11.10
There is a small crunch currently going on at work. To meet a milestone that is only a few days away. This means overtime for a big part of the team. Personally I haven’t been crunching for a very long time, compared to some of the other guys (mainly programmers). But I did work this past Saturday, and the office was close to empty. The thought of going to work on a Saturday was really bugging me, because it does indeed suck as I don’t get paid for the over time (one rarely do in game development). But when I actually sat at my computer, animating per usual, I really felt at ease. For some reason I got more work done per hour than usual. I think mainly because there wasn’t as many distractions as there is on a normal day (since the office was close to empty). But also because I wanted to go home, and that could only happen when I was finished with my tasks for the day.
A lot of people, especially outside of the industry but also within it, thinks it’s completely awful to work overtime for free. Personanlly I don’t mind as long as it’s not insane amounts of extra work, like 14h days. But I won’t say I like it either, but then again I am in game development because of my burning interest of video games and video game creation. I am investing my personal interest and time into this project and I do care about the result. So, if needed, I will always be willing to work that little extra to reach the quality we aim for.
In the end though I think one can only do so for so long. When you get older and maybe got a family to take care of I think you will probably get less and less keen on spending your already short spare time at work, doing something you’ve been doing for 10+ years. But I guess it depends on what kind of person you are and/or what kind of life you want to have.
But generally I would (regretfully) say: Expect overtime in game development and do expect difficult hours.
Dilbert on Overtime