Amy Hennig worked 10.5 years of 80+ hour weeks at Naughty Dog, says AAA not worth it

[nnodley]

Amy Hennig worked 10.5 years of 80+ hour weeks at Naughty Dog, says AAA not worth it - NeoGAF

Originally Posted by GamesIndustry.biz
 
 

 
 When Soren Johnson, the designer of Offworld Trading Company and the host of the podcast, asked Hennig how difficult AAA development was on a personal level, Hennig replied, "Really hard. The whole time I was at Naughty Dog - ten-and-a-half years - I probably, on average, I don't know if I ever worked less than 80 hours a week. There were exceptions where it was like, 'Okay, let's take a couple of days off,' but I pretty much worked seven days a week, at least 12 hours a day." And the seven-day working schedule wasn't limited to people on Hennig's level. Johnson posited that weekend work wasn't generally the same, and asked how much of Naughty Dog's team would be present. "A lot of it," Hennig replied. "I mean, Naughty Dog is pretty notorious for the amount of crunch, but obviously in a leadership role you try and do even more."

 

While Hennig admitted that she wouldn't change anything that meant she hadn't made games like the Uncharted series, she admitted to having a clearer view of the issue when looking at the experiences of other people. When asked if making AAA games was worth the lifestyle that goes along with it, she replied, "I don't think so." "There's people who never go home and see their families. They have children who are growing up without seeing them," she said. "I didn't have my own kids. I chose my career in lots of ways, and I could be single-minded like that. When I was making sacrifices, did it affect my family? Yes, but it was primarily affecting me and I could make that choice. But when I look at other people... I mean, my health really declined, and I had to take care of myself, because it was, like, bad. And there were people who, y'know, collapsed, or had to go and check themselves in somewhere when one of these games were done. Or they got divorced. That's not okay, any of that. None of this is worth that.

 

Source: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...ngs-gotta-give They have some additional discussion about what types of things the industry could try to lower the burden.  One of the ones mentioned is having a lot more development time on a game with less staff.  You'll notice Visceral's AAA Star Wars game isn't out until Fall 2018 despite her joining ages ago. There's also a bunch at the link about AAA's increasing demands in terms of content.  To summarize though:

"I mean, Uncharted 1; a ten-hour game, no other modes... you can't make a game like that any more."

 

To note, the original podcast:

Originally Posted by PillarEN
 
 

 
 LINK to Podcast pageLINK to iTunes This podcast deserves as many listeners as it can get.

 

Didn't see a post about this, but this is easily one of the things I have reservations about going into the game industry as an artist.  I don't want to work 80 hours a week.  Or even 60 to 70.  Things have to change, but I don't think it will anytime soon. And Naughty Dog is like my dream studio to work at.  But is it really worth working at top tier studios only for me to have zero free time away from work.  I think I could do something like that for a few years, but for 10.5 years is ridiculous.

[the-pi-guy]

Naughty Dog is off my list of dream places.
I couldn't do that, not with having a family.  

[nnodley]

Naughty Dog is off my list of dream places.
I couldn't do that, not with having a family.  

If I don't have a family I would do it for a bit, but hearing about the effects on some people health is really scary.  It shouldn't be that way.   Was reading the thread on gaf and a guy from respawn said that going forward they are making sure their dev practices are sustainable and lessen the crunch.  They had a mandatory crunch for Titanfall 2, but said most didn't work weekends.

[darkknightkryta]

Honestly, they have to stop thinking throwing more people at projects is the answer to game development.  I mean, didn't Assassin's Creed Unity have 1000 people working on it?  That didn't turn out too well.  They're honestly better off having a game in pre-production for 3 years and spend 1 year in full dev with a well laid out project than forcing your dev teams into crunch periods for years cause you don't know what you're making with your game.

[Raven]

Honestly, they have to stop thinking throwing more people at projects is the answer to game development.  I mean, didn't Assassin's Creed Unity have 1000 people working on it?  That didn't turn out too well.  They're honestly better off having a game in pre-production for 3 years and spend 1 year in full dev with a well laid out project than forcing your dev teams into crunch periods for years cause you don't know what you're making with your game.

There are undoubtedly tons of games that suffered thanks to crammed development schedules. Having many smaller teams working on projects for much longer stretches of time would be overall healthier than these massive studios trying to push one game out in two or three years.

