EPTThe Games Industry And ATVI - Page 27
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Manit0u
Poland17257 Posts
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Zambrah
United States7297 Posts
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Silvanel
Poland4728 Posts
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cha0
Canada504 Posts
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Manit0u
Poland17257 Posts
On October 01 2020 19:50 Silvanel wrote: A friend of mine works as UI programmer for CD Project Red, her social media messges alternate between "I love crunch" and "I am depresed". She doesnt accept that there is a connection between the two. There might be. But also you should know that there are times when you're coding and working on something cool, you're in the zone and you're blasting out 16-18 hours of coding and it feels freaking awesome. There are also times when you have to sit there, you're devoid of any creativity for a moment, nothing seems to work and you're getting depressed. Coding can be a bi-polar work environment with or without crunch. | ||
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Gorsameth
Netherlands21675 Posts
On October 02 2020 01:42 Manit0u wrote: For anything where you can get 'in the zone' it generally feels good. The problem with crunch that you then don't take a break afterwards and go a little easier to allow your body and brain to recuperate. You do the same thing again the next day, and the day after, and the day after that.There might be. But also you should know that there are times when you're coding and working on something cool, you're in the zone and you're blasting out 16-18 hours of coding and it feels freaking awesome. There are also times when you have to sit there, you're devoid of any creativity for a moment, nothing seems to work and you're getting depressed. Coding can be a bi-polar work environment with or without crunch. A day of crunch is not an issue, doing it continuously is very destructive and why the industry needs to step away from it. | ||
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Simberto
Germany11507 Posts
Even better, of course, would be if they actually had competent management and didn't feel forced to crunch their employees to death. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17257 Posts
On October 02 2020 01:48 Gorsameth wrote: For anything where you can get 'in the zone' it generally feels good. The problem with crunch that you then don't take a break afterwards and go a little easier to allow your body and brain to recuperate. You do the same thing again the next day, and the day after, and the day after that. A day of crunch is not an issue, doing it continuously is very destructive and why the industry needs to step away from it. I remember working 13-17hrs a day 7d/week for 3 months straight during crunch time. Eventually I just quit the company because my wife was getting super angry that I'm never there and my kids started asking if daddy even lives with them any more (I went to work while they were asleep and came back after they went to bed and all I could do was just crash on the bed). It turned me into a zombie. Now I'm wiser and I try to not even take any overtime if I can help it (even though they pay premium for that). I got my priorities straight, I do my best during the work hours, if there's some super urgent problem then I don't mind staying late from time to time etc. but I will never ever do prolonged work after hours again if I can help it. I don't mind if they fire me because of that (if they tried to force me to do it I'd just quit myself anyway). Edit: One recurring problem I see among some developers is that they're afraid to jump ship when it would be good for them. Recently I got to a new work where they were promising me interesting projects etc. I was suspicious but I took the bait because a guy I knew was working there for some years now and I knew him to be a good professional since we were working together before. The difference between me and him though was that during the last 4 years I've worked on 3 different projects for 3 different companies and he had worked on the same project for the same company all that time. First thing I learned after joining this team was that he's been trying to get reassigned from this project for over a year now (unsuccessfully). After a month I just told them I'll stay with them until the end of next month (3 month minimum required by the contract) and then I'm gone. This old friend of mine was really surprised, but so were I. I mean, why do something you hate for years on end? For him it was easy money and secure job, but for me it was soul-draining shit that makes you worse programmer every day you spend there. Since I've had experience working for different companies I didn't hesitate for a second - I've grown to a point where if you trick me into a shitty project I'm not going to stay in it any longer than I have to. There's a metric ton of job opportunities for programmers, why settle for some shitty one? Unfortunately there's plenty of programmers who are super unsecure and are afraid to switch jobs. Companies know about this and are using it to their advantage, keeping people in place for years on end, underpaying them and undervaluing them. There's just way too many companies using the software development boom for their benefit. A lot of people are getting stuck in them because those are some of the very first real projects they're doing and they don't know any