Yeah this lesson has taken me longer to learn than it should have, but it's finally penetrating my thick skull this go round, and I'm definitely sending out more apps with more ambition. But I'm still not hearing back from people.
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WSJ: In the $75 Billion Videogame Industry, Hiring People Is a Last Resort
- Thread starter ggx2ac
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Yeah this lesson has taken me longer to learn than it should have, but it's finally penetrating my thick skull this go round, and I'm definitely sending out more apps with more ambition. But I'm still not hearing back from people.
travisbickle
Member
This will happen everywhere, but it will happen in tech to a greater degree and quicker because the demographics skew young and the young have been indoctrinated to earn less than their predecessors while producing more for their company because reasons.
ULTROS!
People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
Legit question but is this a problem in America or is it a worldwide problem? Let's say comparing it to Asia, I get the impression that the tech companies there are more stable and permanent (or at least it's not as hard to find a job if the tech company folds).
Aaronrules380
Member
Asia has it's own problems with the way it treats employees regardless. I feel like I'd honestly rather be a contractor in America than a full on employee in most Japanese gaming companies tbh
Found in the article, will add to OP.
What do contractors do?
Quality Assurance: 21%
Art: 20%
Programming: 17%
Audio: 16%
Other: 10%
Design: 7%
Production: 5%
Writing/Scenario: 3%
Web Development: 1%
Source: Game Developer Salary Survey by Gamasutra in May 2014 of 4,000 game workers.
Flying Toaster
Member
I think it depends on the situation. All the tech jobs I have dealt with in America are engineering or design. I know that base IT jobs such as support or administration always seem to be available but anything that deals with R&D seems to be harder to find.
Anecdotal I know so take that with a grain of opinion mixed with a bit of salt.
I gotta wonder where people are getting their five years experience, then. Were they simply lucky enough to work tech jobs before the contractorpocalypse?
I can't help but feel that this is spinning out of control. The white collar equivalent of the automation crisis, if you will.
In any case, thank you for the encouragement, I could use it right now.
It is very much the case of putting your best efforts forward and hoping you hit something eventually that people will enjoy. For some its their first try, others it takes many projects but if you've got the passion then by all means go for it. I myself am working on my own project very slowly while I look elsewhere for permanent IT roles, but indie development takes dedication and hard work.
I can see why many move to indie development because it allows them permanency in their own form of being the boss/being part of a studio compared to the contractor role of FIFO style employment. I wish it could work for me but I just don't want that instability bogging my and my partner's minds.
My best friend is an extremely talented concept artist who has been trying for 5+ years to find a salaried job at a game studio, but it's a fucking nightmare. He'll get hired for 3-4 months to do contract work with the "prospect" becoming a permanent hire (a lot of mobile studios do this) but then he's let go and never hears from them again.
I really feel for him, and anyone trying to break into the industry right now - it's got to be frustrating as hell.
I really feel for him, and anyone trying to break into the industry right now - it's got to be frustrating as hell.
Some Nobody
Junior Member
A highly-polished AAA+ title with both multi and single player modes that both have to be roughly equally detailed and developed, and published on a REAL schedule of three years instead of the usual video game clown car ones where a game comes out "when it's done" ? Yeah, that's gonna need 2000 people at least.
ULTROS!
People seem to like me because I am polite and I am rarely late. I like to eat ice cream and I really enjoy a nice pair of slacks.
So it means anything related to server maintenance, computer support are usually available but programming related are harder to find?
From my own experience in my country, tech and IT jobs are still in demand and abundant but they have high turnover rates (1-5 years). Also, a good number of employed developers do freelancing on the side.
Artists are the biggest for it outside of QA from what I've personally seen. Because of their skillset it is so easy to hire them on, get the art then kick them out the door. No need to pay superannuation, taxes etc and its all contract based so they can't complain to you. It sucks big time but it won't be going away because there are too many incentives for the studio to do it that they'd be hurting themselves by hiring full-time.
exmachina64
Banned
Despite the shitposting, each entry in the franchise is a massive AAA production.
Flying Toaster
Member
Yeah support is a lot more available. Burnout rate on programming related jobs or specialty stuff is a lot higher but at the same time every project I have been on in which the team has loses we just end up working more till completion instead of trying to rehire to replace unless the project is still in the early stages.
Tech is a thankless horrible field that no one appreciates and everyone shits on. But one could argue that is any job that keeps things in order.
