Lucky

Coming across this article on the joys of leaving game development make me think how lucky I've been in my career.  The short list that keeps Danc away hasn't applied to me:  I've been on projects that had decent project management, where the bulk of the project was spent working forty hour weeks;  my projects have often involved interesting new game mechanics;  once you count bonuses and options and whatnot my pay has been competitive with other industries, I think;  and I've had time to spend with my family, because of the aforementioned forty-hour weeks.
Not only that, but most people in the industry get shuffled from one project in crisis mode to the next:  I've never had to do that.  I've generally gotten to see projects through from beginning to completion.
My projects have usually been fairly agile (Ken Schwaber even said in one of his Scrum books, something like, if you've been on a succesful project, chances are it was agile whether you meant it to be or not.)
And...as for making the world a better place...games do make the world a better place.  I'm grateful that I live in a world that has chess and Magic and Guitar Hero and Spider-Man 2 and Grand Theft Auto and Kohan and Age of Empires and X-Com and Civilization and The Sims and on and on and on.  Maybe they don't save lives - although I do sometimes entertain the crackpot idea that the virtual worlds we escape to relieves some of the pressure of the overpopulation in our urban environments and just may be the thing we need to survive the oncoming crisis where the human population gets too big to sustain itself - but they make our lives better in a variety of ways.
Danc says that 95% of the industry is the sucky cesspit he describes, which means I've almost always been rolling 20s.
Here's one thought:  maybe I haven't had good luck;  maybe Danc had bad luck.  So he was on a crappy team and there are a lot of crappy teams out there, but there are also a lot of good teams - sometimes there can even be good teams and bad teams at the same company.  The good teams are less vocal then the bad teams but they're out there:  Infinity Ward, Neversoft, High Moon...
Here's yet another thought:  maybe it's not all luck.  There have been times where I was asked to put in overtime and I refused;  there have been times when there was peer pressure to put in overtime and I didn't participate;  I would never let other people schedule for me;  and I would bring good project management practices with me to the team.  And somehow I never got fired. 
Jason Della Rocca said that improving quality of life has to be an executive-level decision, but it can be an employee level decision, as well:  if you're getting ready to leave the industry because you hate the situation at your current employer, there's a couple of steps you can take first.  One, you can stop crunching and ask for some changes where you work.  Hey, the worst that'll happen is you'll get fired.  Probably what will happen is they'll realize they'd rather have your 100% than your 0%:  they won't spite you for not giving the 110%.  Two, you can look for another job in the industry where things are a little saner.
The workers control the means of production, yo.

Comments

[Aaron]

I really agree with the last paragraph of your post. I was at a point where I didn't like my position and I was interviewing at other places - what I found was things that sounded good at other places were things I could easily change at my current position and things that didn't sound so great at the other places were already better where I was. If nothing else, interviewing allowed me to view things in a different light and affect change at my current posisition to make it want I wanted it to be. Since then things have been getting better and better.
I definitely need to employ better project management practices (just at the employee level) and really focus on working more effectively rather than falling into the OT + meal-at-work trend that so many fall into. But when I'm at a party and I talk with somebody about what I do, my girlfriend says my excitement and pride are contagious. :)

[Liam Hislop]

I totally agree with your last paragraph. I went from Vice President of a small corporation, hating my job, to walking out and feeling the exhilaration of being a free man. Then two weeks later, found the joy of starting my own company, followed by less than a year later feeling the same joy as I signed over my shares of the comapny for a small sum. It was always a grass being greener situation. I realised I wouldn't be happy with where I worked, until I took charge and talked with my bosses and managers, and worked something out. The problem of all of this doesn't fall on the project manager, it also falls onto the employee to speak up and talk about things. Everyone is 100% responsible for the projects good health and success.

[Jay Barnson]

I am a "re-lapsed" game developer. After over five years working on enterprise-level apps, I've come back to the fold as a full-time game programmer.

The rest of the software development industry - at least what I experienced of it - actually doesn't have that much on game development other than salary. They seem to be a LITTLE more up on modern product development trends, but there's still a seemingly infinite supply of bad managers, or good managers struggling under upper-management "vision" that seems to have a permanent case of blinding cataracts. You've got bad scheduling, bad requirements, and bad business practices.

In the end - it can be crap anywhere. It can also be great anywhere.

The biggest difference for me? For the first time in YEARS, I'm finding myself looking forward to going to work in the morning on a regular basis. Yeah, there's still pressure and stress, but the problem set is different. It's not just the difference in working on customer web-tools and working on dragon AI. It's more of the openness for creativity as opposed to conforming to industry requirements. At a particular level, the abstractions of the problems remains the same between games and business apps --- and the programming required for both --- are the same. The difference is being allowed outside the box to think --- or at least being given a larger box --- in games.

I'm happy to be back.

[Danc]

Good article. There's certainly a wide range of personal experiences out there when it comes to working in the game industry. Some of the comments at the end of the original article sum up the wide spectrum ranging from passionate current developers to indies to lapsed developers.

You've certainly been lucky and you've also had some good habits that should be adopted more widely. I suspect that you'll see a growing awareness of good development practices as this topic becomes more popularized.

One nice thing about the industry is that it is small and people really do care. Those companies work long hours don't do it because they dislike their workers. They do it because they think it is effective. Give a businessman a better way to make money and they'll drop their old habits rather quickly. It is a matter of education on both a small scale (as you propose) and a large scale (the class action lawsuit against EA).

take care
Danc.

[Viridian]

"To all those who are lapsed: This essay is a joyful call to all those wonderful people who are leaving the game industry. Welcome to the bright side of life. You are blessed."

Huh...methinks the lady doth protest too much.

[Jare]

As far as the joy of great co-workers with a lot of talent, energy and motivation, the games industry is second to none among software industries. The demanding and quickly changing environment also lets us find and test our own limits. There are good times and bad times for everyone, but regardless how long you stay or how quickly you get out, if you have the drive to create things, it's one hell of a ride.

I also agree with the idea that games in general are not a useless endeavour. When you see a 12-year old kid thrilled with your game and struggling to master it as he twists his face in concentration and joy, you know you have touched his life in a meaningful manner.

On the point of employees actively improving management, that's a tougher one... you have to accept and remember that not everyone is as good as YOU. :) It takes a rare combination of insight, experience, patience and strength of will to work those changes from the inside, and it's too easy to cause a lot of collateral damage in the process.