I’ve been making games of one sort or another since I was six years old. About a quarter century ago, people started paying me to do it.
Over that time, I’ve seen a lot of former co-workers exit the game industry entirely. The largest percentage burned out after years of dealing with crunch and other bad management practices. Some found far more lucrative opportunities in other fields.
A very few got lucky and retired early after getting a piece of the profits on particularly successful titles or an equity chunk of a company that got sold. Others were unable to find a second or third job in the industry, despite their own desires to the contrary.
Then there’s the rest of us – those that keep chugging along year after year, project after project, building moderately successful careers in an industry notorious for burnout.
What do the “lifers” in the industry have in common?
To some extent, we’re people who just can’t imagine doing anything else. Building games is what we do.
But over the years, I’ve noticed common strategies used by people I respect in the industry – strategies that keep them going through good projects and bad.
Set Limits
When I mention setting limits, industry veterans immediately think of crunch. The effects of crunch culture are well known now, and enough has been written about the topic that I don’t have much to add.
The bottom line is that mandatory crunch is not only toxic, but it doesn’t even work. Over time I believe the industry is slowly accepting this reality.
When you joined your current company, did you sign up for months of losing your weekends or sleeping under your desk? Does the thought of one more night of free, warmed-over crunch pizza make you want to vomit? Why are you putting up with this?
Maybe you’re okay with working extra hours; maybe you’re just that passionate about the project. Employers know how to leverage that passion, and even manipulate it sometimes. Don’t let down the team, they say. This will be the game that will put us on the map, they say. (Spoiler: it’s not.) This will be the game that keeps the company afloat. (Spoiler: it won’t.)
But limits aren’t just about the hours you put in. In the stress of development, sometimes bad personality traits bubble up to the surface. I’ve seen managers behave horribly to developers – yelling, name-calling, or putting them down in front of coworkers.
That’s unacceptable, yet so few people in the industry seem willing to call out abuse, instead chalking up regularly unprofessional behavior to the natural stresses of the product development cycle.
The game industry does not (yet) have a strong union, so you have to be the one to say enough is enough. Don’t expect the company to do it for you.
At a good company, a respectful conversation about where your personal limits are – that you aren’t going to work weekends, or you don’t like the tone of a recent interaction – can work wonders.
Good companies want their employees to be happy and productive – because they’re going to make the best products that way. If your boss won’t even engage in a discussion with you about where your limits are, then think long and hard about whether the company is truly set up for long-term success. (Spoiler: it’s not.)
Show Up
The type of personalities drawn to the game industry are varied, but many are people who just don’t “fit” in a traditional corporate lifestyle. Their work is their passion and they’re highly creative. They have strong opinions and aren’t afraid to express them, sometimes inartfully.
At the same time, some of the most creative people in the industry are flighty and prone to distraction. They maintain an unpredictable schedule, not stopping to consider how their work – or lack thereof – affects the team or project as a whole.
Some make a freeform approach to their daily schedule a part of their identity. They’ll pop up on a Slack channel or in e-mail in the middle of the night with a long write-up of their latest design brainstorm to show they’re “working.” Their co-workers are forced to make allowances at other times, delaying scheduled meetings or building in an extra ten minutes to allow for tardiness.
In the long run, if you earn a reputation for being flighty and unreliable, it will cost you in your career. You may not hear the criticism directly, but when you keep eight other people waiting on you for a meeting, it’s destructive to your reputation and the morale of the team. The industry is small and reputation matters.
In the modern era of remote work and digital communication, showing up doesn’t mean you have to be sitting at your designated desk every day for the exact same hours. Maybe you are in a role where you’re only onsite at a studio three days a week; maybe the most productive schedule for you is earlier in the day than the rest of the team. That’s okay!
What showing up does mean is being respectful of the rest of the team. Make it to your scheduled meetings on time. Be present, not distracted by your phone. Ensure your co-workers know your schedule, and there’s times when you’re available for meetings or for pairing on a difficult problem.
Be reliable. Be someone a team can count on.
Value Yourself
It’s exciting to land your first game industry job. Finally – you made it! You get to make games!
