
Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men - bconway
http://www.penny-arcade.com/report/article/why-your-games-are-made-by-childless-31-year-old-white-men-and-how-one-stud
======
cobrausn
As a 30-year old childless white man who left the games industry after a short
8 months in order to get married and spend time with my spouse, I can tell you
that the assessment is fairly spot on. If you weren't putting in 12 hours
daily, something was wrong with you and it was 'bad for team morale'. I was
also pretty horribly underpaid, as evidenced by raising my salary over 200% by
leaving.

Seems to me the 'white' part is being called out unfairly considering the rest
of tech isn't a whole lot different, demographically speaking.

~~~
saraid216
Not really. That kind of environment leads to a lot of prejudiced thinking.
You see it happen in the rest of tech, too: people who have the screws twisted
on them, willingly or not, cope one way or another... and most people cope by
reinforcing their self-esteem with delusions of superiority.

That's one reason why we have religious wars over operating systems and
programming languages and tool sets that you don't see in other engineering
cultures. (And also why more relaxed companies focus more on the mantra of
"right tool for the job".) Since I don't touch gamedev with an eleven-foot-
pole, it's not clear to me how much of a cost has been incurred by this.

And it's this exact kind of thing which lets unexamined biases manifest in the
hiring process, leading to an overpopulation of white males.

~~~
InclinedPlane
Two tangential points I want to hit quickly.

First, most software developers are taught "computer science" (or an imitation
of it) in their formal education, not engineering.

Second, software is mostly not engineering. Engineering is very measurable.
But software includes a lot of design and craftsmanship. If software dev. were
restricted only to the portion that could reasonably be called pure
engineering it would be a very, very small subset of mostly systems code.
Indeed, a good hunk of software dev. could properly be called merely arts and
crafts, under such a strict interpretation.

I think this explains some of the religious wars, because the debates are more
aesthetic such as "do you prefer charcoal or pencil" than engineering "which
is better steel or aluminum", because purely engineering questions tend to
have very much more straightforward answers.

~~~
marze
So if it isn't science, and isn't engineering, what is it closest to in terms
of other endeavors?

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Sorcery. It's poetry that has to actually accomplish something.

~~~
saintx
Specifically, datamancy.

------
kitsune_
Most trendy, fashionable and 'glamorous' jobs are like this. A lot of suckers
want to get into the field, and the employers know this.

I know people who work in haute-couture shops. They typically clock in 14+
hours per day, and regularly work insane hours on the weekend. The weeks
leading up to a fashion show / collection are brutal. These people have years
of experience and managerial responsibilities, yet their salaries are
absolutely laughable (I'd say a waiter often earns more than them).

~~~
w1ntermute
> Most trendy, fashionable and 'glamorous' jobs are like this.

Which is why the smart thing to do is to go for the most unfashionable job (or
market, if you're starting a business) you can find that provides a product
that your customers simply can't live without. You just don't want to be
selling an elastic product, and you don't want to be in an industry where
there's supply-side competition from people who are doing the work purely
because they enjoy it.

Healthcare is especially good in this respect. People will (quite literally)
die without your product, and the payer is just about as far from the consumer
as you can get, which makes demand highly inelastic. Your business isn't
profitable? No worries, just double your prices. What are they going to do,
stop paying you? And how much competition are you going to get (as a worker)
when the work can't be outsourced and you can't hire a kid out of high school
to do the work based on his GitHub profile?

~~~
munificent
> Which is why the smart thing to do is to go for the most unfashionable job

That assumes that you don't get any value out of having a glamorous job. Sure,
there are tons of people that want to be game developers. Why? Because a lot
of things about being a game developer are awesome! You get a laid-back
working environment, you get to work with artists and other exciting, creative
people, the work is technically challenging, you spend your day looking at
monsters and explosions instead of spreadsheets and forms. People you meet
will be excited to talk to you about your work. If you're lucky, you create
something that people will form real emotional attachment to.

It's not _smarter_ to choose a higher-salary job, because salary-maximization
is not the goal of life. You spend much of your waking life at work, and a
bigger salary won't give you those hours of your life back. You may as well
try to make them be something you love.

~~~
w1ntermute
> That assumes that you don't get any value out of having a glamorous job.

The only value you get out of having a "glamorous job" is that other people
_think_ you have a glamorous job. Glamour has to do with _perception_ , not
reality.

> Sure, there are tons of people that want to be game developers. Why? Because
> a lot of things about being a game developer are awesome!

Wrong. They want to be game developers because they _think_ a lot of things
about being a game developer are awesome. Once again, this deals only with
_perception_.

> You get a laid-back working environment, you get to work with artists and
> other exciting, creative people, the work is technically challenging, you
> spend your day looking at monsters and explosions instead of spreadsheets
> and forms...If you're lucky, you create something that people will form real
> emotional attachment to.

From the numerous comments on this thread alone, _actually_ being a game
developer is about as far from any of those things as you can get.

> People you meet will be excited to talk to you about your work.

This is probably the only thing on your list that is true, but if your
happiness is primarily based on what other people think about you, you have a
lot bigger problems in life than what your job is.

> You may as well try to make them be something you love.

I never said that you shouldn't do something you love. My point was that you
should consider the bias of _perception_ on market dynamics when determining
your occupation, rather than falling prey to the trap of perception, like a
lot of people do.

~~~
MrScruff
I work in a related industry (film) and you're mostly wrong here. The work
itself is what keeps people in the industry, and the work is genuinely more
fun than other jobs I've had for a number of reasons.

\- You're expected to always be on the absolute cutting edge in an extremely
fast moving area, computer graphics.

