-
Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.
"The problem with the gaming industry is that developers make too much"
- Thread starter kvothe
- Start date
Septimus Prime
Member
That's funny because I was just thinking that Examiner writers get paid too much.
Ignoring the numbers for a moment... why is that chart using different scales for different bars? That strikes me as awfully misleading. I wonder what the purpose could be?
The answer to that should be pretty evident. It's a salary aggregation site. Different jobs have much different ranges of salaries. Notice how an engineer goes from 35k to 105k while a detective only goes from 25k to 75k?
Or do you think I am somehow responsible for the graphs this site uses as well? I do so love how people blame me for their problems with the source material. Take it up with the source, man.
That joke would be funny if it wasn't such a fallacious analogy. What Examiner writers are paid has no bearing on the cost passed onto you as you read the content for free. If every video game was free to play and there was no such thing as paid online passes or DLC, then your analogy might be congruent.
Blank article about an entire industry? Superstar developers are not the entire industry, sir. What are you talking about?
cpp_is_king
Member
I have no problem taking up issues with bogus data with the source. I also have no problem taking up issues with people who use bogus data with the people who use them and draw false conclusions from them. You are the journalist. The onus is on YOU to make sure your data is accurate and meaningful for the situation in which you're using it. What the hell do they teach at journalism school anymore? I mean seriously, is this the best you can do? "Fuck you all, I got this data from the internet, take it up with them". You don't hold yourself to a higher standard than that? You should honestly be ashamed of yourself with that kind of attitude, and just remember that in this day and age everything you write on the internet is permanent. What an embarassment and an insult to the entire profession of journalists that you proudly and loudly proclaim that you have no responsibility to verify the integrity of your data and sources.
If you agree that the data is bogus, then surely you agree that all the conclusions you've drawn from it are discredited.
If you do not agree that the data is bogus, then surely you agree with my data on the previous page that demonstrably proves that game developers can make more money across the board in a different industry. I mean, I used the same shit that you did.
In both cases, the end result is the same: Your article is shit and the entire thing is wrong.
Perhaps more likely though is a third case: You just don't give a shit whether or not the data is bogus. And I think this is the most likely of the three, and that's what makes you a terrible person and a terrible journalist.
I get it though, I really do. You're too far invested in this. You can't be wrong. You just can't. God forbid you actually learn and grow from this ordeal and improve as both a person and a journalist. No, it's more important that you coerce people into think you're right, when simple facts indicate you're not.
rohlfinator
Member
Blanket article about over half of an industry, then, since you specifically claimed that the average salary is too high and complained about the benefits earned by the majority of developers.
Garrus Vakarian
Member
Hit the nail on the head. If there was tighter budgeting maybe funding would actually be distributed properly and devs would get more reasonable pay.
This whole article reads like he spent five minutes researching and extrapolated the rest from a tweet and his own broken reasoning.
MisterHero
Super Member
You used and cited an image grabbed from a second party that referenced data from a job search site that you thought must have been a salary aggregation site, instead of collecting the data directly from that primary source and therefore knowing where the data must have been coming from (job postings) and the limitations inherent in relying upon it (not actual salaries).
And yet it's still bullshit because you're terrible at analyzing that data.
You're criticizing the salaries of individuals. These salaries are determined both by the nature of the labor market and the end profits of the games being made.
The reasons that budgets are getting out of control isn't because the average salaries of game makers are getting that much higher. The reasons that budgets are getting out of control is because MORE PEOPLE are needed to create the kinds of games that the publishers are creating.
You're attacking the wrong part of the equation. Attack the nature of the development model that says you need development team of several hundred people to make a game. Don't attack individuals for being successful.
Sarah Palin also cited New York Times to make her arguments. Totally misleading argument.
gigantor21
Member
If the game is fun enough to justify it's purchase price, I don't care if everyone in the company down to the janitors gets a Lamborghini as part of their benefits. If they can't do that, then I just won't buy the game.
I seriously couldn't care less.
And I find the "lower pay = better games and pricing" argument just as spurious as the "no used games = better games and pricing" argument. I can't imagine Activision using extra money to lower CoD prices to $40 new, no matter where it's coming from. It's more likely they'd just pocket the difference.
Couldn't have said it better.
I seriously couldn't care less.
And I find the "lower pay = better games and pricing" argument just as spurious as the "no used games = better games and pricing" argument. I can't imagine Activision using extra money to lower CoD prices to $40 new, no matter where it's coming from. It's more likely they'd just pocket the difference.
Couldn't have said it better.