[darkknightkryta]

There are undoubtedly tons of games that suffered thanks to crammed development schedules. Having many smaller teams working on projects for much longer stretches of time would be overall healthier than these massive studios trying to push one game out in two or three years.

It's just in general.  Publishers have become bloated.  You don't need 600+ people working on a game.  There should never be more than 50 at any given time.  It's unmanageable and causes these crunch periods in the first place (For games).

[DerNebel]

Honestly, they have to stop thinking throwing more people at projects is the answer to game development.  I mean, didn't Assassin's Creed Unity have 1000 people working on it?  That didn't turn out too well.  They're honestly better off having a game in pre-production for 3 years and spend 1 year in full dev with a well laid out project than forcing your dev teams into crunch periods for years cause you don't know what you're making with your game.

I disagree, at least to a degree. Of course there is a tipping point where too many cooks spoil the broth so to speak, but I think that to a certain point bigger dev teams from as early as possible are just necessary. It sound all nice to have smaller teams and to take longer, but you can't have all games take 5 years or more to come out, the whole freaking market would collapse. And this whole crunch thing is just not feasible and will someday boil over (though I've been hearing that it's getting better). Have more people work on your projects doing humane hours instead of fewer doing this 80 hour week BS, I mean the human brain isn't capable of working at 100% of its capacity after a certain amount of hours anyways, so keeping people there for so long is just working inefficiently.

I've ranted about delays at Sony again today and I think this whole size thing is one of the main reasons why they have to delay so much shame. I know that there's more to it and that sometimes certain situations just can't be foreseen, but I feel like there's an inherent lack of manpower at many Sony studios that is to blame for this shame happening constantly, they still haven't really grasped the requirements for gen 8 development it seems.

It's just in general.  Publishers have become bloated.  You don't need 600+ people working on a game.  There should never be more than 50 at any given time.  It's unmanageable and causes these crunch periods in the first place (For games).

I feel like that logic doesn't really hold water.

[darkknightkryta]

I disagree, at least to a degree. Of course there is a tipping point where too many cooks spoil the broth so to speak, but I think that to a certain point bigger dev teams from as early as possible are just necessary. It sound all nice to have smaller teams and to take longer, but you can't have all games take 5 years or more to come out, the whole freaking market would collapse. And this whole crunch thing is just not feasible and will someday boil over (though I've been hearing that it's getting better). Have more people work on your projects doing humane hours instead of fewer doing this 80 hour week BS, I mean the human brain isn't capable of working at 100% of its capacity after a certain amount of hours anyways, so keeping people there for so long is just working inefficiently.

I've ranted about delays at Sony again today and I think this whole size thing is one of the main reasons why they have to delay so much shame. I know that there's more to it and that sometimes certain situations just can't be foreseen, but I feel like there's an inherent lack of manpower at many Sony studios that is to blame for this shame happening constantly, they still haven't really grasped the requirements for gen 8 development it seems.

I feel like that logic doesn't really hold water.

Trust me it holds water.  Every project I worked on that went to hell was because of poor planning.  No amount of people can fix that.  The other thing you're not understanding is that having a large team of 600+ people leads to longer dev time because there's too much management involved to manage that many people.  A small team of 50 is all you need.  If you need more cause you wanna hash out most of the art, then that's fine, but that's for a short period of time.  In which case you'd need an art factory.  Which devs are doing now.  Crunch ALWAYS goes back to poor planning.  Which is why I said a skeleton crew finalizing the game, combat, and levels within a year, ramping up art production to a factory, is way more sane than having 600+ people working on a game for 2.5 years straight.  That's insanity and isn't working.

[DerNebel]

Trust me it holds water.  Every project I worked on that went to hell was because of poor planning.  No amount of people can fix that.  The other thing you're not understanding is that having a large team of 600+ people leads to longer dev time because there's too much management involved to manage that many people.  A small team of 50 is all you need.  If you need more cause you wanna hash out most of the art, then that's fine, but that's for a short period of time.  In which case you'd need an art factory.  Which devs are doing now.  Crunch ALWAYS goes back to poor planning.  Which is why I said a skeleton crew finalizing the game, combat, and levels within a year, ramping up art production to a factory, is way more sane than having 600+ people working on a game for 2.5 years straight.  That's insanity and isn't working.