\- The ultimate goal of the projects is to make images that are so appealing,
people will pay money to see them projected on a screen. This is fun.

\- It requires extremely high levels of creative and technical proficiency,
and to do really well ideally you'll have components of both.

\- You work with people who are extremely passionate about what they do, and
not what it might pay them. This does actually make a difference.

Now there are definitely significant down sides, but it's not that people are
brainwashed into thinking they enjoy their work.

~~~
w1ntermute
Sigh...you've _completely_ missed my point.

> The work itself is what keeps people in the industry, and the work is
> genuinely more fun than other jobs I've had for a number of reasons.

Let me say once again:

My point was that you should consider the bias of perception on market
dynamics when determining your occupation, rather than falling prey to the
trap of perception, like a lot of people do.

If your job really is as fun as it is perceived to be, then everything I've
said obviously doesn't apply to you.

Now, I don't know anything about the film industry first-hand, but I've heard
plenty of stories from friends and acquaintances about how ridiculously
difficult it is to get into (primarily on the acting side of things, though,
so it may not apply to your particular occupation). There's definitely a
reporting bias. For every person like you who is happily employed in the film
industry, there are hundreds of people who journeyed to Hollywood with the
hopes of making it big and then realized that things weren't so easy.

~~~
MrScruff
I work in the post-production side of the film industry. Most people working
in film aren't actors or celebrities. It has absolutely nothing to do with
making it big in Hollywood.

It is very similar to working in the games industry, to the extent that people
can easily move between the two.

It also suffers from some of the negative aspects of the games industry,
namely punishing hours and relatively poor compensation compared to similarly
challenging roles in other areas of technology.

However, as I said, it's fun work. Too much of it, certainly. But nonetheless
fun. The games industry is similar. That's the point I'm making.

~~~
w1ntermute
> However, as I said, it's fun work. Too much of it, certainly. But
> nonetheless fun. The games industry is similar. That's the point I'm making.

And the point I'm making is that the games industry isn't similar (in that it
isn't as fun as people make it out to be), as evidenced by numerous such
assertions by various people who have worked in the industry.

~~~
MrScruff
I know plenty of people who work or have worked in the game industry. They're
not claiming that the work isn't fun, they're claiming it's difficult to lead
a normal life with the demands it makes on your time.

The actual work is fun, that's why many people work on similar things in their
spare time.

------
jamieb
The games industry is populated by young, inexperienced people and that has
two effects:

1\. A belief that any obstacle can be overcome, any deadline met

2\. One tool in the toolbox: I can personally make this happen by writing
enough clever code

There is very little:

a. Has this been done before?

And even when that is present, a total absence of

b. How long did it take them?

As is said in the article, management selects people from the first group, and
actively punishes anyone who asks questions.

Now, this latter may be true in any large industry where there's more money
than sense, but so far my experience is that only in the games industry is
this coupled with insane hours and a hit-driven industry that makes failure a
guarantee of layoffs.

------
NickPollard
As someone with 5 years experience in the industry, this article is spot on
the money for everything I experienced.

It's a huge problem, both by discriminating against people unwilling or unable
to put in ridiculous hours, and by driving away those talented women and men
who are finally becoming experienced experts when they become so burned out
they have to leave the industry.

I worked in games for 5 years. I no longer do. I had a lot of good times but
I'll never work for a mainstream games company again.

~~~
gameIntern
I'm a software engineering student about to start an internship(Paid, 4
months) at a major game studio.

I am considering applying for a job once I complete the internship if
everything goes well.

I would like to see if the studio where I will work has a decent workflow. If
not I would be willing to tough it out as a generalist programmer while trying
to apply to other jobs that interest me in another industry. The idea is to
have decently impressive job on my resume and to have fun at work.

Do you think this is a reasonable idea?

~~~
ardit33
Keep in mind that your job might look bad in your resume. Given the bad rep
gaming companies have, only people that are inexperienced/not that good, or
clueless go to the industry.

I know you have to start your career somewhere, but keep that in mind.

~~~
NateDad
Uh, as a developer of 13 years who has never been in the gaming industry... I
question your generalization. I have never seen or heard of anyone saying game
programmers are inferior or clueless in my professional career. Granted, I
work in Boston, so things may be different here, but it's really not a
characterization I at all recognize.

~~~
MartinCron
Yeah, I wouldn't look at someone with big-game-studio experience as an
inferior, just perhaps a little naive and might need a little calibration as
to what a sustainable work pace actually looks like.

------
dicroce
I really, truly, honestly believe that above 9 hours a day for an extended
period of time actually ends up hurting your development efforts.

You want developers who come into work and WORK. Not work a little, check a
little HN, work a little, eat, check a little Reddit. Living at work forces
coping mechanisms like this on you because you really only have a finite
amount of creative attention.

~~~
potatolicious
You'll find no disagreement anywhere on that point. The nature of the games
industry is not based on any rational basis - the overwork is cultural, deeply
ingrained, and completely irrational.

People who are overworked for extended periods have _negative_ productivity -
you can't throw a rock without hitting a dozen studies that have proven this
decade after decade.

This sort of management and process is pure cargo cult - this is the way
blockbusters have been made since ages past, so this is the way blockbusters
will continue to be made, even if it is woefully inefficient and costs more
than a saner attitude about work.

For a long time the regular non-game software industry was a lot like this
also, except unlike the games industry there wasn't a long enough lineup of
impressionable, desperate young graduates waiting to be drawn and quartered by
the executioner inside. Nothing meaningful will change until the supply of
people willing to take on this horrible system dries up.

