I think it's an interesting and legitimate question. Some players might like to know how much our esteemed devs play EverQuest either at work or in their spare time. There is no wrong or right answer. It's pretty common these day for employees of a company to use and enjoy the products they create especially in the video game industry. Every single recruitment job listing for video game industries requires that you must be passionate about the game(s) that you are applying to work on. Nothing says passion more than being an avid player. I remember back in 1978 Victor Kiam the CEO of Remington made a TV commercial that featured a slogan that became very popular: "I was delighted and impressed. So impressed, I bought the company"
I'd agree if it wasn't a loaded question judging by later discussion in the topic, but I'll move along.
Tasting the food and enjoying a full meal are two different things. I know three chefs whose food is celebrated, but they prefer to eat prepackaged food. I know another who wants nothing else than to cook as much as possible. Why does everything have to be one extreme or the other? It's almost like you're just here to argue.
Wrong. It's a loaded question and as soon as one of the Devs answers in the simplest form, the community will tear them apart. So why don't you play a Necro?! What do you mean you don't raid!? So does that mean the Devs don't care about the raids?! No wonder why suchandsuch class get so much attention and the others don't. etc etc etc. This would be a CS nightmare for them and best for them to stay quiet about it.
Bingo! This is very true. Passion is often code for an applicants willingness to work crunch time. However genuine passion is important as well. If you are not 100% into the video game that you are applying to work on, all things being equal, they will simply hire the applicant that is. If you own a video game studio and have invested your life savings, who are you going to hire? The person who doesn't like playing video games or the person that does? This is an easy answer.
It's like hiring a chef who never tries their own food. If you don't play your own games you have little chance of making them very good.
Who amongst us can tell us what a good steak is (to them) and how to make it without actually making it? How many steaks does a chef cook a day in a restaurant? How many of those steaks come out to the customer with a bite missing to prove “the chef tries what he cooks” Testing your own food isn’t what makes a chef a chef. At some point, experience and knowledge takes over and taste testing is far and few in between.
No. Expecting people to work extra hours isn't the only reason you hire people that care about what they're working on.
Agreed. But people are demanding answers show that the Devs put as much play time into the game as we do. Testing here and there isn’t a bad thing. 5 hours a week would be okay. An hour a day M-F. 250 hours a year, or roughly 10.5 days played logged at max level. I don’t think that’s unreasonable.
Daybreak seems pretty reasonable for work life and salaries from what I've seen. Any industry with regular hard deadlines every year is going to require people to work extra hours when needed. I'm guessing there's just more terrible developers in the gaming industry which is why they complain so much about it.