Why I left my Games Job
This is more of a reply on my earlier article of How I got into the Games Industry (which was originally written in 30 August 2007) as since then, I have left the industry and thought it be interesting to detail why for balance.
Ultimately, the main reason for leaving was for quality of life (QOL) which is a hotly discussed topic in industry circles. Each I was on crunched to some degree, some worse then others which began to take their toll on me.
When I was all new to the industry, it was all very exciting and the extra hours didn’t seem that bad but as I got older and more experienced, other things started to take priority and I didn’t want to spend all my time at work for long periods at a time.
The tipping point is when I foresaw that we were going to crunch (badly) due to a fundamental change in the project and there was very little we could to get round it. Higher ups/Middle management wanted it and we couldn’t say no to it. Then came a series of decisions that literally went against every software engineering book I have read and made matters worse in the most obvious ways. (Please note I am being purposely vague due to NDA agreements in place).
Enough was enough and I started looking for jobs soon after. It certainly didn’t help that I was underpaid due to a wage freeze and got passed on promotion twice. In short, I felt like I was working my ass off for little pay and getting nothing at the end of it which didn’t feel right especially when I knew I could be getting better.
Nesta Report - Next Gen »
The Nesta report came out recently which generally talks about the lack of skilled applicants coming into the games and creative industries and what can be done to improve the situation.
It generally covers introduction of STEM skills at an earlier level such as at GCSE and A-Level and improving existing courses at University.
All the suggestions and conclusions are valid and echo the thoughts of lecturers from a Games:Edu conference I attended in 2008. However, I see a problem in implementing some of the recommendations listed in the report as they generally involve in getting teachers and/or staff that know how to teach these subjects well.
Where are these people going to come from? Teachers and lecturers salaries are generally not great so what incentives are there for people from the industry to and teach? How do we train the existing teachers and lecturers?
Despite this, the report itself is definitely worth a read if you are interested in education of games or interactive media as it has a lot of data from surveys to support its findings and personally I am interested in one of its recommendations of having an online resource for lesson plans and collection of resources as that will be incredibly useful for people who are interested in the industry.
What is in the video is pretty much common sense but needs to be said. Interesting timing as I was linked to a Workaholics self quiz today as well.
(Source: ted.com)
Bizarre Creations closures its doors today. Good luck to all involved.
This is a presentation by David Braben from Frontier in Learning Without Frontiers 2011 on his thoughts regarding ICT being taught in the classroom and how games can be used to encourage children to engage in the subject.
More interesting is his showcasing of the £15 computer, the Raspberry Pi which comes with everything needed to program it on the computer itself much like how the Commandore 64 came with BASIC built in. David is aiming to distribute this to children through schools via a charity he is in the process of setting up.
Split/Second dev Black Rock to close »
After making ~100 people redundant in January, Disney have made the decision to close down the whole studio.
I had an interview there back in 2006 when I graduated from University of Hull and they seemed to be a great bunch of talented developers.
Good luck to all those affected.
Why Did L.A. Noire Take Seven Years to Make? »
This article pretty sums up the reasons why I left the games industry not too long ago to see what other similar industries are like. It sounded like Team Bondi went into Death March early in the project and rather then try to fix the problem, management perpetuated it and made it worse.
All fingers seem to point at Brendan McNamara’s mismanagement.
L.A. Noire: The Team Bondi Emails - Article »
More ex-employees from Team Bondi pitch in with copies of internal emails that support information from the original article.
Lead Programmer's defense of Team Bondi »
This is an open letter defending the work and decisions made during the development of Team Bondi’s latest title, LA Noire.
WTF? Unpaid crunch deserves no sympathy - Pachter
I came across the article earlier today regarding Pachter saying that unpaid overtime should be the norm and besides the fact he is an analyst and not a software developer, he is missing the point.
Dr. Mike Reddy comments on the article and raises the fact that research has shown money isn’t much of an incentive for people to do more work. Dan Pink’s Science of Motivation at a TED conference explains this further by showing people are more motivated when they feel like they matter and more importantly, trusted to do the work they have themselves set out to do.
As mentioned in an earlier post on Why I left my Games Job, I left primarily because the company made decisions that would force the developers on the team needed to work a massive amount of overtime in order to meet the deadline, not because the overtime was unpaid.
It made me feel like I didn’t matter and was just a company resource to be used. By doing so, this is a surefire way to have staff starting to look elsewhere. Compare this to companies like Fog Creak and 37signals where is clear that they treat their employees with a large amount of respect and trust (which is shown by their high staff retention), it is comparing night with day.
