
Game Developers and Porn Stars - mariorz
http://www.killtenrats.com/2009/04/13/game-developers-and-porn-stars/
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jmatt
I've got a very close friend that was a game developer at EA for about 4
years. He went through a very similar experience. He eventually burned out,
moved back home, went back to school and is now a Chiropractor.

He more or less quit gaming when he was a game developer. After about a year
off he returned to gaming and now enjoys the occasional MMORPG or strategy
game. He returned to gaming but I don't think he'll ever return to coding.

~~~
abossy
This is an interesting story that is all too common in the games industry. It
does seem as though perseverance and 'blind' passion are the most important
characteristics of game developers.

I wonder if other roles on game development teams, aside from programming, are
nearly as rigorous. Obviously, they are all worked to death, but there seems
to be something about furiously debugging for a prolonged crunch mode that
sucks the life out of programmers.

During college, I was fortunate enough to take a class from gaming legend
Warren Spector (of Deus Ex/Thief/System Shock/Ultimate fame). What impressed
me most about him was his sheer, infinite passionate for the games industry.
He knew gaming so intimately that I would go so far as to call him a genius.
At 50+ years old, he is still going strong in the games industry.

This class brought several guest speakers that were HUGE names in the
industry, notably Richard Garriot (Ultima/Tabula Rasa) and Michael Morhaime
(Blizzard co-founder). These two guys entered the industry as programmers, but
quickly moved onto higher roles in their respective organizations. I think
that playing the position of a non-coder is crucial in their career success.
There is simply no other industry that can foster the immense inventiveness
and creativity required to produce successful games.

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jlees
On the other hand both industries' "indie" sectors seem to treat their workers
a lot better. And both industries let you make your first production from your
bedroom, armed with very basic tools!

~~~
whughes
Mentioned in the article.

"They are energetic and excited about getting paid to do something they really
enjoy (and probably have been doing on a small scale for years without pay). "

"Others think there must be a better, more humane and sustainable way to do
this work, and they found their own projects with better conditions. This
latter group seems less visible and prosperous, although more outspoken."

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danbmil99
About 10 years ago my company was supplying a critical component to a major
game developer. We showed up at the office the last month of development to
help with debugging.

It was a scene out of some psycho's nightmare. 18-21 hour days; 30 people at
desks in a room, in virtual lockdown. They looked like the walking dead. The
producer was this 5'4" guy wearing storm trooper boots, he'd walk around like
Hitler laughing at how fucked up everyone looked, and saying things like "The
beatings will continue until morale improves!" No one was laughing.

What was stupid about it is everyone was so burnt they couldn't think
straight, kept making simple mistakes. Productivity was probably around 10-15%
of peak, if that. It was one of the more depressing things I had ever seen.

All entertainment sectors do this -- they sucker ppl in with glamor and rip
them off. It's built into the business model.

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lacker
I'm curious if this is true for all "game developers" or just the sort working
at EA and companies that make EA-style games. If you work for Zynga or
Playdom, for example, do you have huge crunches and frequent 80 hour weeks? Or
is this just the way a few big companies are run.

~~~
coffeeaddicted
Certainly not all companies. But it is rather common in this industry. And so
far I haven't worked on a game yet which didn't at least have some weeks
crunch-time before release.

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Tiktaalik
The video game industry is great in my opinion, but then again, I work at a
startup instead of at a monolithic corporation with over a thousand other
employees.

Probably anyone working at a company that large would get burnt out,
regardless of industry.

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Oxryly
Same stuff could be said of professional athletes.

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stcredzero
Wasn't a member of ID Software an exotic dancer at one point in time?

~~~
BobbyH
Yeah, I think you're referring either to Stevie Case, a "gaming grrl and Quake
champion who became a developer and Playboy model" or "one fellow who took up
game programming after he abandoned a shot at the ministry and become an
exotic male dancer who went by the stage name Preacher Boy."
<http://www.amazon.com/review/R2DHVHM25YIBWO>

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andylei
don't forget investment bankers

~~~
ctkrohn
Well, traders more specifically. You see plenty of 50-year old senior
investment bankers -- they're the ones with the client relationships who bring
in the big deals. It's pretty rare to see a trader over 40.

~~~
gaius
Corp finance and traders are rival tribes within a bank. The finance people
think the traders are vulgar and the traders think the finance people are
effete. Lumping them all together as bankers is like lumping developers,
sysadmins, qa together as "computer people".

~~~
Rod
Unfortunately most people fail to realize that. In the last few months,
bashing _bankers_ has become a socially acceptable norm... and I don't know
whether that anger is directed at investment bankers themselves (you know, the
ones who do corporate finance) or at anyone who happens to work at an
investment bank.

On the cultural aspects of traders, Tom Wolfe wrote a rather biased (not to
mention obnoxious) article on that a couple of years ago:

 _"The traders are on the front lines moment by moment, pulling the trigger
with only seconds to think about it. They are our kind! They are aggressive
real men! Their plain vanilla C.E.O.’s know it too. They will pay a daring,
battle-hardened trader $50 million and up per year to keep him from defecting
to our pirate fleet. They pay them more than they pay themselves, because they
are worth more, because they are real men, because they are willing to fight.
What idiot thought up "boards of directors" anyway? My board of directors
consists of me, myself, and I. My investors don’t have to love me. I don’t
have to charm them. I have to do one thing and one thing only, make them
money."_

[http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2007/04/16/The-...](http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2007/04/16/The-
Pirate-Pose)

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Tichy
What illusions do porn stars have?

~~~
ShabbyDoo
I suspect that the public vastly overestimates entertainment industry earnings
due to availability bias. Headlines like "<Star Name> earns $XXM for <movie>"
are more common than "relatively unknown supporting actor earns enough to
maintain SAG membership."

Likewise, young women probably perceive the porn industry to be much more
lucrative than it actually is. I've read that they get paid between $500 and
$2K per scene. While that sounds amazing to an eighteen year-old working at
McDonald's, it probably translates into $100K annually for three or four years
until younger talent takes their places.

~~~
philwelch
100k annually for three or four years is like 400k. That's ten years worth of
a decent middle class salary, which is what most careers are worth, except
it's front-loaded so you can generally invest it and make more in the long
run. I would not snort at that kind of income.

~~~
ido
I suspect the kind of person that does porn at 18 is not likely to prudently
invest the money they make while young.

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neilk
And programmers are different? I'm amazed at how much my co-workers spend on
stupid gadgetry and personal entertainment.

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akmiller
This must be the reason that the large game companies such as EA are
completely lack of innovation. They turn out the same games year in and year
out with only slightly better graphics, ai, etc...

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ShabbyDoo
Do the people who write the underlying engines/frameworks (I know little of
game development) have it better than those assigned to particular titles?

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whatusername
a large majority of those ship with a AAAish title (I guess in part eating
your own dogfood) - think Lawrence World or Basecamp for the Web framework
discussion... We're talking games like Quake X, Unreal (Tournament) Y, etc

So they probably hit the same kind of crunch as well.

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intregus
This article makes me wonder if the web industry is like the local strip club.

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ShabbyDoo
I believe that strippers' earnings are somewhat proportionate to hours worked.