~~~
acgourley
I want to believe you're right. But I fear game industry is sufficiently large
and long lived that if you were right, someone would have tried it, come out
ahead, and created a new cargo cult cuture. I think that a more likely
explanation is that working long hours has huge diminishing returns, but for
_game development tasks_ the teams come out a bit ahead. This may have to do
with the fact that many of the mainstream games in question have fairly
established practices and structure, and a lot of the work is building a huge
pile of uninspiring content. Literally modeling rocks and dirt, for example.

------
munificent
I was a game programmer at EA for eight years.

> The real problem however is not that they are immature when they get in, but
> that too often they get out once they reach maturity,

This is pretty spot-on. One of the main reasons I left the industry was
because I got tired of it being perpetual amateur hour. I felt like I didn't
know much and yet I often knew more than those around me.

I worked on one game where more than 50% of the engineers had never shipped a
game before. Those that had spent all of their time fire-fighting the messes
created by the energetic yet clueless brigade of novices.

> Many companies want to own your work even when you’re off the clock. “Here
> at Nine Dots, we aren't using any non-concurrence agreements, so these
> personal projects can actually benefit them financially if they make
> something that is commercially viable,” Boucher-Vidal said.

This was also another major reason I left EA. I couldn't work on games in my
free time. Meanwhile, the stuff I did at work didn't actually scratch that
itch: it was either huge franchise games I couldn't care less about or
technology stack stuff that wasn't an actual game. I spent more time feeling
like I was "making games" when I _didn't_ work at EA.

> Until there is evidence that other models will work, and that's going to
> take a hit game or two, very little with change, and the revolving door of
> young, white, childless men will continue to make our games.

I honestly don't believe this will significantly change. I compare the game
industry to the music industry. In both, you have:

1\. A product that people don't _need_ to consume.

2\. A product where consumers increasingly expect prices to be tiny or zero.

3\. Hordes of young people who want to do it.

4\. Work that is intrinsically satisfying for its own sake.

Push aside all of the bullshit and making games is crazy fun. Lots of people
want to make them. Lots of people want to play them too, but they don't really
want to shell out much cash to do so. I think the end result of this is that
it's just a domain where it will be a young person's game and it's very hard
to make a lot of money.

Yes, _some_ companies will be able to make real money at it, but for every
Rolling Stones, there's a thousand local independent bands playing dive bars
that you've never heard of.

And _that's OK_. I was in one of those bands you've never heard of once. It
was _awesome_. When I had kids, I gave it up, but I certainly don't regret it.
Maybe we should think of making games the same way: a fun thing to spend a few
years doing when you're young and have the time.

~~~
mortenjorck
I agree with everything you've said except for one thing: Giving it up. EIther
making games or making music.

Both of these pursuits are entirely compatible with having kids and a normal
job, so long as you pursue them in a way compatible with your lifestyle. You
don't have to go on the road and live out of a van to be in a band; you can
pick up some cheap hardware and software and record at home. Record a vocal
take, change a diaper, add some reverb, let Dropbox sync the file for your
bandmates to add to tomorrow.

Same thing for games. There's no reason you can't make an indie game when
you're older and have more responsibilities; you just need to work with the
right kind of team, on the right kind of game, with the right kind of scope.

~~~
munificent
I thought about adding some caveats when I said "gave it up", but didn't for
simplicity's sake. I do still have my gear and every now and then I pluck on
it.

Yes, you can still _record solo_ , but that's _making music_. What I gave up
was _being in a band_. Keeping up with bandmates, practicing regularly for
several hours a week, and playing shows in bars is possible but much harder
when you have kids. I also find it much harder to keep up momentum when it's
just me and just in my free time.

Ditto for making games. You certainly can make them in your free time (and I
do), but it's a different experience from what you can get jammed in the same
room with a few other inspiring people for hours at a time. In today's
"everything digital, everything asynchronous" world, I think we seriously
undervalue to importance of being _there with people_.

------
mrcharles
I've been making games for nearly 15 years now. I am an early 30s white man. I
am good at what I do, and can work anywhere I want, at this point in my
career. I'm happily married, though we don't have (nor want) kids.

I think the article is somewhat accurate, but I think it also pays short
shrift to the improvements that are happening in games.

One of the big things I've noticed in recent years is the amount of people who
enter games who are aware of the quality of life issues, and practice work to
rule more often than not. It puts pressure on managers to learn to schedule
properly, and it puts pressure on directors to learn when to cut.

On top of that, there are a lot of studios that lean older in terms of age.
Ubisoft Montreal is a good example of this; I couldn't tell you what the
average age is, but I know that it's just as likely someone has a kid at home
as not, and that also puts a lot of pressure to run things right.

Also a lot of the managers these days have kids at home that they want to see,
so if nothing else, they are improving their methods for selfish reasons.

There's still a long way to go in games, but the game industry today isn't
anything like what it was in 2000. It has been nearly a decade since I was
expected to pull an all-nighter, for one. It's been nearly that since I was
expected to work both a saturday AND a sunday.

These days it's not impossible to find developers who believe in quality of
life. But what is very very possible is to find a place to work where it won't
be held against you that you have a family at home, and I think that's largely
what this article is missing.

That recent photo eulogy of Lucas Arts talked about things that I literally
have not seen since before 2005; it's not shocking that a studio which would
expect people to miss funerals and prioritize work over relationships would
fail to put out games of quality.

