44% of game developers have to meet the deadline “forgot to eat, forget to sleep”

The gaming industry is really tough.

A recent survey conducted by GDC shows how COVID-19 will affect industry growth in 2020. It is not surprising that COVID-19 has both positive and negative impacts. positive for the industry. Many titles in 2020 and 2021 have been delayed apparently due to changes in working conditions that led to the delay.

Specifically, the results from the survey are that 44% of developers said that their ongoing projects are delayed in 2020 due to the direct impact of COVID-19. This survey looks at over 3000 developer responses and looks at not only the development status of current projects, but also the productivity of these studios and their perception of change. environment in the game. Interestingly, about 49% of developers claim that they have no delays due to the pandemic, the remaining 7% have not had any active projects in the past year.

Due to the huge number of canceled projects, game developers who are still standing with their game projects have to “run deadlines” every week to keep up with the game release schedule. Specifically, according to a survey by GDC State of the Industry with more than 3000 game developers from around the world. More than half of respondents — 56% worked an average of 40 hours per week or less in the past twelve months, which in terms of time doesn’t seem particularly serious. Less encouraging, however, is that a quarter of developers say they average more than 46 hours per week.

A survey of the maximum number of hours worked in a week over the past year tells a slightly different story: 30% of respondents reported working more than 60 hours in at least a week, and 17% reported working. more than 70 hours. Nearly three-quarters of respondents who work more than 40 hours per week said “self pressure” was a key factor in doing so, while 14% pointed to management pressure and 11% cited pressure from Friends are the cause. The “self-pressure” response was also the top cause of people working more than 40 hours per week in last year’s survey, but the number of people who consider it a major factor has increased significantly this year. , from 59% in 2020 to 73% in 2021.

In addition to these widespread delays, COVID-19 has changed the way games are made as a large number of developers work from home instead of in the office as the pandemic looms. While 32% of respondents saw little or no difference in creativity and productivity during this time, 35% said at least some benefit from working from home in 2020. However, another 32% said productivity is down, the environment may be suitable for some people, it is not the best for every developer.