better. There's so many shit projects being developed all around that you wouldn't believe and it's in every type of software dev, games, websites, apps, whatever. At least now I'm well versed in this stuff and during interviews I'm asking about their tech stack, software versions they're using etc. and if I don't like what I hear I just quit the interview right there and then (if I hear the word Wordpress I'm just disconnecting the call right away without any explanation). My friend who's been doing it for way longer than I am, worked in sillicon valley etc. has 2 rules now: 1 - if they start asking him technical questions he leaves the interview (he wasn't doing this shit for 15 years for top companies without technical knowledge), 2 - if the company has more than 5% hindu employees he quits immediately (it seems racist, but if you worked in this business long enough you know that bigger companies tend to outsource a lot of work to India because it's cheap. Personally I know a few really good Indian devs but most of them are really bad with terrible english and 0 time management skills and projects that feature them prominently tend to end up really bad). | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25274 Posts
On September 30 2020 16:53 Zambrah wrote: Its also an aspect of "Passion," working in games is viewed as a privilege, take Blizzard's attitude of "YOU'RE LUCKY to work for us!" instead of "WE'RE LUCKY to have some of the most talented people in the industry working for us!" Being willing to be worked to the bone and then shat out is something thats basically required to be a game dev, and its seen as normal or okay because game developers are "pAsSiOnAtE" about the games they work on and they're lucky to be apart of such endeavors at all! The mentality around art-adjacent jobs is generally fuck awful tbh. Unfortunately the idea that potentially enjoying what you do means you shouldn't be able to make any money from it can be pretty pervasive, a la paying artists in exposure. It’s appalling really, why I turned away from doing journalism in my youth. Only way in was to work unpaid for an indeterminate period to get your foot in the door. Having worked shit jobs and been broke for 8/9 years perhaps not a good long-term call, but it’s just something I don’t want to feed. Aside from anything else I can’t see crunch even being that productive anyway, if we’re being purely pragmatic and not introducing a moral component. Maybe for a couple of weeks, with a project you’re super passionate on, and if you’re a certain type of person you can maintain an efficient level of work on crunch timetables. For extended periods and for the average person? You’re probably getting as much actual work if you had someone working 9-5 or the equivalent than ramming in 12+ hour days. From experience of working 5pm to 5am for a prolonged period my output dropped hugely after about two weeks of literally working, sleeping and going straight to work. Was a fucking zombie who could barely talk to customers | ||
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goiflin
Canada1218 Posts
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Silvanel
Poland4728 Posts
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Simberto
Germany11507 Posts
On October 02 2020 08:42 WombaT wrote: It’s appalling really, why I turned away from doing journalism in my youth. Only way in was to work unpaid for an indeterminate period to get your foot in the door. That is interesting, i had the opposite experience. I just finished a badly paid, but paid three month internship at a local newspaper here, and i was signalled that I can continue to work for them as a free journalist (paid a bit better), and that there was a not-too complicated path towards becoming an editor at that place. I have no background in journalism, and only did this internship because i needed an internship of some kind outside of a school to become a teacher. I will work for them for a few more months until i get into teaching after my exams are finished. As a sidenote, i can really recommend the experience of doing an internship at a local newspaper. Sorry for the off-topic. | ||
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WombaT
Northern Ireland25274 Posts
On October 02 2020 17:19 Simberto wrote: That is interesting, i had the opposite experience. I just finished a badly paid, but paid three month internship at a local newspaper here, and i was signalled that I can continue to work for them as a free journalist (paid a bit better), and that there was a not-too complicated path towards becoming an editor at that place. I have no background in journalism, and only did this internship because i needed an internship of some kind outside of a school to become a teacher. I will work for them for a few more months until i get into teaching after my exams are finished. As a sidenote, i can really recommend the experience of doing an internship at a local newspaper. Sorry for the off-topic. Sorry for the continuation of the off-topic. I mean it’s fine by me if it’s supplementary, or a way for those who haven’t studied journalism, or hey lack a degree to get in sideways into a career they couldn’t otherwise have. I’d be happy to write for a local newspaper in some capacity as a hobbyist thing. If it’s pseudo obligatory to get working and paid for those who actively are looking at that career path, no I’m less OK with that. 23 year old me had a child and my then partner was finishing her Masters so I didn’t really have the luxury of unpaid work. Doing school the second time round and am looking into (optional) apprenticeships for the summer. They’ll both help my cash flow issues and also I can keep studying and learning for a good few months before second year of school, which should help solidify and expand my knowledge base. Most of the programs I’ve found are paid outright, worst case you can claim expenses. One industry can do it, one not so much. Places will differ of course, my experience is that Northern Ireland is more parochial and nepotistic than most places, so if you have connections you can bypass quite a lot of my gripes. | ||
