Is the game industry really that bad to work in?
vertex
As someone who wants to work in the game industry as a 3d modeler, i've just seen or heard from a lot of people how shit the game industry is to work in. I wanted to hear from you guys what your opinions on that are, if they are telling the truth or it's like any job that has it's downsides and they are just blowing it out of proportion?
Replies
Most of the widely publicized problems in the game industry come from a combination of bad management and poor communication. For example, the troubles with EA a few years ago happened because the people in charge were forcing their employees into situations where they'd burn out.
Burnt-out employees = bad output = bad games = management pushing people harder.
This can happen in any industry. It tends to happen a lot in the game industry because a lot of the people working in it are young and eager to please.
As far as personal anecdotes: I've worked in some crappy places, but it wasn't enough to make me leave the game industry. I enjoy my job and I'm currently very invested in continuing to do my job.
And thanks for the reply!
The only thing I mind about our industry is our choice of studio locations. Unfortunately, you're limited to a handful of major cities, with a few exceptions here and there. I guess you could freelance anywhere, but if you want to work for a studio in-house, you're probably going to have to be cool with big city life. I'd love to live somewhere more rural lol.
Every company is different, everyone of them has their own set of problems. Just apply to all the ones you like and try to find the one that best fits you.
Games are actually a fantastic place to work! Great people, great talent, everyone wants to grow and move forward, everyone likes their job... You really cant ask for a better environment.
Does the BS ever change in terms of it getting better?
Or is it only oneself that gets better at dealing with the BS?
Are those mutually exclusive from one another?
We all have the tools and material to make our own ladders.
Every thing else however has been pretty carefree. For 8 years I rarely had any heated arguments among co-workers and made a few close friends along the way. Life is peaceful, no unnecessary drama. It's so unlike my wife's story working in a corporate company. Hers sounds like things you'd see in soap opera and seriously I never even knew they happen in real world lol.
Moral of the story (my story at least) is: never, ever believe in blank promises. Employers try to keep you with them with promise of more work, more pay, IN THE FUTURE. Don't. Ever. Believe. That. Shit. Pick what is good AT PRESENT. If there's a new job opening that you can get a better pay and better work right now, choose that. Go. Just go. A mistake I'll never repeat ever again.
Thanks for all the replies guys btw!
One thing to keep in mind - All industries are heavily influenced by supply and demand. At this point, the potential supply of game artists far exceeds the demand, and that situation won't change any time soon. An excess supply of workers can cause all sorts of problems for the workers, such as lower wages and worse job conditions. Supply and demand is a bit different for very senior positions, however, so there is some nuance in regards to whether their is 'really' an over supply of game workers.
Even read somewhere , not sure if serious, that life expectancy is not that long for game artists.
The rivalry for jobs is huge. Be prepared to compete with those who ask much less for the same job in the global world of Internet.
Still if you can offer something unique and climb the ladder well enough the industry could be rewarding. As everywhere else.
It's still a nice small quite harbor comparing it with traditional fine art career.
As a slightly less short answer, in my opinion yes. However, more and more tools are coming and as production teams we are getting to a point where we dont necessarily need AAA studios to make the stories we want to tell, and with kickstarter and new forms of team communication like Slack gives new opportunities for teams to work in small focused and non traditional (i.e cheaper) ways. I seriously seriously hope funding new startups will set up a 'round 2' of self publishing studios that dont make the same mistakes as the old guard, where the employees own the company, where its not run SOLELY for the profit of shareholders blah blah......
Thats the future imo.....
Honestly, I love this industry. It lets me do what I love each and every day, and get paid for it. Pros vs Cons. And in this case, the Pros win, 100%. But, this industry isn't for everyone. People that burn out tend to hate it, absolutely. But honestly, don't let yourself burn out. The only reason so many people burn out is because they let themselves do so. Take vacations. Don't stay 12 hours a day every damn day. You`ll always have lots to do. that's not going to change. Your health will diminish though, so take care of yourself first and foremost.
Largest entertainment industry, multi-million dollar production costs... basically most of the time a good company to work for is one that doesn't have to answer to a publisher/large corporate investors.
That being said, it really does rely on the team and management of the company. I've been in places where you have people who have landed their director/lead position by just staying and not saying "no" to people above them. If you are the sort of person who say's "no", you will occasionally have problems and a bad time (even if you are right to say it, and you will be most of the time).
