Game Developers still working way too many hours.

Looks like nothing has changed with most game developers.  Most are still working way too many hours and simply not getting properly paid for their work.

Paul Hyman wrote an excellent article on this subject over at Gamasutra.  Here’s an excerpt:”…He’s been having a lot of health issues and, despite letters she’s written to management, his crunch time has gotten out of hand. It just goes to prove that there is definitely a group of people in the industry who believe that excessive crunch is the only way to make good games on time. That hasn’t changed.”That’s what they used to think at Microprose too.  Excessive crunch time will fix everything, that seemed like the motto.  Then the QA manager would tell me I need to go find 6-12+ people that will stay, yet again, for overtime tonight.  Needless to say it didn’t help many of the games in terms of more bugs found and fixed, nor in terms of sales.At least we got paid time and a half for all hours worked over 40 hours.  But when you’re only making $10.50 an hour working in QA, time and a half only goes up to $15.25  Are 80+ hour weeks really worth it?  Only if you love your game, or are lucky enough to get paid bonus cash if the game meets certain sales quotas.  You seriously better love your job, because you damn sure are not going to have time for much of anything else.Interested in checking out the whole article by Paul Hyman?  Click here.