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[Dennis]

So I guess programming is the manual stoop labor of the intellectual world. Or the digital burger flippers if you will.

At least if Dean Hall and other like-minded people get their way.

CEOs screaming for an "educated workforce and not enough programmers and engineers!" and then they dump wages into the ground......

 

[LiquidSolid]

Pathetic and this isn't even the first time he's threatened to take his studio overseas. A few months back, he wasn't happy with the internet speeds at his new studio (I think they were taking a while to lay out the fiber network because it was a new building or something). And now this.

He comes across like he has a tantrum every time he doesn't get his way.

 

[Gruso]

Dude really kicked a few of your dogs, didn't he?

 

[mnannola]

If he wants cheap labor, then move to a country with cheap labor.

 

[joezombie]

It seems like the argument is that the government is considering software development salaries, whereas Hall is talking specifically about game developer salaries, which are always lower

It's pretty unrealistic to start your studio in a western country and expect to be permitted to bring in a ton of low-cost overseas technical people though

 

[Skux]

Kiwi here. $35k is bullshit, checkout cashiers get paid that.

 

[robochimp]

That is amazingly low, I made 11.50/hour working at a fast food restaurant in high school, 18 years ago.

 

[Angelus Errare]

"Hey man, I see you got that sweet in demand degree! Want to come to NZ and shit for money? We're not paying for relocation tho"

I made $11 working at Steinmart in Receiving in HS back in 2004.

Ain't no way in hell people can argue with a straight face that a CS graduate should be paid that in 2015. If people are seriously trying to argue that, then college OFFICIALLY is a waste of money and time.

 

[Pokemon Trainer Red]

"Hey man, I see you got that sweet in demand degree! Want to come to NZ and shit for money? We're not paying for relocation tho"

You also got to provide your own room too.

 

[DiscoJer]

Don't US tech companies do this all the time in the US? Get people in on an H-1B visa so they only have to pay about half what they would to a US citizen, and then give the excuse "we can't find enough works"

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/silicon-valley-h1b-visas-hurt-tech-workers

 

[eiskaltnz]

As having graduated in the past few years I know a lot of people who have got programming graduate positions around New Zealand and everyone has been at least $50k NZD minimum with most people above that and everyone being over $60k within the first year or so. The New Zealand dollar has recently dropped a lot compared to the US dollar so I don't feel that direct comparisons are fair at the moment.

I think it is actually disgusting that he is trying to pay so little, but I don't know how that compares to other game development graduate positions in New Zealand.

 

[Mario]

I think it is actually disgusting that he is trying to pay so little, but I don't know how that compares to other game development graduate positions in New Zealand.

Graduate programmers getting game roles in Wellington and Auckland usually fall into the $40-45k range. Smaller studios may be offering just under the $40k mark.

Though game roles here, like in most countries, do generally offer less than what people could get in more general IT roles.

 

[ddikxela]

35k a year? That seems awfully low, maybe thats why local candidates are lacking??
Im glad our government told him to piss off with that noise

 

[WedgeX]

Don't US tech companies do this all the time in the US? Get people in on an H-1B visa so they only have to pay about half what they would to a US citizen, and then give the excuse "we can't find enough works"

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/silicon-valley-h1b-visas-hurt-tech-workers

They do and it is awful for both US citizens getting let go or not hired and immigrants with visas who should be getting paid much more.

 

[Skittles]

That's fucking insulting low for a programmer. I can find jobs which offer 63k starting out with zero experience, and that's just for a basic electric company

 

[mikeBlack]

I don't really get why he needs to import graduates. The University of Otago is in Dunedin which has a good ComSci department. That's where I graduated from a year and a half ago. I had to take a mobile dev job in healthcare because there were so few game dev options in the south. I believe he wants people with Unity experience, why not approach the University and get them to teach Unity in their game dev paper?

 

[Blastoise]

Typical scarfie behaviour.

 

[Kagemusha]

Don't US tech companies do this all the time in the US? Get people in on an H-1B visa so they only have to pay about half what they would to a US citizen, and then give the excuse "we can't find enough works"

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/02/silicon-valley-h1b-visas-hurt-tech-workers

He should force his more expensive employees to train the new guys and then fire the old guys
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/04/u...off-at-disney-train-foreign-replacements.html

 

[NZNova]

That's a pretty pathetic wage, even for the relatively-low-paying NZ economy. Feels really exploitative.