Nobody is talking about 600+ people, but I'm going to straight up call battleship on the amount of people you claim to be enough to make AAA games in a reasonable timeframe in todays climate.

[Legend]

If your name is part of the game, crunch makes sense. Otherwise it's kinda crazy that 1 person out of hundreds has to give up so much.

QA crunch sounds even worse.

[Lordfancypants]

It's not a games industry or AAA game development exclusive.  

[darkknightkryta]

Nobody is talking about 600+ people, but I'm going to straight up call battleship on the amount of people you claim to be enough to make AAA games in a reasonable timeframe in todays climate.

No it's more: GTA 5 dev team size more than 1000, manpower dependent on game detail - Gamechup | Video Game News, Reviews, Features, Guides

Assassin's Creed Unity had 1000 people working on it
Resident Evil 6 had over 600 people working on it

Yes, that's not the norm, but it's not as low as you think.  Uncharted 4 needed 150 people working on it, but Naughty Dog normally has less people working on their projects.  I can assure you there's normally around 300 people working on a title.  That's way too much.

It's not a games industry or AAA game development exclusive.  

It's not, it's why I left development.

[Legend]

[DerNebel]

No it's more: GTA 5 dev team size more than 1000, manpower dependent on game detail - Gamechup | Video Game News, Reviews, Features, Guides

Assassin's Creed Unity had 1000 people working on it
Resident Evil 6 had over 600 people working on it

Yes, that's not the norm, but it's not as low as you think.  Uncharted 4 needed 150 people working on it, but Naughty Dog normally has less people working on their projects.  I can assure you there's normally around 300 people working on a title.  That's way too much.
It's not, it's why I left development.

I wasn't talking about 600+ people lets say it like that.

However I think that, while maybe not good for extended periods of time, 300 people are definitely managable by a good set of producers especially in the final stretches of a games development. 100 to 150 imo should be the minimum after getting out of pre-production.

Just look at The Order 1886, as far as I remember RAD had less than 100 employees when developing that game and how did that turn out after 5 years? We got a 6-7 hour campaign, with no replayability and no multiplayer or anything comparable attached. It should be obvious that doesn't fly in todays AAA market. Or look at Polyphony Digital, every time I see that that studio has only around 100 employees I stop wondering why they have to delay their games, why those games have lost the polish they once had, reuse so many old assets and just seem behind the time in so many ways according to many racing fans.

There's a middleground here I agree that 600 seems way to large but 50 is also absolutely understaffed for a AAA game in my opinion.

[darkknightkryta]

I wasn't talking about 600+ people lets say it like that.

However I think that, while maybe not good for extended periods of time, 300 people are definitely managable by a good set of producers especially in the final stretches of a games development. 100 to 150 imo should be the minimum after getting out of pre-production.

Just look at The Order 1886, as far as I remember RAD had less than 100 employees when developing that game and how did that turn out after 5 years? We got a 6-7 hour campaign, with no replayability and no multiplayer or anything comparable attached. It should be obvious that doesn't fly in todays AAA market. Or look at Polyphony Digital, every time I see that that studio has only around 100 employees I stop wondering why they have to delay their games, why those games have lost the polish they once had, reuse so many old assets and just seem behind the time in so many ways according to many racing fans.

There's a middleground here I agree that 600 seems way to large but 50 is also absolutely understaffed for a AAA game in my opinion.

They also had development issues with gameplay, gave up, and then decided to make a new game in a few years.  A very polished game in a few years.  So they essentially developed a pretty bug free game, with quite possibly the greatest set of graphics in games right now, in half the game's actual development time.  Which goes back to my argument of having a proper game laid out before you switch to full development.  RAD could have had the game developed in far less time, and maybe even less people if they planned the game right.  You don't need more than a skeleton crew to pre-produce a game, and you shouldn't have more than a handful of developers at that stage.  You shouldn't need 100+ people for more than a year for assets.  Assets which you should be farming out and letting your internal team manipulate them when they get them.  50 core people and add people as you go.  The problem is devs are having 300+ people working full time for 80 hour weeks for years.  This is obviously poor planning.