I'm a professional, but my working week varies dramatically as I've been doing mercenary work. Generally speaking, I've been doing a forty hour working week and recently no hobbyist work. When I do do hobbyist stuff, it gets between six and twenty hours.

I've worked on quite a few games (professional and hobby) over the past ten or so years, though I don't tend to give an actual number as 'shipped', as that implies always working on them for the bulk of the development cycle, which isn't always the case.

To answer my own question, I am a professional non-game programmer. Assembly(as is described in my signature), so not remotely connected to hobby gaming. (If you're using assembly-level programming in your game, I'm calling it not-hobby. ;) ) On my hobby programming, I usually manage 4 45-min lunches through the work week, and one night of 1.5-2 hrs.

So in total I only get in about 4.5-5 hrs per week.

If you like, please respond with an average weekly total in hours

35 hours at the office, 6 hours at home = 41 hours or so.

and what's your level of experience. (Are you hobby programmer only, or professional as well?

Both.

Is this your first or second game, or have you completed 10 games?)

Around 30 shipped titles.


L. Spiro

Im not a professional programmer at all, nor am I a CS major. Just a hobbyist. I try to get in a hour a day after Im done with college work. So 7-hours a week for me.

At all of my professional jobs, I've done 38 hours per week (the legal maximum here).

These days, I'm "an indie". When I was working out of my home office, it was pretty hard to tell how many hours I was doing... my workday and personal day were so blurred... Recently I moved into a small office building, and I've been spending about 45 hours per week there.

So in total I only get in about 4.5-5 hrs per week.

Probably spending more time on EVE yeh ;)? Cant believe I only just noticed the logo

<- ex player, left for programming :D well worth it ;)

So in total I only get in about 4.5-5 hrs per week.

Probably spending more time on EVE yeh ;)? Cant believe I only just noticed the logo

<- ex player, left for programming well worth it ;)

Heh, ya used to. But I also dropped my subscription to code more. I lapsed in August. I just couldn't excuse the sub for 2-4 hrs/ week, not counting lunchtime PI updating. I'm thinking about taking a break in January and subbing again for a month, lose some internet space pixels. I used to blog a bit about my journey, just a little. And I love my Amarr ships.

I'm just interested in hearing how much time people put into their game development. If you like, please respond with an average weekly total in hours, and what's your level of experience. (Are you hobby programmer only, or professional as well? Is this your first or second game, or have you completed 10 games?)

I'm a novice game programmer, and have only been coding for about a year (C++), so most my time is still spent learning how to do things. but on average i spend at least 6 hours a day coding, but fairly often i get into a groove and will end up spending 12+ hours coding. id say i spend between 40-70 hours a week coding.

im doing this to become a "Professional" game developer/programmer.

ive completed a handful of dinky games, and recently have been cloning classic games, starting from pong (of course! :) )

I spend around 4-8 hours a week on game development, mainly my own solo projects but also some freelance model/graphics work. Would like a ten or twenty-fold that amount but life gets in the way :)

I spend about 5-10 hours per week on my hobby projects.

My day job is game development-related, but not programming.

The time I spend at home is still valuable for my day job (making key decisions based on tech, etc.)