Thread by @AllawayJ

Being a Game Dev with a Chronic Illness is nearly impossible and that's a fucking problem: A Thread

Every time I read an article about XYZ game company's terrible work practices, the first thing I think is "If I worked there, I would literally need hospitalization or I might die."

The use of crunch and overwork as currency within companies is fundamentally ableist and discriminatory. If I am physically unable to work overtime, but bob is, and bob gets rewarded for 'going the extra mile' and I'm not, I get screwed out of something that wasn't even an option

What baffles me is how foreign this conversation seems to be in otherwise healthy devs. People with chronic illnesses have to learn before anyone else how to protect their health ; how to set boundaries around work, how to work smarter and not harder. We have to. It's survival.

So when game devs who are healthy advise other game devs of various ability to just "push through" the crunch periods, they aren't realizing that we already "push through" every single day. There's only so much you can "push through" before you break.

And what's laughable about this is if game devs planned their production schedules around able-diverse devs FIRST, it would benefit EVERYONE. Because that means healthy people would be using crunch averse schedules. So they would have more time for a life outside of games.

Game devs who have worked through months of crunch have joked about how it doesn't matter if they break their bodies now, but they don't know what it's like to have a broken body. I hope they never do. I am proof of what happens when you crunch until you can't take it anymore.

And even so, I'm one of the lucky ones. I work at a company where I have super flexible hours for health, doctor appointments, etc. We are crunch averse. The most I have ever crunched was one week, and I did 50 hours instead of 40.

I was told that I went above and beyond that week. It wasn't normal. And as a result, all my coworkers, able-diverse or otherwise, have fulfilling lives outside their company. They come to work excited and recharged every day. Everyone is happy because they have time to be happy.

So what kills me about seeing all these companies abuse their employees is that we as an industry normalise this. Everyone says "these companies are the rule, not the exception." But there are good companies out there that prove we can make games without the bullshit.

I have heard so many dudebros talk about "disrupting" the game industry, and when I asked them what their plans were for addressing crunch and overwork, shrugged their shoulders and said "nothing we can do about it". But you're sO dIsRuPtIvE.

WE as a game industry decide what's the norm. WE the workers decide what's okay to do to us. Props to @GameWorkers for working tirelessly every day to dispel the illusion that nothing can be done. Because these companies are NOTHING without our labor and talent.

And more importantly, If workers abuses are so bad that normal, healthy people are feeling the effects, you've already lost THOUSANDS of able-diverse devs. That's thousands of voices that were left behind; who's inability to abuse themselves was more important than their insight.

So yeah. Shit's fucked up. If we design an industry that's inclusive for everyone, including people with health issues, EVERYONE'S health benefits. Those health benefits make better games. #UnionizeGames #BoycottBadJobs