I think the happiest people in the industry are those who either:
* have no clue (or are very fresh)
* Treat the Job as a Job (or don't get invested in the project)
* working at one of the awesome places that value their employee's
* working on an IP that they love and its not being beaten to death slowly by the management/publisher.
That being said, vs a "traditional career" the freedom you have and opportunity in this industry is incredible and far outweighs the negatives. Essentially most people I've met who are every week down at the pub bitching about how they hate their job (basically everywhere I've worked has had this on fridays), are the people who are too afraid or in a situation where they can't make the jump to somewhere else.
What is upsetting however is when you see people who are quite new to the industry (less than 3-4 years) and young with no commitments, bitching every week claiming they want to leave, then not actually doing anything about it.
Whilst the reason for being angry/bitching is mostly always valid, I personally think if you have reached the stage where the only thing you do when you are out with colleagues is bitch about how much you hate work, its time to find a new job.
Always thought that employee exchange program's would be amazing. companies (with good relationships) exchanging (full-time) employees (mostly new to the industry) for a few months so they can learn/build skills. most people new to the industry are largely just extra hands instead of a core pillar of the team, giving people wider experience during that time in their development would change attitudes and set them up with contacts for their careers.
we mostly make games as a service for rich people with "ideas", so why not use their money to help secure peoples careers whilst doing that.
the side benefit is teams competing to be better places to work for so the best people want to exchange with them for a few months. companies would have to be close to each other or have their own apartments however
If you speak to some of the guys who work at some of the more better and stable studios some will tell you they're having a blast and that they wouldn't have it any other way. You also get those that say vice versa, what you have to do is put their interpretations into perspective.
Ask yourself genuinely how many good stable studios are out there? It's a numbers game and not everyone can work at those studios. The games industry generally offers decent to mediocre pay, tight deadlines, long hours, no job security in what can be a volatile environment.
In some cases sometimes one or a couple bad games can literally be the death of a studio or set the Studio back in a major way, you could be working with really good developers but the game is just managed badly. The game doesn't do well and it's the grunts who are generally facing the brunt of the backlash at times.
The games industry is perfect for the 20 something year old male/female who doesn't have any commitments who can freely move up and down the country or the globe to find work. When you start to hit your 30s and 40s that nomadic lifestyle starts to become a burden and the desire to find stability and the opportunity to settle down becomes more pertinent. You can understand why many would wash out when the priority is attempting to find stability in what is a very unstable environment.
Still it's not all that bad you get to work on games and do something you love for a living, the trick is finding a stable work/life balance and generally that can only be found in a handful of places.
I'm not sure what you are training to become but if you are here I would assume you're a Games Artist, my advice is this have a plan B whatever that plan is make sure you put some careful thought and effort into it.
though to be honest if I knew then what I know now I personally probably would've done something much steady like programming or networking. Earn some good money and then hire a small team of lke 3/4 people to build my own personal games as a hobby, Epic, Crytek, Valve, Unity have provided us the tools and the knowledge is out there in various forms you could arguably build a decent small scale game with like minded friends and individuals and still get the same sense of fun and enjoyment working in the business 9-5.
Anyway the choice is up to you, what everyone is saying on here is true but what you've heard from other people who I presume are close friends is also true, see it this way they aren't scaring you but presenting you the *reality* of working in the games industry for a living.
I think a lot of places still have that mentality. It isn't that I am saying its a bad industry, it's just likely a difficult one... but as I always say. None of us work in games for the money (or job stability). We do it because we love games. Otherwise we'd work at a bank or something and actually get paid more for less work
Seriously though, couldn't think an industry I would want to work in more. Yeah crunch is bad, but honestly, if I have to put up with like a couple months of crunch every 2 or 3 years so that I get to be extremely proud of the work I do and love my job as opposed to working at a place where I am just waiting for the clock to strike 5 then yeah, its worth it
It mostly comes down to picking the right places to work at, but also, being able to properly estimate the time you need for a certain task. A lot of people tend to underestimate the time certain tasks take (either by mistake, or as a way to pump their ego ...) and it can cause scheduling conflicts. But of course if the bad scheduling comes directly from management that's a whole different story.
