7 ms·

It's not like the history of working for game companies is unknown, major studios have always done this. Imagining it won't happen to you is wishful thinking. I

It's not like the history of working for game companies is unknown, major studios have always done this. Imagining it won't happen to you is wishful thinking. I worked for a small, poor game company once with a FPS MMO and it was probably my funnest job ever, but it paid very little, and I eventually had to leave and make real money again. The best thing was that the player base appreciated every one of us, and constantly thanked us for making things better. You can have that dream job building games, but it's probably not at a big company with big salaries.

sokoloff 3y ago
I had a similar experience in the mid-90s. Worked for a small studio with a successful franchise (IndyCar and NASCAR Racing). Shipped a Playstation title and contributed to some of the Mac and PC titles and the nextgen codebase that became Grand Prix Legends. (Much of the founding team of iRacing came from this studio.) Ultimately, that place was enormously engaging, but I was never going to buy a house and retire on what I was making there, so I left for a better paying gig. Our users really loved the product and eagerly engaged with us. I got several trips to races, including pit and garage access passes, several drivers visited our studio while in town for the NH race, and I learned a ton about both coding and racing. I'm really glad I did it, but I'm also glad I quit it.
- ghaff 3y ago
  It can be fine to do something you enjoy doing for a period even if you know you could be making more. But you also need to periodically checkpoint whether something makes sense for the long term.
- Arrath 3y ago
  Hey, this will be random but I have happy childhood memories of sitting in my dad's lap as a little one and causing absolute mayhem in first IndyCar and later NASCAR racing. Usually by turning around and playing destruction derby going the wrong way. So, thanks for that!
diob 3y ago
Imagining it won't happen to you is simply the human condition, especially younger in life. I can't blame folks.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  People warn you for all sort of stuff. You need some experience to know what is hyperbole and ground truths.
- hamandcheese 3y ago
  Exactly. Just like it's well known that you can get screwed 10 different ways with startup equity, yet here we all are.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    The common wisdom around here has long been to take the RSUs at MAMAA or whatever liquid compensation at actually profitable businesses until you are financially independent.
darknavi 3y ago
I think the gaming industry in general has use the passion that devs have for games as a good excuse to not pay more, which obviously has worked. > The best thing was that the player base appreciated every one of us, and constantly thanked us for making things better. I work in games and this is honestly one of my biggest drivers. I of course love the game as well and want to make it better, but community praise is just next level energy for me. Over the last few years many of us at our studio have been doxxed, threatened, called on our personal phones, etc. and that can really take the wind out of my sails. But when you get some positive or constructive feedback about trying to make the game better it really helps. Working in games has the opportunity to be such a collaborative process with coworkers and community and it is awesome when it works well.
- Domenic_S 3y ago
  > I think the gaming industry in general has use[d] the passion that devs have for games as a good excuse to not pay more, which obviously has worked. It's a simple supply/demand calculation. "Game dev" is high on the dream-job list -- "internal framework developer for MegaCo" is not. Game engines have made game dev more accessible than ever, the raw talent pool is bigger than its ever been. It's a lot like being a professional musician. The hours suck, the environment is usually crap, it spills into your home life all the time... and the pay sucks unless you're the 0.1% (or a business person in the field instead of a performer) but lots and lots of people want to do it and will grind away at being a pro musician, because they're passionate about it. If there's any set of devs that needs a union or is most like other fields where unionization is beneficial, it's game devs.
  - shaileshm 3y ago
    > "internal framework developer for MegaCo" NGL, because this is actually my dream job.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      A lot of people look for jobs that seem like jobs their friends are going to go "Wow, cool!" In practice those are mostly orthogonal with fairly reliable jobs that pay fairly well and reliably.
polishdude20 3y ago
I know someone who works at a big studio and they constantly tell me they get threats and hate messages all the time from die hard fans of the franchise the game is based on.
JohnFen 3y ago
> It's not like the history of working for game companies is unknown, major studios have always done this. Imagining it won't happen to you is wishful thinking. Yep. The computer games industry has had a well-deserved reputation for being awful to work in for decades.
kypro 3y ago
> It's not like the history of working for game companies is unknown, major studios have always done this. Imagining it won't happen to you is wishful thinking. I understand this rationally and yet at every job I've worked at I've still felt pretty secure until the moment I've been laid off (which for the record has happened to me 4 times in the last 8 years). If you're a hard worker and you're providing a lot of value you learn the risk is never that anyone would want to lay you off individually, but that some higher up who has very little care or understanding for who is providing value will decide that you're no longer needed. It's something that I've only really came to terms with over the last few years – that no amount of effort will save you from layoffs. The only thing that will save you is luck. When I was in my twenties I honestly thought that if I just provide enough value my job would always be safe. I guess I'm just saying that I understand it from an emotional perspective. Rationally I understand you can go from feeling like the most valuable person in your department to unemployed in 24 hours. But emotionally the fact that this can happen still messes with me.
- ghaff 3y ago
  You can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If a company decides to cancel a project or reorganize business units, they're probably not going to waste a lot of energy figuring out whether they're laying off (or keeping) exactly the optimal people for the reorganized company or not.
- BlueTemplar 3y ago
  Sounds like the solution is to work in a small enough company that such a "higher up" doesn't exist. But then the risk for the company to go bankrupt (or grow so much they start existing) is also higher. It also seems to be "priced in" by lower pay too ? (The extreme being a 1-2 devs company.)
  - jq-r 3y ago
    I guess the company has to be really small. In my <200 company the CEO changed and the new one (despite being here for a year and change) I bet he cannot name 6 engineers in the company. He doesn't care.
egl2021 3y ago
Anything that people will do for free is hard to make a living at; think painting and music. Game dev is close.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
Is it still the same as circa 2010? Back then games had such a lot of churn due to disaffection. I feel sorry for kids that get into games industry with high expectations. There's the 20/20 rule - only 20% of games make it through production, and only 20% of those ever get marketed and are "successful". So that's another way to say that 96% of games "fail". Because of the long development time it means many entrants are in their 5th or 6th year of a career and have never seen a title they work on be a "hit".

