The BIG PROBLEM of SELF-IMPOSED Crunch for Indie Game Developers
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- Опубликовано: 21 сен 2024
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💬 Here's an interesting article on the problems of Crunch in the games industry, and specifically the issues with self-imposed crunch.
I know that for myself I've always had to crunch to finish my games, that's not a good thing but it has been my experience, I always want to my best and there's always so much to do to make a great game.
But I highly encourage you to take care of your health, do not neglect it in favor of your game, if you do you will eventually pay a heavy price.
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This is a very delicate topic (because it affects our health).
I just crunched 2 days ago; and this video confirms my decision: crunching is not worth it (specially if you loose some sleep). I set very high standards for my work, and sometimes my impatience (desire to finish things up sooner...) have made me crunch / overwork. Now my resolution is: instead of putting up more hours of work, optimizing the quantity and quality of it. Instead of making "more features" I'm going to revise my GGDDDD and reduce and optimize the Scope of the projects, so they can be done within the desired timeframes. It's a kind of homework that's difficult as it should be done almost everyday to some extent, but the good thing is it makes you stay true (real) to your Goals.
I'm also working on improving my patience during projects. One tool I've found that works is Meditation (yes, like the Buddhist do...), which calms your Minds, Body and Soul, during some minutes. This really helps.see things through, separate what's important from what it's not (I've got some interesting realizations after 15 Minutes of Meditation, some days).
Yeah crunch does have significant health costs, especially as you get older.
For me patience really is my biggest issue, I've got tons of stuff I want to create and I want all of it to be done NOW! It's hard for me to accept working at a slower pace.
I've tried meditation a few times throughout my life but never quite managed to get it right, I've heard excellent things about it so I definitely wish I could get it to work
I don't think crunch among solo devs is that big a deal. Mostly it is overscoping, procrastination, managing finances and runway. At least from what I have seen. It also varies from person to person. I have about 4 hours of quality work in me a day, 2 hours of medium quality work and maybe another 4 of soft work in me. Managing your work is a big deal.
Work life balance is so hard, i am a mom with 2 toddlers i only have time to work on my game at night and then i am tired, thank you for this to remind me to take it easy on my self.
oof having 2 toddlers is definitely doing game dev in hard mode, best of luck!
Oh wow, and here's me who have been thinking that it's hard for me, though I don't have 2 toddlers, just 2 cats, a dog and a fiancée. Kudos on your perseverance! I wish you all the best in the world with your project! I totally understand how hard it is to work on your game in the night after day job.
I'm doing this like crack since november. No weekends, no holidays, no birthday celebration, nothing.
I don't like stopping because it's harder to comeback later.
I'm curious about the game you're working on
Definitely makes a big difference whether or not you're working for yourself vs as an employee.
The freedom leave the desk whenever you've reached your max gives a sense of insurance even if you don't take it.
Personally I put my office in the living room, so that I stay connected with my GF.
Thanks for years of tutorials, been working on my game for a year now. I decided to publish a tool I've made during development. Today it launched and has made several sales, much greater response than I expected.
That's awesome! Congrats on publishing!
Entrepreneurship means giving up a 40-hour / week job with steady pay to go work a 60-80 hour week with no guarantee of getting paid.
Honestly, I wouldn't bet my money on any startup whose CEO only puts 60 hrs/wk into it...
@@Sim2322 how many hours a day startup CEO should work in your opinion?
@@nursultannazarov8379 I can't generalize, but for me, I definitely needed to crunch 80+ a week to not die of hunger for the first 6-7 months. About 12h days, 7 days a week.
It was rough, but eventually I got my head out of the waters and things are much smoother now, I only have to work 25-35 hours weeks
It's funny how when making games became my job (self-employed) I had tons of people going like "oh if you're self-employed that means you work very few hours right?" when it's literally the exact opposite.
"they have to work 100 hour days" AAA companies invented time dilation just to crunch devs
😆
Just imagine it! You are a dev on "Miller's Planet" and you just finished an hour of hard work. Meanwhile the devs back on Earth have been cranking 120hr work weeks for 7 years!
ahahha
i will graduate from college soon and I've been developing a game for the past 3 years next to it and now more or less in fulltime, I'm working alone on this project and I work ~12h / day on the game. I feel self pressure because I think it will be hard to manage the launch when I have to work somewhere else, but in a few months I'm going to need to earn some money. So this made the development less enjoyable in the past months. There was huge progress, but I still feel like it's not enough. Every weird bug that comes up tends to be stressing me out much more than in the earlier time of development.
So thanks for this video, you really reminded me that sacrificing your own health will never be worth it in the long run
Yeah make sure you're working hard but not at the cost of your health. Best of luck with the game!
I work like 14 hours per day, in my personal projects right now, since I got laid off, I can't say I am having a good work life balance, but my mindset keeps me focused to achieve something as fast as possible 😢
Something that was particularly revelatory for me was watching Rian Doris's videos and learning about something called "active recovery," which is different from relaxation wherein you're doing some sort of physical activity as a form of recovery instead of the normal things people think of like rest or sleep and the way in which that can help improve flow state and reduce burnout.