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Manit0u
Poland17257 Posts
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Yurie
11829 Posts
On October 02 2020 18:24 Manit0u wrote: In other news, Disney has just laid off 28k people. That's insane... Not that strange. Harder to make new media content due to covid, making it more expensive. At the same time I assume movie attendance is way down, same with Disney land and similar set locations. So expenses goes up or at best stays static while incomes goes down. They have also been acquiring a lot of things over the years. Using this as an excuse to cut out what they feel is duplicate functions. | ||
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JimmiC
Canada22817 Posts
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goiflin
Canada1218 Posts
On October 02 2020 17:07 Silvanel wrote: I was there, once i worked i think 36 stright weeks for 6 days a week. It feels great for a time. You have great atmosphere at work, You are making progress, You are making more money. Also You gradually become more tired and tired -it doesnt happen over one week - it is a process. You start dreaming about work. Your mind cant get rest. Finally one day You realize that Your life is centered around work and there is not much time for anything else. Your hobbies and relationships are suffering. If You have prexisting problems it is stright way towards clinical depression. Yeah I can definitely feel the dreaming about work thing. That's a problem I had during that. It was really, really strange. I also basically did nothing but commute, work, play like an hour of video games while making food, sleep. Didn't help that the commute went from a 20 minute drive one way to a 1h15m drive because of construction, for the last two weeks of the overtime so I was out of the house for about 11 hours a day. I had a worse time of it working midnights though, even though it wasn't overtime. That was just miserable, even with 8 hour days I never did anything except eat, sleep, work for years. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16701 Posts
On October 02 2020 08:15 Manit0u wrote: I remember working 13-17hrs a day 7d/week for 3 months straight during crunch time. Eventually I just quit the company... On October 02 2020 10:26 goiflin wrote: I did a month straight work without a day off in QA at crunch, but that was a voluntary thing, so it's not the same at all. I really feel for the people who don't get a choice in the matter. It's pretty shitty to ask for people to do something like that, to basically become nothing but a worker for an extended period of time because you "need" to hit a window of time for release. It's good at least that people know these things are happening instead of it just being swept under the rug. Hopefully people working to change the practice entirely can make some headway. When the over all economy is in good shape you just quit and work someplace else. A good economy is better than any union. I can start a union in the poorest nation on earth. It won't create any high paying jobs. When I was a teenager I took on crappy software work to get my foot in the door. This included being a QA tester for a Classified AD Newspaper slowly declining and on its last legs. Also, I made an order tracker application for a food bank. I got paid in free food.  meh, welcome to the real world. Fortunately, the economy was on fire at the time and I was willing to work very hard. Thus, I very quickly moved up to being lead programmer on application development projects. The guys I replaced were about 10 years older and in their prime earning years. Most of them moved on to way better jobs in the northeastern USA. There was no one left .. so they gave me a shot before bringing in a high priced outside consultant guy. I ended up becoming the lead programmer at Video99 and the Buy & Sell Newspaper while still a teenager. Thank goodness the economy in the USA is so strong. If you gave me the choice between living in a country with a great economy and mediocre unions.... or living in a country with a mediocre economy and great unions... i'll take the great economy every time. In conclusion, I do not think the root of the problem rests with the software developers. The root of the problem is a very weak economy. When the economy is below average, average or better than average people can just quit and do something better. | ||
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JimmyJRaynor
Canada16701 Posts
Pretty hilarious that the ring leader of this piracy group specializing in ripping off Nintendo has the last name ... Bowser. In Canada, ripping off Nintendo is dangerous business. Nintendo ain't Sony or some random US company. Nintendo, unlike Sony and other US companies vigourously protects their IP. I've got a couple of hilarious Nintendo//RCMP stories from back when I was a little teenage software pirate. Because pirates and IP "borrowers" in Canada get away with so much when they are fucking over US companies they start to think they can do it to anybody. News Flash Boys : Don't fuck with Nintendo. | ||
