12 hours a day 7 days a week is an 84 hour work week. I dunno, I do that pretty frequently, sometimes for weeks on end, and I know of plenty of other professions that do likewise. That of course assumes that what you've written isn't an exaggeration and they don't take an early night or a weekend off here or there, which I suspect more accurately represents what happens.
I just do not have a problem with those work practices. It's basically, "there are lots of great things about working here, but you have to realize that every year or three, you're going to have to grind through a period where it's eat-sleep-work for weeks. Don't sign on if you can't handle that."
Maybe my own work experience is creating some bias here, but like I say, I know for a fact you could hear the same thing from people in certain medical fields, investment bankers, some departments in the big 4... probably plenty entrepreneurs as well. I just cannot summon any umbrage about this.
How much money do you think you, or a medical professional, or an investment banker, is getting paid next to a developer?
And are your hours industry standard? Or exceptional in your industry?
How much money do you think you, or a medical professional, or an investment banker, is getting paid next to a developer?
And are your hours industry standard? Or exceptional in your industry?
I would say industry standard if you limit to the subset of large corporate law firms. Let's put it this way, my shop is certainly not the one people in the profession would point to as the firm that works people the hardest.
And I'm sure I get paid more than a video game developer, but I suspect that the job of video game developer at a studio like Naughty Dog is the sort of job that is in high demand, such that if you really love making video games, part of your compensation is getting to do it for the studio that makes some of the best ones there are. I suspect they won't have too much trouble filling the jobs of those who left with people who would love to work there and are willing to put up with the grind, in other words. I could be wrong, but that's what I would expect to happen.
That's often what the tradeoff is... either you make a bunch of money in exchange for the hours you're putting in, or you get to do the kind of work you really want to do, or some combination of the two.
__________________ "The great promise of the Internet was that more information would automatically yield better decisions. The great disappointment is that more information actually yields more possibilities to confirm what you already believed anyway." - Brian Eno
I think where you are in your life plays a big part. If it's just you and you have no family waiting at home it's not so bad if you love what you do.
When I worked in Vancouver on a 3D kids show we had to work months of OT sometimes and it got to me after a while. But had I been working for a game company I don't think I would have minded at all.
I think where you are in your life plays a big part. If it's just you and you have no family waiting at home it's not so bad if you love what you do.
When I worked in Vancouver on a 3D kids show we had to work months of OT sometimes and it got to me after a while. But had I been working for a game company I don't think I would have minded at all.
I don't think it's a great career choice for the average person. Seems like a lot of people end up burning out from the high stress environments and long hours. I think you have to really be in it for the love of games and have a very strong work ethic to make a good career out of it.
At the end of the day trying to proclaim anonymous sources from one article are more legit than anonymous sources from another is futile. If you read both article top to bottom you will see parallels in some of the comments. Seems like it was definitely a frustrating experience.
So you're telling me that someone like Jason Schreier who is an industry reporter that has done in depth research, written books on the subject and has numerous contacts in the industry is on equal footing for legitimacy with Niche Gamer, an anime games site that rounds up reddit rumours, likes to troll people on twitter and hates it when boobs are "censored"?
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My daughter just picked up this game on the weekend (I suspect we won't see much of her for a while, LOL). This may not mean much to most people, but aside from the fact that she loves it as much (so far) as she did LoU1, it has amazing accessibility options for people with any kind of disability, more than any other triple A title games she's played before. It's nice to see more & more devs taking that into account when they are developing games.
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I thought the mass exodus was because of the crunch on this game.
Which i always find so ridiculous as a thing to complain about... you make video games for a living. Yeah, sometimes there are going to be long hours where you work until midnight for weeks straight... apparently every few years, for Naughty Dog, when they're finishing a big project like this one. Well... welcome to the world. I do that multiple times a year, every time I have a hearing or a significant deadline. There are lots of jobs that have demanding periods like that.
My buddy is a consultant who specializes in death march consultant for O&G, utilities companies and technology firms. This means his is pulling off 10-20 hour days up to 7 days a week on for months on end until a project is over and possibly only a week or two break in between every few months. I wonder if some of the "quitting" portion is out of context and a lot of confusion or concepts being mashed together incorrectly.
My buddy literally will take long periods of time off after a death march to recharge. He can earn in a few months what most take half a year to earn due to long hours and OT pay. Some companies pay it because they just need the project done, even if the methods at times being deployed are not efficient. Those who kinda say that it's expected, don't understand perhaps the difference between taking time off and/or possibly the fact that others misinterpret what it actually means to work on a project with a death march deadline. A death march towards a deadline takes a lot out of you. Especially if you can't reconcile in your head why it seems like things are rigid in a manner that makes you feel like you're working hard with your arms tied behind your back.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Minnie
My daughter just picked up this game on the weekend (I suspect we won't see much of her for a while, LOL). This may not mean much to most people, but aside from the fact that she loves it as much (so far) as she did LoU1, it has amazing accessibility options for people with any kind of disability, more than any other triple A title games she's played before. It's nice to see more & more devs taking that into account when they are developing games.