Let's be fair, you've probably not worked at one of the shitty game factories that operate out of warehouses or anything like that yet
Also, stay the F off facebook and reddit during work hours. Focus on your work for the time you are at your desk. Get your shit done in a timely manner, and no one is going to bust your balls for not staying late. If they do, then ya. Not a very good place to work.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=137206
Part of my reply in it, but there is lots of good info from others beyond me rambling. I think you'll find the industry all depends on people's history, path, expectations, and things like that. It's not cut and dry. There's good and bad and it's not a linear path you just follow from beginning to end. Here's my story, if you're interested:
"First, my background: To be blunt, I come from complete garbage. I was poor, came from a town in the middle of nowhere, and never really had encouragement to do art for a living. No real art classes, and definitely no one in my immediate surroundings that even knew how video games worked. As a kid, I dreamed of games. I would draw fan art of Doom and X-Com, would mod games (as best I could) on my 486, and sketched out "designs" for made up games. I eventually got a demo for Max when I was a teenager, but had no clue what was going on. I'm not even sure how I got it, I didn't have the internet until I went to college, but I would basically open it up an struggled with modifying a sphere. When the time came to pick out a career, I excelled in a lot of things in school - somehow - like History, Political Science, Law, but knew my true path was something creative. I got pointed to NSCAD (fine art school) where I had to make a fine art portfolio and apply. I got denied, of course, since I fucking SUCKED and had no idea what to even do. I was young though, and after years of being told I was bad ass - was kind of shocked to not get in. Scrambling, I applied to a digital art school which, being naive, blew my fucking mind. I applied and, since I had money, got accepted. I moved away to college, super excited, and lived in a hostel while going to school. I spent day and night in this place trying to absorb everything. I did well, but after a year had no idea what I was doing (eventually befriended and lived with a guy who I would later work with on Bioshock...thats probably the best thing I got out of it.) The school was all over the place, and, come second year wanted me to pay 15k to produce a reel that showed 2d animation, modeling, texturing, animation, rendering, the whole deal. Basically, their entire curriculum wrapped into a 5 minute video. I knew this was bullshit. There wasn't really any great examples of character artists out there yet other than dudes like Stahlberg, or Bay Raitt, and they were at a god like status. Kolby Jukes had yet to create the mold for what all well trained digital artists could be from VFS
Despite the school failure, moving to Vancouver was the first big chance I took that paid off and the first "good" decision I made for my career. About a few months after that I started doing contract work for some online games and doing any odd job that would pay me for game art. Lots of browser based games, working on mods for UT, while working on my own stuff. Eventually, though, I took a full time job as a certification tester at Nokia. I was the guy that helped pass or fail all of those lovely Nokia NGage games. It paid well, and kind of showed me what game development was like on the other side, even if very simple. After a few months of that, a designer that I freelanced for in the past put me in touch with a local studio that then hired me to be their second artist.
This first "real" job had me making pixel art for mobile games and online games through EA Pogo. Almost immediately after joining the company, the first artist was fired and I became the only one for the entire company. About a team of 40 working on multiple projects at once. It had me working 16 hours a day, every day. My day was broken up into processing and creating art for anything from the NFL to Scrabble tiles. Creating prerendered scenes, to creating UI for a 200 x 200 screen. I hated it. I appreciated the opportunity, but I hated it. The art was objectively bad, and the hours prevented me from doing anything but working and sleeping. Then, on my free time, I was basically too tired and angry to do anything but drink and bitch about work with my coworkers. All of us worked a lot, even to the point where guys would be asked "Where are you going" by the bosses assistant at 8pm on a Friday. I told my boss, a psychiatrist who was acting as Art Director, that I wanted out and we worked out an alternative that would give me more work that I was interested in. This deal faded pretty quick as, about a month later, I was being told how to paint 8x8 Mary Janes for a Bejewelled clone at 10pm. I quit, for real, and spent a few months developing my portfolio geared towards my true passion - character art. Though, even after being told by my boss to go back to school because I would "never make it," I left with a handshake. About this time, it was becoming more clear what the role of a character artist was. I was desperately trying to mimic guys like dur, Bobo, and other big names from Polycount at the time.
