• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

"The problem with the gaming industry is that developers make too much"

Septimius said:
To further his non-sequitur, he continues to say that you cannot increase the salaries of teachers, since it would add to the growing budget deficit.

How can someone know so little about economy yet have so many stupid ideas?
Click to expand...

My first impression was that he's 15 but apparently he has a Bachelors in Criminology. I suspect that he lives a very sheltered life.
 
wildfire said:
Now you are running into the problem of having teams with different languages, labor habits, labor laws and in different time zones working with each other. This is difficult to do in any industry.

Globalization less than a decade ago got back to Pre-WWII levels of inter-connectivity. Globalization isn't as potent and far reaching as you imagine it to be.

All of that said, you are correct that there can be a benefit to lowering costs by outsourcing.

It is one direction the industry can go to lower cost but there are other ways as well.
Click to expand...

I wasn't talking about outsourcing as such. Sub-contracting can be a good tool in cases were extra workforce is needed for a short time, but the extra management layers, shady business practices and various communication problems means that it's usually not worth it in the long term. But setting your own office at a cheaper city can bring lot more benefits. India and China may not be ideal places, because the culture is so different compared to western standards, but Poland for example is not that much different. As long as you hire people who can speak English, and most of the younger people can quite well. At least compared to Indian folks I have worked with.

Anyway, getting off topic here, and I don't really have anything to say about the original blog post :) Only, that it would be maybe more interesting to see the median salary rather than average....
 
Captain Tuttle said:
Take off about 20% for taxes, more or less. Insurance depends on the plan, family or individual etc but could be up to $1,000/month or more

Edit. Changed from 33% to about 20%, been awhile since we've been in that tax bracket
Click to expand...

Depends on the state as well. Put it this way, in MA I still don't own a car and my pay somewhere around 38 percent in all combined taxes and deductions.
 
remnant said:
And hence why there is no B tier market. Why would i fund a B tier game if i'm paying AAA wages to keep it going?

I don't know software engineer but I know in the animation and filmmaking industry, if you work on a smaller project, you get paid less. If i worked on an animated commercial, I'm not making Dreamworks Char. Animator money.

So if I am working on a B tier game, expected to bring in less revenue and cost much less than the AAA priortiy at the moment, why am i getting AAA money?
Click to expand...

Ugh, you need to get off this notion of B Tier and AAA Tier money or this notion that you should be paying someone in those terms. It's a false premise to base your argument on. You need to think more of what does a software engineer cost. They are a cost based on their experience and capability. You also have to think that there are software engineers across a number of industries and companies. You're also killing your own argument that somehow these people are overpaid when they are paid less than your average software engineer in any other field. Like you said, you know nothing about software engineers.
 
Cyrano said:
Pay should be higher for police officers, teachers, and those who work for aid organizations, but it really shouldn't come at the expense of game developers. That's an extremely weird correlation to draw. Still, I don't think game organizations would necessarily lose anything by offering more opportunities for employees to offer money to the less fortunate. My family's given 10% of their annual salary for years to local charities.
Click to expand...

http://chronicle.com/article/faculty-salaries-data-2012/131431#id=144050
 
While I do agree with the notion that the development process is fucking broken, the author is an idiot. It's like complaining about actors getting paid millions for cinema.
 
Sullen said:
All this does is remind me how little we pay the important working members of our society. I don't think really think it is wrong that a game dev makes 81k a year, but it is ridiculous how much more that is than what a police officer is making for a job that is much, much easier.

Edit: also kinda shocking how many people say 80k isn't that much. Pretty much every grown ass working professional I know in my life would practically kill to make that much.
Click to expand...

Well, considering where a lot of game development is centralized (in large cities), 80k may not be that much given the cost of living.

But in any case, yeah, trying to say we should cut the salaries of people actually making games is absurd. Teachers, police offers and other members of society should be making more money for what they do, but not at the expense of others. It's true that labor is an expensive part of the process, but perhaps we should instead be looking at inflated marketing budgets and bad corporate structuring as the real culprits.
 
