The secret life of a games programmer

[John FX]

The secret life of a games programmer: I’ve lived my dream and it came up short

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/07/secret-life-games-programmer

 

Interesting article from a games programmer. It should give some insight into the daily life of our favourite people who make KSP. It sounds like this guy was not working for a company as nice as Squad but some elements resonate, like the demands from users to fix bugs and provide more features.

"At my studio you needed to have the “passion” for a project to work six days a week, or put in 16-hour days. This is very much prevalent in the game industry and is seen as pulling out all the stops for your love of the project. Of course, this places exceptional stress on your quality of life and family time. I have gone through really tough periods at home, when it feels like there’s enormous pressure to put work first. Management will always talk about having a healthy work-life balance but the implication is there that you could be doing more, fixing more bugs, taking on more work. I’ve had blazing rows with my wife about the amount of time I was spending at work rather than with my children – but feeling like your effort is constantly being judged means you end up doing it again and again.

 

He ends up working programming in the financial sector, sorry to ruin the end.

[RizzoTheRat]

To be fair, I think he's just described working in any project based industry for the wrong company.  Sounds like the work is interesting but the company don't value the employees.  A different employer in the same industry, and maybe even a different department in the same company, could be a completely different story.

[pxi]

http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/97391-Rockstar-Wives-Complain-About-Working-Conditions

Bad working conditions seem to be extremely common in the games industry.

[Nuke]

this is why i retired early and became a bum.

[NovaSilisko]

4 hours ago, pxi said:

Bad working conditions seem to be extremely common in the games industry.

Bad working conditions are the norm, unfortunately. Not just games either, a lot of things of similar disciplines are just as bad - visual effects studios for films, for example.

[WinkAllKerb'']

send me to pluto, and beyond bored of this earth ... also don't forget to the swiss knife in the package, it use to be handy  ; )

theorically, technically, and basically ... norm ... norm ... norm ...

Edited March 8, 2016 by WinkAllKerb''

[John FX]

13 hours ago, NovaSilisko said:

Bad working conditions are the norm, unfortunately. Not just games either, a lot of things of similar disciplines are just as bad - visual effects studios for films, for example.

This is something that echoes for me from when I was working in a social enterprise doing community projects is that constant underlying `couldn`t you do more for no more money?` no matter how much you do. We were putting in about 3 weeks of unpaid work for each 10 week project and it was like trying to fill a sieve.

I`ve also worked in visual effects...

[Ethanadams]

The life of an ordinary programmer 

 

crying yourself to sleep wondering why there are so many errors in the "perfect" code