The game industry still has far to go, there's no doubt about it. But if you
want to have a family, there are large swaths of the game industry these days
who are perfectly willing to accommodate you without complaint.

~~~
laeus
This is extremely accurate based on my 11+ years of experience in the industry
(across two studios). After some large AAA projects threatened people's
relationships and overall happiness, many steps were taken to improve things,
such as near-elimination of crunch and a high overall amount of respect for
people's personal lives.

Note that I actually fit into the article's title as a 35 year old guy who
doesn't plan on having kids. I will often spend a few extra hours polishing
something up because I relish the end result and because it energizes me to
come in to work every day. Sure, I could make "double the money for half the
work" in some other industry, but I love making games and can't imagine
sacrificing my passion to make some equation look better on paper. But I never
pressure others to stay late, and from what I'm seeing these days, more and
more studios are converting to a reasonable outlook on developer productivity
and happiness.

------
InclinedPlane
It's all the things that are wrong with software development in silicon valley
with the extra seasoning of a huge backlog of people who will do anything to
break into the industry. There's no shortage of 20 somethings with coding
chops willing to work 60, 80, or 100 hours a week at 2/3 or 1/2 the pay they'd
make outside the game industry. And the same goes for artists too. So game
companies hoover up that talent and crank out games, although it comes at a
cost because it's not exactly the best model for quality or sustainability.

Edit: And the major downside of working this way is that you don't have the
slack needed to truly innovate (technically or artistically).

Some companies do a better job (Valve comes to mind), and those companies tend
to focus on quality and unique IP over schedule pressure. Also, indie game
development is becoming a bigger part of the industry. The bad-old-ways are
still hugely profitable for many game studios though so I imagine it will take
a good long while for things to change.

Edit2: Also, the working conditions part is just one way that game dev is
maybe 20-ish years behind software dev (on average) in terms of best
practices. You can see this in lots of other aspects as well such as
development patterns, QA, tooling, release management, etc.

------
BSousa
I as well quit the industry because of this. While I never had it that bad (I
knew I couldn't be productive after 8-9 hours so I just left at the time) nor
was I ever 'attacked' for it, I can imagine I may have been overlooked on
raises/promotions for it.

But there is one good thing I would say about the industry. You LEARN ALOT.
C/C++/AI/Shaders/Animation and the intrinsics of low-level hardware, all in a
days work. Compared to most folks I know that didn't spend time in the
industry, their only experience with those topics was a semester in
University.

Just yesterday there was a topic here in HN about python/ruby being slow, and
while going down to C was suggested, I find appalling that most of the replies
to those were 'it is hard to find a decent C programmer' or 'most of the
ruby/python devs don't know C'. I can honestly say I this isn't an issue for
me and for most I know that I worked in the industry. Heck my previous job had
me writing nginx C modules and C++ cross platform
(iOS/Android/Mac/Windows/Linux) download/caching/audio code.

~~~
endtime
"C/C++/AI/Shaders/Animation" is "a lot" to learn in a career?

~~~
BSousa
No, I mentioned in a day. Sometimes you mess with all that kind of code in a
day (I mentioned C and C++ as base)

~~~
mikevm
Do you need to have relevant background before you can touch that code? How
does that work?

~~~
BSousa
My background has always been Game AI so that was the part I worked 90% of the
time. The thing about games is usually, it is hard to just remain on the same
general code. AI is related to movement, which is related to collision
detection and animation, and sometimes you have to go through the rabbit hole
deeper and deeper to either try and find a bug or why code doesn't work, or to
make something work like you want.

In smaller companies, most of the time, Gameplay programmer = Just do whatever
it needs to be done, including shaders, AI, sound, etc.

------
zdw
This comes down to supply and demand - people want to work on games, and don't
see a way to get a experience and/or a paycheck out of it outside the large
companies.

This isn't weird, because people aren't rational - I know plenty of people who
took degrees in fields where the supply of labor outnumbers the jobs
available, and thus work less than ideal hours, for less pay and more abuse
than they should.

I'd love for everyone to be able to do what they love, but frankly this is
frequently the result.

Also, there's an unfortunate truncation on that URL...

~~~
ijk
I think that's changing a bit, though. There are a lot more independant
developers and people who are skipping the mainstream publishing/dev-studio
industry and finding better success. And if they're both irrational choices,
why not?

Some examples: the game that swept the GDC Choice awards was Journey, made by
a small independent studio with an exclusivity deal rather than a more
traditional publishing relationship. Minecraft is one of the best-selling
games of all time: the XBox 360 version alone sold more than Gears of War 2,
to give you a point of comparison. The average indie game won't see this level
of success, of course, but _neither will the average big-publishing mainstream
game_.

------
crazygringo
So, here's my honest-to-god question.

When I was last interviewing for programming jobs in New York, only _one_ of
the places I interviewed at (and I looked at a _lot_ of companies) wanted
people working more than 40 hours a week, on a regular basis (they were a
startup with a fixed runway). All the other places (a mix of established
companies and startups) made it very clear that work-life balance is important
to them, and that normal workweeks and generous vacation time was to be
expected.

So I read these stories about people being asked to work 80+ hours a week, and
I can't for the life of me figure out _why_ anybody does this, when there are
so many companies which _don't_ ask for it. And it's not like the 80+ hour
jobs pay any better, as far as I can tell.

What's going on here? Is it geographical? Industry-based? Do some programmers
just not know any better?

~~~
jarek
When these people want to work on games, they want to work on games, not "at a
programming job." You see phrases like "childhood dream" going around, and to
people who spent their childhoods playing games, making games is much cooler
than making any other kind of software.