sokoloff 3y ago

I had a similar experience in the mid-90s. Worked for a small studio with a successful franchise (IndyCar and NASCAR Racing). Shipped a Playstation title and contributed to some of the Mac and PC titles and the nextgen codebase that became Grand Prix Legends. (Much of the founding team of iRacing came from this studio.) Ultimately, that place was enormously engaging, but I was never going to buy a house and retire on what I was making there, so I left for a better paying gig. Our users really loved the product and eagerly engaged with us. I got several trips to races, including pit and garage access passes, several drivers visited our studio while in town for the NH race, and I learned a ton about both coding and racing. I'm really glad I did it, but I'm also glad I quit it.

ghaff 3y ago
It can be fine to do something you enjoy doing for a period even if you know you could be making more. But you also need to periodically checkpoint whether something makes sense for the long term.
Arrath 3y ago
Hey, this will be random but I have happy childhood memories of sitting in my dad's lap as a little one and causing absolute mayhem in first IndyCar and later NASCAR racing. Usually by turning around and playing destruction derby going the wrong way. So, thanks for that!

diob 3y ago

Imagining it won't happen to you is simply the human condition, especially younger in life. I can't blame folks.

rightbyte 3y ago
People warn you for all sort of stuff. You need some experience to know what is hyperbole and ground truths.
hamandcheese 3y ago
Exactly. Just like it's well known that you can get screwed 10 different ways with startup equity, yet here we all are.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  The common wisdom around here has long been to take the RSUs at MAMAA or whatever liquid compensation at actually profitable businesses until you are financially independent.

darknavi 3y ago

I think the gaming industry in general has use the passion that devs have for games as a good excuse to not pay more, which obviously has worked. > The best thing was that the player base appreciated every one of us, and constantly thanked us for making things better. I work in games and this is honestly one of my biggest drivers. I of course love the game as well and want to make it better, but community praise is just next level energy for me. Over the last few years many of us at our studio have been doxxed, threatened, called on our personal phones, etc. and that can really take the wind out of my sails. But when you get some positive or constructive feedback about trying to make the game better it really helps. Working in games has the opportunity to be such a collaborative process with coworkers and community and it is awesome when it works well.

