[game_edu] Qol, "crunch" and Education

[Jose P. Zagal]

>> As educators we have the moral obligation to help our students become

>> professionals that can (and should) make changes for the better.

>

>    I agree, but with reservations.  As educators, a group with a

> reputation for teaching information which can be anything up to 10 years

> out of date, it is important to acknowledge current reality.  Too many

> students, especially in the games industry, are coming out with

> amazingly naive ideas about how stuff works.

>    Manufacturing crunch is morally questionable, but denying its

> existence of putting it down to simple 'bad management' is worse in many

> ways.  It is currently a sad fact of life that must be opposed by first

> acknowledging its role and impact.



Oh, I would never deny its existence and our students should know what 
they might be getting into (that's why I use the reading I shared 
earlier), more importantly we should be empowering them to try to do 
something about it.



>> Crunch (or overtime) is just wrong.

>

>    Missing important deadlines and losing multi-million dollar contracts

> is worse.  Crunch is a coping strategy, albeit a bad one, not a problem

> in and of itself; you need to understand how to fix the underlying

> issue, not just refuse to be part of the solution.


Ok, let me rephrase that:

The (unfortunately quite common) attitude that "crunch" is the natural 
way of doing things and that there's nothing we can do about it is 
incorrect. The attitude that "crunching" is "cool", "manly", 
demonstrates commitment and shows how tough you are...is even worse.



-- 
José P. Zagal
Assistant Professor
College of Computing and Digital Media
DePaul University

http://www.ludoliteracy.com/
http://facsrv.cs.depaul.edu/~jzagal