Being a Game Developer Sucks

It\'s a weird thing, Pete. On the one hand, I like to think that I don\'t care whether a game I am working on is a hit or not. That I only care if I am enjoying my days at work, know what I mean? But on the other hand, if you don\'t score a hit in this industry, then coming to work everyday at a cool company might end very. very quickly. But I guess that\'s the risk of \"loss of security\" that I was talking about. Sometimes, for the hope of a better day to day existence, we have to risk losing our security. To me, the flip side means living in the grey somewhere: working day in and day out as a secure, but creativly dead factory worker.

-->Mike Werckle

I\'m in the same situation as #5.

If you are in the games industry, you better not be there for the cash, but for the love of games.

Those dudes in the gaming industry make some insane hours any normal person wouldnt even think of doing. (Carmack .plan updates @ 4am? yea, right.)

And generally, the pay sux. I know a few game developers personally, and if yer not \'at the top\', well... lets put it this way, I make a LOT more making these messageboards/webpages then they do making games, and webpages is just sort of a hobby that got out of hand.

Without any doubt the likes of blue and scary are a lot richer then most game developers.

It kinda sux, because a lot of game developers deserve more :) But seeing 75% of the games that are released just plain suck, I can understand why only a few get large amounts of cash to fund their projects.

I\'ve no experience of my own in the games industry, but I have no doubt that it is very much the hell that Talin describes.

However, some of you may be interested to know that this exact type of thing described in Talin\'s article is a major subject of what has become my favorite work of literature... a novel called \"Microserfs,\" by Douglas Coupland (who, by the way, is the man who coined the term \'Generation X\' in his 1991 novel of the same name. Don\'t be angry. It\'s not his fault).

It very simply follows a group of people who work at Microsoft, their lives not unlike the programming purgatory that Talin described. They eventually quit to start up their own little game company. I\'ll not give too much away here, but suffice it to say that the book poignantly hints that everyone needs the \"something more in life\" that Talin describes. However, unlike Talin, \"Microserfs\" asserts that the coding life and the \'something more\' *can* co-exist (in what we like to refer to as \'geek culture\').

I highly recommend this book to... well, to everybody, but especially to anybody who is looking into a career in the computer software industry. It may re-affirm your faith.

There *are* plently of happy employees at game companies. I mean, heck, its better than working in a factory or at McDonalds, right? If you are looking for a nice semi-secure position where you can kick back and be spoon fed by management, then you\'ve come to the right place.

But there are a few people who look for more out of life. Talin is one of them.

I have been in the industry since 1991, and I have found much of what Talin said to be true. I have hated every game company I have worked for, with the exception of Ritual and Human Head. Why? Because I want more out of my life than security, and I don\'t want to be told what to do by idiots. I want to dig in and really get my hands dirty on a project. I am an idea person, and I have a lot of good ones.

All too often I found myself at companies where owners or managers above me just plain didn\'t understand how to make a game. I would come up with 800 ideas of how to do it and make it better, but they would all get ignored or shot down. After a while, my cool ideas would stop flowing-- and that pretty much amounts to death for a creative person like me. And it\'s bad for the company too, because good ideas are a commodity and they stopped encouraging mine.

I would start *dreading* work, because there is nothing more frustrating that seeing a solution, and not being able to implement it becuase of a short-sighted or selfish superior. I would get grumpy and I would take it out on co-workers.

It\'s a miserable existence. And some would say its my own fault for expecting too much. But I say, *fuck* those sleepwalkers, I want to take a bite of life! =)

Amidst all the crappy companies though, there are a few good ones. That\'s why I feel so lucky to have found Human Head. The guys here seem to genuinely appreciate my ideas. And although not all of the ideas get used 100% of the time, enough of them do get used that I stay very, very happy. And the great ideas keep flowing.

In the end, the game is really irrelevant to us. It is a labor of love, but I don\'t care if the game is perfect, or if it is a hit. All I care about is having a gfun life, spending my days happy, surrounded by my friends.

-->Mike Werckle
lead animator
Human Head Studios
mwerckle@humanhead.com
www.humanhead.com

Yeah, I was (kinda) joking. I\'d still love to develop games (hint, hint ;), but I agree it sounds pretty bad...

See, the key, as I see it, is to jump right into a really successful company (id)... (heheheh)

i think id, epic, raven, valve, ritual, rogue, monolith, 3drealms, ion storm, etc. have many employees that are happy developing games, and that is just in the 3rd person FPS genere...sure the turnover may be high, but thats just cos its a demanding and competetive industry...its not easy to pull together a quality game so it doesnt surprise me that so many fail...

\"Don\'t ever trust the advice of the rich and famous...they don\'t seek company...\" -Dogbert (And probably 1,000,000 people before him...)

I think that may apply here...? :)