 

[Almighty]

Jesus that was about what I made working a job at a call center that any bum off the street could of done.

 

[kevm3]

Nobody is making people take the job And nobody is holding a gun to their head to make them stay. I don't see a problem if it's a crap job nobody will apply or he will bleed employee's and have a constant turnover and get nothing done. It's his money and he's willing to give some to people the government should step back IMO. The market will dictate if this is the right wage. That's my opinion.

So you see nothing wrong with employers trying to severely undercut current wages by bringing in foreign labor at a fraction of the salary? You'll be cool with it until it affects your industry.

 

[Mario]

So you see nothing wrong with employers trying to severely undercut current wages by bringing in foreign labor at a fraction of the salary?

That isn't really what is happening here. He is trying to avoid paying foreign labour more than what he wants to pay local labour.

 

[Ilúvatar]

It might not be very much money, but you get experience and get to live in NZ. Not a horrible deal.

You get to make a quarter of what you could make elsewhere as a new graduate. GREAT DEAL.

 

[FiraB]

Fuck off at that pay, and he can't find good graduate programmers? Has this idiot looked at invercargill, nelson or christchurch? Heck Ken Sutton teaches some of the best graduate programmers in new zealand and those come out of invercargill. Guy isn't looking hard enough if he can't find good graduate programmers and if he wants to throw the clause "game" programmers in front of things and say it's a requirement then grinding gear games says hello.

35k a year is a joke pay for a graduate in IT here, heck I'm starting out on 65k a year working in networking (oh and that's with a company car and free fuel).

 

[NZNova]

You get to make a quarter of what you could make elsewhere as a new graduate. GREAT DEAL.

A quarter? What graduate job offers 140k?

It's a low wage, but come now.

A valuable part of the context here is that wages across the board in NZ are pretty shitty.

 

[stryke]

That's not really reassuring Dean.

 

[Dremorak]

I've been working in the NZ games industry for 4 years now and that is discusting. I started out at more than that but am still very underpaid for the industry as a whole. Those who quote lower living costs are very mislead. Its very expensive here.

 

[NZNova]

I've been working in the NZ games industry for 4 years now and that is discusting. I started out at more than that but am still very underpaid for the industry as a whole. Those who quote lower living costs are very mislead. Its very expensive here.

There's great variability in the NZ housing market. It is relatively cheap to live in Dunedin compared to other parts of NZ.

However I'm fairly willing to bet that places like, say, Grinding Gear based in Auckland would have to pay a lot more than 35k to a new developer if they wanted their developers to be able to afford to live inside buildings with four walls and a ceiling. Apparently, the NZGDA puts "recent graduate" at 35-45k starting salary though and even the Careers NZ site says 35-50k, so maybe being a game developer in NZ isn't a great idea to start with.

I think a large part of the outrage in this thread should actually be toward the game industry that thinks 35k is a great starting wage and not so much specifically toward Rocketwerkz.

 

[Herbspiceguy]

The real crime is wanting people to work on such a terrible, unsalvagable resource-sink.

 

[ClivePwned]

That isn't really what is happening here. He is trying to avoid paying foreign labour more than what he wants to pay local labour.

Do you pay graduate programmers NZ$35 000? If no, then maybe that's why he's not able to get local staff. Not even Halfbrick are that stingy...

I read the full article, which is written to take Hall's side. I have no prior beef with Hall- never played Day Z or anything he's made and I applaud him for wanting to create jobs in his homeland, but he's not a start-up.

In addition to his 30-strong team in London, Hall has six people working on a small scale project in Dunedin and had wanted to increase that to around 30 before creating a Queenstown-based studio with similar numbers,

My main beef is (and I'm actually glad this came up today since it distracts me from sadder news), if he's wanting paying grad coders (motherfucking programmers who almost always earn more than anyone else in game development) what the hell are the artists, QA, etc going to be paid there? Importing them is even more insulting. He could get them from Australia in 2 weeks but what level of programming brilliance would you get for an Australian prepared to move to Dunedin for NZ35k? Maybe the NZ government should relent so we can watch his salty tears when he wonders why his revolving door of imported grads keep leaving to get better jobs elsewhere.

 

[kevm3]

That isn't really what is happening here. He is trying to avoid paying foreign labour more than what he wants to pay local labour.