I took a few months to take on any contract work to help by ramen and, admittedly, had support from my (now) ex-wife to build my portfolio which lead into my second job, but this time as a character artist. The company was split into 2 sides, 1 side was the pet project which was a first person shooter in the Source engine, and the other side was creating budget titles to help keep the company profitable. I was on the pet project side and created a bunch of enemies, civilians, and weapons while being pulled onto the budget side to help close out projects when needed. That lead me to be involved with interesting titles such as NRA Gun Club, and Marine Sharpshooter 3. I made a lot of friends here and grew like a motherfucker as far as skills were concerned. Basically, when I started I barely knew what ZBrush was. At the time, most people were just turbosmoothing and using ZB to add surface details. I have no idea how my art test passed, I think I got hired because I had a mohawk. I progressed into what I made for DW2, probably my first decently recognized character (even though I got disqualified because it wasn't futuristic enough...whatever...) After about 2 years, the project just kind of fizzled out. No one really said it was cancelled, we jut stopped working on it bit by bit. After attempts to get it funded, it just never made it. To help keep people employed, we started taking on porting projects, and did pitches for other games. I was heart broken. It's not like I loved the project to death, but I couldn't let myself go back to making mobile games. So, after some great conversations with my bosses, I decided to leave and become a fulltime freelancer. This is the second "Good" decision I made.
I had a few freelance gigs lined up before I left and basically dove head first into that work. Not much to say there other than: I worked from home for a year and developed a bad habit of not talking to anyone for 16 hours straight and started relating everything to money. It was unhealthy and, if I had to do it again, would manage myself better. I was just hungry and didn't want to say no to anything. This time lead me to working with companies like Bioware, Harmonix, Monolith, the US military, Garage Games, and forged a bunch of new friendships that I still have today (namely, mr. kite.) It helped me build up my portfolio, helped me learn how to deal with a lot of different clients, time management, budgets, working yourself as a brand, and exposure to different titles. But, it was killing me. I was basically at a point where I either needed to incorporate myself and get help, thin out my work load, or go back to a studio. Feeling that one thing I was lacking was actually working with a team and, frankly, being tired of just being alone all day - I accepted a job with Blue Castle Games / Capcom Vancouver.
Capcom was huge for me. I made a ton of friends, and my lead was amazing. I actually started working on a sports title first (baseball) and, while I knew nothing about it and had virtually no interest in the game, I learned a lot about process, building a character system, the entire "finishing" phase of a project, and working with a bigger team. Eventually, we shipped the game, and my team merged with the character team on the other project. To be honest, the merge didn't go over well. It became a huge character team and the lead of the "opposing" team played favorites with his original members. I was fortunate enough to help head up the character customization system, and create a few major characters - but - the other lead (not my direct boss) actively tried to get me fired. Why, I have no idea. I have theories, but was basically told this through project managers. Obviously, this caused some animosity..but really...I knew it was just a personal thing, stuck with my actual boss, still responded to feedback in a positive way, and just kept my head out of anything remotely political. Though, as the project finished, I had some weird feelings. Warning: I might sound like an asshole now. I really wanted more. I wanted to work on a huge project and be given new challenges. Looking around Vancouver, at the time, it was a "7" city. Nothing major was being worked on, and a lot of the teams were recycled from EA. Radical had shut down, I think a few other places as well, and the opportunities for me to "grow" were becoming rare...especially on a 14 person character team about to start a new project. So, I started talking to my old roommate about moving to Boston and joining the Bioshock team. It was an amazing opportunity, and as much as I love Vancouver, I had to take it and move on to a better role for me.
I won't bore you with the immigration business, since I've already talked a lot about it...but...to say it was nerve wrecking is an under statement. Regardless, I made it through and started working with Irrational on Bioshock Infinite. I really have nothing bad to say about IG. The entire team encouraged me to grow, and we all worked really well together. There were frustrating moments, like having multiple iterations of multiplayer cut. but in the end it made for a superior product...s there's really no room for argument. After a few years of working there, I was promoted to lead, which was a role I dreamed of having and really respected the title more than just wanting the increase in pay. I knew this wouldn't have me working on main characters, but it allowed me to focus more on being supportive and, in my mind, shaping the future for what the department could be. Making us work faster, more efficient, producing better results - though - that being said, I still was able to make huge number of characters while managing a team of up to 7 + outsourcers. I worked a lot. Self imposed. I worked a lot, like, a year + of what most people would consider "crunch." A big player who came onboard and, a huge non-artist influence of mine, was Rod Fergusson. I learned a TON about how, not only Epic finishes games, but Microsoft as well. A lot about team management, development philosophy, decision making, setting priorities...that I really think I will benefit from until I die on my Cintiq and am sent to character art Valhalla. We shipped Bioshock Infinite, some people played it, it was a kind of a big deal, you might have heard of it not sure. But, anyway, I was going through some rough times. *Apply vasoline to lens* I hated Boston, and still do, it's an awful city that just never clicked with me in the same way the West Coast did (lots of personal stories for those interested.) With no work to distract me, I started really thinking about what I wanted out of life. I fucking LOVED Irrational, but everything else in my life sucked. My marriage, a girl I was with for 14 years) was falling apart, I was depressed with the options around me, and really just wanting change - but had no idea how to get it without doing something drastic. IG gave me a ton of compensation time and a bonus for the work I put in, so I did some traveling and took time to work on personal things and side projects to try light some fires. I even went to Colombia to teach a character art workshop. None of it was working though, I felt like I had to get out, but also felt it could all get better. At the time, we were finishing DLC...and it was a much more relaxed schedule...but, to be honest, the direction the company was going in really just didn't work for me. I can't get into that and, honestly, don't want to out of respect for my team, but the bullet point is that nothing I heard really hit home with what I "wanted." I'll get to that in a bit. With my personal life going to shit, and work dying down as the project ended, I decided to leave...and it was fucking tough. These people were shoulder to shoulder with me for years, and had become great friends, but there was really no other way around it.
