bassman2112

Giving this one its own reply post haha.

Yes. I am also a dev who (now) works in the same industry. Kind of. It's adjacent. PM me if interested in particulars haha, don't want to doxx myself here (though, tbh, anyone could probably figure it out by googling my name and looking at linkedin but whatever haha)

I've put in many 50 hour weeks even in my current industry, but the thing is, no-one expects all 50 of those hours to be productive here. Like even at 40 hours a week, we're expected to maybe have 30 - 35 "productive" hours. Our brains aren't firing on all cylinders for all 40+ hours, and the fact that that's respected is such a godsend. In games, if you weren't hitting your metrics and producing and fulfilling your quotas etc, you were chastized and were at risk for losing your job.

It also reminds me of something I had to learn the hard way - thought about putting it into the article but didn't end up doing so, so here's an EXCLUSIVEfor y'all.

I learned to stop putting in overtime.

But why tho? Well, let's use some agile language which I didn't define in the article. When we estimate things, we tend to use "story points," which are numbers for effort (not time). Something could require an effort of 1, which would be relatively trivial, whereas an effort of 13 might take you an entire sprint.

Let's say at the start of a sprint you take on what you feel is a reasonable amount of work. Maybe a 3 pointer and a 5 pointer (these are all relative and subjective to the person and the team. If it turns out that 5-pointer was misestimated, and it's actually an 8 or 13 pointer, ruh roh. Suddenly you have a LOT more work on your plate, but people are still expecting you to finish it by the end of the sprint (accountability!).

So you put in overtime. You start working 10 - 12 hour days every day instead of your normal 8; but you don't really tell anyone, you just kinda do it after work hours. Now you've set up a dangerous precedent because all of your colleagues assume you can do that amount of work in a sprint, no problemo. If you stop being able to maintain that pace, it might reflect poorly on you - they'll ask "hey weren't you able to get the same amount of points done last sprint? Why can't you this time?"

So yeah, having put in that overtime, it means you've established it as a norm and you're couching yourself into putting in that much effort every week, which is ultimately self-destructive.

What's the point of all of this rabbling? This mentality is what is expected of you in the games industry. That you should be putting in as much effort outside of working hours as you can, because if you don't, then you "don't have the passion to keep going in this industry." It is, and I cannot emphasize this enough, fucked.

Regardless. High five, and thank you for the comment. Hopefully some folks are finding parts of the article & these comments educational and/or illuminating <3

Dawg. Thank you so much for your work. VFX especially - those people get treated like such fodder, and it is distressing. Much respect to you and thank you <3

That first story reminds me of my friends who work at EA. They talked about how a group of them set up an rv/trailer in the parking lot of the studio they worked at... The fact that it was normalized to the point where they had other people trying to sign up and get in on it made me feel icky, esp because some of them wanted it to be a semi-permanent thing.

Also yes, same. The grenades suck. We had one of those just last week and it's a sudden "well... Okay... We need to address this right now, and also make sure it is done in a way which doesn't bite our own ass 6 months down the line."

Generally agreed that unions help, and having them in place would definitely make things far, far more stable. I don't think it's the "only" option, but I think it would be a giant first step and would help an absolute ton haha. The problem is the ESA and other large entities in the games space. They actively push back against unions, and will not hesitate to fire anyone kicking up a stink about them.

To an extent. A lot of devs in those big studios are compensated very well, but that doesn't fix the (potentially permanent) mental impact it can have on a person. Like, for me, I got out of games where I was paid at 100% (let's say). I left for a company who paid me 75% of that, but I was INFINITELY happier. Having work/life balance was a godsend, to the point where the loss of income did not matter to me. I now make ~125% of what I did in games, have a work/life balance, and am generally comfy. A lot of my work colleagues are "recovering game developers," and also said they chose this life for the same reasons. Like yes, money makes an impact; but the human cost shouldn't be ignored.

Absolutely, I have lots of respect for those who stick it out. For a lot of them, they're driven by pure passion for the projects they're working on, and I can't help but give them a ton of kudos for that. You're right, we as consumers / audiences need to be more objective and empathetic for how the products we consume come to be. It can be a tough transition, but is ultimately way better to support companies (esp smol ones) who are compassionate to their labourers.

(reduced the text to save space in this reply)

I 100% agree with you. Especially, ESPECIALLY #3. Early Access is agile methodology put into practice tbh haha. Agile is all about the cycle of iteration, getting feedback, iteration, getting feedback, etc. By building that into the game, you're putting something out, getting feedback, and continually improving it. That way, when 1.0 eventually hits, the community has had a lot of input, and the game itself may have ideas the devs themselves may never have thought of on their own. It's win-win, allows for some income coming in during the time of development, and generally means the pace can be less frenetic. If I were making games these days, #3 would be my pick.

