MistaBowaa
Member
Hey GAF. So, I'm thinking about making a major life change, and I need some advice from folks working in the video game industry. TL;DR at the bottom, but I'd appreciate it if you read everything for context and provide comments with substance.
Background
I've wanted to work in the gaming industry ever since I was a kid. I took programming courses in high school thinking that was what I needed to do to make video games (plus I enjoyed coding, which helped). I was part of Antagonist, INC. on AOL and hosted chat room games while developing web pages in AOL's Web Diner. After high school graduation, I found out quickly that a college degree in Computer Science was NOT what I envisioned it would be. It was all abstract concepts and creating scripts to simulate basic financial applications.
Pass.
Fortunately, my college also offered degrees in Digital Media. After finding out how awesome a degree it was, I quickly and eagerly made the switch. It opened my eyes that there was so much more to video games than code. Story, visuals, sound. I know, duh, of course those are major aspects of game development, but as a Millennial I grew up with an adult culture that had linked gaming to computers and computers to programming. I had never considered anything else as an avenue for getting into game development.
As a quick aside that will become important momentarily, in high school I was big on the 8-Bit Theater and Penny Arcade web comics. They partially inspired me to draw my own comics based on a story universe I had been building since my Sophomore year. I was also a huge fan of Dragon Ball Z and making AMVs (anime music videos), so story, visuals and sound weren't lost on me.
Anyway, I gobbled up all of my Digital Media courses, including the non-programming ones, but I still saw coding as my forte, though not the only thing I wanted to be a part of in a game's development. In the latter half of my college years, I had a course called Interactive Entertainment, which was instructed by a Disney Imagineer. One day he brought in a manager from one of the big gaming corporations (I'm leaving the company's name out for reasons), and we had a chance to ask him questions. I raised my hand and told him I wanted to be the visionary behind a game's development (Nomura was my inspiration back then). He laughed and told me that what I wanted was the holy grail of game development and that it would take me 30 years to get there, if I got there at all.
It was then that my dreams were utterly crushed, and it was a turning point for where I would eventually end up in my career. I had been trying to write some novels based on the aforementioned universe I'd started creating in high school, so I decided I would instead focus on building my universe. If my novels were successful enough, I would sell the rights to one of the gaming corporations with the stipulation that I could be a creative consultant. My novels would be my fast track into the position I wanted in the gaming industry. However, knowing that I couldn't stake my livelihood on the success of a novel, I used my degree in Digital Media and took a database job straight out of college in the defense industry.
I've been working for the same company I hired into out of college for the past 9 years where my role has shifted from database administrator, to software developer, to manager of a team of artists and software developers creating interactive training tools in video game engines. Though we haven't developed anything for consoles (our focus is PC and tablet), we've begun developing for Vive and HoloLens. As it turned out, despite not working in the gaming industry, I still clung to my dream and now lead a game development team... although our games are "smart games" rather than commercial entertainment.
...which brings me to my current dilemma.
Current Dilemma
I work in the defense industry, where game development is a relatively new concept. Sure, there have been interactive simulations for years, but without going into it, we've tapped into a new market for defense industry gaming (not just our company, plenty others have started doing what we're doing, too).
The biggest challenge I experience in my job is the culture clash from senior leaders. The defense industry is EXTREMELY autocratic. Our customer is the military, and a majority of the industry's leadership are ex-military or grew up in military families. They do not know handle Millennials, and they certainly don't understand game development (If I had a nickel for every manager who having heard about our products said "Oh, my kid plays Call of Duty, but I'll never understand it, hohoho"). Also, being that we charge our customers directly for most of our work, there is very little room for creativity unless we get some internal R&D funds. Innovation is a hard cookie to tackle in our industry because our customers aren't paying for ideas, they're paying for results.
My dilemma is that I've pretty much hit the end of my rope with this culture. Despite trying to work things out, I ultimately had to report a manager for multiple behavior incidents which resulted in an HR investigation. Although they agreed with me, they kept the manager in my area (though he isn't a manager anymore). As my leadership responsibilities have grown, I have had more personal access to leaders up the chain and all I see are the same kinds of people as the one I had to take to HR. It has been incredibly frustrating to watch my team and the products we create be jeopardized time and time again due to poor leadership and culture that just doesn't understand.
...which brings me to my potential path forward.
Path Forward (Advice, please!)
I think it might be time to leave the defense industry for a job in the gaming industry. I'm 32 years old. I'm a home owner, a husband, and the father of a 2-year-old princess. There is a major gaming studio in my city, but they are part of one of the big gaming corporations with a poor history of treating their employees fairly (won't say who for reasons, but it's not hard to figure out). If I'm going to do this, I would want to work for one of the best companies in the business, most of which seem to be based in California or somewhere on the other side of the country from me.