Domenic_S 3y ago
> I think the gaming industry in general has use[d] the passion that devs have for games as a good excuse to not pay more, which obviously has worked. It's a simple supply/demand calculation. "Game dev" is high on the dream-job list -- "internal framework developer for MegaCo" is not. Game engines have made game dev more accessible than ever, the raw talent pool is bigger than its ever been. It's a lot like being a professional musician. The hours suck, the environment is usually crap, it spills into your home life all the time... and the pay sucks unless you're the 0.1% (or a business person in the field instead of a performer) but lots and lots of people want to do it and will grind away at being a pro musician, because they're passionate about it. If there's any set of devs that needs a union or is most like other fields where unionization is beneficial, it's game devs.
- shaileshm 3y ago
  > "internal framework developer for MegaCo" NGL, because this is actually my dream job.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    A lot of people look for jobs that seem like jobs their friends are going to go "Wow, cool!" In practice those are mostly orthogonal with fairly reliable jobs that pay fairly well and reliably.

polishdude20 3y ago

I know someone who works at a big studio and they constantly tell me they get threats and hate messages all the time from die hard fans of the franchise the game is based on.

JohnFen 3y ago

> It's not like the history of working for game companies is unknown, major studios have always done this. Imagining it won't happen to you is wishful thinking. Yep. The computer games industry has had a well-deserved reputation for being awful to work in for decades.

kypro 3y ago

> It's not like the history of working for game companies is unknown, major studios have always done this. Imagining it won't happen to you is wishful thinking. I understand this rationally and yet at every job I've worked at I've still felt pretty secure until the moment I've been laid off (which for the record has happened to me 4 times in the last 8 years). If you're a hard worker and you're providing a lot of value you learn the risk is never that anyone would want to lay you off individually, but that some higher up who has very little care or understanding for who is providing value will decide that you're no longer needed. It's something that I've only really came to terms with over the last few years – that no amount of effort will save you from layoffs. The only thing that will save you is luck. When I was in my twenties I honestly thought that if I just provide enough value my job would always be safe. I guess I'm just saying that I understand it from an emotional perspective. Rationally I understand you can go from feeling like the most valuable person in your department to unemployed in 24 hours. But emotionally the fact that this can happen still messes with me.

ghaff 3y ago
You can just be in the wrong place at the wrong time. If a company decides to cancel a project or reorganize business units, they're probably not going to waste a lot of energy figuring out whether they're laying off (or keeping) exactly the optimal people for the reorganized company or not.
BlueTemplar 3y ago
Sounds like the solution is to work in a small enough company that such a "higher up" doesn't exist. But then the risk for the company to go bankrupt (or grow so much they start existing) is also higher. It also seems to be "priced in" by lower pay too ? (The extreme being a 1-2 devs company.)
- jq-r 3y ago
  I guess the company has to be really small. In my <200 company the CEO changed and the new one (despite being here for a year and change) I bet he cannot name 6 engineers in the company. He doesn't care.

egl2021 3y ago

Anything that people will do for free is hard to make a living at; think painting and music. Game dev is close.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

Is it still the same as circa 2010? Back then games had such a lot of churn due to disaffection. I feel sorry for kids that get into games industry with high expectations. There's the 20/20 rule - only 20% of games make it through production, and only 20% of those ever get marketed and are "successful". So that's another way to say that 96% of games "fail". Because of the long development time it means many entrants are in their 5th or 6th year of a career and have never seen a title they work on be a "hit".