I do think strongly that numbers 1 and 2 are also great though. The first, yes. SaaS basically. It works, and it's proven to work. Again, iteration! Put out the MVP then improve it forever haha. And the second, also very agreed. I mean, to solve the PR issue with CDPR and Cyberpunk, IMO they never should have said "we're delaying it until December 10th." They should say "We are delaying it until 2021" (no date). That way, at the worst, you give the devs until December 2021 to get it done, and anything before that gets seen as a win to the audience. "Omg we were expecting this in Q4 but it came out in February?! Yessssss" (this was indeed mentioned in the article, but wanted to reiterate haha).

Also, high five fellow 8ish year professional dev! Hopefully you also got your start making PHPBB boards as a kid and such haha.

Yep. Quality and complexity are mutually exclusive for sure. Even the worst games tend to take people years and years to make. There's so many factors which can lead to these games coming out as bad as they do, maybe the devs finished their alpha build and the director hated it and they had to completely remake everything in a fraction of the time. Maybe they were a bunch of ienxperienced devs with no real guidance, mentorship nor leadership. Maybe the IP they had to work with (in the case of licensed games) was extremely restrictive, so they had their hands tied to the point where they couldn't make the game they had specced out. There are a ton of factors beyond the complexity of systems & visuals in play... Often times they're things we, the audience, will never see (unless a dev comes out and speaks out about it after the fact), and we are mainly left to speculate on...

Sorry for the delay in responses, friends. Ironically enough, last week got super busy with work and I tend to try and avoid the computer over the weekend haha.

Thank you so much for all of the responses, feedback, and discourse - it's been great to read =] I wanted to take some time and reply to folks here! So here we go:

1000%. And, unfortunately, it is both brazen and totally "expected" these days =\ Like some folks I know say their employers treated it like a 'badge of honour' that they should wear, when really it's just kinda glorifying abusive workplace behaviours... It is exhausting, and sucks.

Totally on the bullseye with these, friends. I did bring up how estimation and stuff is a big part of the blame, but you're also right that it is super hard with an undefined scope. That's why, typically, we are able to assign things called "spikes" within a sprint. They are timeboxed and allow a developer/group of developers to spend that time purely doing research and then writing down their findings in an internal doc, generating new tasks, etc. The way the timeboxing works is, for example, let's say you assign 5 days to a spike. For an individual, that means they would have 5 days to do this research. Alternatively, you can put 5 people on it as a group effort, then that takes one "real world" day (5 people * 8 hour workday) as man-hours are a contributing factor. Either way, spikes are a big way to help alleviate the world of unknown scope. They're certainly not foolproof, and sometimes the outcome of a spike is "we need another spike on this thing we didn't know that we didn't know," but it can at least help you contextualize what needs to be done for an ambitious, new project.

Your uneducated opinion is very very very valid. Games are insane in a lot of ways, and I can't even fathom how some of the biggest AAA games still manage to come together. Typically you have people working on very disparate things (audio, visuals, combat, etc) which don't truly get "put together" until the end. And then all the bug fixing happens at the end, which is wild to me. In my current industry, we bugfix each others' stuff on the fly, because catching something early can make everything so much more efficient down the line. The fact that games have a quality pass at the very end where they try to catch & squish as many bugs as possible is some galaxy brain sometimes haha.

Also, very very yes on your second point. Making games now is such a HUGE effort, esp in the AAA space. Generating 4K assets, super high quality audio, 30+ hour storylines, etc means that not only is the expected scale bigger, the raw asset size is enormous. That means it generally takes more effort to make something which used to be simple. I mean look at CODBLOPSCW (god i love that acronym), it is like 250 GB at launch. Wtf. The amount & size of those assets people are working on are insane compared to the original BLOPS, which clocked in at 45ish GB 10 years ago.

Hey duders.

Cyberpunk 2077's recent delay has caused quite a stir on social media regarding crunch & the human cost of game development. As a professional software dev, I decided to write an article detailing my thoughts on the subject from that perspective.

I value the thoughts & opinions of the GB community a ton, and wanted to share the article here to hopefully get both some feedback and discussion on the go.

Here is a link to the article.

Thanks, and looking forward to hearing your thoughts =]

I stopped playing after about 7 hours because I found it to be too mechanical, had too much busywork, and felt no connection to the characters nor story.

Objectively, it is well made; but I personally found next-to-no enjoyment out of it.

