作者：Francois Dominic Laramee

作为游戏行业中的一员，我们不时可以看到周围天真的少年向我们取经，打听如何进入这个交互娱乐领域，如何从中谋得一份差事。

这样的人很多，多为男性，但女生的数量也在不断增长。他们有点幼稚，一切行为都向我们看齐，假装认真聆听我们关于这一行经常加班加点，报酬不稳定的告诫，从他们涉世未深的眼神中就可以看出，他们似乎认为制作游戏每天都极度令人兴奋。

抱有这种想法的人最终都难免悲剧——他们最后真的进入了这一行。

vgcats_ea_programmer(from compsci.ca)

工作超时及其他相对悲剧

首先，让我们先摆脱关于游戏行业迷人光环之下的那些假设——例如，制作游戏与玩游戏基本上是同个概念的不同表达。相信我，这两者之间没有多大关系。

想想看，现在典型的成功游戏一般要能够给玩家提供40小时的乐趣。40小时啊，这相当于一周了。而开发这种游戏则平均需要2年时间。

除非你是一名测试员，或者你正好参与设计象棋或《文明3》，不然你玩自己游戏的时间肯定比你的用户多100倍。

想象一下，每天都要玩同一款游戏，连续玩了两年，这究竟是什么滋味。没错，这根本就谈不上什么乐趣。如此反复一个月之后，你就会心生厌倦。两个月之后，你甚至都不想再提到这款游戏。等到你准备发布游戏时，你甚至早就想杀掉团队中的其他人了。所以你一直都不发布游戏。

开发游戏也有其自身的回报，但这是一项艰难的工作，并且根本就不只是成开玩游戏。清醒过来吧！

一厢情愿的因果关系

现在我们已经明确了，开发游戏是一项真正的工作，那么又一个有趣的问题出现了：游戏的最终成品那么好玩，其开发过程是不是也一样妙呢？虽然大家在游戏工作室有可能玩得很开心，但这只是其中的一小部分。

难道说我们创造的是娱乐产品，所以我们的工作就一定比其他行业更轻松好玩吗？不幸的是，答案是否定的。任何电影剧组的工作人员都知道这一点，我们也不例外。

游戏行业就是如此，一个普通的行业而已，也没有什么特别的有利可图的地方。不幸的是，为了保证收支平衡，一款游戏通常要以很低的利润换取庞大销量——多数PC游戏销量介于1.5万至4万份，而实际上若要实现盈利，游戏销量就不能少于15万份。出现这种情况的原因有许多，主要包括：

*游戏领域的收入通常低于软件行业中的其他领域。

*游戏领域的工作周时相当长。

*工作保障非常有限。

我将在之后的文章再详细讨论这些问题。同时要记住：我们多数人都要经历来自发行商或者老板的不断施压，后者也时常担忧自己无法在行业立足，或者他们为母公司创造的利润无法达标（或者无法超过去年的水平），从而成为下一轮裁员的对象。

所以如果你想进入这一行，就不要指望一天24小时都在开Party，因为你并不了解行业，也无法在此长存。

无情的工作狂

你在报刊亭前拿起一本《财富》、《福布斯》或者其他商业报刊杂志时，你首先注意到的是每篇关于软件行业的文章都会使用“快节奏的环境”、“竞争性的职业感”等字眼。这些词语意味着在此工作的人都要比罗马奴隶更勤快。这些文章的作者似乎认为这种工作状态是世界上最酷的事情。

但实际上，除了以身作则的加班狂老板常会要求下属也向他看齐之外，媒体报道这一行工作强调的主要原因如下：

*多数商业人士认为（无论正确与否），一般人工作60小时可以比工作40小时更有效率，如果他跟不上这个进度，就会被他人取而代之。

*因为这多工作的20小时并没有报酬，所以由此创造的额外产品就不存在人力成本。

*这种免费的工作只是让富人更富。

*媒体是由富人群体控股，后者当然是希望自己的员工（无论他们是否属于自己控股媒体的员工）意识到：“好像所有的计算机工作者都把业余时间投入工作，而不是享受天伦之乐或者伺弄盆栽，为什么我不向他们看齐呢？”

game office(from phys.org)

