Do you enjoy your job in the games industry?

    Sounds like a bit of a dramatic title for a thread, but I'm genuinely curious as to how people feel about working in the games industry. Do you enjoy your current job? Explain what your job title is, and what you actually do on a daily basis... Be as vague as you like if you're scared of upsetting the boss men


    I'm just curious, because I kinda feel a bit burnt out at the moment, like I'm not really enjoying my job, and I've felt it at the past 2 places I've worked. Making games has always been a huge passion of mine, but just recently I feel as if I've lost that passion during the hours of 9-5... When I get home I suddenly feel quite inspired to work on my own stuff. Therefore I end up staying up pretty late because I kinda wanna put off the inevitable.


    I remember that I used to feel so lucky to be working in this industry, I could make art all day and remember thinking that I should consider myself lucky because I could be stacking shelves at Tesco or whatever.. But these days I have actually been considering what I would do if I wasn't in the games industry.


    Please post up your own thoughts about your job, I'm really interested to see what people think!

    Well, I'm not sure to be the perfect one to answer this first but it doesn't matter.


    I'm here at Eden Games for three months now and I think I've never felt so good in my life. I'm currently building circuits and helping on game design. We're a small team, the (secret) project is great, everyone is gentle, skilled and enthusiastic. I've a freedom of action on my work and a real impact on the project so I really feel involved in what I do.

    Plus, working with people that have made V-Rally, Kya and Test Drive Unlimited. is. just. great. They are always fool of stories and are experts of racing games. I learn such a lot of things from them pffff It's awesome.


    It gives me so much energy that I need to still working (on personal projects) when I get back home. I've never been as productive since I'm here.

    yeah my job is fun


    i make models paint texture fx shaders

    write some documentation form time to time

    debug code with the programmers.


    variety is the most important part for me

    To me it seems obvious you should just work on whatever you want to work on. You're talented enough to make that decision. I've never felt more fulfilled than I do now, because I'm doing what I want to do, which is make levels for an awesome game. Try to find your happiness, you seem to know where it is... once work is over, at least.

    Really Interesting Thread. For someone who isnt in the Industry(but wanting to be there), I always feel like it must probably be the best thing that could possibly happen.

    Well, until reality kicks in.

    I enjoy what I do and now after the UE4 release, im for the first time excited about working with an engine.

    But I also wonder if I would still enjoy it if I would have to do it, instead of just wanting to do it.

    Looking forward to read through the responses in this thread.

    This will bring my view on the industry closer to reality.

    I'm working from home for a very tiny company : i have only one colleague and one boss. We make skype call every 2 days or so. We are developping for mobile with Unity.

    I know my colleague is a decent programmer and is doing a good job bringing our boss thoughts to Unity, but my boss is something else : he do not care about gamedesign, designdocuments, he do not even know how a video game is made etc... He is just here, paying us to copy games that made some companies billionair... At least he is nice. All our games were failures at some points because we didn't take the time to write on paper the game design docs, including market analysis or any shit that any serious dev company would do before starting a projet.


    My jobs consist of doing all the art (chara, env, direction, setup in engine, riggng and animations, sometimes sounds, fx, etc...), finding some tech solutions and helping on the gameplay side.


    I don't really enjoy my job, first because i don't feel i'm part of video game industry and because our games are very generic and bland. Also I don't like working from home, I would love to find a job near my location as Env artist, but jop opportunities in Paris are mostly for seniors (Quantic, Don't Nod, Spiders...). I miss to talk to colleague in front of coffee machine, right now i'm just alone in my flat.

    Eat - work - play - shit - sleep.


    When i'm complaining to friends about my situation, usually they react with this : "no public transports, good salary, stable and stressless work, doing 3D modeling all day, could be worst..."

    Oh mate, liam, mate, mate. I'm sat here right now in my pants with a cup of tea and a biscuit (that your mum gave me earlier, lovely lady) listening to music on my speakers blaring out as loud as possible whilst waiting for one of my programmer homies to fix a bug with the unity tools.


    We miss having a prop guy with us man, all our stuff is outsourced at the moment and can be a little problematic sometimes.