What a load of shit. Salaries in the gaming industry are lower than average for similar progamming/coding jobs in software. Also.. his comparisons with state workers make no sense. They are paid by government, if you think they should be paid more than fucking protest outside the govenors office.
 
Two things: (a) rock star developers who make enough money to afford luxury cars are the exception; and (b) software developers on average have higher salaries than most middle-class professionals.

The role of publishers in the unsustainable production cost cycle of the industry is another matter of course.
 
I dont have a problem with people that earn cash as long as it does not affect the customers. if budgets are high everything has to be done to not let the customer having to pay the bill. There should be a retail price roof set on Games that they can never go above, customers should not be punished.
 
The writer's onto something, namely the inability of the shrinking middle class to support itself. Poor people don't buy enough full price games. Not to say that mismanagement isn't a factor in the troubles of developers and publishers.
 
Don't worry in a couple of years time all developers jobs will be filled and outsourced to China and and India. There is going to be a huge competitive market in the game industry with Publishers looking to Lower the wage bills of devs with cheaper low cost labour.
 
hal9001 said:
Don't worry in a couple of years time all developers jobs will be filled and outsourced to China and and India. There is going to be a huge competitive market in the game industry with Publishers looking to Lower the wage bills of devs with cheaper low cost labour.
Click to expand...

This is the wrong way of thinking. I HATE outsourcing, what are people going to live on in the future? FUck I hate this kind of thinking, people in charge are so fucking greedy that they will outsource to slaves. Should be illegal to outsource to other countries.
 
remnant said:
Another thing, people are bringing up "other software jobs" and that is a fair thing to do, but lets not act as if all products are created equal either. How many industries rely on selling a product directly to retail or DD for entertainment consumption? if you are a developer at autodesk, you are making more than wokring at a game studio, sure but you are also making a a product you will sell for $3k per license to thousands of studios, colleges, freelancers, etc etc around the world, just for example.

Different economics of scale

What are "resources" if not wages,benefits and OT?

And that's also my point. maybe the reason why there is a little "B tier" market is because there is no B tier wage. if every studio is paying employee wages consistent for cost of living in some of the most expensive places around America, how could there be?
Click to expand...

Wait, are you actually under the impression that the majority of game developers get paid for OT? That is simply not the case.
 
robertsan21 said:
This is the wrong way of thinking. I HATE outsourcing, what are people going to live on in the future? FUck I hate this kind of thinking, people in charge are so fucking greedy that they will outsource to slaves. Should be illegal to outsource to other countries.
Click to expand...
I'm assuming there's potential problems in implementing such laws as you have to differentiate between work just being outsourced to be cheap or work that's meant for a specific region, nevermind that maybe you have someone really good in that other country whose invaluable regardless of where they're from.

They should definitely kill outsourcing customer support though. Or keep it to, like, Canada or England.

EDIT: Oh, yes, something the article writer could stand to keep in mind is that there's people who have amassed obscene amounts of wealth they can never practically use, and just keep it sitting in offshore accounts. MASSIVE amounts of money at that. I can't imagine forcing this all back into active circulation means we all get $70,000 cars or anything crazy, but they're the ones to be angry about having too much money, I doubt many, if any developers are doing similar crap or have the money to.
 
Cyrano said:
Pay should be higher for police officers, teachers, and those who work for aid organizations, but it really shouldn't come at the expense of game developers. That's an extremely weird correlation to draw. Still, I don't think game organizations would necessarily lose anything by offering more opportunities for employees to offer money to the less fortunate. My family's given 10% of their annual salary for years to local charities.
Click to expand...

Have you done research on those local charities?
 
PG2G said:
I have always been under the impression that game developers get paid less and work longer hours than most other software developers.
Click to expand...