潜在风险

更糟糕的是，由于通向市场的渠道非常之狭窄，开发公司从游戏销量中收到的低版税，加上制作成本不断攀升，甚少游戏能够真正实现盈利。一般游戏工作室的生命周期如下：

*当你在一家初创企业工作时，这里的资金总是很短缺，所以薪水很低，工作时间很长，否则就永远无法发布产品。而真的发布游戏之后，也基本上无法实现收支平衡，工作室不是被迫倒闭就是被收购（理想的情况，当然就是赚到足够的钱，让工作室得以保持独立状态直到发迹为止。这确实有可能发生，但属于例外情况。如果你属于那种不喜欢换工作、崇尚安稳的类型，建议你另谋出路。）

*现在，最好的情况就是工作室被大型游戏发行商收购。但是，大型发行商拥有巨额开销和多款游戏，并非每一款都能收支持平，所以即便你的产品可以赚到很多钱，也不会有太多钱流入制作人员的口袋。

*糟糕的情况就是，工作室不会被游戏发行商收购，而是被一些放为进入游戏行业是件时髦事的传统媒体公司相中并收入囊中。不幸的是，传统媒体公司总是抱有不到40岁的人只需要靠工资就能活的固有观念，因此大家的情况实际上更糟了，无论游戏赚了多少钱，大家的工资却还是固定不变。

与游戏领域相比，拥有大学文凭的优秀程序员收入比软件行业中其他同行要高20%-50%。以我自身经历来说，我做AI调查人员时就赚得比我当游戏工作室主管更多。

最重要的是，当你身处一个周围都是许多年轻人的行业，比如游戏领域，你就一直会有薪水和工作量上的压力。这就是资本主义的法则。

游戏行业并不特别

这里不得不说，进入游戏行业并不意味着你就不同于来自其他企业的人。

我曾在包括游戏和非游戏等各类公司就职，小至一人工作室，大至产值达数十亿美元的跨国企业，有上市也有非上市公司。我可以告诉你，无论到哪里都难免遇到控制狂、工作狂或可恶的上司/老板，这一点并不会因为我们是在制作寓教于乐的产品或PS 3D平台游戏而有所改观。

实际上，我认为这个行业就像是一个磁铁，因为它具有让人快速暴富的潜力，又没有实际的准入门槛。要想像医生或工程师一样成立自己的公司，你得先获得一定的资质才行，但任何人都可以声称自己在交互软件方面极具才干。我曾看到大型传媒公司收购一些成功的游戏工作室，并让一些42岁左右的保龄球馆管理层来运营，只是因为该公司CEO认为在下一轮股东大会上把公司交给这些年长者，要比交给27岁的美术人员更“保险”。这之后的结果可想而知。

即使这种公司的老板思想开放，也不能保证其中的同事也是如此。即使人人都很不错，资金耗尽的时候，还是会树倒猢狲散。

游戏公司也是公司，其命运与其他公司没有什么不同。

另外还要注意：企业文化很少发生变化，如果一家公司今天看起来很糟糕，就不要寄希望于它有一天会自我改变。我的意思是，我曾经是一家游戏工作室的主管，所以在理论上我比其他人更可能影响整个团队的工作环境。但结果也还是无济于事。除非你自立门户，根据自己的理念塑造企业文化，否则你就算在一个岗位上呆300年，这家公司也还是不会有很大改观。如果一家公司适合你，那很好，如果不适合，那就要赶紧出来了。

事实让你幻灭吗？

游戏行业可能是个极好的工作地点。如果你效力于一款热作，就有可能感受到其中高涨的热情，也无需担心失业的问题。如果你属于富有魄力的类型，就可以在很年轻的时候就在此肩负重任，这在其他行业是不多见的。如果你真的很擅长自己的工作，没有人会在乎你的学历。

但是，制作有趣的游戏并不意味着整天都在玩乐。这是严肃的工作，比多数工作更困难。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Should working in games be more fun?