    To be serious for a moment though: I love my job. I love not being in a studio. I love not having to travel to work. I love not having to work stupid 9-5 hours and pull stupid hardcore crunch overtime for weeks on end. I love that at UWE we get to make what we want with no publisher interference. We do have a deal with an investor but they let us do what we want. Sometimes people are like "Oh my god, how can you work like that, how do you not get bored?" and I sit here and think "Oh my god, how can YOU work like that? Travelling in a subway or bus to work with annoying people or stuck in a cubicle making a game you hate whilst you listen to your dumbass lead producer think up new retarded ideas for a shitty game?"


    I can get up and go out whenever I want. I can go for a coffee with friends during the middle of the day and then come back home and carry on working into the night quite happily. The flexibility is fantastic. What do I lose out on? Not being considered a real "game developer?" Nah. Being in a studio don't mean much anymore. I mean, you're hardly there for long until you get axed these days.


    I can empathise with this I think. Being a game developer has really been the only thing I've ever wanted to do since I was about 16 and discovered it was a possible career. I've done nothing but aim to become a game developer, got a BTec in game design, got a degree in game design and then went straight in to QA and shortly after went in to level design.


    I feel like I've achieved what thousands of people set out to achieve and followed my dream but sometimes I have to remind myself of that as it does become just a job from time to time. For instance right now I've been moved on to a project I don't really want to be working on and don't enjoy working on, but that's life right? Most people can't pick and choose what they want to do every day.


    Most of the time I'm doing something different every single day whether it be whiteboxing, prototyping, document writing, design meetings etc. Most days I learn something new and get new challenges. I don't think there are that many jobs that could offer this honestly. I also have flexi-time, everyone around me shares the same passion and interests and I'm surrounded by intelligent and talented people.


    I recently had a 15 year old family friend ask me about getting in to games. He wants to make games and his mum wants him to be a lawyer, he can't decide which. I told him if he wants money, go be a lawyer. If he wants something new to do and learn every single day, make games.


    Sure the salaries could be better and we have to work on things we don't want to from time to time. But damn, we've got it pretty good compared to most.


    I honestly don't think I would want to do anything other than make games...

    Quote from Jord

    I honestly don't think I would want to do anything other than make games...


    Oh yeah, me too, I can't imagine myself doing something else than 3D and visual things.

    I wouldn't leave this world for anything !


    I think what you're missing is that the online-working sort of lifestyle isn't for everyone, some people crave that real life interaction that you're thrilled to avoid. No offense, of course. It can be really shitty when your interactions with people boil down to a chat room, or skype, or what have you.

    Sounds like it's time you work on your own game Pogo or for a small company.


    Me, i still enjoy my job. I started as a level designer when i had my first freelancing gig then moved onto environment art, doing simple props and textures. With more experience the things i got to work on got bigger and more complex. Nowadays i also do weapons and vehicles. Ther's always new challenges ahead. What i like is that i have the time and freedom to learn and experiment with new tools and workflows. I'm also now at the point where i'm something of a senior figure to some of the other artists, helping them with my advice and learning stuff. It's feels a bit strange because no matter how much i've improved my own skills over the years i never can shake the feeling that i have to learn tons more stuff to feel proper confident about myself.

    I'm excited about the next couple years because thers lots of cool new tools and intersting things to work on ahead.

    I'm not so sure anymore.


    And I don't really know why. I'm starting to think that I'm just making up reasons because I've felt like this at my two last employments.

    On one side, I should have felt really fortunate to be working at my previous job, because I learned so much from the other two programmers. On another side there was way too much work and you always had to do everything from scratch, which means there was a lot of "reinventing the wheel" going on.


    At my current job, I should feel really fortunate to be working there as well, because I am finally being able to learn about working on a game post-launch (and I dont mean just DLC). Stuff like implementing all the stuff we wanted to do, but couldn't do before the release date. Tweaking the funnel. Looking more in depth at monetization. Learning about ads and funnels and everything that is basically not just gameplay or gui programming. On the other hand the pay is shit and my co workers dont work as much as me. My salary now is the same as it was when I got out of the university. So basically my salary has been standing still for many many years. People I went to class with is earning twice as much as me. And work shorter days...


    And I am not creating games I want to play. Last I did that was with warby. warby made me believe in his game vision. And I was excited to put in 16 hours a da to make it happen. And lately, I've come to terms with the fact that since I have a responsibility to my wife and two kids, I can't move abroad and get a job at the two places who makes games I want to make. Valve or Blizzard.