For the serious problems I have with the finishing details of the game, I will wholeheartedly agree the under the hood tweaks are amazing. I actually spent a bit of time poking around just to see what was available. It's really neat.
It just kinda sucks that I felt this game had by far the most impressive foundation I've seen in a game in a long time and it looked like the ending was slapped together with cheap parts and corner cutting that really was uncharacteristic of what the company usually ships out as well as uncharacteristic of what foundation this game was built upon. I lament that the game is akin to being a brand new multi million dollar home being sold for 900K because someone decided to start well, but then finish off the inside with cheap IKEA pre-fab instead of spending the time to get a proper custom finisher for the inside of the home.
If you are willing to share, I'd be curious to know how your daughter perceived the late game and possibly know how she perceives the ending could have been better. Sometimes being an adult is just poison towards our own enjoyment of things. A reminder of how a child/young adult perceives the world would be nice.
I don't think it's a great career choice for the average person. Seems like a lot of people end up burning out from the high stress environments and long hours. I think you have to really be in it for the love of games and have a very strong work ethic to make a good career out of it.
It's not for everyone even if you love games/movies. I know quite a few people who have left the industry because they didn't like the stress when it came to crunch time. Alot of people prefer doing freelance too. That's what I'm doing right now for a game studio in Edmonton after my regular job though I'm working towards getting an in-house job somewhere in Canada. I'd love to do freelance full-time but not knowing how much I'd be making a month scares me off.
Other than being prepared to work long hours when deadlines are approaching you have to be prepared to sometimes work on things you don't really want to work on and you have to be able to take criticism for your work.
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If you are willing to share, I'd be curious to know how your daughter perceived the late game and possibly know how she perceives the ending could have been better. Sometimes being an adult is just poison towards our own enjoyment of things. A reminder of how a child/young adult perceives the world would be nice.
She's 26 lol. She's just still at home with us due to her disabilities. She's only just started (I think she said she's at the museum flashbacks? means nothing to me but may to you) but when she gets through it, she said she's quite happy to share her thoughts on it all.
My daughter just picked up this game on the weekend (I suspect we won't see much of her for a while, LOL). This may not mean much to most people, but aside from the fact that she loves it as much (so far) as she did LoU1, it has amazing accessibility options for people with any kind of disability, more than any other triple A title games she's played before. It's nice to see more & more devs taking that into account when they are developing games.
The gameplay options on this game are maybe the best ever for a non-sports game as you can totally customize the gameplay difficulty to suit your preferred playing style. All developers could take note here particularly those of the really difficult type of games such as Dark Souls to make them a little more accessible to casual gamers.
Some discussion about the accessibility features on a recent ign podcast. Didn't realize they had so much built-in the game, especially the touch pad. Sounds like Naughty Dog did a lot of the heavy lifting and are sharing with across studios and the industry.
Microsoft is doing a lot with their physical controllers too. Always good to see the industry moving towards more accessibility and representation for everybody.
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She's 26 lol. She's just still at home with us due to her disabilities. She's only just started (I think she said she's at the museum flashbacks? means nothing to me but may to you) but when she gets through it, she said she's quite happy to share her thoughts on it all.
Neat! There's parallels constantly happening in the game, so unfortunately, I don't know which of the 3-4 museum references it could possibly be.
Doh! Sorry about the previous comment. I have read many comments of yours about your daughter and somehow always thought she was probably a young adult, but somehow it didn't click in the previous post... I wasn't trying to be condescending about it.
While I get that 18+ is an adult, I kinda view those that live at home and are not burdened/enslaved by obligations, still technically "kids". My assumption was that she still has a "joie the vivre" that many of us have forgotten ages ago. I'd love to hear what she thinks. This on the contrary to those that live at chateau mom and pop/live off "loans" from bank of mom and dad who shouldn't be... but that's an off topic discussion for another day and not one that should be in this thread IMO.
I always like looking at two sides of an argument to try and figure out a balanced understanding of things. This always gets me in trouble with being concise, as well as constant misunderstandings. This is because many people these days seemingly cannot understand the concept that there is sometimes more than two possible outcomes for many situations out there.
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I like a challenge but didn't want to face the difficult enemies while having to be cheap on ammunition or health kits due to lack of resources. I went with Hard difficulty on player, enemies, stealth and Moderate on allies (if I'm going to have an ally they may as well be useful) and resources and it's been perfect for my first playthrough.
