http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/g...-mean-game-over-for-20-million-dunedin-studio
According to the article, Dean Hall (DayZ developer) wants to expand his small game studio in Dunedin, New Zealand. It's currently 6 people, he wants to bump it up to ~30, with another 30 in the future. This is awesome. I grew up in New Zealand, and it's fair to say there are bugger all options for game dev jobs back home.
Good news?
Well unfortunately due to an apparent lack of local candidates he is planning to bring graduate game programmers to NZ from overseas. And in doing so he plans to offer them $35k NZD/year ($23k USD, £15k) for the privilege.
The NZ government isn't too happy to grant immigration visas for such a low salary in a highly skilled job - even if they are new graduates. They claim a more appropriate low end programmer salary is around $60,000. Due to this dispute, Mr. Hall claims he may be forced to move to the NZ operation to another country.
...
This is especially annoying to me, as my first game industry programming job was in Dunedin as a new graduate with very little work history. My starting salary was 50,000 NZD. This was over 10 years ago, so adjusted for inflation I was getting around 65,000 NZD (I work in the US now fwiw).
To me this stinks of arrogance and trying exploit people to cut costs. While the NZ dev scene isn't huge, if you offer a reasonable wage there are still excellent candidates out there. I'm also highly skeptical of a studio that is staffed mainly by new graduates - which seems to be implied by the wording (mecca for graduates). It's not as if Dunedin is especially cheap either - despite being famous for its student hovels, the average house still sells for ~ $300k.
Sadly this industry has a bad habit of exploiting new graduates, those willing to make sacrifices in order to land their dream job. :/
According to the article, Dean Hall (DayZ developer) wants to expand his small game studio in Dunedin, New Zealand. It's currently 6 people, he wants to bump it up to ~30, with another 30 in the future. This is awesome. I grew up in New Zealand, and it's fair to say there are bugger all options for game dev jobs back home.
Good news?
Well unfortunately due to an apparent lack of local candidates he is planning to bring graduate game programmers to NZ from overseas. And in doing so he plans to offer them $35k NZD/year ($23k USD, £15k) for the privilege.
The NZ government isn't too happy to grant immigration visas for such a low salary in a highly skilled job - even if they are new graduates. They claim a more appropriate low end programmer salary is around $60,000. Due to this dispute, Mr. Hall claims he may be forced to move to the NZ operation to another country.
...
This is especially annoying to me, as my first game industry programming job was in Dunedin as a new graduate with very little work history. My starting salary was 50,000 NZD. This was over 10 years ago, so adjusted for inflation I was getting around 65,000 NZD (I work in the US now fwiw).
To me this stinks of arrogance and trying exploit people to cut costs. While the NZ dev scene isn't huge, if you offer a reasonable wage there are still excellent candidates out there. I'm also highly skeptical of a studio that is staffed mainly by new graduates - which seems to be implied by the wording (mecca for graduates). It's not as if Dunedin is especially cheap either - despite being famous for its student hovels, the average house still sells for ~ $300k.
Sadly this industry has a bad habit of exploiting new graduates, those willing to make sacrifices in order to land their dream job. :/