~~~
numo16
It was my "dream job" to work in some big name game studio one day. Then,
after reading studio horror stories and working in other normal programming
jobs, I realized that I had all this extra time outside of work that I could
use to make games on my own terms. That made the decision easy for me :)

------
justinhj
Counter example here. 42 and still happy and thriving in the games industry
and married with children. I'm happy to say I have read my kids stories every
night of their lives (out of town trips excluded), and make it home for a
family meal 95% of the time. You can't do this at every game company, but
there are enough out there that you can find them.

~~~
jstelly
I'm in a very similar situation. Finding the right company (or starting your
own) seems to be the key to happiness. Don't write off the entire industry
because of bad companies.

------
schoper
Using "white" as a casual negative adjective is weak. I can respect non-whites
using it as a term of anger or hatred. We're all big boys. But seeing it used
as a term of self-hatred leaves me feeling more than a little disgusted.

~~~
calibraxis
Well, I wouldn't necessarily call it self-hatred, just as it's reasonable for
many males to "hate" the male gender. I have serious issues with the social
construct of gender, with its inculcation of aggression/subordination and
bizarre attitudes, dress codes, etc. As a male, it's acceptable for me to
"hate" maleness, and I think that's better than leaving only females to
dismantle patriarchy.

(Then again, in the sense that I dislike the odd parts of me which have been
bent by race and gender, and actively wish them to disappear, maybe there is
something to calling it "self-hate". But it's like the self-hate of a novice,
who wishes to transcend their current inability.)

So hopefully we might accept that race is a similar, complicated -ism, and
it's fine to be a "race traitor" or gender traitor if yours dominates.

~~~
Camillo
Frankly, you sound very similar to those homosexuals with strongly traditional
religious beliefs who try to purge themselves of their "twisted" part.

~~~
Crake
I'm GLBT and I just made a post along similar lines above, ha.

------
tomku
This is a major reason why I gave up on my childhood dream of being a game
developer. The industry is screwed, and it'll continue to be as long as it's
profitable to create games like that.

In fact, it's only going to get worse as people keep expecting more and more
out of next-gen games. AAA game budgets can't keep skyrocketing like they did
over the past decade, and that means squeezing the workforce to produce more
with less.

~~~
GuiA
If you ever want to fulfill your childhood dream, you can always go indie.

If you're a programmer, contracting out the art/music is very common, and the
indie dev community is quite small and self-organizing for that kind of stuff.

------
ianstallings
This applies to start ups also. The mentality is that it's nothing but coding
12-14 hours a day and anything less is, well, less. I try to fight this type
of thinking by showing how others have done it rationally and how it truly is
just another engineering challenge that can be solved with proper techniques.

But what doesn't help is the hordes of people that seem to be invading the
industry, yet again, in search of riches and just want to learn the bare
minimum. Get in and get paid so they can get out. The analogy I often use is
poker. For some it's just a way to strike it rich and the lure of those riches
draws a lot of people in. But for some of us it's a way of life. We wake up in
the middle of the night yearning for the game. And no matter how much we make
we'll never walk away because we love the game so much. How can you explain
that to someone who just wants to hit aces, scoop a pot, and then leave a
"winner"?

Put simply - how can we bring rational thinking back to startups? How can we
convince others that experience is important, engineering and architecture are
important, tools are important, and it's not just some quest for riches?

------
__--__
I'm also a 29 year old childless white man working in the games industry and
yes, the numbers and discussion surrounding the demographics of games workers
are accurate. The problem is, it doesn't prove the premise made in the
article.

The argument being made is that game are bland and homogenous because they're
made by childless white men. The childless white men the article is talking
about aren't actually making the decisions about anything that goes into the
game. They are assembly line workers, not management. You could replace them
all with an outsourced team from India or hire an all female team and the only
thing that would change is the bug count and level of productivity.

The end product would remain the same because it's being driven by executives.

------
louthy
The reason I left the games industry after 10 years (aged 31) was because
there was a serious lack of professionalism with project delivery, which leads
to ridiculous hours, and the pay really isn't worth it after a while.

As the consoles got more and more powerful, the pressure to deliver next-gen
experiences just overwhelms the team. Quite often at the expense of delivering
good gameplay.

I worked at a number of medium sized development houses, and the failure rate
was probably 75%+. Some games wouldn't make it to market after 2 years+
development, some would make it to market but the publisher buried it (no real
marketing). The most successful title I worked on was one for Nintendo, where
the focus was on the gameplay (our producer was Shigeru Miyamoto). Even that
title was massively late.

I was an engine and tools programmer and I believe the level of complexity of
the systems being developed (to fit into consoles with very little power, slow
memory etc.) was pretty high compared to development in most other fields. So
the rewards should be there too.

However, I think the constant struggle that development houses have to keep
their heads above water - due to the high failure rate of games - means that
the rewards aren't competitive. So naturally you start looking elsewhere,
especially if you have new found responsibilities in your life.

It's a shame really, because it's actually one of the most fun and creative
fields to develop for (in my experience) - however it's just set up for
burnout and disillusionment.

I left 7 years ago to form a healthcare software startup here in the UK and
haven't looked back since.

