how many hours does a programmer normally work?

There is no such thing as normal in software development. Some developers work 7-8 hour days, the average seems to be about 10 hour days, and in game development 12-15 hour days seems about the norm.

Depends on the company and the state of the project.

Usually slightly longer than someone who dislikes what they do (most game-programmers don't spend the last 45 minutes of each working day watching the clock tick down to 5.30). As such you quickly add another 60-90 minutes a day of 'wait, let me just finish this thing I was working on'. In a lot of cases, a good company will let you compensate that with core/flexi-hours, where a portion of the day (say 11.00-16.00) is core hours, and the rest of your 8 hour day is flexi. Allows people with kids to come in at 8.00 and leave at 16.00, while the youngsters can come in at 11.00 and leave at 19.00.

Most companies go through some degree of crunch at milestones (E3, publisher review, release, etc). If the project's been well managed, these will be minimal, but it's still pretty common to pull a week or 2 of 12 hour days before a major milestone to make things 'just right'. Often this isn't mandated by management, more something the developers do because they want to make the best game possible

It IS possible to combine game development with a real life; just takes a smart employer.

Allan

At most (non-game) jobs the norm is standard 8 hours per day, 45+ weeks a years, and 10 hours per day a few weeks a year.

According to laws: roughly 40 hours per week. (And 60 hours for those without families ;)

On crunch-time (when game is about the get released), 60-80 hours :)

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Original post by __ODIN__ Usually slightly longer than someone who dislikes what they do (most game-programmers don't spend the last 45 minutes of each working day watching the clock tick down to 5.30).

What makes you think that non-game developers don't enjoy what they do? I left the game industry and actually love what I am working on now and find it very interesting to work on and never look at the clock waiting for time to pass. Anybody that is experiencing this should move to another profession immediately.

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As such you quickly add another 60-90 minutes a day of 'wait, let me just finish this thing I was working on'.

That is a nice notion, although 99% of the time it is because a milestone is due and you are a few days late and have to get something done asap.

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In a lot of cases, a good company will let you compensate that with core/flexi-hours, where a portion of the day (say 11.00-16.00) is core hours, and the rest of your 8 hour day is flexi.

Completely and utterly wrong on your hours. Sure time is usually flexible as long as you are there around core (incase of meetings, etc) but that in no way means you are working less. Usually people end up working a lot more when they have core hours of 5-6 hours.

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Most companies go through some degree of crunch at milestones (E3, publisher review, release, etc). If the project's been well managed, these will be minimal

This is where it finally clicked and I realized you either work at one of four game companies I know of that are not under a constant crunch, or you are just hoping that it will be like this when you do start working in games. I mean 95%+ of the game companies I know of are almost in a constant crunch mode from day one.

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but it's still pretty common to pull a week or 2 of 12 hour days before a major milestone to make things 'just right'. Often this isn't mandated by management, more something the developers do because they want to make the best game possible

This is now where I realized you in no way work in the game industry (unless it is for one of the few companies I can name). Management always wants it done right now, and unfortunately the game industry is about 10 years behind in engineering and the development process. I actually know of two or three masters/phd papers being done right now on the development process in the game industry and how we can work to correct this. The vast majority of game studios are under the gun by the publisher and need to show working milestones that would often be unrealistic dates without massive crunch.

It is unfortunately but unless you are working for a game company in the .5% or less that have regular hours or have adopted newer development processes and spent money into proper engineering... you will be working insane hours and days. Some people don't mind this, although most do.. which is the reason the average stay in the game industry is 2-3 years and the people with 5+ years of experience are quite rare and sought after.

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Original post by Saruman This is now where I realized you in no way work in the game industry (unless it is for one of the few companies I can name). Management always wants it done right now, and unfortunately the game industry is about 10 years behind in engineering and the development process. I actually know of two or three masters/phd papers being done right now on the development process in the game industry and how we can work to correct this. The vast majority of game studios are under the gun by the publisher and need to show working milestones that would often be unrealistic dates without massive crunch. It is unfortunately but unless you are working for a game company in the .5% or less that have regular hours or have adopted newer development processes and spent money into proper engineering... you will be working insane hours and days. Some people don't mind this, although most do.. which is the reason the average stay in the game industry is 2-3 years and the people with 5+ years of experience are quite rare and sought after.

I'm sorry if you took it personally that I advocated human treatment of staff in the Games industry. Exactly why you decided that this warrented at personal attack on me I do not know; perhaps your own stint in the development industry left you burnt out?

There's been a mentality in the games industry that you take them young, run them dry, then kick them out when they're no longer willing to work 120 hour weeks. Clearly that's not sustainable. It IS changing.

After spending a 5 years in the more traditional games industry, I started up a casual game development company last year with a business partner. It's doing okay, though hardly World of Warcraft numbers. We generally try to treat our staff well, and while there sometimes are crunches around key deliverables we do our best to keep them minimal, and stop them from extending more than 1-2 weeks. We try to keep our staff happy, and offer time of in lieu for overtime, flexi-time, and the ability to work from home. Probably wouldn't work on a 50 man team, but since most of our teams are 3-4 people, it works pretty well.

If you'd like to continue this dialog on a civil basis, feel free to PM me.

Allan Simonsen

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Original post by __ODIN__ I'm sorry if you took it personally that I advocated human treatment of staff in the Games industry. Exactly why you decided that this warrented at personal attack on me I do not know; perhaps your own stint in the development industry left you burnt out?

I didn't take any of your points personally at all but I just wanted to clear up misinformation in your post. I'm not sure why you think it was a personal attack because clearly the aim of my post was to debunk your incorrect points. Your post was nice but does not represent the current game industry at all, it is quite simply a vision of how it should be. The original poster asked for average hours so quite honestly it would be much better to let him know how it actually works instead of how it should work.

And why would I be burnt out.. I'm really not sure where that comment came from? I had some health issues earlier in the year and I took some time off and than instead of jumping back into game development with heavy hours I decided to work in another area of development that interested me (and had normal hours) so that I could return to university on a part-time basis.

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There's been a mentality in the games industry that you take them young, run them dry, then kick them out when they're no longer willing to work 120 hour weeks. Clearly that's not sustainable. It IS changing.

I noted a few papers in my post about how people are trying to fix the development process in this industry. You can say it is changing all you want, but the fact of the matter is that currently it really is not. Hopefully we will see more companies more forward and try to pick up a better engineering / development process in the future.

Unfortunately I believe that both you and I are on the same side of the discussion and understand that the vast majority of the industry is broken in terms of the development process, employee hours worked, engineering, and project management.. and that both of us would like to see that corrected. My reason for posting was not to shoot down your idea of how things should be working, but to answer the original question.