– Developer Erin Hoffman reminds developers to learn the mechanics of business — accounting, management, and more — lest they be crushed by them. In this GDC 2013 IGDA-sponsored talk the ‘EA_Spouse’ herself, Erin Hoffman, looks back on how conversations about work-life balance in the game industry since 2004, and what it all might mean for the future. You may remember that Hoffman accidentally loosed a firestorm of sentiment and industry soul-searching when she posted a livejournal entry titled “EA: The Human Story” under an anonymized pseudonym. The essay was subsequently reprinted in Best Software Writing for that year, and the widespread reaction on and offline — spanning tens of thousands of comments and millions of hits — prompted news coverage in the New York Times, LA Times, Wall Street Journal, Salon.com, NPR, and more. In her GDC talk, Hoffman ruminates on how the industry has changed in response to her entry and how contemporary developers can empower themselves to make the business of making games better for everyone. It’s an excellent talk that every developer should see, so we’ve gone ahead and embedded the free video of the IGDA-sponsored talk “The Right Side of the Ocean: EA_Spouse Then and Now” above. You can also watch it here on the GDC Vault.
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