~~~
Crake
Off topic sort of, but--how is the programming market for developers in the
UK? I'm an EE major and think it'd be cool to live abroad for a while after I
get my degree, but I've heard the UK doesn't treat their engineers very well.
Does this extend to developers too?

~~~
louthy
There's a strong startup community in the UK (well London at least), also lots
of games companies, and then you have the financial sector where the rewards
are very high (if soul destroying). So yeah there's lots going on.

Obviously it depends which company you work for in terms of how well you're
treated, that's obviously an intangible. For example I employ several
developers now, and I very, very rarely ask them to work out of hours.

If they have ever done it then it's because they wanted to, I also will stop
them working excessive hours - which stops the peer-pressure aspect of the
long-hours culture.

I give clear ownership of key areas of our product to developers, so they feel
a sense of pride and responsibility for what they're doing.

I will also offer pay rises when I feel they're underpaid, I don't want to
wait until they're halfway out of the door before offering what they're worth.
Also I'm flexible with working-hours and remote working.

It's not hard to have a basic respect for your staff.

Even the games industry which I said didn't pay well, with long hours etc. is
good to work in as a young developer. It's a very creative environment to be
in, and most of the programmers I worked with were hyper-talented and have
gone on to running their own startups, or are high up the food chain now.

So in terms of learning ones trade and gaining long term contacts it's great.

~~~
Crake
Thanks for the information. :)

~~~
louthy
No problem :)

------
Sumaso
I don't see the gaming industry changing anytime soon.

Just like actors and actresses go to Hollywood to be in show business. Many
programmers enter the gaming industry so they can work on games.

While I love video games, I can't see myself in the gaming industry.

------
eldude
This article is true to a T.

An avid gamer all my life, I joined a game company to work on a gamer centric
non-gaming project. Without saying much about my time there, it culminated
upon completion with the entire team being laid off, with only the lowest paid
hardest working "white childless males" being kept on because they fit the
founder's expectations of ideal workers.

------
pkaler
I worked in game development for 5 years and left when I was about 28 years
old. This article is pretty much spot on.

I like to work a lot. I like to work 60 to 80 hours a week. The things is that
reward has to be somewhat commensurate with effort. And as a developer you are
expected to take a discount compared to adjacent markets. That just doesn't
make sense when you have a car, a mortgage, and like to take two vacations a
year.

------
swalsh
This has nothing to do with gaming in particular. But experience has taught me
something. Working more hours != producing more. Daily productivity is a
finite resource. You have a choice, you can spread it out over the whole day,
or you can try to cram it in 8 hours. Its a lot easier to do all day long.
Cramming it in 8 hours is harder. So when I go to work, and look at these
family guys who come in at 9 and leave at 5. They get my respect and my
jealously, not because i want to work less hours. But rather because I'm not
capable of starting productivity at 9am. Its a completely counter intuitive
concept, the idea of diminishing returns is hard to grasp as a kid.

------
star0zero
Another great piece on the same topic: [http://www.penny-
arcade.com/report/article/lucasarts-eulogy-...](http://www.penny-
arcade.com/report/article/lucasarts-eulogy-reminds-us-of-the-inhuman-cost-of-
game-development)

Key quote? "If the cost of a fun game is a failed marriage, then it may be
time to admit that the cost is too high." - agreed.

------
sageikosa
Statistically, the odds are that for any random thing being done in the US of
A, the majority doing it will be white and male. Age and childlessness are
probably relatively well co-related, so we only have to account for one of
those.

What is comes down to is that the steady supply of labor entering a field
causes it to be a buyers market.

~~~
Thrymr
Hardly the "majority". White males are less than 40% of the US population. I
don't think we're going out on much of a limb to say that they are
overrepresented in the game industry.

~~~
sageikosa
"Plurality" then, still the odds are on the white guy for any random task. I'm
not really making a judgment, just trying to frame thoughts on the
significance of the correlative factors. For non-random tasks (such as game
development) we can certainly look to see why the variance of the population
diverges from the variance of the general population and hypothesize to our
hearts content.

------
thenomad
This helps explain why I'm starting to feel the games industry isn't catering
to people like me as far as storylines go.

I find that AAA games are often very disappointing in as far as they're full
of one-dimensional characters, terrible cliches and limited understanding of
anyone who isn't young and male. (I'm relatively young and male, but enjoy
stories that aren't entirely filled with people like me.)

There's a market for video games with a storyline written by someone with some
maturity. It might even pay for sane office hours...

~~~
InclinedPlane
A big part of that is that the whole of the game is built in a rush by people
with no free time who are probably chronically sleep deprived. The machinery
of the game ends up being essentially propped up on sticks and held together
with bailing wire. As such the stories that you can fit in such rickety and
uncertain machinery is typically the most linear. The more complex and dynamic
a story is the harder it is to avoid big bugs within the story itself or due
to the interaction of the story and the game engine. It also makes testing
much more difficult, which is already short on resources for most games.

There's so much churn in the basic technology of gaming systems that it makes
it difficult if not impossible to concentrate on only story telling.

------
jamesrcole
The article's title claims it's going to show _why_ the people making the
games are white, but the article makes no attempt to actually do so. (And, no
pointing out statistics is not the same as explaining why).

------
trotsky
It seems like some sort of natural law that any industry with a lot of revenue
and teens/young adults dream of working in ends up with similar issues. Poor
work environment, poor or deceptive compensation, tons of time or travel,
psychopathic management and some sort of age bracket.

That best describes the game industry, but it fits the major label side of the
music industry, the bottom 95% of pro snowboarding, military combat, resort
work and i'm sure there's more.

And if include a set that misses just one of the traits you arguably could ad
tv and film, the junior level investment banking scene, pro sports maybe.

Hell, startup employee is a fairly close fit as well.

I think it's just human nature - young people have a lot of passion, energy
and without a stretch of office employment may lack some of the context
necessary to decide how exploitative or appropriate various demands are.

