First thing that came to my mind after reading the article about the wives who complained to Rockstar about their husband's work conditions was the GEICO commercial asking whether a drill sergeant would make a good therapist.. Honestly.. "You know what makes me sad. You Do! Maybe we should chug on over to mamby pamby land and maybe we can find some self confidence for you – you jack wagon!"
LOL. No but really. First of all, the article mentions that according to the statistics most people who work in game development field are young men who don't have families or outside commitments that could get in the way so the percentage of those with nagging, complaining wives are close to zip. Secondly, what the heck do people expect when they are going into game development? That it's gonna be a walk in the part? NO. The field is highly competitive place where everything needs to be rushed and unless a lot of overtime and weekends is put into it, the results won't bring the dough. You want to take it easy, be a gardener or a mailman. You want to call yourself a brilliant individual with highly technical and creative skills? Develop games. And on top of everything else, most people realize what they are getting themselves into as they have been either gamers or they have been following the market and they ought to know how challenging it is. Most of the work is during crunch time as games need to fly out in order to make money and any delays could cost a fortune. On the final note, why is it the wives that are complaining?! Are those "men" too childish to stand up for themselves? Again - thank you Ronald Lee Ermey - Tissue? [throws the box out of reach from the client] You cry baby!
Do you think that this is right though? Even if you are a "brilliant individual with highly technical and creative skills", this kind of stress and workload is not healthy. I understand that other industries suffer very similar issues. It's not just a matter of whiney women complaining that their man is overworked and don't give them enough attention as much as it is that the workplace is dehumanizing individuals.
ReplyDelete"Most of the work is during crunch time as games need to fly out in order to make money and any delays could cost a fortune."
ReplyDeleteYou should read EA Spouse's post:
http://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
In that situation, EA was never behind schedule at all, the crunch times were set in from the beginning because they knew they would need to have people put in the extra hours to make the deadline from the beginning. It wasn't because people were working slowly and the crunch times were implemented to compensate for it. They were right on schedule the entire time.
I would like to start off by saying that I respect your very brash and harsh feelings towards this issue.
ReplyDeleteI am going into the advertising industry in which getting into creative is cut-throat. However, although it is hard work with very long hours, workers are not treated like garbage.
Tom is right - it is not a matter of nagging wives demanding not to overwork their husbands, but that the workplace is in face dehumanizing these workers. And for the record, I wouldn't call these women nagging wives - I would call them CONCERNED wives who care about the well being of their husband.
Tissue, anyone?
ReplyDelete