They have unions. Groups like SAG-AFTRA (actors, broadcasters, performers, dancers, puppeteers, VA), WAG (writers), ASCAP (composers, authors, publishers) on the creative side and groups like IATSE (makeup and hair, stage hands, art directors, painters, etc) Teamsters (for GAF- er... gaffers, lighting technicians, camera men, boom operators, etc.) etc. on the technical side.
Last I looked, the closest game development had to a union is the IGDA, but that's more like a club than any kind of attempt at unionizing.
Games now are in the same situation film was in the first half of the 20th century, though with an indie vibe that's closer to film in the 80s and 90s. Studios run everything, force people to sign their rights away, engage in all sorts of shady practices and caught in a cycle of regurgitating proven successes (at the expense of growth and diversity). I've got a big post on it I wrote a while ago I can dig up if you want.
family_guy
Member
I've seen the same thing in government and I.T.
Stiler
Member
Even indie companies have to do this, the best thing is to stagger projects so you can keep teams together and move them from one project to the next. However when those things don't align it can be a huge drain having to pay salaries, etc with no revenue or work that has to be done.
Unburdening Healthcare and not having it tied to jobs would be a huge step up, all the more reason we need healthcare reform for everyone (you shouldn't have to pay 200x the cost of something int he US compared to other countries).
Then have systems in place similar to Hollywood like the various guilds for writers/actors, etc w/ royalties or something that makes that kind of work viable to live on for some.
Unburdening Healthcare and not having it tied to jobs would be a huge step up, all the more reason we need healthcare reform for everyone (you shouldn't have to pay 200x the cost of something int he US compared to other countries).
Then have systems in place similar to Hollywood like the various guilds for writers/actors, etc w/ royalties or something that makes that kind of work viable to live on for some.
ScatheZombie
Member
Nope.
Besides that, you should really take a look at cost of living indexes where major developers are located. Making $50k in LA is the equivalent of making $24k (barely above minimum wage) in Phoenix.
ItsTheNew
I believe any game made before 1997 is "essentially cave man art."
"By the time #Ryse ships for #XboxOne, we will have served the crunching team more than 11,500 dinners throughout development. #RyseFacts
Ryse: Son of Rome (@RyseGame) October 15, 2013"
Masterspeed
Member
Aren't' all companies like this? The Movie industry, Music industry, Television and of course companies that rely on art, advertising and all forms of media and products do this don't they?
ScatheZombie
Member
I realize you think you are making a joke, but as someone who actually did that for a living, a free shitty dinner doesn't compensate for not seeing your family for 16+ hours a day because some middle manager over-promised deadlines and it just comes off as you being an ignorant ass.
I'm not surprised TBH. Gaming induatry is moving towards the retail model or fast food industry model, hire part time workers or in this case (contract), no risk posed if a game bombs or layoff off hundreds of staff and vice versa. Surprised rhe gaming induatry doesn't subcontract to China or India for cheaper labour and less risk to their games and get higher margins. Just thinking like an American capitalist. Also yes it sucks that the gaming induatry is not a stable job, hence why you should go into higher paying industries.
ItsTheNew
I believe any game made before 1997 is "essentially cave man art."
I have 3 friends in the industry that have worked from making guides, to being a lead programmer, to making art. They've bounced between jobs and all live in San Francisco and make plenty of money to live in a nice neighborhood with a new car, going on yearly trips and can afford not working between gigs. I dunno, sounds pretty good to me!
ScatheZombie
Member
I honestly don't know how to respond to how much you don't know what you are talking about.
The problem with this opening argument is that while games are cheaper relative to inflation wages for most people never kept pace.
The purchasing power of today is lower thanks to the widening income gap.
I guess there's no issue then. This person has 3 friends that aren't starving
This isn't just prevalent in video games, or even the larger tech industry - it's everywhere. Profits outweigh humanity. Why give someone a full time position with a decent wage and give them benefits when you can hire two people part time at a lesser wage and avoid having to provide them with any benefits? If there are no laws to help employees and hold employers accountable, very few employers will opt to make choices that favor employees.
My last job was in retail, assistant managing a store that moved $2 million a year in sales and had a net profit around $365k. This was just as prevalent there. The corporate mentality was: "How can we maximize our profit?" "How can we get by on the bare minimum?" The ideal solution was to have just two full time employees, who worked by themselves for much of the day, and a handful of part time employees making minimum wage and getting between 3-8 hours a week, and sometimes zero hours. We hired seasonally, and let that help all go a week after Christmas, year after year. I watched hard working people struggle to get by. Being overworked gave me, and my boss, serious cases of anxiety. That's no way to try to run a successful business.