Given some of the common psychological traits often associated with officers
and directors at many firms, it's not surprising that a certain number of them
would see no problem in or perhaps even their responsibility to structure
their business or process to take advantage of (exploit) this pool of people
that dream of being part of it.

At some point, whether or not the constant crunch turnover and burnout is
worth it versus a more sustainable style that increased retention and
experience level seems like an unsolvable riddle for any firm thats culture
has been built on crunching.

Anybody who has made it to senior management in these places has done so by
being successful at executing the model and getting their underlings to work
under those conditions. If you can't stomach it you won't stick around. So
essentially upper management is full of people who have shown they're cool
with it and have seen it work. Some probably flat out enjoy it.

With this kind of environment it's hard to believe you could even finish
pitching the idea, let alone get enough traction to investigate or even come
up with a plan to implement something that would take so long to have any
measurable results.

Unless great results came quickly, I'd be surprised if they had more than two
years before everybody got sacked and they reversed coarse

------
Aloisius
Why do games require so many developers to work 20 hour days? Aren't most of
games built on commercial engines that do most of the heavy lifting?

I've been following the Doublefine guys and a lot of their development was put
into making developer tools. I suppose I understand that, but when I hear of
these 400 person teams building a game that takes 4 years to make, I'm
honestly a little bewildered.

~~~
ijk
A huge chunk of that team size is artists, level designers, testing, audio,
and studio overhead. Not that there aren't lots of programmers too, especially
in a game with lots of scripted levels and separate systems. But it isn't like
it's a team of 400 programmers.

Also, while the engines do most of the visual stuff, which was what a lot of
the '90s-era tech-talk revolved around, they do nothing to implement your
gameplay.

Here's the credits for one of those big-team games, as an example (81 or so
engineers/scripters, but only a fraction of the total team size):
[http://www.mobygames.com/game/xbox360/call-of-duty-black-
ops...](http://www.mobygames.com/game/xbox360/call-of-duty-black-ops/credits)

------
azatris
Perhaps it's a bit offtopic, but as I have not found myself a good pet
language that I'd truly make my favourite yet, being a 21-year old university
student, is there any other reasons of studying, learning C++ as an all-around
language, than being in the game industry? The dream of working for a company
like Valve has pushed me into learning C++, but I am not so sure anymore
whether that is a good choice due to both the horror stories and simple
statistics. I want to make the best possible investment in my future and so
these kind of articles are strong manipulators.

I do love programming, even more than games, so it wouldn't be a problem for
me to work at something less gamey. But should I nonetheless continue with
cherishing C++ and making it the best language for me? Your replies are highly
valued. Also, I do understand, that in reality, it's unlikely ever about just
one language.

~~~
gordaco
C++ has plenty of uses outside games and it's still one of the most demanded
languages, although here on HN most people seem to work on web development and
rarely need C++.

The truth is, if you don't like C++, you won't like working on an industry
that relies heavily on it (however, not every game is done in C++, and
certainly few games use it exclusively), so in that case it may be a good idea
to go for another industry where you feel more comfortable. If you like C++,
of course, keep using it, and don't worry about finding a C++ job, they're
still very common.

The best advice, and the one you'll read around here most often, is: don't
learn a single language. It's OK that you specialize in C++ (so do I), but
never put all your eggs on a single basket. From C++ you can very easily go to
C, Java and C#, which also provide a lot of jobs, and outside of the C family
there is a whole universe of languages you should always be aware of.

~~~
azatris
I really like the way C++11 is and I already see how it is in so many ways
more likeable than Java as an OO language. But a question arises: would the
common C++ jobs be maintaining legacy C++98 codebases?

Also, when I am thinking about possibly being in web development, then is it a
much more diverged path from the C family or could I somehow keep this as an
open option? Is the easiest solution simply learn e.g. Javascript in parallel?

~~~
gordaco
Good question. It depends on the field, I guess.

In academia there are a lot of ad hoc scientific simulations, and yes, many
people still prefer C++ over Matlab, R or Numpy (because of speed or because
they feel more comfortable with it). In those cases, you'll write a few
medium-sized programs from scratch, and will probably be free to use the new
features.

In videogames you will likely develop new code over an existing engine, which
means that C++11 may be available, but the engine will probably be written in
an older version of C++, and C++11 maybe won't be allowed during engine
maintenance.

When maintaining big ancient systems, which are all over the place, chances
are that you will be restricted to C++03 or maybe an even older version, but
it's not the only possibility, so you may get lucky.

In any case, C++11-ready compilers should accept C++98 and C++03 code, so
there is always the option of starting to use modern compilers, and when every
potential problem is solved, you can use the C++11 features. Just hope your
boss is not too averse to changes, and keep in mind that mixing modern style
C++ with older style may result in poorly readable code.

As for web development, well, there actually exist a few people using C or
C++, but the only languages from the C family you're likely to find on a web
server are Java and C#, and they're less and less prevalent nowadays. You're
more likely to find PHP, Python or Ruby. In the client you're obviously
restricted to javascript, but beware: despite the syntax, it's very different
from the C family. If you want to learn javascript, that surely won't hurt,
just keep in mind that it carries a few paradigm changes (lack of static
typing, object modeling and inheritance through prototypes, and A LOT of
quirks about the syntax).

------
brohn
As a game developer I work on average 38 hours a week, and have never done
more than 70 in a week. I come in for weekends once or twice near the end of a
project and I've never pulled an all-nighter. From what I've seen this is also
the case for most other programmers where I've worked, as most have families
or actual lives.

I've seen high-employee turnover before, and it's generally down to the
company demanding too much overtime or being disgustingly underpaid. There's
plenty of companies about now that understand overtime doesn't = productivity.