According to that article, that translates to $23,000 in US money, which is around $11 an hour. You can find hamburger places around here that pay around that amount... More, if you include benefits. In-N-Out is one example. If domestic programmers are getting paid less than that, no wonder it's so difficult to find talent there.

 

[NZNova]

According to that article, that translates to $23,000 in US money, which is around $11 an hour. You can find hamburger places around here that pay around that amount... More, if you include benefits. In-N-Out is one example. If domestic programmers are getting paid less than that, no wonder it's so difficult to find talent there.

Well you can't directly compare two different economies like that. Don't get me wrong, I think 35k is a shitty wage in the NZ economy, but it's not as clear cut as your example.

 

[CrunchyFrog]

It might not be very much money, but you get experience and get to live in NZ. Not a horrible deal.

How long is this going to be an acceptable excuse to justify objectively poor wages. You are taking time and energy from people with a skillset you require which can't then be put elsewhere. How are these people supposed to actually function outside of this job? Pay off school bills in the interim? "Experience" doesn't keep a roof over people's heads and food in their pantries. Employers need to get off their fucking high horse and quit acting like actually hiring people is such a huge act of unbridled generosity and then use that to guilt trip into lower wages. It's bullshit. Employers are just as much in need of employees as is the opposite. The sooner workers (skilled ones no less) realize that and refuse to be exploited, the better.

So I guess programming is the manual stoop labor of the intellectual world. Or the digital burger flippers if you will.

At least if Dean Hall and other like-minded people get their way.

CEOs screaming for an "educated workforce and not enough programmers and engineers!" and then they dump wages into the ground......

It's a chicken and egg scenario that's not limited to just the games industry, unfortunately.

 

[baconcow]

35k a year? That seems awfully low, maybe thats why local candidates are lacking??
Im glad our government told him to piss off with that noise

Isn't DayZ raking in millions, just like all these Steam Zombie and survival games? One would think there is plenty of money to afford paying skilled local developers.

 

[NZNova]

Isn't DayZ raking in millions, just like all these Steam Zombie and survival games? One would think there is plenty of money to afford paying skilled local developers.

That's a part of it too, now I come to think about it a bit more.

For the most part I imagine "graduate developer" does not equal "skilled developer". Not just that but brand new developers who haven't developed software commercially before have to be brought up to speed by more senior members, which impacts their productivity as well. Their code has to be reviewed and inspected, their mistakes corrected and dealt with, their skillsets expanded through training and mentoring, etc etc etc. Sure you get the occasional rock star who lives to code and is a genius from the get-go, but by and large most graduates are pretty green and need a lot of time to be brought up to speed, and their productivity rises over the years as their experience grows. Obviously, their pay would ideally rise with time as that happens.

So, a larger part of the context here is how long a newly-graduated developer would stay on a really low wage of 35k. The business is taking a bit of a risk by hiring on developers (although NZ law allows you to give them the boot within 90 days if they aren't up to snuff - not sure how that works in the case of immigrants brought in specifically for the job in question) and so low initial wages can help mitigate that risk. If a developer's wages go up fast once they prove that they are not useless, then that's not so bad.

 

[Hypron]

Well you can't directly compare two different economies like that. Don't get me wrong, I think 35k is a shitty wage in the NZ economy, but it's not as clear cut as your example.

Yep. And the NZD to USD exchange rate dropped a lot recently (and prices in NZ didn't suddenly jump up by 30% because it doesn't work like that):

6 months ago those NZD35k would be worth a lot more than just USD23k.

 

[The Goat]

It might not be very much money, but you get experience and get to live in NZ. Not a horrible deal.

Experience or "exposure" are never worth a shit paying job. Unless he's offering them a cut of the company, to offset the low pay, it's not worth it. Students get taken advantage of far too often.

 

[eiskaltnz]

Though game roles here, like in most countries, do generally offer less than what people could get in more general IT roles.

That is something that has always made me curious, why in do programmers in the game industry get paid less then other IT roles? I have never seen a satisfactory answer.

I would argue that game programming, especially within certain disciplines like graphics, is harder and requirers a more specialised skill set then many other programming jobs.

I can't believe the answer is something as simple as their is just less money in games compared to all other areas that require programming.

 

[Walpurgis]

Every time I hear about this guy, I come away thinking "what a sleazy crook".

 

[NZNova]

That is something that has always made me curious, why in do programmers in the game industry get paid less then other IT roles? I have never seen a satisfactory answer.