    But who am I kidding, I could never get a job at valve. Maybe blizzard... But my wife would never let us move.

    meh.. If the company I work for now also folds, then I will probably have to make a huge life decision...


    Dude, there're so much studios in norway and other scandinavian countries! you should be able to find something somewhere else

    Theres literally hundreds of studios in norway now.


    But noone has any money. And they all create small mobile games (which I dont play).
    The closest big swedish game companies are in Gothenburg I believe. And thats too far away...

    Quote from Skjalg

    And I am not creating games I want to play. Last I did that was with warby. warby made me believe in his game vision. And I was excited to put in 16 hours a da to make it happen. And lately, I've come to terms with the fact that since I have a responsibility to my wife and two kids, I can't move abroad and get a job at the two places who makes games I want to make. Valve or Blizzard.


    But who am I kidding, I could never get a job at valve. Maybe blizzard... But my wife would never let us move.

    meh.. If the company I work for now also folds, then I will probably have to make a huge life decision...


    Having kids is dangerous in that sense, because it restricts you heavily. I'd never even consider going into such a relationship before I knew I was where I wanted to be career wise.

    Quote from PogoP

    I'm just curious, because I kinda feel a bit burnt out at the moment, like I'm not really enjoying my job, and I've felt it at the past 2 places I've worked. Making games has always been a huge passion of mine, but just recently I feel as if I've lost that passion during the hours of 9-5... When I get home I suddenly feel quite inspired to work on my own stuff. Therefore I end up staying up pretty late because I kinda wanna put off the inevitable.


    I remember that I used to feel so lucky to be working in this industry, I could make art all day and remember thinking that I should consider myself lucky because I could be stacking shelves at Tesco or whatever.. But these days I have actually been considering what I would do if I wasn't in the games industry.


    Let me add an observation from an outsider:


    Regardless of what you do or in what industry you work, the novelty of it all eventually wears off. That's why people are constantly looking for promotions or other jobs. Because, after all, variety is the spice of the life. The fact that you just switched jobs and are already feeling that way is quite alarming. You wouldn't be the first designer who grew tired of the industry. That's were a lot of Indie's came from. The problem is that not everybody can take that route because bills have to be paid.


    So if I were you, I would do some serious soul searching and number crunching to answer the question:"What do I want to do with my life and is it possible?". Write it down, calculate what you need, do a risk assessment, etc. Life is too short to waste. However, chasing dreams doesn't necessarily mean you have to leave your job. Remember that work is just that, work and lots of people don't like their jobs. It's something you have to do, it's not something you really want to do. Sure, there are people out there that successfully made their hobby their job and props to them. But the reality is that a lot of people can't do that.


    I for one, have a very good and well paying job which I absolutely don't care about at all. I'm good at it but it's just something I have to do to provide for my family. The time where I could take risks is gone. So how do I keep motivated? Simple, do other stuff that makes you happy. My job allows me to finance my hobbies, plus I have great and fun colleagues. So time spent there isn't horrible, it's actually fun even if the work isn't. During quite times I have the opportunity to prepare interviews or articles for the Core or I'm looking for deals to enlarge my retro collection and so on.


    So even if you feel fatigue but decide to stay, motivated yourself with your own projects outside of work. Pump out scenes, start a design blog, start a mod with other Core members, try to make a indie title with people and so on. You get the point. In the mean time you can keep an eye open for a job opportunity at a studio you would really like to work for. But realize that you will eventually grow tired of that job as well. Some people are fine doing the same thing for decades and others need to be pushed, so do that, push yourself. Even at work you can push yourself to learn new things. Find colleagues that can challenge you or projects that are far outside your comfort zone.


    Anyway, just remember to keep your head up, push through the day by day bullshit and motivate yourself by doing the stuff that makes you happy.

    I'm not in the industry but, Liam, sounds like you need a break. From the job or maybe more simply working in a small studio, or even on your own.

    I dunno your family/sentimental situation, but maybe a change of scenery could do as well. You definitely have the experience to work pretty much everywhere.

    Quote from PogoP

    I remember that I used to feel so lucky to be working in this industry, I could make art all day and remember thinking that I should consider myself lucky because I could be stacking shelves at Tesco or whatever.. But these days I have actually been considering what I would do if I wasn't in the games industry.


    What alternative career are you thinking of?

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