Despite some general beliefs, the folks that make computer games aren't working in a stress-free environment. Video game companies and their workers have to cope with numerous external and internal issues. These issues, inevitably, lead to varied disorders and psychological issues. In unusual cases, they may even develop early symptoms of arthritis.

For major computer game corporations, or those that already have strong footholds in the sector, the stress can come from performance anxiety. Pressure is exerted on these corporations to up the ante since they currently have a name for quality and fun in terms of computer game design. Game-players became accustomed to the high standards of prior game offerings and, naturally, they expect an increased level of quality from new versions or the newest games. This recurring requirement for something new and better, mixed with the often unstable nature of the modern business environment causes performance anxiety from the video game developers to the humble programmers, even up to the producers who make the rules in game development.

For other corporations, it is not the corporation's reputation that's at stake. Their own stressor is the drive to to outclass their own prior offerings. Outdoing their own product is just their obsession. A notable example of this is Blizzard, the developer and publisher of the "Warcraft" and "Starcraft" games. Both games were famous for making the best of technology existing at the time, as well as being some of the finest games in the Realtime Strategy (RTS) genre. In South Korea, "Starcraft" is still played heavily notwithstanding being having been released over ten years ago. Buckling under the pressure, some anonymous staff have reported that if Blizzard management didn't implement an open time frame for releasing follow ups to the above games (in prinicple, to ensure quality), most employees would have suffered from extreme cases of performance anxiety. This has resulted in Blizzard, as a corporation gaining a rep for taking about a decade to produce a follow-up to one of their titles due to problem with staff learning how to deal with anxiety and the pressure.

Of course, it isn't simply the mind that's worked and drained by being in the computer game industry. The body is just as huge a target for a number of problems, as the mind is. Of course , games still need to be designed, the ideas need to be developed, and the beta releases need to be driven thru a severe quality testing process.

For the visible and auditory facet of the games, the most probable problem would probably be muscle pain and migraine headaches. Some have reported indications of arthritis. Artwork for computer console games goes thru multiple processes, and it's not wholly bizarre for artists to get asked to rush through the art idea for the game. For smaller corporations, a few artists might be given strict deadlines for the concept art of more than one project. The fast pace of drawing makes them susceptible to muscle agony, while the constant thinking and visual analysis could cause migraines.

Another section of the company that may suffer with muscle discomfort would be the programming team. Games have to be coded, with every piece of art and each bit of storyline converted into a language the computers and games machines can understand. The majority are ignorant of just how much goes into even a basic computer game like "Tetris" a lot less some of the 80-hour long epics produced by SquareEnix, a major Japanese game developer. This is further difficult when there are countless possible interactions in the game's context, starting from character creation options to how specific in-game abilities engage with each other. Now, top that off with a strict deadline and you are all set to see programmers suffering from indications of arthritis, presumably with migraines as the harsh cherry on top.

Headaches are also far from alien when it comes to the quality assurance groups, who are tasked with playing the beta versions of the games. Beta versions are unreleased, incomplete versions of the game that need in depth testing to see if everything works. Aside from that, the quality team must also check on the other game elements,eg difficulty or the plot. Since the beta versions are unfinished, there are naturally a number of graphical issues, some of which have been observed to cause migraine headaches.

For millions of gameplayers around the world, they enjoy the virtual worlds without even knowing the large pressure and lots of headaches that came in designing their fave video games. For most youngsters, playing computer games is pure fun. But for the game-makers, developing video games isn't play time at all.