Oh thanks for the tip, I know of active recovery in terms of fitness but never thought about applying it to knowledge work, nice!
@@CodeMonkeyUnity In particular, I'd recommend his video about how to get a month's worth of work done in a day. He goes more in-depth about using active recovery to achieve flow state. Should be right up your alley.
The most important thing I learned this year was to never sacrifice sleep time. For many years, I used to sleep late at night or wake up early or late, but after some time it had a very bad effect on me. The important factor that allows you to be successful in making your game and in life is to control your mind. Thanks again Code Monkey!
Yup sleep it super important! Having a set schedule every single day has helped me immensely.
great video again. I felt the same: I made illusional deadlines for my solo projects and crunched every single time. Probably Parkinson's Law comes into play that says: work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.
Hey, Hugo! May I suggest a video topic about your recommended RUclips channels that talk about the technical side of Unity?
I've been watching
- Warped Imagination (the one that talks about how to extend Unity Editor using black magic), and
- git-amend (the one that talks about advanced game architecture and design patterns)
I wonder if you have any other hidden gem channels
Yup Warped Imagination is a great one for building tools.
I think I've only seen one or two git-amend videos, definitely need to watch some more.
For technical stuff, Turbo Makes Games has lots of Unity DOTS videos
Acerola has lots of Shader magic videos
Sebastian Lague has great videos with an excellent presentation that goes way over my head.
3Blue1Brown has some great super technical videos, I loved the ones on Neural Networks
For something more hardware based Ben Eater is absolutely excellent. Really great for getting an idea of how it all works under the hood.
a good night sleep is most important for any job, especially if you use your mind a lot, dont go too late to sleep, max 1AM to be already in bed. I usually been going to bed 3-4-5 am and i can say no matter how long you sleep after those hours you feel a lot tired than just go early to bed
Thanks! I think I've made a pretty reasonable goal for my first commercial product. I want to have it on Steam by the end of the year. I'll try to get that done but if it doesn't happen then I'll definitely make sure not to lose any sleep over it.
Even if you work on a "side project" for a bit, the new skills and ideas you discovered apply to the main project as well. making a good product requires creativity which is unlocked by being relaxed and not by being overstressed.
I was doing it for the past couple months finishing up my game before NextFest in a couple weeks. Working 16-18 hours a day trying to get everything finished in time.
Yeah the time right before release is always super tricky, there's so much to do!
But make sure you don't do it for too long or you'll pay a heavy price
I'm about to publish my first game on steam with my publisher. And I think it not that bad, Solo Gamedev we have less stress then normal people I think.
I would argue that you are a very social virtual person. I’ve had dozens of conversations via comments with you and you always continue until our conversation is over.
heh yeah in terms of text I love being social, reading/writing comments and answering questions, I love doing that even though some days it takes hours to get through all of it. But in terms of real life, I love being home with my dogs or going for a solo run, just me and my thoughts.
i'm an ex culinary worker so crunch is engraved in my soul but it feels bad when you're used to physically getting so much done, and it feels like you're not doing as much work either writing or organizing on the computer. It contributes to the burnout feeling quite a bit and i've had a really hard time letting that go. I can see people who worked trades and are trying to switch to desk work having similar work expectations for themselves, and beat themselves down too hard. Trades people are also really easy to bully into this mindset because usually in trade work, if you don't immediately respond it can mean life or death situations in a lot of cases, which gives us all PTSD essentially, from knowing you can get seriously hurt not listening to a supervisor.
It is a struggle but I am making the transition, very slowly. After university even, I worked labour jobs. It's nearly impossible to break that habitual cycle of how you personally trained for work in your adult life, but it's a necessary habit to break.
All that said, I am mentally prepared for burnout. If I can keep sane working physical jobs at 12-16 hour shifts then I can handle a little fatigue from forgetting to eat while I sit at my desk.
That's a really interesting point. When doing any kind of knowledge work it can be really tricky to get a sense of how much you got done, whereas in something more physical you can visually see everything you built that day. Cal Newport has some really great videos on that topic.
My best tip for that is keeping a to-do list, that way I can clearly see all the checkboxes of all the tasks I have done.
@@CodeMonkeyUnity this is actually what I have to do, and it works well. Give myself a little pep talk while I write down what I should be working on and it's been putting the fire under my butt.
I truly do appreciate what you do friend, giving people like myself the opportunity to learn and apply their knowledge with the info you provide on your channel. Feels good to hear an adult response on the subject matter you enjoy vs the typical Triggered social media response and I appreciate it a lot.
I think the only reason when it might be ok to lose SOME sleep is a 3 days Game Jam.
Just plan a sleep day after lmao
The thing with burnout is, it doesn't happen if you're passionate, dedicated, and balance things well. As in, you can't just go work 100 hours a week on one thing. You can work 60 hours on one thing, and 40 hours on another, and maybe a third one here and there, and you won't get burned out if you do it right (Or maybe it only works for some people). Sleep is a pretty important factor for that as well. Not saying you should do this too. But it's possible under the right circumstances. But overwork is not the reason for burnout. Bad work that doesn't satisfy you enough, doesn't challenge you, doesn't bring enough money etc is the reason. You can work 40 or even 20 hours a week and still get burned out if your job sucks enough.