You're basically reading it wrong -- it doesn't say "the average person making iOS games makes $96k/yr; it says "the average job opening for 'iOS developer' pays $96k/yr. Companies with capital that want to hire people to make an iOS game aren't going to skimp and hire some newbie if they want any chance of having a successful game.
When someone is hiring for a position, they usually pay a real salary. Doesn't mean the game will be successful enough to bring profit, and it might be a very temporary position when the game bombs, but $96k for a very in-demand skill makes absolute sense. If the average person making iOS games was making $96k/yr, they wouldn't take a job -- they'd just make their own apps. They take the job because it offloads the risk to whoever hired them.
GravityMan
Member
1) If companies want quality, talented people on their team...chances are they will have to pay them a good salary. And chances are...if you want to create a quality game...you need good talent on your staff. Developers (or anyone else in almost any industry...IT, legal, marketing, etc.) who know their stuff and have decent people skills tend to be in demand, which can drive up salaries. That is simple economics.
2) Games are more complex now than they were 5, 10, 15 years ago. Many companies still demand that projects still be completed within 1 or 2 or 3 years...to capitalize on holiday sales, keep shareholders happy or whatever. So it is simple to conclude that in order to continue to make AAA games with high-end production values, more people are needed nowadays than was the case a decade ago. However, I do think that sometimes too many hands in the cookie jar can negatively impact the quality of a product (harder to keep everyone on the same page, maintaining effective communication is more challenging, etc.). I do generally support smaller teams combined with an agile software development process, but you simply can't apply that to any kind of situation or project and expect things to go smoothly.
2) Games are more complex now than they were 5, 10, 15 years ago. Many companies still demand that projects still be completed within 1 or 2 or 3 years...to capitalize on holiday sales, keep shareholders happy or whatever. So it is simple to conclude that in order to continue to make AAA games with high-end production values, more people are needed nowadays than was the case a decade ago. However, I do think that sometimes too many hands in the cookie jar can negatively impact the quality of a product (harder to keep everyone on the same page, maintaining effective communication is more challenging, etc.). I do generally support smaller teams combined with an agile software development process, but you simply can't apply that to any kind of situation or project and expect things to go smoothly.
cpp_is_king
Member
lol. If the indeed.com salary information is an "on-record fact from a verifiable, trusted source" then I guess we can conclude Lua Programmers make $128k and Lua Developers make $72k.
It's interesting how you conveniently ignored my data from the exact same "verifiable, trusted source" which indicates that game developers are actually underpaid. Incidentally, despite how completely unscientific and worthless this data is for any kind of meaningful research, that data actually happens to illustrate the correct state of reality - that game developers can make a lot more elsewhere.
Doesn't support your argument though, so it must be false right? Even when it's true.
Marty Chinn
Member
He will never ever address this directly. He'll deflect and side step it but he won't address this. It's too crucial to his argument for him to tackle the hard truth. It's just like he won't address how you shave off 98 million of your employee salary.
Xisiqomelir
Member
Xander756 is a clickbait master. I applaud him, and his freelance liason at Examiner.com should arrange a $70,000 sportscar for his girlfriend.
Marty Chinn
Member
Heh, he's laughing at us on Twitter. The guy is so delusional and refuses to acknowledge points that completely destroys his argument.
Marty Chinn
Member
I'm sure he'll disappear now that he has his hits.
D
Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
Have you seen the amount of facebook shares on that article?! No way it can be proven wrong.
D
Deleted member 126221
Unconfirmed Member
A real martyr.
Marty Chinn
Member
Aww really? Banned? Oh well.
A real martyr.
Anyone who hires this idiot as a journalist immediately loses my respect. Dude can't even write a proper argument.
Why is it that every clown forgets that Cliffy B is 38 years old. The dude started working in the industry when he was fucking 17 OF COURSE he's got money saved up now.
How dare a developer break his back and save all his earnings at an age where everyone else is out having fun?
Bleh, Cliffy earned it.
And yeah, I was totally living the A-List lifestyle on my developer salary. I even made enough to buy me a computer!
Also using "likes" and "thumbs up" as a metric for how his views are widely accepted. Fucking lol. Justin Bieber is also insanely popular on YouTube, that doesn't mean his views on anything are correct.
How dare a developer break his back and save all his earnings at an age where everyone else is out having fun?
Bleh, Cliffy earned it.
