years, that is not representative of the vast majority of game studios. Meek is the work you are looking for, when it comes to game studio employees, at least on the west coast. And that falls in line for most of my acquaintances in the tech industry in general. The only ones who approach "toxic masculinity" (and even then... a hard stretch) are the sales guys.
- Pfhreak 8y ago
  I only spent ~3 years in the games industry on the west coast. I was surrounded by machismo and toxic masculinity from the engineers. It wasn't everyone, but it was definitely present to a non-trivial degree.