With BSI under my belt, and as a lead on a 90+ game, I had a lot of options. Not to toot my own horn, but recruiters are like vultures and knew when to swoop on me. I was talking to Naughty Dog, Kojima, Capcom Vancouver (the other lead had since been fired and my former, awesome, lead was now running the show on DR3), and Insomniac Games. All of them were great options, full of great people, but Insomniac really spoke to me. The people, the game, the opportunity I would be given to do what I am now...it just felt right. Not sure how else to explain it, but I just knew it was right and knew that moving to LA was the best possible career move for me. Plus, it was a great personal move for me as well that - eventually - balanced me out more and made me less of a miserable fuck (new city, marriage ending badly, new adventures, and other personal stories...) I can't, and wouldn't want to, get much into what Insomniac is like other than it's awesome, I'm super happy, am busy, and feel in my black heart that I made the right call.
That's my path so far. I've had some ups and downs, but for the most part everything has been positive. This is my dream job, even with the imperfections. I love this industry and, from what you can see, have given up a lot to actually do this for a living. I literally went from eating salsa for dinner while my mother gambled our money away, to becoming a successful artist working on games played by millions, a published author, public speaker, and have travelled internationally to produce art. Not trying to sound cocky, but just to give perspective that, yeah, I take this pretty seriously. This is what my entire life has been, at least the important years. Is it EXACTLY what I thought it would be? No. But I'm just as happy. I've taken a lot of risks, a lot of chances, and have changed my life at least a few times. I took myself from complete shit to what I dreamed of doing. Probably any real job could get me that, but very few things other than games would make me feel good and make me feel like I belong. Not to sound obsessive, but the industry has given me most of the things I have in life. It's built friendships, made me smarter, made me better at my craft, sent me around the world, funded trips, saved me from being a complete degenerate. Again, yeah, lots of just stable work would do that, but I can go to work literally live the dream I had when I was 8. Sure, that also means dealing with people, managing artists, working in Excel, sitting in meetings for hours, and documentation almost as long as this post - but in the end, I'm doing exactly what I said I would do, and that gives me a level of pride no other industry could. If I show up to work half committed, phone it in, or even participate in a political game - I'm shitting on my inner child's face.
"
You have to be a skilled programmer to land an entry level job unless you are lucky, your full-time pay is comparable to student interns in non-games jobs, you usually have to work in-studio meaning you might be forced to re-locate to an expensive area, and most gamers will only reference your work when they are complaining about how terrible you are at your job. You definitely have to enjoy working on games to put up with all the problems.
Non-games programmer jobs can be pretty shitty also, but the difference is that you often times have options. A programmer that is skilled enough to survive the games industry can work in basically any other field they want. If a company treats you poorly, you can quit and easily find a better job elsewhere without having to re-locate or rely on luck/connections.
This isn't strictly true any more. Whilst there are mercifully still a lot of jobs out there that want neat C++ programming skills (particularly certain types of engineering), a lot of the rest of the world has moved on. These days you'll find a lot of software jobs are orientated towards technologies games programmers aren't frequently exposed to, largely down to the influence of the web.
