Valve Office Hours

[Escher0]

Just had a conversation ith John Cook about Valve Office Hours since everyone keeps wondering what time of day releases go out.

Escher0 says: 
hi there
johnc says: 
g'day
Escher0 says: 
i know you're probably being spammed with messages, but I have a litte question
Escher0 says: 
What are the office hours at Valve?
johnc says: 
people here work any hours they want
Escher0 says: 
thats cool, I wish I could do that at my job
Escher0 says: 
so what kind of of hours do you usually hold?
johnc says: 
i usually get in at 9:30am, leave around 8:30
Escher0 says: 
wow, thats a long work day
Escher0 says: 
does everyone there have such long hours or are you just a workaholic?
johnc says: 
at busy times like this, everyone works long hours

I say everyone lays off of Valve for not releasing the media today. With an 11 hour work-day, I'm sure they're doing everything they can and don't want to hear more complaints.

 

[Peks]

wow 10-14 hour work days are normal.

 

[Escher0]

here, 8 hours is normal, where are you from?

 

[Peks]

well yea 40 hours/week 8/day is "normal" but eceryone works more than that. mostly for the OT and extra pay. i bet in 50 years the "normal" work week will be what people normally do now, which is 10-14 a day. sad but true

 

[jasonh1234]

I'll tell you right now that a 12-14 hour work day in the games industry is very common. The workplace is usually enoyable enough though that it barely feels like work.

 

[Tyl3n0L]

i'm working 15hours per day, 6 days per week... and that sucks.. i dont have the time to do anything... when i'm not working, i'm sleeping... i dont think it's a normal life.

 

[LoneDeranger]

Hey if I was working on HL2 I would wouldn't mind working 11 hours at all. Would you?

 

[Kamakiri]

Making the most anticipated video game I wouldn't call a hard job.

Sure they are the the office for long hours but they probably have LAN sessions 10 times a day.

 

[Boogaleeboo]

That, or they work 16 hours a day doing mindnumbing coding work and art touch ups to make the game as good as it is with relatively few breaks for things like "games" or "families".

Much like every other design team ever.

 

[Draklyne]

Actually, according to several interviews of the Bungie and Lionhead studios teams, sometimes coding can be fun. At Lionhead, while working on Black and White, team members were known to shout, "I GOT IT TO WORK!" down the hall, bringing several members of the team rushing down to ooh and ahh

 

[Kamakiri]

Those long hours are only leading up to the Gold.

I Know a guy who works at Bioware and he never has time for family up leading to the final product.

 

[Peks]

"At Lionhead, while working on Black and White, team members were known to shout, "I GOT IT TO WORK!" down the hall, bringing several members of the team rushing down to ooh and ahh"


ahah i know how that is...but only with my intro to comp sci class. nothing like game deving

 

[Escher0]

I know how it feels when you get something to work. A friend and I are making our own game and my friend is an amazing coder. So, in about two days, we had a very simple base for the game. Basically you could fly a ship around, that was it, but it was awesome because it was ours. Sucks we had to scrap most of what we had to go back to design.

 

[Parasite]

Originally posted by Peks
well yea 40 hours/week 8/day is "normal" but eceryone works more than that. mostly for the OT and extra pay. i bet in 50 years the "normal" work week will be what people normally do now, which is 10-14 a day. sad but true

in 50 years there wont be any jobs. theres too many people and too little jobs today, and as more and more things become automated...there will be even less jobs. Sad but true.

 

[Belisarius]

not really so sad, because scince everything is automated it makes everything cheaper.

 

[Boogaleeboo]

Which is meaningless if you don't have a job and can't pay for it.

 

[Escher0]

there will always be jobs in the future, just maybe not the same ones as now.

 

[droper]

every job that gives flexible hours like that always gets crazy at crunch time or near releases.

 

[SpuD]

My work varies from 4 hours-14 hours a day

 

[Fat Tony!]

thats a big range spud

 

[MoJo|Night]

A big range spud? is that new HL2 weaponary? like a high velocity carrot?

 

[FISKER_Q]

It is actually quite normal to work over 8 hours in gamecompanies. Even people tend to stay overnight to get some work done.

 

[jhero]

Well, people have to make money