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goiflin
Canada1218 Posts
On October 04 2020 01:04 JimmyJRaynor wrote: When the over all economy is in good shape you just quit and work someplace else. A good economy is better than any union. I can start a union in the poorest nation on earth. It won't create any high paying jobs. The only problem with this line of thought is that it works under the assumption that you are going to somehow always have a decent economy, when all of the reasonable economists in the world know that isn't the reality of how our systems work. The ebb and flow of economic output doesn't really ensure that there will always be somewhere else to go when you look at individual fields of work. People will inevitably fall into situations where they are forced, de facto, into staying at a place whether it is in their best interest or not. Especially considering the uncertainty that COVID has dropped on many people and businesses. This is, of course, where unions are at their most needed, when there are simply no alternatives for finding another line of work for the average person. I do agree with the sentiment that I'd rather have a more fortunate economy, and in a good economy, with good government oversight to make sure abuses are mitigated either way, that unions don't really achieve a lot of meaningful ground (outside of stuff like HR issues where they can be pretty useful). The issue with a situation like we're in now, is that both CD Projekt's and their employees interests aren't aligned, probably because of the strange times we find ourselves in. They have probably been forced to push this out earlier than they are comfortable with, and it's not an easy situation the employees find themselves in with unemployment in Poland going up by a considerably large margin. The jobs aren't there for them to move to at this moment in time. Thus, because there is no way for them to negotiate with their employers, they are basically forced into this crunch, after being told that there wouldn't be any while they worked at CD Projekt. The alternative is a very uncertain future. And while that may be an acceptable fate for someone like you or myself, where we are willing to take risks to make things better, some people aren't, and shouldn't be expected by others to do so. Especially when you're talking about people risking their family's livelihood, their homes, etc. Now I understand why CD Projekt probably made this decision, and that it probably wasn't meant to be a lie when they stated so overtly that they wouldn't be doing crunch. It's easy for me to get that it probably wasn't an easy decision for them to make. But it's relatively obvious, and perfectly reasonable to anyone who isn't pulling the wool over their eyes why people from outside the company (and inside) would be upset about this turn of events. We saw a company say they would never do it. What if people who work there had left a company they crunched under and ended up crunching anyway after being told it wouldn't happen? Do you just go and find another company who says it won't, despite being burned on that already, with a virus running rampant across various major economic players worldwide, creating an already uncertain future? It's easy to see why people want to unionize. As for my position when I did QA, there was no union. But due to their position of being a third party contractor for video game publishers/developers, they're usually not pressured in the same way they are. The company is being paid either way, and honestly there was enough people who volunteered for overtime without complaints that it was never an issue they had to bring up. I know at least three other projects that entered crunch during my time there and they were never at a loss for manpower, at least 10-20 people out of the 30-40 on a given project volunteering for it. There wasn't really a need for it from my perspective, but I can understand why people working in the industry and people outside of it see it as a problem that needs a remedy. On October 07 2020 00:55 JimmyJRaynor wrote: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/canadian-facing-fraud-conspiracy-charges-in-u-s-for-alleged-role-in-video-game-piracy-ring-1.5132261 Pretty hilarious that the ring leader of this piracy group specializing in ripping off Nintendo has the last name ... Bowser. In Canada, ripping off Nintendo is dangerous business. Nintendo ain't Sony or some random US company. Nintendo, unlike Sony and other US companies vigourously protects their IP. I've got a couple of hilarious Nintendo//RCMP stories from back when I was a little teenage software pirate. Because pirates and IP "borrowers" in Canada get away with so much when they are fucking over US companies they start to think they can do it to anybody. News Flash Boys : Don't fuck with Nintendo. And yeah, fucking with Nintendo is such an easy way to get destroyed legally. I don't really understand why people do that in those circles and expect anything different. There's way more complacent targets for that sort of thing. Nintendo gets the lawyers for people doing really innocuous things like fan made games that are love letters to their favorite franchises, what did you think was going to happen? | ||
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