📄 workgames.htm
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<TITLE>GPMega - Industry Section - Should working in games be more fun?</TITLE>
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This Article Is Taken From <A HREF="http://www.perplexed.com/GPMega/">The Game Programming MegaSite</A>, A Definitive Resource For Game Developers!
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<H3 ALIGN=CENTER><font color="#FFF800">S</font><font color="#FFF100">h</font><font color="#FFEA00">o</font><font color="#FFE300">u</font><font color="#FFDC00">l</font><font color="#FFD500">d</font><font color="#FFCE00"> </font><font color="#FFC700">w</font><font color="#FFC000">o</font><font color="#FFB900">r</font><font color="#FFB200">k</font><font color="#FFAB00">i</font><font color="#FFA400">n</font><font color="#FF9D00">g</font><font color="#FF9600"> </font><font color="#FF8F00">i</font><font color="#FF8800">n</font><font color="#FF8100"> </font><font color="#FF7A00">g</font><font color="#FF7300">a</font><font color="#FF6C00">m</font><font color="#FF6500">e</font><font color="#FF5E00">s</font><font color="#FF5700"> </font><font color="#FF5000">b</font><font color="#FF4900">e</font><font color="#FF4200"> </font><font color="#FF3B00">m</font><font color="#FF3400">o</font><font color="#FF2D00">r</font><font color="#FF2600">e</font><font color="#FF1F00"> </font><font color="#FF1800">f</font><font color="#FF1100">u</font><font color="#FF0A00">n</font><font color="#FF0300">?</font><BR><FONT SIZE=-2>By: Francois Dominic Laramee</FONT></H3>
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<P>Yeah, we've all seen 'em. The bright-eyed, eager
kids who, upon learning that we work in the interactive entertainment
industry, drop to their hands and knees and beg us for our secret.
How did we do it? <I>How did we manage to get someone to pay us for
this?</I>
<P>There are millions of them. Mostly guys, but the number of girls
is getting surprisingly high. They're kind of naive, and maybe a
little annoying, but in a charming kind of way, since they worship the
week-old leftover pizza crusts we reluctantly throw out. They'd do
anything to be like us, up to and including pledging their souls to the
denizen of the fuming tar pits of Hades of our choice. Sure, they
feign to listen when we warn them about the crazy hours or the lousy
pay. But nothing registers. To their untrained eyes, making
games seems to be somewhat akin to a mild all-day orgasm.
<P>And then, something terrible happens to them. They finally get a
job in the industry.
<H3><FONT COLOR=YELLOW><I>Time-Dilation and Other Relativistic Catastrophes</I></FONT></H3>
<P>First things first: let's get rid of the
overwhelming subliminal assumption beneath this fascination for the game
industry, i.e., that <I>making </I>games and <I>playing</I> games are mere
variations on the same theme. Believe me, they have nothing in
common. Thank God for that, too.
<P>Think about it for a minute. These days, the typical game is
considered a success if it provides the player with about 40 hours of
enjoyment. Forty hours. About a week. Now, developing
that very same game will take, on average, two years.
<P>Please reflect on the staggering implications of what you just read.
<P>Unless you are a tester, or you happen to be designing chess or
<I>Civilization III</I>, you will work on your game one hundred times
longer than your customer will play it. O-N-E H-U-N-D-R-E-D.
<P>Please imagine how much fun it would be to play the same game, and only
that game, every single day, eight (twelve) hours a day, for two
years. Yep, that's right, wouldn't be any fun at all. After a
month, you'd be hopelessly bored. Two months, and you'd grow warts
at the mere mention of it. By the time you'd be ready to ship the
sucker, you... Well, you would have killed everyone else on the team
long before, so you never would ship.
<P>Developing games has its own rewards, of course; otherwise, no one
would bother. But it is hard work, and nothing, nothing like playing
games all the time. Get that through your thick skulls!
<H3><FONT COLOR=YELLOW><I>Causal Relationships of Wishful Thinking</I></FONT></H3>
<P>Now that we have established that developing games is
real work, an interesting question arises: since the final product is so
much fun, shouldn't the process of creating it be just as great?
Well, it's possible to have a blast in a game studio, but the final
product will only be part of the reason. And not necessarily a big
part, either. Should we expect, because we are producing
entertainment, to have more satisfying jobs than people in other
industries? Unfortunately, no. Anyone who has worked a day on
a movie set knows it. We should, too.
<P>The game industry is just that, an industry. And not a
particularly profitable one, either. The sad truth is that, to break
even, a game must outsell the industry average by a ridiculous margin;
most PC games sell between 15,000 and 40,000, while it is difficult to
make money on sales of less than 150,000 units. The consequences of
this are manifold, and include the following:
<UL>
<LI>Salaries in games are typically lower than anywhere else in the
software industry.
<LI>Work weeks in the game industry tend to be very long.
<LI>Job security is very, very limited.
</UL>
<P>I will touch on these in
more detail in the next couple of sections. Meanwhile, remember
this: most of us experience constant pressures from publishers or bosses
who are worried they'll go out of business, or that the profits they
contribute to the parent company will not be high enough (or higher than
last year's by a margin that outperforms the competition) to avoid being
the targets of the next layoff.
<P>So, if you care to join us, don't expect a 24-hour a day party, because
you won't get it, and you won't last long in the industry.
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