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I don't understand people that bitch and moan about working long hours in the software industry, especially games. You can leave whenever you want, its a free will state. Would you have been bitching and moaning if all this happened yet you made millions? You lost so you cry? Seriously, been there done that, learned my lesson at EA, moved on and made sure I don't put myself in the same situation again. No one is putting a gun to your head.

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You're right that no one is forcing the people to work the long hours. However imo programmers and gamers are often naive. Spending high school and college working alone or with friends of a similar mind-set can prevent someone from seeing the "real world" aka MBA-types who prefer making money to advancing interesting technology. So while no one is forcing the employees to work themselves into the ground there's still something to be said about cunning non-technical leadership taking advantage of 18-22 year old naive programmers.

The point of linking to articles like this is to encourage the next batch of hopeful teenagers to learn from other people's experiences and stay out of the games industry instead of having to learn the hard way.

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