My last job was in retail, assistant managing a store that moved $2 million a year in sales and had a net profit around $365k. This was just as prevalent there. The corporate mentality was: "How can we maximize our profit?" "How can we get by on the bare minimum?" The ideal solution was to have just two full time employees, who worked by themselves for much of the day, and a handful of part time employees making minimum wage and getting between 3-8 hours a week, and sometimes zero hours. We hired seasonally, and let that help all go a week after Christmas, year after year. I watched hard working people struggle to get by. Being overworked gave me, and my boss, serious cases of anxiety. That's no way to try to run a successful business.
Why do you think that? I don't see the industry going bust any time soon. If budgets get too large for returns, the project scopes will decrease, but it's a lot easier to be nimble and adapt if you have far less in human capital costs, and contractors are how they do it. The article goes into it more, but the OP's summary basically states itthere's simply enough talented people out there that the industry writ large can get away with it, and unless you rounded up and shot every other game dev out there I don't see how that's going to change.
Lord of Ostia
Member
Unionization is one way that could change. As many here have said, the TV/Movie industry operates similarly, but workers are protected by unions.
This happens everywhere, and it's very common in the "creative economy" around the world. I work in the film/advertising media industry and almost the 100% of the crew for different jobs are freelance and the technicians are almost from contractors. It has pros and cons (more pros for me at least) but I can understand why this is a problem... But it's not a new problem, things like this rarely change because the laws of every country.
For those who want to read another article on this, Polygon had a great bit on it a while back: http://www.polygon.com/features/2016/12/19/13878484/game-industry-worker-misclassification
The Albatross
Member
I don't know why any talented developer would ever pursue game development unless their passion for creating something for their hobby just vastly outweighs their interest in making money, working sane hours, and enjoying the rest of their life.
The game division of software pays like 20%-30% less (or something similar from a study in 2015), demands longer working hours like 10-15% more hours, and is just significantly worse in every other meaningful way. I don't know why anybody would punish themselves by working in game development.
And it's only getting better for the rest of software development as the demand for employees is so high, and there's full employment in the industry so wages are booming. MEanwhile, I don't think that the gaming sector is getting any better.
Far worse in game development. Longer hours, lower pay, worse working environment, treating employees as expendable, and working towards the next crunch. Successful software companies very rarely have these criticisms, yet successful videogame software companies seem to be defined by them.
The game division of software pays like 20%-30% less (or something similar from a study in 2015), demands longer working hours like 10-15% more hours, and is just significantly worse in every other meaningful way. I don't know why anybody would punish themselves by working in game development.
And it's only getting better for the rest of software development as the demand for employees is so high, and there's full employment in the industry so wages are booming. MEanwhile, I don't think that the gaming sector is getting any better.
Far worse in game development. Longer hours, lower pay, worse working environment, treating employees as expendable, and working towards the next crunch. Successful software companies very rarely have these criticisms, yet successful videogame software companies seem to be defined by them.
I'm in the software development area of finance, and we depend on contract employees quite a bit as well. Some teams are entirely contract other than the manager and/or team lead.
There are a variety of reasons why, but a big problem for my team is how long it takes to get approvals for funding full time employees. I had full time resources quit their roles in August, November and March, and I have just now received approval to post a position to replace the resource I lost in August.
The funny thing is, the longer the team goes without replacing the resource, the harder it is to get funding approved as other managers (who are fighting for the same pool of funds) will argue that you don't need the resource as you team is working fine without it. If we actually did worse, and starting missing our targets or SLAs regularly, we would get funds quicker.
Conversely, if I wanted to hire a contractor to fill a void on my team I could do so within a month or two at most. The problem with that however, is that we don't want a disproportionate amount of business and technical knowledge to be with the contractors as they can obviously leave at any time or have their contract not renewed. Occasionally it is unavoidable though, and we have had some contractors on staff for years in some cases.
There are a variety of reasons why, but a big problem for my team is how long it takes to get approvals for funding full time employees. I had full time resources quit their roles in August, November and March, and I have just now received approval to post a position to replace the resource I lost in August.
The funny thing is, the longer the team goes without replacing the resource, the harder it is to get funding approved as other managers (who are fighting for the same pool of funds) will argue that you don't need the resource as you team is working fine without it. If we actually did worse, and starting missing our targets or SLAs regularly, we would get funds quicker.
