What EXACTLY do you want from the IGDA?

[zhai]

Surfacing for a bit to talk about the IGDA, in as coherent a manner as I can -- mainly because I told Darius I would write this post, so now I'm stuck for it. And because I think this kind of thinking is the responsibility of IGDA members. I don't usually like doing this -- I have a laundry list of IGDA initiatives I'd rather be spending more time

Comments

Re: Excellent points but still not convinced

[zhai]

<< Whether we like it or not, companies are there to make money. The people leading these companies, on the whole, want to make a profit and they want the company to keep making a profit.... For an organisation that stands up for the industry’s wellbeing (and you would assume this means the people on the shop floor) it needs to be driven, and led, by people who do the work, or who’s only driving goal is the welfare of these developers. Being led by those who also heap-up the companies we work for, or having think tanks and discussions led by those who’s goals may be different to the people it represents will only lead to conflict. This is the reason why 60 hour work weeks are seriously being discussed rather than being instantly shot down by everyone present. >>

I see this argument a lot when it comes to labor issues in the industry, but the unfortunate truth, at least in the US, is that most game developers themselves will argue in favor of 60hr weeks as being reasonable, not just managers. And in fact these managers and CEOs that are so frequently demonized not only work way more than the average worker bee, they are, with the exception of guys like Mike Capps (and he IS an exception), as frustrated with the work hour issues as developers are. The work hour problem is a complicated one that arises out of market competition and the nature of third party game development (e.g. third party publishing model), but the common assumption that it's money-hungry CEOs keeping down the work force I can tell you for sure just is not in touch with reality in the US. In my advocacy work on quality of life, everyone wants a solution, but a majority percentage of developers think that crunch and overtime are unavoidable realities rather than solvable problems. It is this perception that we need to change, and it's a more complicated problem than the comparatively simple need to overthrow CEOs and executives. Or maybe an overthrow would be a potential solution, but it would be more a matter of development studios overthrowing the entire game publishing model, which so far, while attempts have been made, has not been a successful enterprise.

My main problem with the generalization both about the composition of the IGDA board and the driving forces in the game industry is that it does not lead us to actionable solutions. It is not specific enough. I would be in support of tighter overtime regulation and enforcement in the US, but I don't think that it's a politically viable thought in the composition of our current industry -- not because of CEOs, who are by far the minority, but because of line developers. For me the things that lead fastest and most surely to healthier work hours are:

- education on process efficiency and the unsustainable inefficiency of prolonged overtime;
- improved contracts between third party developers and publishers to empower the developer;
- quantifiable production processes that illustrate to clients the consequences of overtime.

I can tell you, for instance, that if industry workers could actually manage to unionize, it would be doing a favor for independent studio executives like Tim and Tobi -- and I have heard this explicitly expressed, though quietly, by CEOs of independent studios. They actually would WANT a union, because it would give them bargaining power when the publisher demands overtime or additions to a product in excess of contracted features. Right now, the way it works is, a contract means squat when the publisher says "you will deliver the following additional features in this milestone or we will withhold payment".

So the assumption that this is top-down executive pressure from people like those on the IGDA board is misdirected anger that makes our real QOL advocacy work more difficult. Reduction of hours is complicated for a number of reasons, a whole set of them technical in origin, so for me one of the most important goals is to keep the development community on track to productive solutions and working WITH beleaguered studio management to accomplish goals that we all agree on and desire.