I imagine it might be as simple as - game developers get into game development because they love games and want to work on games. When it's a passion project, you don't have to pay as much.

There's a lot of new developers out there who don't realise just how hard it is to work on games who would kill for a chance to be able to do so. When that's your labour market, it's only natural that your monetary compensation isn't going to have to be as high as for programmers for say, banking applications or whatnot.

 

[Fularu]

23k$ US per year? Talk about beeing an exploitative asshole

 

[SJRB]

The real shocker is that even after all those millions in early access-sales he still only has 6 people working on this fucking game.

 

[BreezyLimbo]

That's not really reassuring Dean.

"I don't get paid therefore everyone else shouldn't get paid properly either"

Ok CEO o.o

The biggest red flag for me is that it's been what, 3-4 years since the DayZ concept and it's still in early access?

 

[Angelus Errare]

If the programmers are getting paid chump change, I feel especially bad for how much the artists are getting paid.

 

[Mario]

Do you pay graduate programmers NZ$35 000? If no, then maybe that's why he's not able to get local staff. Not even Halfbrick are that stingy...

I mentioned in an earlier post we are typically paying NZ$40-45k for programming graduates. We were paying $35-38k or so for programming graduates when we were starting out around 15 years ago with no funding.

According to that article, that translates to $23,000 in US money, which is around $11 an hour. You can find hamburger places around here that pay around that amount... More, if you include benefits. In-N-Out is one example. If domestic programmers are getting paid less than that, no wonder it's so difficult to find talent there.

I'm not saying it isn't low. I was just correcting you that he isn't shipping in foreign workers to drive the price down.

That is something that has always made me curious, why in do programmers in the game industry get paid less then other IT roles? I have never seen a satisfactory answer.

I would argue that game programming, especially within certain disciplines like graphics, is harder and requirers a more specialised skill set then many other programming jobs.

I can't believe the answer is something as simple as their is just less money in games compared to all other areas that require programming.

Returns in game development are often low, especially in the work for hire aspect of the business, and self publishing is incredibly hit and miss. There are a lot of success stories and some companies making massive returns, but nobody really gives a platform to the bulk of the industry that is barely scraping by or going bust.

Unfortunately, it is more or less a case of there is both less money and more unpredictability in games as compared to something like corporate IT (especially commercial contract work), even if the work required to make a game is much more complicated by comparison.

Thankfully, with the growth we have seen in the market and the lessened stranglehold that publishers and retailers have on paths to market, we are seeing industry revenues getting shared more readily amongst a wider set of companies, and the number of successes and margins climbing which is helping bring average salaries up.

 

[Gruso]

I think there's a few misconceptions here.

- This isn't about DayZ (some seem to think so)
- Hall has long since moved on from the DayZ team (as always planned & announced like a year before)
- DayZ development continues, very slowly but in the hands of a great studio (Bohemia). Nothing to do with Hall now.
- Hall was only ever an employee of Bohemia, who have owned the rights to DayZ since the mod
- As such, Bohemia is the company that has pocketed the 60-odd million out of DayZ so far. Hall no doubt got a nice exit bonus, but he's not exactly Kim Dotcom

Criticise him for the issue at hand - sure, go for it. But there is so much character assassination based on pure bullshit.

 

[SMOK3Y]

And the main problem with NZ is its dear as fuck just for everyday living its rediculous why do you think basically more New Zealanders live here in AUS than there?

 

[Polari]

I live in NZ and if this dickhead wants to pay people that little he can fuck off. What a piece of shit.

 

[ugh_the_boot]

I'm from NZ (Auckland) and I wouldn't work for this guy even if I already lived in Dunedin. What a cheapskate!

Also NZ is hella expensive, they have 15% GST and cost of living is pretty much the same as Australia (if not more). For example a brand new AAA game here (in AUS) is approx $89.00 in NZ it is $115.00

I love NZ, it's my fave country but these sorts of wages in an already expensive country is just not on and judging by this guys past record (unfinished game) I wouldn't work for him either way. Just a shitty deal all around lol.

 

[Mario]

And the main problem with NZ is its dear as fuck just for everyday living its rediculous why do you think basically more New Zealanders live here in AUS than there?

Aside from the obvious exaggeration there in terms of numbers, NZers are actually returning to NZ from Australia in record numbers, and we are bringing across more Australians than ever before also.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/lif...-zealands-favour/story-e6frg8h6-1227288377781