They do. This is a place where the move towards social and free-to-play games has actually been beneficial -- there are more gaming companies now that have cultural attitudes more inherited from Silicon Valley than the gaming industry, and therefore don't hew as much to the long-term philosophy of underpaying and overworking the talent that the game industry has cultivated.

remnant said:
And that's also my point. maybe the reason why there is a little "B tier" market is because there is no B tier wage.
Click to expand...

Not really.

if every studio is paying employee wages consistent for cost of living in some of the most expensive places around America, how could there be?
Click to expand...

Developing game software requires software developers. Software developers are in immense demand and can afford to demand high coastal salaries. A lot of studios are (wisely) realizing they can hire effective teams for less in places outside the priciest coastal cities, but ultimately the demand for their services means they're going to be highly-paid relative to where they live no matter what.
 
remnant said:
Another thing, people are bringing up "other software jobs" and that is a fair thing to do, but lets not act as if all products are created equal either. How many industries rely on selling a product directly to retail or DD for entertainment consumption? if you are a developer at autodesk, you are making more than wokring at a game studio, sure but you are also making a a product you will sell for $3k per license to thousands of studios, colleges, freelancers, etc etc around the world, just for example.
Click to expand...
At the same time, many software developers work at startups that make literally no money, yet are able to command extremely high salaries due to the competitive nature of the environment and the locales they're based in (SF, NYC, etc). And while there is also "crunch time" when working at a startup, it's far less backbreaking than the stories you routinely hear from game dev, not to mention the fact that it's offset in many ways by perks and chances at large payouts if the company is bought-out, etc. The bottom line is, if you're in game dev, you're in it for the love, not for the cash.
 
LOL what a load of bull.

The problem of this industry is BUDGET CONTROL. They throw millions left and right for nothing. There is the problem. Not a specific part of a budget like salary mass.
 
diamount said:
What a load of shit. Salaries in the gaming industry are lower than average for similar progamming/coding jobs in software. Also.. his comparisons with state workers make no sense. They are paid by government, if you think they should be paid more than fucking protest outside the govenors office.
Click to expand...

As a developer with a solid, tenured position, earning over six figures plus solid gold benefits doing boring database work a straight 40 hours a week, I have to say that I wouldn't work in the game industry if it was the last IT job available in my city. I'd deliver pizzas or something. Those guys are brutalized; you couldn't pay me enough to put up with the stress, extra hours and deadlines they have to handle...
 
Deraldin said:
So money that is spent paying developer salaries is not money that is being put towards the development of the game? Am I reading this right?
Click to expand...

That entire article reads like a forum thread where someone figured out that not all of the Kickstarter funds go towards "making the game".
 
robertsan21 said:
This is the wrong way of thinking. I HATE outsourcing, what are people going to live on in the future? FUck I hate this kind of thinking, people in charge are so fucking greedy that they will outsource to slaves. Should be illegal to outsource to other countries.
Click to expand...
That's why I'm going to encourage my kids to learn a trade,can't outsource electricians jobs
 
Last Hearth said:
This is as idiotic as those "do baseball players make too much money" or "do CEOs make too much money" articles we see now and then.

You think companies sets out to over pay their employees? Salaries are driven by supply and demand.
Click to expand...

Any argument in regards to people making too much is ridiculous. Payment is often indicated by difficulty to enter field, hours of work, risks involved, selective nature of the job (i.e, not everyone has the patients or academic aptitude to be a programmer, or a physician, or a lawyer).

You chose a career field, deal with it. Don't get mad at the guy who busted his ass and makes six figures. Because that same guy probably had to go through years of post high school education in challenging academia, a shit ton of loans, and probably didn't even start making "bank" until they were in their 30's.

There is an inherent reason why people of particular professions get paid what they do. It's all based on demand and if demand is high and the selection pool is low, this equates to usually high salaries.

What's worse is that this is purely an entertainment industry - the market, the consumers (aka us) can dictate everything in regards to how much developers get paid by supporting or not supporting games. Game company "over pays" employees and "nickel and dimes" consumers - well, stop buying their fucking games. You'll notice very quickly said game designer altering either their pay outs to devs or their nickel and diming of consumers. So him relating this to cops and teachers further makes no sense.
 
