Getting out of the game industry

I could use your helpful advice, /prog/ hivemind. Here's my dilemma. I've been a professional game dev at a big studio for several years now, and I think I might be burned out. I'm utterly tired of the sequelitis, sick of shitty code quality and C++'s awful build times, annoyed by incompetent management, and exhausted by enormous rotting codebases.

The most frustrating part is that I don't even feel like a game programmer anymore. The stuff I do at work is swathed in so many layers of bullshit and beauracracy and our games are so uninteresting to me that I may as well be writing insurance software. The only big difference is that if I was writing insurance software, I could at least write my own little games in my free time and put them online. Because of non-competes, I can't even do that. All I want to do is make games and I can't, ironically because I'm a game developer.

As far as I can tell, my options are:

   1.

      Leave the industry. Get some regular business programming 9-5 job and make games in my free time. The hard part about this is that I fear my skillset applies well for games, but little else. Will I be able to find a job when I know tons of C++ and C#, but not much about SQL, ASP.NET or server-side programming?
   2.

      Find a better game studio. Working on smaller games that I do enjoy would probably be the ideal situation. The challenge is that it's hard as fuck to find another game job now because the economy sucks and the industry is shrinking. I'd have to move to a city that has more game studios, and I don't think the few studios that are hiring are interested in relocating someone when there's probably plenty of hungry local candidates.
   3.

      Go solo. I think I've got a well-rounded enough skillset that I could probably kick out a couple of iPhone games on my own and maybe get by. Unfortunately, my financial and family situation doesn't let me be that entreprenurial. I need a day job with a steady salary and health insurance.

Any advice on what I should do? If you got this far, thank you for at least reading this. It's hard to describe how frustrating and emotionally draining what I'm going through is. At least knowing that someone else is even listening helps.

I understand that saying "wah wah, I'm in the game industry and it's lame" really makes me sound like a whiney bitch. I do know I'm lucky to even have a job, and things could certainly be worse for me. Try to keep in mind that the game industry may not be as magical as you may think. There's a reason turnover is so high.

>>1
Wow, this all sounds extremely farmiliar. I'll write up a proper reply when I get home from work :(

pasta

>>3
Ah. Never mind then.

>games,
>C#

The games industry is the toilet of programming jobs. Get out of that toilet.

>>1
Go solo.
Do you have innovative concepts that simply cannot be found anywhere else?  If not, you will need to learn from the master.<sup>[1]

[1]</sup>www.mdickie.com

There are such a wide variety of interesting problems to solve for games, and the finished products can be really cool, so it's a shame that the work environments tend to suck so much. I got out of the games industry in 03 and haven't regretted it. It's really nice to be able to go home at a reasonable hour, not have to work on weekends, and be able to use my vacation time pretty much whenever I want.

Unfortunately, the working conditions in the games industry are always going to suck as long as there are so many people who really want to do games and are willing to put up with the shitty conditions.

I was in a simillar position two years ago. After almost a decade in games industry I decided to leave. While my reasons are not quite the same as yours (you seem to be really frustrated) here are a few points and parallels:

      I got to the point where I could really move only sideways, not up (having no intention of going into management). Frustrations of the workplace you eventually learn to live with and accept it as part of what makes this industry what it is. But you won't get away from it wherever you end up. The point I'm trying to make is not to rush your decision - take some time off and come back to your question when adrenalin isn't pumping wildly.

      I have moved into finances. Not the boring day-to-day activities, but far more interesting high performance branch, where I get to use all the cool tricks I learned in games (yes, it's still all C++ based over here, and yes, branching still hurts here as much as it does on PS3, and yes, there's never enough memory when you need it). I'm working on technical aspects that I personally find very interesting and would have never been exposed to if I stayed in games. What are your interests? Skills? Are you a games programmer because you: a) like games, or b) find game programming challenges interesting to work on? (Not quite clear from your post). Half of the answers are in this question.

>>7   I admire people who can go solo; either form their own tiny studio and do XNA/iPhone games, or chose the role of a contractor and keep changing the scenery frequently. But you need to have a certain personality traits to be able to do it and make a decent living. Only you can know if it's true or not.

In the end, I moved away from games and it wasn't an easy decision to make. It won't be easy for you, either. The important thing is to be honest about the reasons behind the choice you make, whatever they may be. Only then will you not look back and think "Oh, shit..."

>>1
1. read SICP
2. give up all that crap
3. sell all your shit
4. buy a backpack, some relible terrain boots and a solid note/netbook
5.  wander through the world as a EXPERT PROGRAMER, learn and see as much as you can and help people with their programming troubles.
6. reach enlightenment and teach your ways others

>>3
>>3
>>3
>>3
>>3
>>3
>>3

>>11
Please optimise your quotes in the future.
>>3

I can see myself feeling the exact same way as you, but from the position of designer rather than programmer. Game design is all I am really interested in, so I'm not sure what I would do. I'm consistently disappointed in the lack of exploration in big name games, I am slowly trying to learn programming so I can make my own indie stuff.

светлое будущее глазами прочитавшего SICP "ученого по компьютерам":
все сидят под солнышком с  ноутбуками и целуются
никто не рассчитывает атомные взрывы, все целуются и разрабатывают все новые способы расчета факториала
и даже если твои программы не работают ты все равно счастливый член этого гомосексуального братства

>>12
You lost some precision there, allow me to help.
>>3,3,3,3,3,3,3

bright future eyes reading the SICP "a computer scientist":
all sit in the sun with notebook PCs and kiss.
Nobody calculating the atomic explosions, all the kiss and develop new ways of calculating the factorial
and even if your program does not work you still a happy member of the homosexual fraternity

>>16
homosexual fraternity
I smirked.

>>17
Ner smirking.

Try to keep in mind that the game industry may not be as magical as you may think
I don't think any non-retarded programmer thinks that the game industry is magical.

web developer here. i can only really comment on my niche. i'm pretty much the opposite -- don't use c++ on a daily basis, and definitely don't use c# -- scripting languages, sql, regex, and grep are my life. we do consulting so there's a lot of client relationship stuff to deal with too. if you're talented, someone will probably give you a shot, and it's always fun to develop new skills.

other than web/business app development, maybe look at internal library documentation or something wacky like that. probably boring as fuck, but w/e, at least you'll have a life outside of work.

SONY WINS AGAIN!

Check /r/copypasta

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