Comments on: Life Balance: Family, Work, Play

By: Defect 9

Defect 9 — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:00:43 +0000

Now if only siestas were mandatory in the states. have lunch, take a nap, return refreshed.

By: Jeremy S.

Jeremy S. — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:29:34 +0000

I’m trying to be a successful writer, but writing is such a hard profession.

If I could dream, I’d dream of writing a winning book or two, and enjoying the residual income, while still writing articles maybe a few hours a week, and playing MMO’s the rest

By: Work Life Balance - We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog

Work Life Balance - We Fly Spitfires - MMORPG Blog — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:12:42 +0000

[...] recently read an article on Nerfbat entitled Life Balance: Family, Work, Play. In case you don’t know, Nerfbat is a blog by Ryan Shwayder, a game designer who used to work [...]

By: Ryan Shwayder

Ryan Shwayder — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 22:57:02 +0000

While it’s not common to work somewhere that is as family-friendly as 38 Studios, it’s becoming less rare within the industry.

By: We Fly Spitfires

We Fly Spitfires — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:54:42 +0000

Absolutely agree. I work in the web industry and even that is demanding enough and I went through a period of doing very long hours. I eventually came out realising it just wasn’t anyway to live and now I’m trying to get a better balance between work, family and play.

You have to put your ‘life’ and your family first. There is no second try

By: chooseareality

chooseareality — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:29:47 +0000

I have always wanted to do what you do for a living, but I also put my family first so thought I couldn’t possibly have a job on the game development field. Am I mistaken? What are the real odds of finding a job that understands how important my family is?

If you look at my blog you can see I went on a rant about this recently.

Great post!

By: JuJutsu

JuJutsu — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:05:04 +0000

Nice post. I’m hopeful that your view of how to lead life gets carried over into the content of your work. I’d love to see a sequal post sometime in the future where you point out some features of Copernicus that are ‘real-life friendly’ in a way that you personally appreciate.

By: SmakenDahed

SmakenDahed — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 13:35:07 +0000

I do the same sort of thing. I never get any complaints on what I deliver, I do what I have to, I do it well and I deliver it well before the deadlines and often end up helping others on the team… despite having similar hours to you (in fact, I think they’re about the same).

I had the joys of having a dad that was a workaholic and at some point, it’s almost like he forgot how to have fun. It was get up to work, come home and either work on the laptop or think about work things. He’s excelled at his job, but missed out on his family. It’s not something I want to fall into.

I’ve come close, but stepped back and looked at what I was missing out on; my first child was still a baby (not even a year old) and I was leaving early in the morning when he wasn’t awake and coming home so late he was already asleep. Weekends were a little better, but I still worked on them.

Now? I work about the same hours you do, sometimes I’ll put in a little extra to wrap something up or help up, then go home (I use public transportation so I get about an hour of reading or listening to music there), spend some time with the wife/kids up until about 9ish when they’re all in bed (wife included) then I’ll play games or read a book. I do sometimes get on earlier, but that’s usually when the kids are otherwise occupied (playing together, playing a game, watching a movie or playing with a friend).

Heh, I’ve actually just started playing WoW with my oldest (nearly 6 years old). It’s a lot of fun.

By: Brian 'Psychochild' Green

Brian 'Psychochild' Green — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:25:19 +0000

/agree (Says the guy posting at just pat 4 AM and about to go to bed.)

When I was at 3DO, I saw people getting awards for basically ignoring their family to ship another stupid Army Men game. It was beyond belief that someone would miss the birth of their kid to meet an internal milestone and get a stupid button labeling them a “star performer”. One whole team actually chipped in together to buy a couch for their area so they could take turns sleeping on it to not have to go home.

All these years later, I can just imagine them looking back on that work with some amount of regret. 3DO doesn’t even exist as a company anymore, so all that work has little lasting value. Was missing your kid’s birth or not going home for a month worth it now?

My better half doesn’t want kids, but I’ve not been eager to have kids given how demanding a career can be. Even if you work with wonderful people, there can still be that bit of hard feelings over someone “not putting in the hours needed” and preferring to go home and spend time with family, as Ryan says. It’s one of the big things that I think has to change about the industry if we’re really want to be taken seriously.

I hope the future allows you to keep those priorities, Ryan.

By: chuck

chuck — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 05:05:07 +0000

I chose Computer Science as a career path originally because I wanted to develop games. That changed when I had the opportunity to visit with some developers from Origin Systems (before the EA buyout). Crazy hours and death marches were not for me. Little did I know that this wasn’t limited to the game industry, and soon fell into that trap anyways. I’ve since grown wiser, and found a place that allows me to have priorities like yours (and now live vicariously by reading game developers’ blogs like yours, so keep it up ). I salute you for putting your family first, and glad to hear that there are places in the game industry that allow it.