[game_edu] Qol, "crunch" and Education

[Jose P. Zagal]

> I have a question for you, Jose, about the 40 hour work week and Ford.

> The processes there were for efficiency of assembly line workers. Fewer

> errors when workers aren't over tired. I can see the parallel between

> being more efficient when you have a good nights sleep (GGJ aftermath

> still fresh in my mind.).

>

> But with relatives that work in film production, I know that there are

> exceptionally long hours there and some 'crunch' to get things done on

> time. The main distinction I see is that those fields are unionized and

> there is a financial penalty in terms of overtime for poor management.

>

> Sometimes creative work necessitates long hours. But the difference here

> is that creative professionals in game development are not compensated

> at the point where those hours are incurred in the development process.



There's a difference between occasional long hours and crunch as it is 
used in the game industry. In a nutshell, here's what we know (and this 
started with 12 years of research at Ford, but has continued in various 
other industries):

1. Overtime results in productivity gains, these gains are the highest 
in the first week and then rapidly decrease over the following weeks.

2. You need a recovery period following overtime to get back to 
"original" productivity. (in other words, you may get a productivity 
boost for 2 weeks, but you'll have to "pay" for that later on, in terms 
of productivity).

And...in the creative industries, the numbers are actually lower. 
Performance begins to decline after 35 hours a week, not 40.

So, yes, overtime can be used to achieve short-term goals (e.g. work a 
week of overtime to get that presentation ready for E3) but it must be 
followed by reduced time (work 30 hours a week the week after) if you 
want to maintain productivity.

The MAIN problem when we look at educational settings is that students 
have a much harder time seeing (and experiencing) the loss in 
productivity that results from sustained overtime. Pulling an 
all-nighter for that one project might work (productivity boost) because 
you'll rest for two entire days after that project is turned in...and 
then you're ready for another all-nighter for the next project...  As 
far as I know there's no school out there in which students are working 
overtime throughout the entire quarter/semester...




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

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