They make the games we know and love and drive big time sports cars. But that's a pretty immature thing to do. What if you retire now and have nothing when you're old? That's some ego right there.

Do game designers even get good health insurance?

CEOs get paid and put a lot of that in the market, savings, and planning for the future. That's why it pays as a famous developer. To be honest CEO of a big company sounds better. No public shots and comments. Just simple business and going back to my nice home. I wish some of those devs wore nice clothes and didn't comment all the damn time. CEO's dress to impress, shake hands, etc. When devs come on stage they wear their 2000's tshirts, jeans, and its like wtf! Wear a damn suit if you're so damn proud. Its like quitting on a dime with you guys.

Any up and coming devs out here reading this? Wear some nice clothes and don't follow social speak. Look like a professional.
 
Developers do not make too much at all. If anything, they make too little at times.

Budgets and risks are too high because publishers think the only way they can outdo each other is through higher production values that require hundreds of developers instead of good design or innovation. These publishers will tell you that it is the only way to get good sales, but simple titles like Minecraft show you that there are other possibilities.

The gaming industry has not matured yet. It has not found a good business model like other industries and publishers/manufacturers seem to think that the only way their actual model can be maintained is by rising prices or through strong anti-consumer measures. Maybe it is the actual model the one that is at fault.
 
I agree that developers make way too much. Been playing Game Dev Tycoon and each developer makes over 40K a MONTH. Seriously, what the fuck?
 
hal9001 said:
Don't worry in a couple of years time all developers jobs will be filled and outsourced to China and and India. There is going to be a huge competitive market in the game industry with Publishers looking to Lower the wage bills of devs with cheaper low cost labour.
Click to expand...

Outsourcing isn't as popular as it used to be. Employers are discovering that there are all sorts of hidden costs and drawbacks to the practice that end up hurting in the long run. In other words, hiring locally is actually cheaper and better.

Outsourcing is fairly common in the industry for art assets, but not programmers.
 
Northeastmonk said:
We also can't forget Richard Garriott went to space with his funds. So I bet some of them are living quite nice.
Click to expand...

Some, sure. But this is a big-ticket business, the "average" may not work as a metric. It's a little like comparing the "average" salary of actors (which includes a number of people in the $20 million club, and a large number in there between $5 and $15mil) and saying that actors are all overpaid and living the life of luxury. That totally disregards the countless below-the-line people making scale. (Not to mention the cyclical nature of jobs, meaning work you do one week may have to last several weeks until the next gig; gaming isn't exactly like that, but the business does staff up and then downsize between projects quite a bit outside of the mega-franchises like AC and COD that release every year.) The "median" or "mode" number is probably better than the "average" at determining what this business pays.

I do wish this article was a little more informed, because it is something we should ask as far as how salaries affect our purchases (then again, between the bomba phenomenon and the free-to-play/$0.99 movement and the entertainment-per-hour value of games, video games are a great bargain these days.) But as with any entertainment business, the stars are stars for a reason: they draw revenue, and they deserve the cut of the business they make. The balance of power between the stars and the consumer gets thrown off often (when's the last time any of us have been to a sports game recently? Too broke to go, myself,) but the system generally balances out to what the market will bear. And particularly when we're talking about games, there are certainly a few "eddie murphies" who are just driving Jags and renting mansions and taking in bank for less and less effort put in, but the majority of game design heads are the "clooneys" of the world, taking salaries well below their capabilities to remain close to their teammates and only enjoying the backend if everybody profits together. Go to a GDC talk, you'll see guys in fairly cheap suits talking about game ideas they had on the train ride in that they 're going to take back to their team and pitch with the commanding enthusiasm of Patton so that they can all head off together into the great unknown. Those are the guys I've known to be heading studios, and they deserve to be paid handsomely.
 
