Feldon 
From PennyArcade.com by Ben Kuchera:
Former LucasArts composer Jesse Harlin has written a eulogy for the company, and the words have been matched with a series of images taken of employees on what was reported to be their last day of work. The eulogy is moving, and it provides a look into a group of people who are passionate about what they did, but a few lines stand out as stark reminders of how much you give up to work in this industry.
“In the trenches of game design, work was hard. Crippling crunches that lasted for months aged us and tested our sanity. Sometimes executives presented us with projects, development partners, or deadlines that were impossible,” Harlin wrote. “But giving all of yourself creatively never stopped. Ever. Marriages failed as we poured our hearts into games that the press might eventually skewer. Pregnancies were delayed in favor of project milestones. Funerals were missed.”
The cost of our games, including the 18 hour work days, the ruined relationships, and the isolation from friends and family, is incredibly high. Reporters joke with each other whenever we tour a studio and see the free coffee, the cafeteria, the movie theaters, and the showers; the nicer a corporate office looks, and the more features it offers employees, the less likely it is that you’ll ever leave the premises for things as mundane as a well-rounded personal life. That expensive coffee machine and climbing wall isn’t a free perk, it’s the payment for when you’re asked to skip that funeral or work through the weekend.
I’ve talked to too many people in this industry to wonder why so many of our games feel adolescent; many of the artists who make the games are given a job, they begin to live at the studio, the hours grow long, they cease to grow as human beings, and they’re stuck with the same influences, passions, and sense of humor they had as a teenager. This may not have happened at LucasArts, as the men and women in these images may have paid the cost gladly or had a richer home life than is hinted at in the euology, but it’s a problem in modern, AAA game development.
Photo by Jeol Aron
Meanwhile at Mojang, they get paid for a 3 hour playtime every Friday afternoon.
Also don’t most (successful) AAA studios outside of EA view over working their employees as a planning and upper-management failure and generally push their games back before they barrage their employees with overtime? I know Valve and Bethesda (claim to?) operate like that anyway, and what do you know they both put out some of the best games.
Happy employees make a better game? What a surprise! That explains why EQ2 is such trash these days I guess.
Good, short article. Sums up how we all felt and were treated in the ‘olde’ days. The industry was truly romanticized and we all were young, dedicated, and compensated. The world changed, heads of industry changed and the ‘romantic’ mentality did not change. First the bottom-liners then the entitled ones destroyed the creativity and the teams. LucasArts vets will carry on with changes not always the happiest. Krap happens. We clean it up and move on unlike some who cry for someone else to clean it up.
RIP LucasArts
Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for devs & programmers for giving me something mindless to do in the evenings. But for fuck sake, don’t fore go your family to do it. I can read a damn book or play cards instead.
I feel sad that they placed a higher value on a career in gaming than family. But that was their call. Personally I work a job I don’t particularly like so that I have more time with my family.
Isn’t the fact that they have to fore go their families, etc. developers fault for making things so easy these days that gamers can blow through their content?
Wouldn’t making a game with longevity be smarter? lol.