Yeast adds: "When you're doing work and you're being productive and trying to make decisions, trying to be wise about your decision-making, you have a broader perspective on things, and you end up making some wiser choices. You can look at [a project] and realize what you need to get done and what you can cut away."
A game developer parent, by sheer definition, is going to be in an older age bracket, and that usually means they've spent more years directly in the game industry. Any software engineer anywhere can tell you that an experienced programmer is worth any five - or more - junior programmers. Both have their place; the most cutting edge development methods balance the strengths of youthful energy and flexibility against experienced gravity and wisdom, but there's no question that most coding nightmares come from lack of experience. Historically, when hiring new developers, the barrier to entry is not a college degree, discovering new algorithms or even the number of years worked - it's the number of titles shipped, as many a breaker-in laments. It's experience, because "Oh, I've seen that before, it's like this" is a musical, magical phrase. And it is a catastrophic hypocrisy that we are systematically driving out those that possess the most of the one thing we're always looking for.
It is long past time for the last barriers between parents and the game industry to fall, because we need each other, and we make each other stronger. The process toward change will be like rock climbing: arduously inching up the mountain with sherpas like Seven showing the way. Lone studios practicing development methods with baseline quality of life standards, in addition to attracting parents, will allow developers as a whole to be more discerning in their choice of workplace. And with a growing body of studios placing their focus on positive work environments, Yeast says the community will look back and realize, one hit at a time, that inhuman working conditions were peripheral, not integral, to the process of making great games.
The industry is progressing through a critical maturation process, and can come through it in full bloom with careful effort. You hear that, you kids?
Erin Hoffman is a professional game designer, freelance writer, and hobbyist troublemaker. She moderates Gamewatch.org and fights crime on the streets by night.