And yeah, I was totally living the A-List lifestyle on my developer salary. I even made enough to buy me a computer!
sarcasm
Also using "likes" and "thumbs up" as a metric for how his views are widely accepted. Fucking lol. Justin Bieber is also insanely popular on YouTube, that doesn't mean his views on anything are correct.
cpp_is_king
Member
That's certainly a big problem, but the bigger problem is that, at least in this thread, he claims his problem is with the super rich developers like Cliffy B. But his ACTUAL article only mentions Cliff in one place, and then uses salary statistics (which are themselves already inaccurate as demonstrated throughout the last 2-3 pages of this thread) from people who are nothing like Cliffy B to conclude that "game developers" make too much money. He even tries comparing salaries of "game programmer" to those of "software programmer" (the result of which have already been refuted in the last 2 pages), but yet in this thread he argues that his beef is with the handful of multi millionaires.
The reason there was backlash against this article to begin with is because less than 1% of "game developers" (which is the exact phrase he uses for group he calls out in the article) are able to live the lifestyle he apparently disagrees with, but his article is written in such a way that it clearly says that all game developers make too much. This is disingenuous at best, malicious at worst.
If he wants to say that Cliff and John Carmack and Mike Morhaime and Gabe Newell make too much, fine. I would still disagree with it for the reason you already pointed out, but at least then the article has the potential to make SOME kind of point, as opposed to being a nonsensical mess.
I suspect he doesn't even have a problem with John Carmack Mike Morhaime, Tim Sweeney, or anyone else other than Cliff, and that this entire thing is his attempt at a veiled personal jab at Cliff, but he tried to figure out a way to make it into something he could post.
LightofRohan
Member
Heh, OP is gone. But he did start an interesting discussion (somewhat).
But I speak all of this from the art-side of things and in this industry it is criminally low what a lot of companies pay for their artists.
Programmers/scipters/engineers however, make mother-fuckin' bank. Because they are incredibly invaluable, their work is not just making the game. It's SPEEDING up time for every other department, which is an insane time-saver.
The OP should go look at PIXAR programmers/engineers, they get a ridiculous amount of money. I've heard a story where this programmer there essentially rewrote the entire lighting pipeline and basically saved the company 3-4 months of time, that is per-employee, that is a ridiculous amount of money. Some even make four figures an hour (because they don't work very often and clean stuff up fast).
I for one ditest programmers, cause they destroy our dumbass artists jobs. Oh, we have to create 30 pirate-ships for this game? Ok that'll be about 6 months of work (AT LEAST), programmer automates the process: done in two weeks (true story).
But I speak all of this from the art-side of things and in this industry it is criminally low what a lot of companies pay for their artists.
Programmers/scipters/engineers however, make mother-fuckin' bank. Because they are incredibly invaluable, their work is not just making the game. It's SPEEDING up time for every other department, which is an insane time-saver.
The OP should go look at PIXAR programmers/engineers, they get a ridiculous amount of money. I've heard a story where this programmer there essentially rewrote the entire lighting pipeline and basically saved the company 3-4 months of time, that is per-employee, that is a ridiculous amount of money. Some even make four figures an hour (because they don't work very often and clean stuff up fast).
I for one ditest programmers, cause they destroy our dumbass artists jobs. Oh, we have to create 30 pirate-ships for this game? Ok that'll be about 6 months of work (AT LEAST), programmer automates the process: done in two weeks (true story).
The Smoking Bun
Banned
Slash wages and hire women. Is that the solution?
Article author is a terrible journalist if only because he didn't even take the time to go to the source data from which his cites pulled their information. That is unforgivable. He should be fucking ashamed and should never get a real journalism job, anywhere. Forever.
EDIT: I've only taken basic college level English classes and I would have gotten marked down a letter grade if I had pulled that shit on a paper.
EDIT: I've only taken basic college level English classes and I would have gotten marked down a letter grade if I had pulled that shit on a paper.
True, I simplified the issue by removing the game component from it. I think one can make an argument that someone is overpaid if their employment isn't subject to market forces, other than that I would say in absolute terms that it is impossible to be overpaid.
According to his twitter, he's been offered six jobs since writing the article. I can't tell if he's lying or if people want him for clickbait.
EDIT: Ugh, read more of his twitter. So much misinformation. I'm pretty positive now that no one offered him a job, clickbait or not.
AllIsOneIsNone
Banned
I heard somewhere that making good games is sort of not easy at all.
yellow submarine
Member
LOL @ the insinuation that video game prices would go back down to $50 if developers were paid half of what they are. You think CEO paychecks grow on trees?
cpp_is_king
Member
He's obviously a pathological liar and an egomaniac, so I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if he's lying.
Movie & Book critics more than often discuss the political implication of a movie or a book, no one is going batshit crazy about it.
What's with videogames inspiring this #GG lunacy ? maybe I'm to old to understand.