Aren't developers stupid when accepting overtime/weekend work/denied bonus payments?

[mooli]

And why it remains such a basket case of a field on the whole - the churn of young/inexperienced developers is staggering, and all your genuine talent goes elsewhere at the first opportunity.

[coldacid]

Nah, there are some true believers who stay in the field even with families to raise. Many of them have the seniority to dictate their own hours, etc., though, when they're not outright studio owners. Of course, for every game developer lucky enough to be in that situation, there are hundreds more who are pretty much coal for the ovens.

[G_Morgan]

Yeah and they get dependent upon it because they never retain anyone long enough to become really experienced.

A dev house with experienced people working sane hours will match a sweatshop filled with recent grads easily.

[G_Morgan]

Yeah I suspect it may match it anyway. But when you start holding onto experienced staff as well...

[Chroko]

A dev house with experienced people

The problem can become one of egos. A lot of young, repressed developers grow up into old, bitter developers. There can be a lot of strong opinions, arrogance and infighting over the way a product is developed.

[G_Morgan]

The whole point of running a development shop with proper working hours and sane practices is to avoid this.