24 years ago, I decided that instead of going into video game development like I had always dreamt of in school, I’ll go into business software because at the time there was only one nearby game studio (Blue Byte), they weren’t looking to hire in the next few years and I wasn’t really willing to move very far at the time.
Looking back, that decision was one of the best branching-path decisions I’ve ever made in my life.
Thanks, Blue Byte! Indirectly you got me an amazing job! 🥂
Ah I remember when people would tell me that working in the video game industry is a dream, then those same people would complain to me about working long hours for no extra pay (crunch) to finish a game before the deadline.
Yeah that totally sounds like a dream job, it’s so great you have to sleep in the office and you don’t get paid for that extra work /s
True, I guess one could say that in a way they were correct in that it is technically still a dream to work at a company like EA, just a very bad, very hellish dream. Possibly made much worse by the self-gaslighting (and regular gaslighting) making them think it’s actually a good dream, makes it even worse because you don’t try to escape it because you convince yourself and are convinced by others you have it good when in reality, you don’t.
I mean, yeah. It’s an industry that has a near-unlimited supply of starry-eyed fresh college grads to throw into the meat grinder, and the executives of these companies absolutely love to take advantage of that. Maybe if enough devs leave the industry they might finally have to start respecting the people who work for them out of necessity.
20 year industry vet here. When I started, it was in a company that was hiring nothing but people that have never worked in games before (and they did not tell us this, like some bad reality show). Of the ~200+ people I worked with there when I started, I would very generously estimate maybe only 10-15 of us still in the industry. To be fair, conditions in the industry have gotten a lot better since most of those people left it. The days of doing 80+ hours a week are long gone for most of us as far as I can tell.
It's really all about loving who you are working with. Even if you hate the project or the hours, just enjoying being around the right people makes a huge difference. Writing that is making me realize just how many of my favorite people and closest friends are now elsewhere and damn, I miss them.
Personal opinion: This is actually excellent because we could actually use developers who have worked these jobs and thus are familiar with how they work, and then they can develop actually useful code for small businesses.
For example: restaurants often have the ability to order online, but they have zero rate limiting, so you can end up with 30 different orders made within 30 seconds of each other and all those people will expect their orders ready at the same time and in the meantime you’ve got exactly three cooks and each meal takes at least five to seven minutes to get out. Someone could design a rate limiter, no one has. Because there aren’t developers working those jobs realizing that workers are being worked to the bone because of businesses refusing to add limits to how much demand can come through their door.
Also, the good online ordering software DO provide those features. Restaraunt owners just tend to license the cheapest one (or pay their girlfriend’s kid to write an even cheaper one) for obvious reasons.
Because there aren’t developers working those jobs realizing that workers are being worked to the bone because of businesses refusing to add limits to how much demand can come through their door.
I’m not sure why you believe game developers would be better suited to this than people who actually do business software development. And it’s less about what the developers want to do with software than it is about what the people to are buying the software want to do with that software.
I meant more that a restaurant owner isn’t going to see or really get any value from an open source solution vs closed source specifically. They are just choosing a platform at a price point that works for them.
Open Source exists, but it is janky, lacking in features, and literally every single one is used to upsell the expensive proprietary software by the same company that has the features lacking in the open source release.
It’s a bit too early to judge. Just my 2c Edit: At least the person who wrote the article seems to understand and play those games. So I give him that. From content wise, this is a good article.
Yeah certainly a solid article, unfortunately I haven’t felt the need to upgrade from civ 6 at all. So I probably won’t move on unless it is absolutely amazing
This article just sort of ends without the expected detail the first paragraph was alluding to. I mean, it technically described the thing in the headline, but I would hardly call this an “article”.
Aftermath sometimes does short stuff, which is more like blog posts rather that articles. I, too, wish they elaborated on this topic and maype even interviewed someone.
aftermath.site
Aktywne