The gameplay options on this game are maybe the best ever for a non-sports game as you can totally customize the gameplay difficulty to suit your preferred playing style. All developers could take note here particularly those of the really difficult type of games such as Dark Souls to make them a little more accessible to casual gamers.
I read this to her, and she said "Yeah, I desperately want to play Dark Souls but it just isn't feasible for me, with my particular disabilities." Aside from her physical disabilities, she has some cognitive (processing) disabilities. With LoU1, she's able to slow the action down when it's a bad day. She has also set up subtitles, she can change the color of the subtitle to one that works well for her; she changes the color of the subtitle per character, to help differentiate characters. The game play can be set to give her some warning as to where the attacks are coming from, which helps her process everything better. There's a setting called Ledgeguard that helps her, again because of the processing issue.
As she said to me, it can be quite difficult for her & she has had to work really hard at times, to adapt to gameplay for games other people have little issue with. She said she can see where some of the accessibility options could be a bit counterintuitive with open world type games (Assassin's Creed), but the fact that these options exist in LoU2 show that it's possible to produce video games for a wider audience, to be able to play games everyone else can.
Beyond loving to play video games, she uses gaming for distraction from pain & sometimes, almost as a form of therapy. In her opinion, she feels LoU2 should be considered a benchmark game for devs, in terms of accessibility options. She says Sony needs to get their ass in gear & figure out a version of the adaptive controller & accessories like Microsoft has.
Last edited by Minnie; 07-06-2020 at 02:57 PM.
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I'm 13 hours in and about ready for it to be over. The story hasn't progressed at all since hour 3, I'm growing tired of the constant intensity and violence, just an exhausting downer to play. Pretty sure I'm not even halfway, and TLOU1 was over by this point...
The gameplay options on this game are maybe the best ever for a non-sports game as you can totally customize the gameplay difficulty to suit your preferred playing style. All developers could take note here particularly those of the really difficult type of games such as Dark Souls to make them a little more accessible to casual gamers.
That's not really the true market Fromsoftware would be going for if someone is a fan of Dark Souls/Seikiro/Bloodborne/Armored Core etc. though. It's supposed to be difficult to the level of sadistic stupidity. I'd even go as far to call it an elitist litmus test... Although, I get where you are coming from the accessibility comment.
The way I see it, is that only AAA games will probably ever push forward the accessibility settings and set ups. They're the only ones with time and resources to dedicate towards something other than determining whether the project they are working on will be their last. But with accessibility options, I also wonder if some devs are worried it could break the game in ways they had not imagined... which seems like folly at times in comparison to extending the content to a wider audience...
Heck, many games don't have appropriate alternate control schemes (defers to custom) for their games let alone accessibility options. Accessibility is from the ground up experience wise. Most studios work from the top down (game first, then playable experience later on).
Quote:
Originally Posted by chemgear
Some discussion about the accessibility features on a recent ign podcast. Didn't realize they had so much built-in the game, especially the touch pad. Sounds like Naughty Dog did a lot of the heavy lifting and are sharing with across studios and the industry.
Microsoft is doing a lot with their physical controllers too. Always good to see the industry moving towards more accessibility and representation for everybody.
Microsoft has always been doing a lot of research. IMO they're quietly doing a ton of R&D and will heavily disrupt many computer related things in the years to come. My buddies disagree though... but we shall see. I seem to recall Microsoft was doing a ton relating to futuristic tech, accessibility and how to deploy them... but this kinda stopped around 10 years ago. It seems like I've heard enough to believe this type of work has quietly started up again recently.
I had seen quite a few comments about the settings options, but I wasn't aware how far it went for accessibility. It's worth applauding ND for pushing these features in terms of inclusiveness outside of the game content itself. It's too bad this game had so many story content related distractions that this amazing attribute was kinda buried. I'm also glad to hear ND is sharing this with other studios. Few other studios would be able to develop something like this from the ground up otherwise.
I have read many comments of yours about your daughter and somehow always thought she was probably a young adult, but somehow it didn't click in the previous post... I wasn't trying to be condescending about it.
I didn't feel your comment was condescending at all. I only clarify the "living at home with us still" part when referencing her age, and why she's still at home, because, well....there's always at least 1 arse that makes assumptions (again, not meaning you at all) & pops off if all the info isn't there.
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If you are willing to share, I'd be curious to know how your daughter perceived the late game and possibly know how she perceives the ending could have been better. Sometimes being an adult is just poison towards our own enjoyment of things. A reminder of how a child/young adult perceives the world would be nice.
The Coles notes version since she's crashing is:
Eff this game entirely, I hate it, it's the best game ever made, Ellie is awful, it has destroyed me, I'm playing again.
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There's parallels constantly happening in the game, so unfortunately, I don't know which of the 3-4 museum references it could possibly be. 