However, there are three concerns I have where I need some advice or insider knowledge from gaming industry vets.
The first concern I have is salary. As a manager with a technical background, my salary is pretty great (though it could be better, as always). If we were to move to California, I would need to find an opportunity with a 6-digit salary to make up for the cost-of-living adjustment. I don't expect to find many of those opportunities at indie studios, so I'm assuming I'd need to work for one of the larger companies. Are leadership opportunities for the big development studios paid well?
My second concern is job security. Above anything else, in the defense industry my job is secure. As long as I show awesome performance and criticality to the company (which I do), any budget cuts we experience are extremely unlikely to affect my job. This isn't so true in the gaming industry, where it seems studio closures are a common occurrence. For someone who is looking for full-time work and not contract work, is there relatively high job security working for the AAA development studios?
My last concern, the one that has caused me to write all of this in the first place, is culture. I can't imagine the culture of ANY game studio could possibly be worse than the defense industry. I'm sure there are still conflicts between the Millennial generation and previous generations, but I would also think that CEOs of game companies don't run their businesses like the military. Is this a non-issue, or is there major generational culture clash worth considering?
In Closing
Any advice you have, GAF, would be most appreciated. This would be a major life change not only for me, but my wife and daughter as well. Although I have become disenchanted with my current employer, they still pay the bills and allow me and my family to have a semi-comfortable life. I love my team and I love the products we build. I don't want to gamble it all away unless the odds are in my favor.
PS - It's a good thing I didn't rely on my novels. I haven't published any, though I do have one going through it's third edit. Some day.
PPS - Earlier this year I considered applying for a job at GameTrailers before they were all let go. I have a small gaming blog I write on the side, and with my Digital Media background I thought getting in front of a camera and editing videos with the GT crew would be awesome. Though I don't think being a member of a group like EZA would be enough to financially support my family, I'd love to do it if I could!
TL;DR
I am the manager of a game development team in a non-gaming industry where militaristic/autocratic culture has crossed the line. I'd like to transition to the game industry but I'm worried I won't be able to maintain the same salary or job security. I'm also concerned I would run into the same autocratic culture I'm trying to escape from. The point of this thread is to get advice from industry vets based on these concerns.
Thank you!
Background
I've wanted to work in the gaming industry ever since I was a kid. I took programming courses in high school thinking that was what I needed to do to make video games (plus I enjoyed coding, which helped). I was part of Antagonist, INC. on AOL and hosted chat room games while developing web pages in AOL's Web Diner. After high school graduation, I found out quickly that a college degree in Computer Science was NOT what I envisioned it would be. It was all abstract concepts and creating scripts to simulate basic financial applications.
Pass.
Fortunately, my college also offered degrees in Digital Media. After finding out how awesome a degree it was, I quickly and eagerly made the switch. It opened my eyes that there was so much more to video games than code. Story, visuals, sound. I know, duh, of course those are major aspects of game development, but as a Millennial I grew up with an adult culture that had linked gaming to computers and computers to programming. I had never considered anything else as an avenue for getting into game development.
As a quick aside that will become important momentarily, in high school I was big on the 8-Bit Theater and Penny Arcade web comics. They partially inspired me to draw my own comics based on a story universe I had been building since my Sophomore year. I was also a huge fan of Dragon Ball Z and making AMVs (anime music videos), so story, visuals and sound weren't lost on me.
Anyway, I gobbled up all of my Digital Media courses, including the non-programming ones, but I still saw coding as my forte, though not the only thing I wanted to be a part of in a game's development. In the latter half of my college years, I had a course called Interactive Entertainment, which was instructed by a Disney Imagineer. One day he brought in a manager from one of the big gaming corporations (I'm leaving the company's name out for reasons), and we had a chance to ask him questions. I raised my hand and told him I wanted to be the visionary behind a game's development (Nomura was my inspiration back then). He laughed and told me that what I wanted was the holy grail of game development and that it would take me 30 years to get there, if I got there at all.
It was then that my dreams were utterly crushed, and it was a turning point for where I would eventually end up in my career. I had been trying to write some novels based on the aforementioned universe I'd started creating in high school, so I decided I would instead focus on building my universe. If my novels were successful enough, I would sell the rights to one of the gaming corporations with the stipulation that I could be a creative consultant. My novels would be my fast track into the position I wanted in the gaming industry. However, knowing that I couldn't stake my livelihood on the success of a novel, I used my degree in Digital Media and took a database job straight out of college in the defense industry.