>Your average industry professional is a 31 year old white man with one to
three years of experience

I've got no idea how true this is, but in my experience it's around 3-6 years
average, though I've never worked for an indie or mega-studio, and I'm based
in the UK.

------
snaky
>Your average industry professional is a 31 year old white man with one to
three years of experience

I wonder, where was that 31 year old professional all his first 28 years? And
how could you call _professional_ a man with _three_ years of experience,
let's leave a _one_ year?

------
Macsenour
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Crunch time, or working more than
40 hours a week, is Producer Failure. Either they didn't make the schedule
correctly, or they let feature creep in.

More than once I've walked around the dev people and told them to go home
after 8 hours.

------
jstelly
It is possible to work in the games industry and have a family and not crunch
all of the time. It should be possible to determine which companies have or do
not have this problem without actually working for them. Look for a company
with a large population of experienced developers with families and you'll be
much less likely to encounter a culture like the one described in this
article. I've been in the games industry a long time and my working conditions
are great. It seems like it would be more useful for people working in the
industry to publish information about bad cultural issues at specific
companies than to generalize about the entire industry.

------
incision
Sounds about right.

The friends I've had spend time in games industry have either left or
transitioned to design consulting for all the same reasons cited.

However, I tend to think this problem is in the process of solving itself
through the continued rise of "indie" game development and slow collapse of
studio tiles [1].

There are all sorts of great outlets for people who are so inclined make and
publish games that didn't exist even 5 years ago.

Developers/designers don't have to buy into the established industry culture
to make and consumers don't have to pay into it to play.

1: [http://www.polygon.com/2012/10/1/3439738/the-state-of-
games-...](http://www.polygon.com/2012/10/1/3439738/the-state-of-games-state-
of-aaa)

------
heyitswin
Making games is probably one of the most time intensive things in the world,
and people only see the final product. Times have definitely changed,
technology has advanced, but game making is still extremely labor intensive
for humans.

------
st8ic
The fact that they are childless indicates that they don't have time to have
children, but how the hell is the fact that they're white relevant to the
point they're trying to make in the article?

~~~
numo16
> The fact that they are childless indicates that they don't have time to have
> children

Or they don't want them...It may be anecdotal, but I know a good many of
people around age (26) who don't really want to have kids

~~~
Crake
Yeah, seriously. (I'm one of them.)

------
webjprgm
I stopped reading at: "Ironically, in starting a video game studio to fight
these issues and prove that games can be made with sane schedules, Boucher-
Vidal has had to put off getting married and starting a family. “Luckily, my
girlfriend is incredibly supportive,” he said."

Your actions show your real priorities. How can he really mean what he's
trying to do if he doesn't live it himself?

I imagine this article gives me a very limited caricature of what's happening,
but I'm busy and will go read something else now.

~~~
freehunter
Being a founder is a lot different than being an employee. Many in leadership
don't live the life they hope their employees have. I know my CEO travels a
lot, puts off a lot of family time, and works insane hours. He still gives us
plentiful vacation time, great benefits, and even paternity leave. He doesn't
do it because he likes the lifestyle, he does it because it's what he feels
needs to be done to give his company a shot at changing the industry.

Liken it to a family. When I was a child, my mom was awake before us kids to
make breakfast, got us to school and then went to work, picked us up from
school and made dinner, and was in bed after us while she was cleaning the
house. She did this to ensure that us kids led a good life and had the things
we needed. Her kids and her home were her priority, like a CEO's employees and
company are their priority.

------
hkarthik
I'm curious where those of you who "left the gaming industry" ended up.

Are you guys now belting out CRUD apps using the latest web framework like the
rest of us? Or did some of you walk away from programming all together?

I'm just curious what a "post gaming" career looks like. Feel free to share
any numbers on how your pay/lifestyle changed as a result.

------
parnas
My sons thank you 31 year old childless white man. I don't believe they will
also become 31 year old childless white man because 1, they are asian, and 2,
they won't even take the trash out to the can, even if the can was where it
was supposed to be...

------
bwang8
Is the small percentage of veteran developer really due to low retention rate?
I am guessing it is more due to the industry not being as big 10 years ago.
20% of respondents with 10+ years could means the gaming industry gotten 5
times bigger 10 years ago.

------
yalogin
Why is this just a game industry problem? I thought the whole valley has this
problem. No?

------
victor9000
you also have to consider the amount of talent that this industry will never
see simply because developers have done their due diligence ahead of time,
have identified these quality of life issues, and have redirected their
careers.

------
dscrd
Does this apply to those extremely rare game studios that produce good games?

------
nathanfp
Would be really interesting to see what kinds of games/benefits occur in a
company that changes gears and embraces more flexible work weeks bringing in
older and more experienced workers.

------
p6v53as
Being a game developer is similar to being an astronaut or a pilot sometime
ago. Just wait a bit and it will solve itself out.

------
rks404
Dear childless 31 year old white men: Thanks for the all the good times!

------
papsosouid
First of all, the US is not the entire world. Especially not when it comes to
video game production. From my experiences, game development studios in
Canada, the US, and Japan have all had employees with ethnic backgrounds that
seem roughly similar to the overall ethnic backgrounds of their region. The US
is ~70% white, the fact that game studios in the US are ~70% white should not
be used as evidence of a problem.

------
gcb0
And the studios will just flick a swtich and change that? they don't even care
about better games. it's all about sales. and rightly so.

The issue is marketing and what the market become recently.

Games now work just like hollywood. It's just a matter of releasing something
with the right name at the right time.

