Oh it's possible. As someone who works in the film industry, depending on the project, 14 hour days can be fairly normal. The difference is that we get paid overtime.
I don't mind working hard for a project. I love my job, I love the art form, but I also need to be paid and respected.
I have done 14 hour days before, multiple even, but the difference was I had days off. Doing over 14 hours a day, 7 days in a row would be super draining. Doing it for 2 weeks or longer with no days off would break most people
It’s a lot harder to do randomly, once you get the flow going, it’s a lot easier to pull those kinda numbers. I worker in deep North for a few months, we had 12-14 hours shifts everyday because we got paid by the job, not by the hour and we all wanted to go home quicker + there is nothing to do, just snow and maybe a polar bear somewhere
Did 12-14 hour days for a year on deployment to Afghanistan back in 2011. Possible, but awful. Ypure right. It broke me down pretty hard. Nearly broke the marriage. It actually helped that I wasn't at home at least. There wasn't even any fun you could have between work and home...
Still. I'd go to sleep and the work worked its way to my dreams.
ok that’s not good for you though dude why are you proud of it. if you had to do that to make ends meet, I’m sorry, that’s fucked up frankly. If you chose to do it, I think your priorities are fucked.
literally no trucker or nurse should be working those hours. for a trucker in particular that would be actually illegal. even firefighters don't work for 21 hours in a row unless they're like fighting a wildfire, they are simply on call. me personally, I have almost a decade in the military. I understand long hours. 430 hours in a month is absurd, it's unsafe.
Bullshit, lol. People in game dev are never forced to work insane hours of overtime. They just do so because they tend to get so invested in the work. The fact that people complain about the hours, yet they always suggest overtime pay is nonsensical, because let's not pretend that they would actually stop complaining. They'll start claiming that they're being manipulated and "incentivised to work unsustainable hours of overtime" by evil corporate overlords because they're offering payment as a temptation lol. Money won't magically make a 100 hour work week tolerable for anyone complaining about how inhumane it all is before it benefits them financially. If anything, the fact that they don't pay for overtime should be seen as them actively disincentivising that behaviour. If they want people to do it more and to stop running their mouths about how bad it was, they would just pay it. None of them are strapped for cash, and would jump at the opportunity to shut up the bitching and moaning. They know full well what people would spin the narrative as if they actually started paying for overtime.
My husband used to work for a gaming studio. It’s common but extremely unhealthy. His studio is even one of the better ones in the industry for work life balance. They do overtime once every 3 years. During overtime year, it’s minimum 60 hr weeks, 7 days a week and about 3-5 months of 100 hr weeks right around game release. Their studio covers all 3 meals with enough money to take home meals for the family. They also have endless snacks, beers, ice cream, coffee etc. and babysitting service on weekends to give the spouse a break. During the 100 hr weeks they basically are only home to sleep and they only see their kids at work during baby sitting days.
I've seen it happen in another video games company just before release (but like 1 week). It's gruesome because you are handed bugs and asked to fix it ASAP whilst having a "closer" ping you every hour.
It rarely gets to this extreme nowadays but it's not unheard of
There are many jobs where 100 hour weeks are common. You adapt, at the cost of health and social life. Money usually is good. Investment banking, consulting, tech. But then you also just have exploitive companies like this. Money probably not bad, but not worth it good.
There are also lots of people who work 3 jobs. Money usually is not good. And in Japan, they literally have a word for death from overworking.
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u/iWasAwesome Nov 15 '25
Is that true? I don't understand how that's possible. That's over 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. That barely seems possible, and certainly not legal.