I've been working for the same company I hired into out of college for the past 9 years where my role has shifted from database administrator, to software developer, to manager of a team of artists and software developers creating interactive training tools in video game engines. Though we haven't developed anything for consoles (our focus is PC and tablet), we've begun developing for Vive and HoloLens. As it turned out, despite not working in the gaming industry, I still clung to my dream and now lead a game development team... although our games are "smart games" rather than commercial entertainment.
...which brings me to my current dilemma.
Current Dilemma
I work in the defense industry, where game development is a relatively new concept. Sure, there have been interactive simulations for years, but without going into it, we've tapped into a new market for defense industry gaming (not just our company, plenty others have started doing what we're doing, too).
The biggest challenge I experience in my job is the culture clash from senior leaders. The defense industry is EXTREMELY autocratic. Our customer is the military, and a majority of the industry's leadership are ex-military or grew up in military families. They do not know handle Millennials, and they certainly don't understand game development (If I had a nickel for every manager who having heard about our products said "Oh, my kid plays Call of Duty, but I'll never understand it, hohoho"). Also, being that we charge our customers directly for most of our work, there is very little room for creativity unless we get some internal R&D funds. Innovation is a hard cookie to tackle in our industry because our customers aren't paying for ideas, they're paying for results.
My dilemma is that I've pretty much hit the end of my rope with this culture. Despite trying to work things out, I ultimately had to report a manager for multiple behavior incidents which resulted in an HR investigation. Although they agreed with me, they kept the manager in my area (though he isn't a manager anymore). As my leadership responsibilities have grown, I have had more personal access to leaders up the chain and all I see are the same kinds of people as the one I had to take to HR. It has been incredibly frustrating to watch my team and the products we create be jeopardized time and time again due to poor leadership and culture that just doesn't understand.
...which brings me to my potential path forward.
Path Forward (Advice, please!)
I think it might be time to leave the defense industry for a job in the gaming industry. I'm 32 years old. I'm a home owner, a husband, and the father of a 2-year-old princess. There is a major gaming studio in my city, but they are part of one of the big gaming corporations with a poor history of treating their employees fairly (won't say who for reasons, but it's not hard to figure out). If I'm going to do this, I would want to work for one of the best companies in the business, most of which seem to be based in California or somewhere on the other side of the country from me.
However, there are three concerns I have where I need some advice or insider knowledge from gaming industry vets.
The first concern I have is salary. As a manager with a technical background, my salary is pretty great (though it could be better, as always). If we were to move to California, I would need to find an opportunity with a 6-digit salary to make up for the cost-of-living adjustment. I don't expect to find many of those opportunities at indie studios, so I'm assuming I'd need to work for one of the larger companies. Are leadership opportunities for the big development studios paid well?
My second concern is job security. Above anything else, in the defense industry my job is secure. As long as I show awesome performance and criticality to the company (which I do), any budget cuts we experience are extremely unlikely to affect my job. This isn't so true in the gaming industry, where it seems studio closures are a common occurrence. For someone who is looking for full-time work and not contract work, is there relatively high job security working for the AAA development studios?
My last concern, the one that has caused me to write all of this in the first place, is culture. I can't imagine the culture of ANY game studio could possibly be worse than the defense industry. I'm sure there are still conflicts between the Millennial generation and previous generations, but I would also think that CEOs of game companies don't run their businesses like the military. Is this a non-issue, or is there major generational culture clash worth considering?
In Closing
Any advice you have, GAF, would be most appreciated. This would be a major life change not only for me, but my wife and daughter as well. Although I have become disenchanted with my current employer, they still pay the bills and allow me and my family to have a semi-comfortable life. I love my team and I love the products we build. I don't want to gamble it all away unless the odds are in my favor.
PS - It's a good thing I didn't rely on my novels. I haven't published any, though I do have one going through it's third edit. Some day.
PPS - Earlier this year I considered applying for a job at GameTrailers before they were all let go. I have a small gaming blog I write on the side, and with my Digital Media background I thought getting in front of a camera and editing videos with the GT crew would be awesome. Though I don't think being a member of a group like EZA would be enough to financially support my family, I'd love to do it if I could!
TL;DR
I am the manager of a game development team in a non-gaming industry where militaristic/autocratic culture has crossed the line. I'd like to transition to the game industry but I'm worried I won't be able to maintain the same salary or job security. I'm also concerned I would run into the same autocratic culture I'm trying to escape from. The point of this thread is to get advice from industry vets based on these concerns.
Thank you!