No matter how much you thought you knew about game development before your first job, the reality will be very different. On any mid-sized or larger team, on your first project, you’re a cog in the production machine. You’ll likely have a very specific set of tasks, many of which aren’t much fun. If you’re on a good team, your feedback will be wanted, but it’s unlikely you’ll make many meaningful decisions that affect the direction of the product.
Staying humble is important. Games are tough to build, even tougher to actually ship, and there’s a lot to learn, especially if you haven’t done it before.
Nonetheless, it’s critical to value yourself appropriately – especially as you move on to your second, third, and fourth projects. After a few years of making games, you’ll be a veteran. There will come a point in your career when you know you’ve outgrown your current job.
Recognize those moments. A very smart veteran co-worker of mine recently said that he knew it was time to move on when he realized the company valued him less than he valued the company.
If you are investing a ton of your passion into a company’s projects, year after year, and not being rewarded or acknowledged for it, it’s time to move on. It’s very unlikely you’ll stay at one game company for the duration of your career. Medium-sized developers get bought, or go under; company cultures and personnel change; the industry shakes up, then shakes up again three years later.
I’m not saying bail on your team the first time the going gets rough. Making games is always challenging. But if there’s a significant long-running disconnect between what you feel your capabilities are and what your company thinks you can do in your role, you’re better off seeking a position elsewhere.
Never Stop Learning
After a couple of successful projects, it’s easy to think you’ve got this whole making-games thing figured out. You don’t – and the reason you don’t is because what worked once almost certainly won’t work again.
The only constant is that the industry is always changing. Game genres come and go. So do platforms and development tools. The marketplace is fickle, and the co-workers you’re working with today probably won’t be the ones you’re working with in ten years.
In the last couple of years I have met talented young designers – fresh out of school – who are better at their craft than I ever was. Though I can’t draw anything better than a stick figure, I’ve witnessed skilled art teams craft amazing worlds and characters that bring a game design to life. I’ve seen engineers work magic, providing tools that unlock creativity or shave weeks off a project’s schedule.
That said, don’t assume industry veterans with successful titles under their belts have all the answers. You’ll meet a lot of people who say, with confidence, that they’ve found the “best” way to make games. They’re wrong – there is no single best way, but a myriad of paths to success.
Stay open-minded, be willing to try different approaches, and be alert to how other teams are building their projects. Listen to, and learn from, EVERYONE – no matter what their title is.
Keep Perspective
When you’re down to the last few weeks before a ship date, the rest of your team is going to frustrate the hell out of you. “Why did THAT decision get made?” you’ll think. “That’s a terrible call.”
Slow down and take a breath. You don’t have the whole picture. No one on the team does, even the leads. Everyone has their part to play. Decisions are going to get made – daily, quickly, on the fly. So are mistakes.
If the production team is doing its job well, the key points will get communicated. But it’s still not going to always be crystal clear why a particular path was chosen.
It pays to ask questions when a decision really feels off. Odds are, a quick chat about why a path was chosen will add clarity for everyone and maybe even surface a better path.
But whether you’re talking to your manager or someone you manage, approach the conversation from the perspective that your teammates have good reasons for the choices they made.
I’ve never been burned by giving a trusted teammate the benefit of the doubt. I can’t guarantee everyone’s making the best decisions on your team at any given moment – but what I can guarantee is that everyone is TRYING to.
The Common Thread
If you’re looking for a quick, pithy strategy for sticking around in the industry, it’s this: be kind.
Be kind to yourself: don’t tolerate abusive treatment from coworkers, whether directed at you or at others, and have frank discussions with your manager when you need to set limits.
Be kind to your teammates: assume they’re making decisions for a good reason, and be someone that they can count on.
In short, be kind to everyone – it doesn’t cost you anything. Making games is an infuriating and challenging endeavor, but also ridiculously rewarding. We’re all striving to do our best in a highly stressful industry, creating complex products for a demanding audience.
So keep showing up, keep making games, and keep making people happy – for years to come.
Are you – or were you – in the industry? Are you still sticking around, or did you GTFO? If you’re still in, why do you keep making games? If you got out – when, and why? Tell us your story in the comments!