Makes sense once you realize the state of the industry. Insane work hours, intense pressure from deadlines, very high demand of coding capability, constant threat of being replaced by someone...
Makes sense once you realize the state of the industry. Insane work hours, intense pressure from deadlines, very high demand of coding capability, constant threat of being replaced by someone younger, and a pretty demanding userbase sometimes. I don't envy that life...
I think the sheer volume of people that want to join the industry is a major part of the problem. There are not enough companies and too many people for the jobs. The result is that employees are...
I think the sheer volume of people that want to join the industry is a major part of the problem.
There are not enough companies and too many people for the jobs. The result is that employees are under tremendous pressure because unless they're completely indispensable to the work then they can often be replaced.
For an industry full of so many highly intelligent and talented people you'd think they'd be smart enough to join unions. This seems like the kind of thing that will only ever properly get solved when the employees themselves start working together and recognise they need power in numbers if they're going to make their industry a better place to work.
Perhaps the problem there is that they're already under so much pressure they don't want the added pressure that having joined a union might cause between them and their bosses.
The political ideology of many people in the games industry is a huge barrier to forming unions. They tend to be libertarians who value a laissez faire approach to business. Unfortunately, that...
The political ideology of many people in the games industry is a huge barrier to forming unions. They tend to be libertarians who value a laissez faire approach to business. Unfortunately, that means they are often exploited by their employers with no meaningful recourse. Hopefully that will change in the coming years.
A lot of the insane work hours have gone down over the past few years though, so I don't think that would be this new cause. I also don't think many senior people have a fear of being replaced by...
A lot of the insane work hours have gone down over the past few years though, so I don't think that would be this new cause. I also don't think many senior people have a fear of being replaced by someone younger, since they've had first hand experience with how rough around the edges many younger developers are.
My guess would be that a lot of AAA developers are just getting bored of making the same thing over and over again. It seems like every major franchise in on at least the 5 sequel by now. Some of them go indie, but I bet a lot more just leave and go get some other higher paying programming job. I mean, if you came in the industry to make innovative games, but you're stuck making your 25th version of Elder Scrolls, you might decide that writing a website is more innovative than writing the same game yet again. It certainly doesn't hurt that you can often get 2x the pay.
I also think the rise of very good, free engines may be having some impact. Now, you can use UE4 to work on your dream game alone in your spare time. You don't have to be at a company that has 20 engine programmers just to make a base line AAA game.
I found this to be a particularly interesting article that takes an in depth look at some of the issues the industry faces. Many developers are leaving the industry for a variety of different...
I found this to be a particularly interesting article that takes an in depth look at some of the issues the industry faces. Many developers are leaving the industry for a variety of different reasons, many spoken too give very different explanations.
Includes views of former Microsoft, LIVE, Origin, Elder Scrolls, Volition, Zenimax developers.
A common theme seems to be the hours. But I think it's not necessarily the hours but the happiness levels. Many are in fact happy to move to jobs with similar high numbers of hours, as long as the work surrounding those hours doesn't chew them up and spit them out due to endlessly changing priorities, goalposts, deadlines, workflows, pre-design phases, and so on.
My brother is a game dev. One thing that struck me is he went about a decade in his career before working on anything that saw the light of day. Insane hours and demanding work for years, on stuff...
My brother is a game dev. One thing that struck me is he went about a decade in his career before working on anything that saw the light of day. Insane hours and demanding work for years, on stuff that either gets cancelled or changed so much that it may as well have been. He worked for a company that ran text -based MUDs and they began to create a graphical MMORPG. Then WOW came out, and the company's business model morphed into just licensing the engine. It's one thing to pour blood, sweat, and tears into a project that people come to love but it has to be demoralizing to plow years of your life into a project that just gets shuttered.
I worked in video games for a year and a half. Before that I was in Enterprise consulting, after I was building web apps. It's very simple why this is happening. Compared to non game Dev work,...
I worked in video games for a year and a half. Before that I was in Enterprise consulting, after I was building web apps.
It's very simple why this is happening. Compared to non game Dev work, game Dev work:
has horribly low pay. I got a 60% raise leaving games
long, hard hours without compensation
My job after game Dev had me working 40 hours, max, per week and getting paid a shitton more. Not only that, the work was simply easier.
I've told all of my Dev friends considering going into game Dev not to do it. Instead, make games as a hobby.
Edit: to add another point that may be specific to my employer:
employees are treated like children, lunch break, coffee break, etc are all monitored very closely and expect your coworkers to report you for taking a long lunch.
This is exactly why I decided not to make games, and just become full-stack instead :). I also wanted to make games as a kid, then realized the stress, the low-pay, deadlines, etc. just wasn't...
This is exactly why I decided not to make games, and just become full-stack instead :). I also wanted to make games as a kid, then realized the stress, the low-pay, deadlines, etc. just wasn't worth it. Instead, I'll just do something that pays well and buy games to play.
Reading this stuff kind of disheartens me. I've always wanted to make video games for a living and at this point I'm getting into my last year of a Computer Science degree so I'm getting antsy for...
