Hooray! A link!

I just have to link to this, because it talks about something I have learned the hard way, in my previous job as a game dev.

LINK HERE and the important stuff is the second chapter thing ("Fired and Fired-Up: Jobless Developer's Rant").

Probably the crux of the matter is this:
"The next game was harder to make than the first. It took even longer and it cost even more. There started to be a name for this kind of work: "crunch." The game after that took even longer than that and it cost even more, again. Crunch was becoming the norm. EA-spouse happened (and more recently, Rockstar-wives). When you fast forward, what happened is that crunch became institutionalized. It was woven deep into the culture [...]"

From what I can tell, things haven't changed much, and that's what you can expect even now from most (bordering on all) places where you can get a job as a mainstream game dev. Something to keep in mind if you are considering that path.

My personal advice - go indie, if you can manage it. Of course, that's the tricky part.

-Chiller