Recently went and stirred the shit on the www.gamedevelopers.ie forum, under my forum name of catbert, in a thread addressing the debate over the value of new-ish undergraduate courses in game development. Here is an abridged version, highlighting the main points and counter points:
catbert:
Doesn't it ever seem to those working in academia that the games companies don't actually deserve what they're looking for? After you slave over a hot student (pun intended) for four years, wouldn't you rather send them anywhere else but the games industry?
I'm not going to go trawling for figures to back this up, but having read this article - it's clear that some world-class graduates are going to be employed in those games companies in four years.
Yet what can they expect? This isn't a government defence contract, they're not going to be rolling in cash, and still they'll be expected to work a full-time intensive grind until they burn out after five years. If an industry treats its employees in this way, why should they get the best?
Some of the games degrees [on offer in
*rant over >:)
*
When pressed on my claim that industry workers have an average 5 year career, I had to go and find the article I had read on it so many months ago. Damn them. Happily, I had Google to hand (when does one not?). This was backed up by a later reply (see Idora's reply below) quoting the original IGDA white paper :
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/print/40/23
Specifically, this: "When the average career length of the game development workforce is just over five years and over 50% of developers admit they don't plan to hang around for more than 10, we have a problem."
Then there was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on the issue of crunch-time, or intensive long-term (oft-unrewarded) overtime prior to a games shipping date.
Darragh: it would be very hard to maintain [any] sort of lifestyle when you're working from 9am to 1am in the morning..
Omen: that is an exaggeration and its one that really needs to be kicked out, because it simply shouldn't be true. Thats one of the reasons I left Rockstar, because I simply wasn't prepared to work like that.
Peter_b: I've only worked a short big of overtime here and it was all highly compensated, both financially and in grub 
.
Kyotokid: we worked quite a bit of overtime to get MotorStorm out the door....so crunch does exist.
omen: Yes, crunch does exist, but you can say no.
Now, I actually enjoy crunch time, as it exists in the areas in which I work. And I said so, but I also had to get back to my point:
But I reiterate my original point - games companies, like all the entertainment industries, are guilty of 'selling' the jobs they offer based on the associated 'coolness' of the product they produce. No developer recruitment ad ever shows a picture of an office, they show Lara Croft.
So who are they to point fingers at the universities for mis-representing themselves?
In cinema, 'runners' work 16 hour days for no pay simply for the chance to be on a film set. How much of what should by rights be remunerated to a skilled individual worker, is actually withheld by games companies just because the junior employees accept it as 'the cost of working in games'?
It was shortly after that we got a real reply, addressing the crux of the argument in general and not just nit-picking the corners off my hasty scribbles:
Idora:
| catbert wrote: |
| Doesn't it ever seem to those working in academia that the games companies don't actually deserve what they're looking for? After you slave over a hot student (pun intended) for four years, wouldn't you rather send them anywhere else but the games industry? |
the point of the origin of this discussion is that there perhaps isn't as much slaving 'over a hot student' as there probably should be…
| catbert wrote: |
| Idora and/or some other industry folk (was it the panel at the GameOn conference in DIT? Refresh my memory Idora) have been accusing some of the games degrees of deceiving prospective applicants into thinking that the sub-par education they offer will get them a job |
Gotta be careful on this one – this comment was made in relation to *some* courses (and not necessarily degree courses either) that simply rebadge existing courses and call them games
Also, it's not a matter of deserving them. We have jobs; some graduates want them; end of.
| catbert wrote: | ||
|
The figures quotes are from the first QOL survey done in 2004 by the IGDA in preparation for writing the QOL White Paper. More info and highlighted stats here (incl. full survey source data for those interested):- http://www.igda.org/qol/whitepaper.php
Overtime is necessary at some point in most industries (every job I’ve ever had anyway). And as others have pointed out – there more than a few companies/industries where OT isn’t compensated fairly or at all. How about teachers/lecturers with all that lesson prep time, for example?
While there are many games companies not compensating employees for OT, and many that seem to think crunch is the ONLY way to do it, there are also many that do compensate for OT (e.g. bonuses, stock/stock options, time in lieu, overtime, etc.), and many more that work hard to do little or no overtime at all.
[ For those new to the industry or unfamiliar with the term ‘crunch time’ is extended/intensive overtime, i.e. working 12 – 14 hrs a day every day for a week or working a normal 8 hr day but having to work EVERY day, including weekends, for a month ]
For the record – I am now on my third games industry job and have worked crunch only once for 2.5 months and that was only because I was starting a new job, helping organise the Awakenings conference AND had a (self-imposed) major deadline looming. In the first year of my current job we have worked on multiple projects (sometimes simultaneously) and have worked approx. 50 HOURS overtime in total on those projects without any crunch. There are a few folks on this forum who could tell you similar stories
| catbert wrote: |
| I reiterate my original point - games companies, like all the entertainment industries, are guilty of 'selling' the jobs they offer based on the associated 'coolness' of the product they produce. |
Catbert, while I agree with most of the individual points you’ve made (but not the overall thrust of your argument), this one is verging close to WTF? territory.
It’s sales – using a poster of Lara Croft or the ‘coolness’ factor to attract the brightest and best is absolutely acceptable, above reproach and NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with unrewarded crunch time
So I thought to wrap it up around there:
Excellent, a response worth reading. In the end, although I still say games companies take advantage of the illusions of young enthusiasts simply because they can, I too fall on the side of: its not about deserving a job. No more than luck exists, to deserve is not a personal attribute.
If someone falls for the gd's hype, thats their problem, just like coming to college expecting to be spoonfed an education is the problem of all under appreciative welfare state scions. But thats another debate...
Needless to say, the debate goes on. Some useful things were said though, and we all ended up…well, probably none the wiser. Such is the way of the social consensus wisdom of the web – sometimes all the equal voices harmonise and come together in a great hosanna to enlightenment; sometimes, its just babel.
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