By Francois Dominic Laramee

If you find this article contains errors or problems rendering it unreadable (missing images or files, mangled code, improper text formatting, etc) please contact the editor so corrections can be made. Thank you for helping us improve this resource

Yeah, we’ve all seen ‘em. The bright-eyed, eager kids who, upon learning that we work in the interactive entertainment industry, drop to their hands and knees and beg us for our secret. How did we do it? How did we manage to get someone to pay us for this?

There are millions of them. Mostly guys, but the number of girls is getting surprisingly high. They’re kind of naive, and maybe a little annoying, but in a charming kind of way, since they worship the week-old leftover pizza crusts we reluctantly throw out. They’d do anything to be like us, up to and including pledging their souls to the denizen of the fuming tar pits of Hades of our choice. Sure, they feign to listen when we warn them about the crazy hours or the lousy pay. But nothing registers. To their untrained eyes, making games seems to be somewhat akin to a mild all-day orgasm.

And then, something terrible happens to them. They finally get a job in the industry.

Time-Dilation and Other Relativistic Catastrophes

First things first: let’s get rid of the overwhelming subliminal assumption beneath this fascination for the game industry, i.e., that making games and playing games are mere variations on the same theme. Believe me, they have nothing in common. Thank God for that, too.

Think about it for a minute. These days, the typical game is considered a success if it provides the player with about 40 hours of enjoyment. Forty hours. About a week. Now, developing that very same game will take, on average, two years.

Please reflect on the staggering implications of what you just read.

Unless you are a tester, or you happen to be designing chess or Civilization III, you will work on your game one hundred times longer than your customer will play it. O-N-E H-U-N-D-R-E-D.

Please imagine how much fun it would be to play the same game, and only that game, every single day, eight (twelve) hours a day, for two years. Yep, that’s right, wouldn’t be any fun at all. After a month, you’d be hopelessly bored. Two months, and you’d grow warts at the mere mention of it. By the time you’d be ready to ship the sucker, you… Well, you would have killed everyone else on the team long before, so you never would ship.

Developing games has its own rewards, of course; otherwise, no one would bother. But it is hard work, and nothing, nothing like playing games all the time. Get that through your thick skulls!

Causal Relationships of Wishful Thinking

Now that we have established that developing games is real work, an interesting question arises: since the final product is so much fun, shouldn’t the process of creating it be just as great? Well, it’s possible to have a blast in a game studio, but the final product will only be part of the reason. And not necessarily a big part, either. Should we expect, because we are producing entertainment, to have more satisfying jobs than people in other industries? Unfortunately, no. Anyone who has worked a day on a movie set knows it. We should, too.

The game industry is just that, an industry. And not a particularly profitable one, either. The sad truth is that, to break even, a game must outsell the industry average by a ridiculous margin; most PC games sell between 15,000 and 40,000, while it is difficult to make money on sales of less than 150,000 units. The consequences of this are manifold, and include the following:

Salaries in games are typically lower than anywhere else in the software industry.

Work weeks in the game industry tend to be very long.

Job security is very, very limited.

I will touch on these in more detail in the next couple of sections. Meanwhile, remember this: most of us experience constant pressures from publishers or bosses who are worried they’ll go out of business, or that the profits they contribute to the parent company will not be high enough (or higher than last year’s by a margin that outperforms the competition) to avoid being the targets of the next layoff.

So, if you care to join us, don’t expect a 24-hour a day party, because you won’t get it, and you won’t last long in the industry.

The Incredible Coolness of Workaholism

Next time you’re at a newsstand, pick up a copy of Fortune, Forbes or any number of other big-business papers and magazines. (Wear gloves, because that stuff can burn your skin). One thing you’ll notice is that every single article on the software industry uses buzzwords like “fast-paced environment”, “Jolt Cola” and “competitive work ethic”. What they mean is that everyone there works harder than a Roman galley slave. And for some reason, the writers seem to think it’s the coolest thing in the world.

Apart from the fact that bosses who are workaholics demand the same from their underlings, the main reason why the press has made 60-hour work weeks “in” can be summed up in the following:

Most business folk believe (rightly or wrongly) that the average joe will consistently achieve more in 60 hours than in 40, and that if he falls off the pace, he can always be replaced by someone who’ll do better.

Since the average joe is usually not paid extra for these 20 hours, the additional production is free.

