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Admittedly I didn't dive much into this to get the full context, but it's saddening to me that a legendary game designer had a GoFundMe. I was hoping achieving
by Dedime 10mo ago
Admittedly I didn't dive much into this to get the full context, but it's saddening to me that a legendary game designer had a GoFundMe. I was hoping achieving that level of status in a traditionally well-paid industry would leave one well off, financially.
- reactordev 10mo agoCancer and US Medical Care has a tendency to drain any savings you have. Also, it was sudden so it’s not like she was ready to retire at all.
- nemomarx 10mo agoI'm wondering if she actually got the fundraiser money, considering how quickly this moved - the last update implied it would have to go to her funeral, and I hope it pays for the bills or helps her family.
- textfiles 10mo agoSome funds were used to cover treatments. She has arrangements with her family, and this fundraiser helps.
- stavros 10mo agoI was hoping one wouldn't need to be well off to get treatment for an illness, but that's the US for you.
- ido 10mo agoThe games industry is not traditionally well paid, unfortunately.
- swiftcoder 10mo agoThis. It's consistently lower-paying than the rest of the software industry.
- johnnyanmac 10mo agoIt's such an erractic industry in terms of compensation. You can found a studio, make some acclaimed darlings, and still end up shuttering and being no better off than your average joe. Then there's being a "software engineer in games" where you're a cog in a wheel fixing bugs in the yearly Sportball game that gets compensated 200k and you live very well despite never truly "impacting" the industry the same way. 200k isn't mindblowing for a software engineer, but it's well beyond "average joe" range at that point. I'm that cog. Or at least, was. Situations like this make me thing a lot about the state of the industry and where I lie in life.
- wileydragonfly 10mo agoYou contributed to a popular game that lots of people enjoyed? Rest easy with this, friend.
- walthamstow 10mo agoVideo games are an art form, the downside is they pay like one too.
- connicpu 10mo agoYep, unfortunately that's a big part of the reason I left for a more traditional tech role. The same skills are extremely valuable at any company writing performance critical software.
- thelibrarian 10mo agoConsidering the James Van Der Beek of Dawson's Creek fame is having to hold a fundraising auction of his memorabilia to fund his cancer treatment, cancer is expensive in the US.
- fastball 10mo agoCancer is expensive everywhere, the difference is who pays for it.
- anonyfox 10mo agoactually a difference is also how many players along the supply chain siphon money out of the process. the more greed is allowed and acted on for the treatment, the more expensive it gets. introduce layers of insurances, hedgefonds, pension funds, lobbyism, ... it adds up to riddiculous amounts far beyond the original R&D/infrastructure/treatment costs.
- simondotau 10mo agoAnd those are just the downsides of a market-based system. There are also upsides of single-payer systems, like monopsony buying power.
- philipallstar 10mo agoAnd also downsides, e.g. many treatments just aren't available, and many others would never have had their discovery funded without the market-based system existing.
- ben_w 10mo agoGovernments can (and do) directly fund medical research including drug discovery. This is in part because governments of even just middling competence have an incentive to keep their workforce (which also includes their military) healthy.
- 10mo ago
- aidenn0 10mo agoNot just legendary game designer, but co-founder of a game studio and publisher (Interplay).
- superultra 10mo agoThe United States is the wealthiest nation on the planet according to Forbes, richer than the subsequent three nations combined. It’s a tragedy that our own citizens are not the direct be beneficiaries of that wealth. I think a lot about the scene in Star Trek IV when McCoy is in a hospital and says “what is this the dark ages?” Gofundme is like a kafkaesque tragic absurdity that - hopefully - will be looked at as an indictment of the inequitable K shaped economy we’ve built, and hopefully fixed in the future.
- simondotau 10mo ago[flagged]
- ben_w 10mo ago> As is often said, capitalism is the worst economic system, except for all the others. I've only heard it said that "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time", not capitalism and economics: https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/ https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form...
- simondotau 10mo agoThe Churchill line is about democracy, but the adapted version is a common variation. It works as a standalone maxim without need of attribution to some famous person.
- squigz 10mo agoIt works insofar as quotes that sound wise but have no kind of evidence backing it up often do.
- simondotau 10mo ago[flagged]
- chaostheory 10mo agoThe video game industry is not a well paying one, even for programmers