I agree, the author should make his own company and hire programmers (or 'game developers' I guess) to develop games for less than the salary of a grade school teacher with a general education degree.

We can watch it and then decide what software developers are worth. That way we can all decide what to pay them. I'm surprised there's no mechanism for this already in place.
 
The article also fails to point out that most dev's went to college have a 4 year degree and have also been in the industry 5-10 years when hitting 80k salary; at least where I am located. Game dev's are notorious for lots of over time to meet deadlines.

Since when is it absurd that a developer makes that anyways; one could argue it is software engineering or a science that has highly technical skills and creates something. About half of the developers I have worked with are some of the smartest people I know, it all areas not just development. Though a lot of "programmers" aren't really there, there is a big difference between a programmer and a developer.

Also as much as I think police officers are under payed those are the ones who didn't have to invest as much time into obtaining a technical degree and also continue to learn new technologies and is a horrible comparison. The teacher one is fairly more comparable but I think everyone can agree our schools are a mess.

ZealousD said:
Outsourcing isn't as popular as it used to be. Employers are discovering that there are all sorts of hidden costs and drawbacks to the practice that end up hurting in the long run. In other words, hiring locally is actually cheaper and better.

Outsourcing is fairly common in the industry for art assets, but not programmers.
Click to expand...
Very true, some of my peers work places where they have basically marked all of their old products legacy that were outsourced in the past and are doing a full rewrite with developers here. One very large company that makes a lot of money printing cards had outsourced almost all of their software for many years. One of their current devs is in charge of basically just designing all new versions from the ground up; the business guys at the top wanted them to take the existing code and reuse it but after much debate she explained that it was so bad it would take longer to dissect it figure out what's going on update it and build tests instead of just start from scratch. Many companies that have outsourced in the past are suffering from this now.
 
Xander756 said:
Hey guys here is a follow up article: http://realgamernewz.com/14053/developer-backlash-over-salary-article-shows-the-schism-in-the-industry

I also appeared on the HipHopGamer Show yesterday to talk about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V_ckkZ_HbQ
Click to expand...

Oh boy, you're here. Look, the problem that people have with you is not that you're trying to call out the industry on it's issues; there are plenty of people here who do that and there's a reasonable discussion about it. The problem is how you construct your argument by taking facts from all over the place, and try to connect them together to try and fit your argument. You selectively pick some facts while ignoring others and you end up with a scatterbrain argument that doesn't fit logic or reality.

Heck your whole follow up article is a perfect example of how you selectively pick out some things to fit your argument while ignoring the points that point the flaws in it. Heck, your thesis for your argument isn't even accurate. You claim developers make too much which groups all developers together and now you're trying to argue the minority on the high end of the pay grade are the problem. You can't call out developers as a whole and then cry fowl that you meant just the executives. If you want to form a better argument, then your article should be titled "Game executives make too much" and then maybe some people might take you a bit more seriously.

Your problem is you can't formulate a logical argument that holds water that people can get behind. You're misguided to think that game developers are attacking you because they're trying to defend the industry. That's not why they're attacking you.

PS, you keep ignoring the following facts in the chart below when you complain about game developers make too much:

googlers-get-paid-the-most.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

The biggest problem with this industry is that there are still way too many good games.
Clickbait Cringe 
23
403
PeteBull replied
Nintendo is Surviving the Collapse of the Game Industry with Keza MacDonald
Opinion Trailer Game Dev  2
82
525
Chuck Berry replied
44% of Game Developers Are Looking to Leave the Industry Due to Mass Layoffs and Instability
2 3 4 5 6
269
1K
Angel of BOOM! replied
Bloomberg/Schreier: The Video-Game Industry Has a Problem: There Are Too Many Games
2 3 4
198
5K
Hari Seldon replied
PC Gaming Dominance is Reshaping The Industry
Opinion Analysis Platform  2 3
116
1K
IbizaPocholo replied
Top Bottom