Recently there has been a very active discussion in the games industry with regard to the quality of life that developers experience. This public discourse has been fueled by a person known as EA_Spouse. As the name implies, she is the spouse of a game developer at Electronic Arts and wrote a personal blog entry complaining about the unfortunate situation that her husband was subjected to, commonly known in the games industry as “crunch time”. There are allegations of 80+ hour weeks, no overtime pay, no vacation time and no bonus pay, among other things. She is currently setting up GameWatch.org as a watchdog organization to monitor the practices of companies in the games industry.

While I will not comment on the practices at EA since I don't work for them and have not met anyone from EA that has a similar experience (on the contrary, I have heard of very good experiences with EA), it is important to understand that the number of these situations will continue to climb unless the development process is examined and overhauled. Why? Because the explosion and demand for video games has outpaced the maturation of the industry. Let me explain.

25+ years ago, small groups of devs. would sweat way into the night, 7 days a week, working on a game they all had a vested interest in making. It was their collective creation and you worked for the thrill of making something you love. Top Ramen, Foxmore pizza and RC Cola (who could afford the Real Coke?) were on the menu every day. Oh yeah, back then you could release a game with only 2-3 people working on it and turn a profit for the 3 of you. All art, audio, code, marketing being done by the 3 of you. And it was great.

Fast forward to the present and what has changed? Teams have become 10 larger than you can fit in your garage. Segmentation of the development process (physics coders, graphic artists, audio professionals, etc.) means that there are many people working on pieces, not the whole, of a game. This segmentation leads to tunnel vision and BAM! now it's work. The size of the teams and the fact that not everyone can have input into the process are alienating forces that breed contempt for the process and/or management.

We see this practice in most businesses that construct something for sale. I just built a new house and recently moved in (yeah!). The builder we used doesn't employ their own plumbers, framers, flooring or drywall guys. Everything is outsourced and the only people who work for the builder are architects, administrative folks and project leads. Why is the games industry any different? Just because you outsource your art doesn't mean that you will get a crap game. Moving to an outsourcing model allows you to choose the best talent for any given job.

So after describing the condition, what are some possible solutions?

1. Contract model: There are many new game companies that now refuse to hire large staffs because they realize that they don't need texture artists around when they are doing initial project planning. This in no way devalues the artist's contribution, just makes economic sense given that the rise in game development costs have now moved into the high single to low double million dollar bracket for a blockbuster game.

2. Reusable technology: Folks, this is the most OBVIOUS one and the one that is most often overlooked. Until very, very recently, the games industry was in a massive cycle of constantly recreating the same things over and over again (level editors, asset tools, client engines, IM clients, etc.) Electronic Arts, in a move I an only imagine was done to reduce development costs and provide technology consolidation, purchased Criterion, the creators of Renderware, and are now moving all internal development to this technology. So what is left for other development shops now that the most viable cross platform technology is owned by EA? Hello?....
   
   ANYONE GUESS WHAT I AM THINKING RIGHT NOW?
   
   The reality is that Java technologies are up to the task. Right now! There are cross platform Java APIs for 3D, audio, input, level editing, etc. that work with WinXP, OS-X, Linux and provide an easier developer environment than yada, yada, yada.... That is another post and a longer discussion. Just go check out the link right above this.

3. Raised awareness: Is the GameWatch.org site good or bad for the industry? Not sure yet (you know the old adage about someone telling 10 people about a bad experience vs. telling 2 about a good one) However, getting companies to understand that nothing comes for free and that pushing your people to the ends of their limits comes at a great cost, is a good thing. You hear companies say all the time that they are “doing more with less” which is just not true. They may mean that they have streamlined internal processes, become more efficient, or changed their practices, but you can't do more with less. 2 + 1 = 4? It doesn't compute. The game industry is forced to continue pumping out games at an incredible pace and with greater demands being placed upon them by consumers for more content, longer gameplay, etc. This pace can not be maintained without a fundamental shift in the manner in which professionals and companies in the games industry operate.

4. Rise of the Independents: The rise of independent game developer is occurring. With the availability of affordable development tools and access to a global audience through web distribution, we see more and more small game companies rise and gain attention. This year, we saw small game companies move into the console realm as well. With games like Alien Hominid and Katamari Damacy, both games picked up by large publishers and games like Far Cry and Chrome on the PC, small developers are demonstrating that they have the chops to compete with the big boys. Combined with the cross platform possibilities that technologies like Java affords the developer, there has never been a better time to jump into the industry as an independent developer. Welcome back to the garage :)

These issues don't just pertain to the game development industry, but reach all software markets in one way or another. So where is the line drawn? Share your thoughts and stories here.