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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

Just as a counterpoint - I've worked for 4 years now as a programmer at one of the biggest publishers in the industry, and honestly, the work life balance is great, the pay is ok for the region(plus I get decent amount of shares every year), the work is varied, interesting and I like both what I do and people I work with. I think the last time I did overtime was 2 years ago, and even then it was only for a week around launch of the last project(in fact in every studio meeting we are constantly reminded that managers can NOT demand us to work overtime, if they do we need to report it higher up). Normally I get in at 8am, leave by 4pm, never work weekends or anything like that. Plus the usual for EU 25 paid days off(plus the studio is closed christmas to new years), unlimited paid sick leave, private health insurance.....really, it's pretty good.

But then again, I am aware that most studios are not like that.

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Congrats, you've found the 2% of the industry that isn't insane.

For many of us who fell into the other 98% the statistics aren't in your favor and some of the bigger publishers(EA, Microsoft) tend to go in ~6 year cycles.

Had a friend who worked on Dead Space, which should have been a stable thing. Alas, Visceral isn't around either.

I’ve worked in games for 20 years. The way I make it work is to accept that it is insane. Have a savings cushion. Network so that finding a new job is easy. Generally, make sure you are OK if you find chains on the door tomorrow morning. Also helps to not be a morning person. Everyone but management knows that overtime is anti-productive. But, they usually only count heads after 6. Working from 10-7 keeps us both happy.

> Working from 10-7 keeps us both happy.

I'm sorry but: fuck that shit.

When I was in that industry I worked 8am-6pm because I was able to be more productive when the office was empty than being some night owl who stayed in the office till 2am.

I caught no end of shit because I was "walking out the door at 6pm". People weren't blocked, I wasn't leaving anyone in a state where they couldn't do work.

God forbid I wanted to spend a bit of time with my wife(then GF, I can't believe she put up with it). There's some interesting technical problems in that industry but it's not worth the hell you go through for the rest of it. Saw 3 divorces on my last team before I got out and that was all I needed to know that it wasn't a healthy industry to be in.

For all the newbs out there, if you're trying to figure out whether not to accept an offer, know that there is a huge difference in work life balance from company to company: above you've seen the two extremes.

Read the glassdoor reviews very carefully.

> Plus the usual for EU 25 paid days off

Sometimes I really hate living in the US. -_-

Obviously we pay for it with lower salaries. Or, well, actually I don't know what US gamedev salaries are like but for other programming jobs, the difference is significant, also outside the SFBA.

Wanted to add my agreement to this; I've been in the industry since 2008. My first experience was really bad...then I moved to the EU. We do still do overtime, not mandated but when you have to ship it happens. Other than that the benefits, paid time off, work/life balance, union representation, etc have been very good in my experience.

Dice?

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