No way man, in my experience you finish your work you get someone elses work to do because lets be honest, we all know theres *somebody* in every art department who doesn't pull their weight. The more efficient you are, the more you pull other peoples weight for them. It's a pretty nihilistic view perhaps but it really is a reflection of what my experience has been like.
All the negatives aside, though there is long hours during crunch and pretty rough pay in the lower rungs of the industry, the work and people make up for 99% of the negatives. I do not see myself leaving the industry by my own will any time soon. Making games is just too damn fun. Art never ends though, so get ready to devote your life to the work. Its a lifestyle, not necessarily just a job.
Just leave right after your lead disappears for the day. Or whoever does your periodic performance review. Next day, first meeting impress 'em with your "hard work" from yester...last night. Do "extra work" at home if you can manage or bypass office protocol and only if you have to or want to impress.
This was my error as a jr. guy staying late, til midnight or 3am thinking the managers will notice. But they all leave reasonably early except crunch times. (I compensated by playing ninja gaiden all night
In my experience, those guys ended up becoming art leads and years later, art director. :poly118:
Working smart > working hard :thumbup:
I am sorry if I sound very defensive here, but I believe that this is a pretty bad idea for at least three reasons :
1 - Next time a similar task will be given to you you will be expected to finish it during work hours, whereas you actually need much more time to finish it. It's a viscious cycle.
2 - Once your manager/producer finds out, not only will he not be impressed but he will also have more work to do that day because the time estimates for the coming weeks will need to be reworked - especially if he based other peoples schedules according to that one "impressive" performance. In other words : avoid putting your coworkers in a bad spot.
3 - Repeatedly breaking company protocol by doing stuff at home is big red flag for HR (because it tells them that someone is breaking the company rules that they are trying to maintain), recruiting and PR (because of the risk of leaks), and IT (for obvious network security reasons).
I hope this makes sense ! I am not sure if this is the exception or the rule, but these kind of guidelines were always very clearly stated at all the places I've worked at.
Showing initiative can do you favors but doesn't mean you work yourself too hard so the next working day you're cranky and not as open to critiques.
You can do a lot of work out of the office. Shoot your own photo refs or textures. Video record your animation references. Research tools and process. Go to the library to get refs. Try out techniques you've never done before if you have your own tool licenses.
Of you course if you don't practice common sense and take out proprietary tools off site or leak out classified info, you deserve what's coming if you're busted.
Regarding out of the office stuff : I agree about it when it comes to fully personal work, but as far as studio work is concerned I firmly believe that these can and should be scheduled within the regular 8 to 5. Because if not, no one on the production team will be able to get a feel for the amount of time that art R&D actually takes. Why shoot video reference for animation at home, when it could be done in a big empty meeting room at the office ?
The reason why I am borderline anal about that kind of stuff is simply because over the years I have witnessed first-hand the consequences of people being a bit too "loose" with scheduling. Collegues getting very sick from burning themselves out, "extra" work being completely shut down because it was never scheduled in the first place, and so on. It can snowball very fast - and to go back to the OP, it can create some pretty bad working conditions. Just my 2c !
Where I'm coming from with my advice is when a studio involves offsite contractors and allows remote work even for permanent staff (especially when they're sick).
Why should I stay late (10 hours and up) as an on-site staff artist, really just for "show" to impress a manager, when I could go home after my 8 hours and pull in another hour or two of optional work towards the office gamedev. If this can be arranged with your office managers take advantage of it. Your office has an ftp for the contractors, why can't you send work from home too if you're not breaking any ndas.
I don't think this would impact the global project schedule since working at home won't guarantee you'll turn out approved work. It could mean you just finished what you're scheduled to finish minus physical tax on yourself since you'll get more sleep and relaxation.
But i understand feature creep. My point really is if you're a jr. artist don't kill yourself during your jr. years working too hard for minimal to no positive career gains.
My whole point is that as an on-site, permanent employee, both of these scenarios are a bad idea. Now I personally never worked at a place where "optional work at home toward the office gamedev" was even remotely allowed, therefore I cannot quite relate ; and similarly I never had the bad luck of working under a manager who was "impressed" by work done for free at the office or at home, therefore I have no idea about what it feels like to work under such conditions. But then again and as stated earlier, I am in no way saying that this is an exception, or the rule ; I am just describing my personal experience and trying to derive some (hopefully useful !) advice from it
I don't know if it is even "working smart" in the case of most of these types of people.... Sadly. Boy, do I know a few of these types that have failed upwards, sadly happens more than it should.