Free work makes rich folk get richer faster.

The press is owned by rich folk, who would like nothing more than if their own employees (in and out of their press holdings) would just say: “Gee, it seems so manly [or womanly] of all these computer geeks to spend all this extra time at work instead of raising families or growing bonsais; why don’t I do the same?”

In the Long Term, We’ll All be Dead

What makes it worse in our case is that, given the very tight channel-to-market, the low royalties that development houses receive on unit sales and the high cost of producing games, very few titles actually make money. So, the typical life cycle of a game studio looks a little like this:

When you work at a start-up, money is always short, so salaries have to be low and work weeks long, otherwise the product will never ship. And when it does ship, in all likelihood, it won’t break even, and the studio will either shut down or be bought out. (The dream scenario, of course, is to manage to make enough money to keep the studio independent until the big break. These things have been known to happen, but they are the exception. If you are the insecure type who can’t bear to change jobs, go look elsewhere.

Now, the best case is that it will be bought out by a big game publisher. However, big publishers have big overhead and lots of titles, not all of which will break even, so even if your product makes tons of money, not much (if any) of it will trickle down to the production staff.

The worst case is that the studio will NOT be bought out by a game publisher, but rather by some traditional media company thinking it would be just too cool to get into this internet thingy. Unfortunately, traditional media folk are baffled by the concept of people under 40 making living wages, so the situation actually gets worse, no matter how much money the games earn.

Compared to games, a good programmer with a college degree can make 20%-50% more in any other field of the software industry. True story: I make more as an AI researcher (with no responsibility for anything but myself and my own little projects) than I ever did as head of a game studio.

The bottom line: when you are in an industry where lots of young (i.e., cheap) people want to work, like games, you always have downward pressure on wages and upward pressure on workloads. That’s the law of capitalism. I didn’t say it was a good law, but it’s the law.

Dilbert and Daikatana

No, I am not going to bash ION Storm. They have enough problems. What I will say, though, is that being in the game industry does not shield you from the realities of the corporate world.

I have worked in all kinds of companies, both in and out of the game industry, from a one-person shop to a multi-billion dollar transnational, in both the private and public sectors. And if there is one thing that I can tell you, it is that you can have a boss who is a control freak, a workaholic and/or a hateful s.o.b. wherever you go. I have had to live with all of the above, and the fact that we were making award-winning children’s edutainment or PlayStation 3D platformers instead of lunch pails didn’t make it one damn bit better.

In fact, I contend (as did a guy whose name I forget at an online developer’s conference I attended about a year ago) that this industry is a bozo magnet, because there is the potential for quick riches and no real barriers to entry. To set up shop as a doctor or an engineer, you must prove a certain level of competency, but anyone can proclaim themselves experts in interactive software. I have seen big media companies buy successful game studios and replace the guys who used to run them by 42-year old bowling alley managers, just because the CEO believed that they’d look “safer” than 27-year old artists at the next shareholders’ meetings. Use your imagination to figure out the results.

Even if the boss is cool, the co-workers may not be. And even if everyone is just dandy, the money may run out, and there may be layoffs.

A game company is a company. Keep that in mind.

And one more thing: corporate culture rarely changes, so if a company sucks today, don’t bother sticking around hoping it will get better on its own. I mean, I was head of studio at one of my previous jobs, so I was theoretically in as good a position to influence the work environment as anyone could ever hope for. Didn’t work. Unless you are in a position to start a new shop and mold it into your ideal, or you somehow stick to a job for 300 years, the company you go into is pretty much going to be the company you leave. If it works for you, great. If it doesn’t, get out now and save yourself the aggravation.

Are you depressed yet?

The game industry can be a great place to work. If you ever contribute to a hit game, the emotional highs will be unbelievable, and you may never need to worry about unemployment again. If you are the ambitious type, you can get more responsibilities at a younger age than anywhere else. If you are really good at what you do, no one will care where (or sometimes if) you went to college. And, when all is said and done, coding a 3D engine or drawing a snappy cartoon intro still beats about 94.8765% of all the jobs in the Western World.

However, making fun and games isn’t all fun and games. It’s serious work, harder than most.（source：gamedev）