Reading this stuff kind of disheartens me. I've always wanted to make video games for a living and at this point I'm getting into my last year of a Computer Science degree so I'm getting antsy for a job. I've built little projects like tetris and tic-tac-toe but nothing big, though I'm making an attempt at a final fantasy 1 clone in my spare time.
But reading these kinds of articles make me think that the industry is going to suck. Really disappointing to think about.
I think there may be a little bias to some of these responses. My brother who I posted about in another comment is a game dev. He definitely had to pay his dues, but now he makes good money...
I think there may be a little bias to some of these responses. My brother who I posted about in another comment is a game dev. He definitely had to pay his dues, but now he makes good money working from home and has a real chill schedule. He works on a game you'd probably recognize. You just have to make it through your time in the trenches.
Makes sense once you realize the state of the industry. Insane work hours, intense pressure from deadlines, very high demand of coding capability, constant threat of being replaced by someone younger, and a pretty demanding userbase sometimes. I don't envy that life...
I think the sheer volume of people that want to join the industry is a major part of the problem.
There are not enough companies and too many people for the jobs. The result is that employees are under tremendous pressure because unless they're completely indispensable to the work then they can often be replaced.
For an industry full of so many highly intelligent and talented people you'd think they'd be smart enough to join unions. This seems like the kind of thing that will only ever properly get solved when the employees themselves start working together and recognise they need power in numbers if they're going to make their industry a better place to work.
Perhaps the problem there is that they're already under so much pressure they don't want the added pressure that having joined a union might cause between them and their bosses.
The political ideology of many people in the games industry is a huge barrier to forming unions. They tend to be libertarians who value a laissez faire approach to business. Unfortunately, that means they are often exploited by their employers with no meaningful recourse. Hopefully that will change in the coming years.
A lot of the insane work hours have gone down over the past few years though, so I don't think that would be this new cause. I also don't think many senior people have a fear of being replaced by someone younger, since they've had first hand experience with how rough around the edges many younger developers are.
My guess would be that a lot of AAA developers are just getting bored of making the same thing over and over again. It seems like every major franchise in on at least the 5 sequel by now. Some of them go indie, but I bet a lot more just leave and go get some other higher paying programming job. I mean, if you came in the industry to make innovative games, but you're stuck making your 25th version of Elder Scrolls, you might decide that writing a website is more innovative than writing the same game yet again. It certainly doesn't hurt that you can often get 2x the pay.
I also think the rise of very good, free engines may be having some impact. Now, you can use UE4 to work on your dream game alone in your spare time. You don't have to be at a company that has 20 engine programmers just to make a base line AAA game.
I found this to be a particularly interesting article that takes an in depth look at some of the issues the industry faces. Many developers are leaving the industry for a variety of different reasons, many spoken too give very different explanations.
Includes views of former Microsoft, LIVE, Origin, Elder Scrolls, Volition, Zenimax developers.
A common theme seems to be the hours. But I think it's not necessarily the hours but the happiness levels. Many are in fact happy to move to jobs with similar high numbers of hours, as long as the work surrounding those hours doesn't chew them up and spit them out due to endlessly changing priorities, goalposts, deadlines, workflows, pre-design phases, and so on.
My brother is a game dev. One thing that struck me is he went about a decade in his career before working on anything that saw the light of day. Insane hours and demanding work for years, on stuff that either gets cancelled or changed so much that it may as well have been. He worked for a company that ran text -based MUDs and they began to create a graphical MMORPG. Then WOW came out, and the company's business model morphed into just licensing the engine. It's one thing to pour blood, sweat, and tears into a project that people come to love but it has to be demoralizing to plow years of your life into a project that just gets shuttered.
I worked in video games for a year and a half. Before that I was in Enterprise consulting, after I was building web apps.
It's very simple why this is happening. Compared to non game Dev work, game Dev work:
My job after game Dev had me working 40 hours, max, per week and getting paid a shitton more. Not only that, the work was simply easier.
I've told all of my Dev friends considering going into game Dev not to do it. Instead, make games as a hobby.
Edit: to add another point that may be specific to my employer:
This is exactly why I decided not to make games, and just become full-stack instead :). I also wanted to make games as a kid, then realized the stress, the low-pay, deadlines, etc. just wasn't worth it. Instead, I'll just do something that pays well and buy games to play.
Reading this stuff kind of disheartens me. I've always wanted to make video games for a living and at this point I'm getting into my last year of a Computer Science degree so I'm getting antsy for a job. I've built little projects like tetris and tic-tac-toe but nothing big, though I'm making an attempt at a final fantasy 1 clone in my spare time.
But reading these kinds of articles make me think that the industry is going to suck. Really disappointing to think about.
I think there may be a little bias to some of these responses. My brother who I posted about in another comment is a game dev. He definitely had to pay his dues, but now he makes good money working from home and has a real chill schedule. He works on a game you'd probably recognize. You just have to make it through your time in the trenches.