Conversely, if I wanted to hire a contractor to fill a void on my team I could do so within a month or two at most. The problem with that however, is that we don't want a disproportionate amount of business and technical knowledge to be with the contractors as they can obviously leave at any time or have their contract not renewed. Occasionally it is unavoidable though, and we have had some contractors on staff for years in some cases.
Massive Duck. C.M.
Banned
This is quite the lie!
ItsTheNew
I believe any game made before 1997 is "essentially cave man art."
Listen, I wish everyone was millionaires who didn't have to work and game devs got to work relaxing schedules with 2000 people per game so they came out within reasonable timeframes.
However in reality -
I don't want $200 dollar games with more microtransactions just to support the tripling of game development costs. My anecdotal tale is that I know for a fact that game devs get paid fine. (In the US anyway) However if they don't like it there's a multitude of other tech careers they can flex (which, once again, one of my friends did since he didn't like the crunch!)
Yeah, I wasnt trying to throw shade at COD in anyway, but their studios dont have that many staff at them. Sledgehammer has 225 staff listed for example. Im guessing obviously the bulk is contracted at the time of production but I remember when the Destiny 2 staff numbers of about 1200 was news, people said the game was a "monster" etc. 2000 is a big step up from1200
CreepingFear
Member
Very similar for IT, for where I live at least. No one wants to pay full benefits. I'm fortunate to have a permanent job.
Smart companies realize that familiarity with the in house process and tech being used is more valuable than 2 contractors that will take days to get up to speed. In large companies its hard to get that idea across tho. I've been lucky to work in companies where it feels like they value experience, but there is definately a lot of companies out there that treat employees as disposable
ThatStupidLion
Member
I'm a contract vfx animator for film and commercials...
Deal with the same shit. It's not conducive for a future family life or retirement
Deal with the same shit. It's not conducive for a future family life or retirement
The Albatross
Member
A major issue is that there is an imbalance between the consumer price expectations and how much software should be sold for to cut down on crunch, raise salaries, and hire more full-time employees.
The rest of the software business does not suffer from this, but the games industry has a price-controlled model, where the highest priced 'AAA' title has to cost $60 at retail, and can never be sold for higher. Any attempts to break this are routinely criticized by game enthusiasts and pundits, as microtransactions. special editions, and season passes are lambasted year in and year out. Meanwhile, more game enthusiasts are wise that many games are even overpriced at $60 from the perspective of the market, and consumers simply wait for a 50% off sale half a year after release.
The pricing model of the gaming industry is so bizarre, yet there is so much friction in changing it.
Compare it to an analogous industry like general software development, where there isn't some artificial hard and fast rule about the price of new retail software, and there's far more variability in pricing, so there isn't this ridiculous "new release window" period, followed by extreme fire sale period a month or two after release. Likewise, when companies try new pricing structures, there is some friction, but not nearly the same friction as in game enthusiast circles. For instance, there was some consumer friction when Adobe transitioned to a subscription model for Creative Suite (A forced transition), but it was a fraction of the initial friction from enthusiasts than when EA introduced "EA Access," an optional games service (which has since been received very well).
The rest of the software business does not suffer from this, but the games industry has a price-controlled model, where the highest priced 'AAA' title has to cost $60 at retail, and can never be sold for higher. Any attempts to break this are routinely criticized by game enthusiasts and pundits, as microtransactions. special editions, and season passes are lambasted year in and year out. Meanwhile, more game enthusiasts are wise that many games are even overpriced at $60 from the perspective of the market, and consumers simply wait for a 50% off sale half a year after release.
The pricing model of the gaming industry is so bizarre, yet there is so much friction in changing it.
Compare it to an analogous industry like general software development, where there isn't some artificial hard and fast rule about the price of new retail software, and there's far more variability in pricing, so there isn't this ridiculous "new release window" period, followed by extreme fire sale period a month or two after release. Likewise, when companies try new pricing structures, there is some friction, but not nearly the same friction as in game enthusiast circles. For instance, there was some consumer friction when Adobe transitioned to a subscription model for Creative Suite (A forced transition), but it was a fraction of the initial friction from enthusiasts than when EA introduced "EA Access," an optional games service (which has since been received very well).
PdotMichael
Banned
I think the videogame industry is pretty high risk low profit for everyone.
Hockeymac18
Member
And it's unfortunately not limited to "tech".