I want to work in a college or university. Again.

Any maturing industry has to address QoL issues. Failure to do so will result in little to no long-term talent pool for the industry to draw from as people will eventually leave for other industries where they can get a better QoL. This leads to a lack of growth of leadership in the industry, and tends to inhibite the industry’s maturization processes. It’s a cycle that’s hard to break, and bad news for anyone looking for companies to mature and stabalize in the field.

The IDGA appears to be more concerned about the development houses than the developers, and are very entrenched in the business practices that are holding the industry back from maturing. I also see a lot of “if you don’t like it join the IDGA and do something about it.” But that’s the problem, the people in the industry don’t have enough free time to do things like campaign for the IDGA, they’re busy crunching non-stop.

It’s a mess. It’s also nothing new; every industry goes through these growing pains. The truth is that companies that address QoL issues generally perform better than those that don’t because they are able to establish and maintain a better pool of talent. Eventually some of the development houses will address QoL issues, will have success from this strategy, and it’ll spread to be the industry standard.

Stupid: I didn’t worked on commercial game, but I did on my hobby projects. That feeling when you’ve constructed world that “lives”. It’s very addicting.

I’m really surprised nobody’s brought up the IGDA discussion about game companies and OT…

http://www.dariusforigda.org/2009/03/videos-from-the-igda-annual-general-meeting/

I don’t know, a Game Designers Swimsuit Calendar could be a lot of fun!

I can just about imagine Scott Jennings in a speedo, and Sanya Weathers in a bikini. Sexy and thought provoking, all at once!

I realize that post comes across bitter, but honestly I’m not. I worked all those hours primarily because I wanted to, not because anyone made me. In fact, I was sent home by managers to get some rest on at least one occasion, and repeatedly encouraged to work less hours. Now management did have a hand in my crazy work schedule, they gave me patently impossible tasks without bothering to tell me they were impossible. I was excited about being a game designer, I loved what I was doing (I still love work like that), and I happily worked myself to the bone jousting windmills. In the process I totally burned myself out, and certainly the work I produced was not all of the best quality.

At a certain point that became unsustainable, and I migrated myself to a normal work schedule. Now I mostly work 40 hours a week. Sometimes there’s a crisis or a deadline and a put in a little overtime but that’s the exception, not the rule, and when it happens I know why it happens, and I know what the company is or isn’t doing to prevent it from happening again.

And that’s what it really comes down to. Is the company I work for going to treat me well in the future? If not, what are my options? There are always options.

I think too many of those sweet young things actually think that their workdays will be full of office LAN Halo 3 sessions, team-based WoW raids, and meetings where the agenda discussions focus on the newest strategy for beating Civ 4.

It’s much more fun being an interested outsider. Even if you donate time and “work” for free as a volunteer/guide/teamlead/tester, you’re still probably going to have a better quality of gaming pleasure than someone who’s livelyhood depends on a specific entertainment product.

YMMV