State of the Game Industry 2019 2
Nearly half of game makers work over 40 hours a week on games
Since there’s been so much public discussion about labor conditions in the game industry, we
thought it was a good idea to ask respondents to tell us what their average hours worked in a
week and maximum hours worked in a week were over the past twelve months.
Nearly half of respondents (44 percent) say they spend more than 40 hours a week, on
average, working on games. The most common workweek proved to be 36-40 hours per week,
with 24 percent of respondents saying that was their average. 21 percent of respondents said
they worked on games 41-45 hours per week on average and 17 percent said they averaged
0-20 hours per week on games.
Notably, 3 percent of respondents said they average over 60 hours of work per week on games,
and 5 percent said they average 51-60 hours.
When it came to talking about their maximum overtime, the largest share of respondents (19
percent) said 46-50 hours was the most they’d worked on games in a single week during the
past twelve months. 18 percent said 51-60 hours was the most they’d worked on games in a
single week (though note this answer encompasses 10 years, rather than 5, and will thus attract
more responses), and 11 percent said 41-45 hours.
However, we saw that at least some respondents claimed to have worked as much as a
hundred-hour week in the past twelve months. 2 percent said they’d worked at least 91-100
hours in one week, 1 percent said they’d hit 101-110, and another 1 percent (or almost 40 people)
said they’d worked more than 110 hours in a week on games within the past year.
“Self-pressure” was the most common reason game makers
gave for working overtime
We also gave respondents the option of telling us the reason(s) why they thought they’d worked
those maximums, and what their general studio size (small, medium, large) was when it happened.
Respondents could choose multiple reasons and the most popular answer, given by 69 percent
of respondents, was that it was at least partially self-pressure -- personally putting in extra work
because the respondents felt they wanted or needed to. More than half of those who gave this
answer worked at small outfits of 10 people or less, while a third worked at a studio of more
than 30 people.
The second most popular response, given by 59 percent of respondents, was that they don’t
feel the number of hours worked to be excessive. Here again, more than half of those who said
this worked alone or in small groups, while a third worked on large teams.
The third most popular proved to be management pressure, with 26 percent of respondents
saying they’d crunched because it was made clear by someone above them that they needed to
work those hours. A disproportionately large number of them (39 percent) said they work at large
companies of 30+ people, while 42 percent said they work at small companies of ten or less.