Again, do not go working 100 hours a week based on this. But if you find something that really makes you tick, and you want to work on it, work on it. Not because someone told you. Not because you told yourself. But because it feels right to be doing it. As long as you get sleep, enough breaks, regular food, maintain social life etc you'll be fine with more working time, there's no hard limit. 40 hours is just an arbitrary social construct anyway.
Yeah satisfaction with what you're doing is an extremely important factor. If I was working the number of hours that I work on something that I hated I would have definitely burned out at some point.
"It's better to burn out, than fade away" - The Kurgen
Nah. It's better to lead a satisfactory, healthy life. It's just video games. See friends, family, the outside world. No matter what you make, it will all be dust soon.
You omitted the rest of the quote. "It's better to burn out, than fade away. Because at the end of the day, we're talking about the most important thing of all: A few flickering pixels on screen, sooner to be forgotten as yesterday's spoiled milk." - The Kurgan
@@SpentAmbitionDrain "It's just video games"
They literally give devs something to eat so... don't be reductive. It has to be balanced.
heh funny! Just yesterday I was randomly watching clips from Highlander, great movie!
I would sugest less scope or have a partner to work with to avoid Burnout.
Haha, I could use with a few 100hr days to catch up on a bunch of stuff😂 especially sleep, and finishing projects
If I didn’t have a normal job game dev crunch wouldn’t be a problem
To this day, I still have no idea what "late-stage capitalism" means, yet I keep hearing people use that term. I don't think it means what they think it means.
There's a technical definition for it but I think most people use it to just say "focusing on profit above everything else"
@CodeMonkeyUnity To which I usually reply that capitalism itself actually provides a remedy. If someone only cares about making money, then you know exactly where to hurt them: their wallet. It's not like they can use the government to force you to buy their product. We do that ourselves.
So like what recently happened with Sony and Helldivers II wherein people pushed back by downvoting the game en masse.
For me, the anxiety to get things done makes it harder to fall asleep, and not getting enough sleep makes me more anxious, and it's a vicious cycle
Yeah that's definitely a tricky cycle, thankfully I only tend to experience that at the end of a project. Like on the day before launching Dinky Guardians I couldn't sleep, eventually I just got up at about 4am and worked non-stop until 23h
Great!
How will this be affected by the FTC noncompete ban?
Crunch is a failure of management. A self governed job can and should be managed. Work/life balance is vital.
Psycotic who did u call psycotic?😂😂😂😂 Those are My Ai voices
I work 12 hours a week, and think it's too much for me 😂
Crunch before release to fix bugs? Not good. Crunch in pre-production to make cool prototypes all day all night? Very good.
8:21 i dont know about other countries but in UK theres shortage of game Dev jobs (prog/art etc) and lots of layoffs :( and the new trend is western game dev companies are shifting towards hiring Indian/ south asian game devs
It's a bit of both, there have been sadly tons of layoffs this year, but there's also tons of studios hiring. For example EA has 13 openings on just their UK studio, and tons more all over the world www.ea.com/careers/locations#europe
@@CodeMonkeyUnity I currently work in leamington spa ( it’s known for lot of game studios) there are jobs but senior / lead /director levels , but if you’re junior or regular level then 👋 🥲 but one thing I can confidently (90%) say such kind of jobs are definitely shifting towards south Asian countries. Anyways would love to know your prediction of the game industry and jobs etc video idea haha 😅❤️
Hey Hugo! I know this is a terribly difficult thing to estimate, but what do you think is a rough estimation when your DOTS course will be complete? 2 months? 6 months? A year?
I'm asking because I want to postpone making my game because I have no doubt you will provide the greatest tutorial for it, and I'd really love to learn DOTS from you. I do not think there are any other good DOTS tutorials in Unity 6 out there right now (please correct me if I'm wrong).
The best/fastest tutorial will be diving into the documentation yourself and experimenting. If you’re already planning to postpone, you might as well get some experience while you wait.
Try watching TurboMakesGames. He's basically doing nothing else but dots tutorials and released a long video lately, not sure if it's unity6 though
I'm hoping to have the prototype completed by the end of next week and after that I should have a rough idea for when it might be out. Best case scenario: End of June; More reasonable: End of July
I have a video overview of DOTS, it's great for learning in general how it works ruclips.net/video/4ZYn9sR3btg/видео.html
The course will be great for learning how to apply those things in a practical use case
Hahahahahaha.... sleep... It was a 10000 years ago when I had a 8h sleep. But this is not cos of game dev, I just have a 40+h job and 2 little kids 1 and 3yo... so cramming 2-4h of game dev a day before I colapse is all I can afford and every 7-8 days I just shut down for the night and do no work at all........ sleep.... cute....
Indie games with an economy (a.k.a Steam market) going on are probably the products that can help you ease your mind and take more of your time to develop. Not sure if indie devs have any share for every transaction of their items on the Steam market.
Casual games earn millions now a days
Well EA slightly “fixed” the problem by having AI make textures for them
Is that thumbnail AI generated?