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I think a lot of the problem is that Games Developers themselves don't do enough to prevent this. This certainly doesn't excuse the managers who take advantage

I think a lot of the problem is that Games Developers themselves don't do enough to prevent this. This certainly doesn't excuse the managers who take advantage this way, but if more developers were confident enough to take a stand, they'd have more success changing this. Pachter said. “I’ve never heard a developer say ‘I don’t work overtime and I don’t work weekends’. Well, at my last industry job, that was me. I never worked weekends, and I only worked evenings if I had fallen behind myself on what I planned to get done. I made it clear to my managers (in a non-confrontational way) that overtime was not to be 'expected', and that I would only work extra hours in extreme circumstances if we had immediate (read: in the next 1-2 days) deadlines that my planned work was not going to be ready for. My managers were pretty ok with that actually - I was still a good programmer and put plenty of effort in during my normal work hours, and it meant that people had an accurate idea of how much work I could normally get done in a work week.

joshcrews 15y ago
I recommend to devs to take this a little bit farther. If a dev is willing to work overtime "if we have immediate deadlines", management will increase the frequency and urgency of deadlines. Rather commit to working overtime if the company/team will miss a deadline that you committed to for a reason that you are responsible for. That closes temptation to create deadlines that you never committed to. An example: Manager: Dev, we need you to stay extra because we've got to get Facebook Connect integrated by tomorrow! Dev: I wish we'd talked about if that was a reasonable expectation given the other development priorities we have for this week. Next time we have a feature with a deadline, ask me in advance and I can tell you the earliest date I can guarantee it can be finished by. Then be reasonable, with a good buffer, about future deadline commitments. If you make a commitment, keep it. If you have a deadline commitment, and a new "urgent" request comes in, you can then ask the manager if they'd rather you delay the new request to honor the first deadline, or if they'd like to push back the deadline of the original request. Using this I never worked evenings or weekends when I was an employee
cageface 15y ago
The problem with the game business is that so many young developers see it as a glamorous industry that, unlike most other dev specialties, there's more supply than demand. Employed game devs are reluctant to make too many waves because they know they can be replaced. This is why salaries are low and hours long. I can't say I miss working in that industry much myself.

joshcrews 15y ago

I recommend to devs to take this a little bit farther. If a dev is willing to work overtime "if we have immediate deadlines", management will increase the frequency and urgency of deadlines. Rather commit to working overtime if the company/team will miss a deadline that you committed to for a reason that you are responsible for. That closes temptation to create deadlines that you never committed to. An example: Manager: Dev, we need you to stay extra because we've got to get Facebook Connect integrated by tomorrow! Dev: I wish we'd talked about if that was a reasonable expectation given the other development priorities we have for this week. Next time we have a feature with a deadline, ask me in advance and I can tell you the earliest date I can guarantee it can be finished by. Then be reasonable, with a good buffer, about future deadline commitments. If you make a commitment, keep it. If you have a deadline commitment, and a new "urgent" request comes in, you can then ask the manager if they'd rather you delay the new request to honor the first deadline, or if they'd like to push back the deadline of the original request. Using this I never worked evenings or weekends when I was an employee

cageface 15y ago

The problem with the game business is that so many young developers see it as a glamorous industry that, unlike most other dev specialties, there's more supply than demand. Employed game devs are reluctant to make too many waves because they know they can be replaced. This is why salaries are low and hours long. I can't say I miss working in that industry much myself.