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The Workplace

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    It's definitely not the most healthy job, but management is not fun in the long run and personally I found it a lot of frustrating than programming. You're constantly stuck between financial reality and a team that is trying to have a normal life. At times, you will need to translate tech and financial issues to people which are completely deaf to situations outside of their sphere. When I started code I didn't understand why management made what looked like non sense decisions, but once you understand the situations outside of tech, it can be difficult to reconcile that with your teams. Commented Jul 18, 2020 at 16:38
  • 3
    If you work in a large company, things can go crazy very quickly: for example I had to have a team work overtime to make a product we had no intention to sell just because the publisher had promised a certain number of releases to shareholders for a specific date, also a classic is to deny milestone payments to external companies to push them into obedience due to lack of cash. Or threaten third parties that your company will not use their product anymore unless they add what we want for free, etc.. That was daily life in 2 of the top game publishers. I could write a book about it... Commented Jul 18, 2020 at 16:41
  • 7
    "the moment you step out that train, you realize how fast it is going." Perfect description of the velocity the game industry goes at. Though I don't think the gradual shift from programming to management is necessarily a bad thing - someone who has decades of software dev experience has valuable understanding of what works and what doesn't, even if they are not up to par with current tech. I think that in general, the game dev industry is breakneck for everyone involved in the development process, programmers, artists and managers alike; there might be healthier opportunities elsewhere. Commented Jul 18, 2020 at 18:51
  • 5
    This story made me cry, it brought scary realization that time is the most brutal force of nature. Yonger developers need to take this as cautionary tale, one day you just wake up and realize you aren't young anymore, I went through this phase and it left me destroyed, uncertain, empty and whats more important frightened of future, sometimes it is very scary to look forward, especially when slowly you get up there in years. Commented Sep 1, 2020 at 20:47
  • 2
    I am sincerely happy for you, and glad that there are people not afraid to speak up. Commented Sep 1, 2020 at 20:50