Please rename Heart of the Forest to Heart of the Woods =]

I had absentmindedly made the mistake when submitting it.

@imhungry:

My girlfriend also lives in SEA, and throughout the Singapore episode she had a perpetual grin on her face. She loved how they showed it, and with how pretty it looked, she was almost convinced that Singapore's tourism department had some hand in it. (Spoiler - they didn't, which is even better)

@DocHaus:

Definitely! I feel like the show is getting some attention, but definitely deserves more. It's lovely ^^

No criticisms to speak of, over here! It is working far better than the previous system, and is intuitive. Thanks, devs! <3

GOTY 2017

	1. NieR: AutomataIf you've read my review on Giant Bomb for this game, you know I have nothing but glowing things to say about it. Not only is it my 2017 GOTY, it also sits atop of my (long-established) "Top Games of All Time" list. It is a very important game, and - at least in my mind - has established Yoko Taro as a figure everyone needs to be watching moving forward.
	2. Night in the WoodsThis game was a very "right place, right time" kind of game for me. I had just found myself unemployed, had recently gone through a breakup, and was in a state of depression (I have clinical depression). I figured I'd play something cute, so I tried Night in the Woods. This game is about depression, and it handles it in a way I really appreciated. The characters are real, the scenarios are real, and the dialog is real. I love Night in the Woods. It has its flaws, but I love it.
	3. Doki Doki Literature ClubI really, really, really want to say why - in a year as strong as 2017 - a cutesy VN has made the top 3 of my list; but it would be doing a disservice to you if you have not heard of it, nor played it. If you are reading this, and you like VNs, you need to play this game right now - it is 100% Free, and absolutely a worthwhile experience. Along with NieR, it is the very definition of "this could only be a video game."
	4. Battle Chef BrigadeGrowing up, I adored Iron Chef. I watched it every day after school, and it inspired me to love cooking. I also love puzzles, and I enjoy Monster Hunter. As a game, Battle Chef Brigade hit me right in the face, and I finished it in two sittings. I love everything about it, and look forward to playing it again!!!
	5. TacomaI liked Gone Home, but I wouldn't say it was one of my top games ever. I really, really, really loved Tacoma. In terms of "walking simulator" games, I can't think of a single one that did more for me than Tacoma. The core mechanic is really fascinating, it is well directed, well written, tells a compelling story, and has a spectacular ending.
	6. SteamWorld Dig 2Steamworld Dig 2 is kind of crazy, and it's hard to describe exactly why. It feels similar to Civilzation to me in a certain way, in that it fills me with the "one more turn" mentality. I found myself saying "it's almost time for bed... I'll just do one more round..." (which would invariably turn into 2 or 3 or more). It's a charming game, and actually has a really surprising story payoff at the end!
	7. Hellblade: Senua's SacrificeI do not have psychosis, but through having played Hellblade, I feel as though I have more context and respect for those who do. Similar to Night in the Woods, Hellblade treats mental health with respect, and tries to convey the struggle of being afflicted by something in your mind in an interactive medium. I think the game has some pretty glaring faults, but it did so many things well (including game design) that I cannot help but think highly of it.
	8. Persona 5I love Persona. Persona 4 was, previously, my top game of all time. I think Persona 5 nailed a lot of things, and it was a pretty fantastic JRPG. Unfortunately, I cannot find myself passionate about the game. It did a lot right, but the stuff it did wrong bummed me out enough that I was left a little deflated. I think it is 100% worth playing, and if it is your first Persona game, it is possibly the best one to start with since it has the best mechanics in the series! But again, not my favourite Persona, unfortunately.
	9. Wolfenstein II: The New ColossusMan, what a dumb, fun game. The story was a rollercoaster ride through an extremely well told narrative. I loved 95% of the story, but man, this game has some huge caveats. The gameplay is actively bad, the stealth system is broken, and map design is unintuitive (not to mention the game crashed a ton for me on PC). If those issues weren't there, this game easily would have been in my top 5; but, as it stands, it is definitely one of the best of the year, but it also needs to be turned to Easy just to enjoy it.
	10. CupheadThis is maybe one of the most beautiful games I've ever seen. It's kind of unbelievable, actually. When you couple that with an authentic and well-composed jazz soundtrack, this game is possibly the most charming one out there. It has one glaring issue, however - it is stupidly hard. I don't mind hard games. I actually enjoy hard games. But this game is hard to the point where some people may end up getting totally put off by it - they might want to experience all of the amazing art and sounds the game has to offer; but drop it because they cannot beat the first boss. Again, amazing game; but I really do wish it was more approachable for the average gamer.