31–40 of 149 posts
I grew up in a time when no one thought there was a chance to have a job making video games. I remember before I finished college, someone from EA called me about a shareware game I made (distributed on a floppy! imagine). In those days EA was a small company. The guy was trying to see if I wanted a job and I didn't even think to ask. Later, in grad school, another small company, Activision put a poster advertising j…
My first job was bagging groceries in Safeway, and I remember vividly watching the minute hand on a big clock slowly tick around to the end of my shift. I was thinking, when I graduate university I don't want a job where I am always so bored I'm just wishing my life away so I can go home. I can honestly say after 25 years working on video games I have never once been bored. There is a vibrant industry out there which…
Easy to say, hard/impossible to do. When you're paycheck to paycheck(which I was in gamedev, yay high col) "not crunching" isn't really a choice when you risk getting labeled "not a team player" and slow-rolled towards the door.
It's harder to admit to yourself when your job is abusive. Harder still: admitting you don't really like your job, and you're ok with finding a new one.
Finding a new job can be difficult for gamedevs, but transitioning out of gamedev is surprisingly easy. At the end of the day, it's our collective willingness to put up with abuse that allows crunch to happen.
I think the video game industry is literally run like the movie industry except there is no union to help the people who make the actual magic happen unlike say the entertainment industry. I realize that some hate unions but some things on this world literally could not happen unless we respect people, their time, and their families. Some things are worth more than money and I"m grateful for the games I get to play.…
AFAIK in the movie industry few publishers and or studios actually have any production staff on hand. Instead what happens is a core team write and pitch a movie idea. Only after they've gotten funding and done preproduction then they hire contractors short term (1-3 months) to make the movie.
In games most studios hire all the staff. They then have the issue that between projects 90-95% of the staff have nothing to do. There's no income and the company is burning money.
Unions may or may not help those movie contractors get a good price for their services but they don't guarantee jobs any more than the game industry AFAIK.
Should video games be run more like the movie industry?
As for your idea of "getting burned" because a company wants to make a different game, I have a game designer friend who used to think that way. He seemed to forget he was being paid $80k a year for his game ideas regardless of if they got used or not. If he wanted to profit from his own ideas he needed top stop selling them for salary to his employer.
I believe that part of the problem is the attitude of major publishers towards game development. There is absolutely no consideration for the artistic value of their works - they will manipulate the end product, and the developers, in any way to maximize short-term profit at the cost of everything else. Take as an example - the current loot box (gambling) controversy. Publishers have pushed this mechanic to an extrem…
Almost every worker/contributor in the movie/TV industry in North America is represented by a union/guild or is trying to get into one, there are non union projects/studios but those are in the minority.
Sadly, most of the video game industry is a crappy place to work. I speak from experience here, having been the lead game engine developer in a studio owned by one of the largest publishers. I don't want to out them, so I'm being vague on purpose. There is little work life balance. No matter what happens, no matter how many people you destroy, you will do whatever it takes to ship in time for the Christmas season. If…
Supply and demand. Game developers: very sexy, easy to show off, has a (very) large supply of talent. Pay not bad, not good, work schedule very demanding. COBOL developer: extremely unsexy, almost don't want to admit it publicly. Tiny supply, relatively much larger demand. Pay very good. Work schedule very predictable, not demanding. Almost a vacation. Supply and demand. Ignore at your own peril.
I think the video game industry is literally run like the movie industry except there is no union to help the people who make the actual magic happen unlike say the entertainment industry. I realize that some hate unions but some things on this world literally could not happen unless we respect people, their time, and their families. Some things are worth more than money and I"m grateful for the games I get to play.…
Re: grants and investment from the government, after the debacle with 38 studios funded from Rhode Island I am sure many are very wary now.
Supply and demand. Game developers: very sexy, easy to show off, has a (very) large supply of talent. Pay not bad, not good, work schedule very demanding. COBOL developer: extremely unsexy, almost don't want to admit it publicly. Tiny supply, relatively much larger demand. Pay very good. Work schedule very predictable, not demanding. Almost a vacation. Supply and demand. Ignore at your own peril.
Video games are projects and comparable to movies. You need different talent to perform different tasks at different times. Once that talent delivers, you probably won’t need them again.
Unless you’re an established studio, that’s capable of rotating staff from project to project, then there is really no feasible way of keeping staff around that is no longer necessary.
COBOL programmers on the other hand aren’t workin projects where they become unnecessary, because the systems they work on are forever.
Basically you can say, that nobody is working on Rail Toad Tycoon today, but there are COBOL programmers who are still maintaining main frame software that was build before Rail Road Tycoon even released.
I’m not sure how you’d run video gaming differently though.
Supply and demand. Game developers: very sexy, easy to show off, has a (very) large supply of talent. Pay not bad, not good, work schedule very demanding. COBOL developer: extremely unsexy, almost don't want to admit it publicly. Tiny supply, relatively much larger demand. Pay very good. Work schedule very predictable, not demanding. Almost a vacation. Supply and demand. Ignore at your own peril.
Which areas do you think have large demand and low supply at the moment?
I think the video game industry is literally run like the movie industry except there is no union to help the people who make the actual magic happen unlike say the entertainment industry. I realize that some hate unions but some things on this world literally could not happen unless we respect people, their time, and their families. Some things are worth more than money and I"m grateful for the games I get to play.…
Is it run like the movie industry? AFAIK in the movie industry few publishers and or studios actually have any production staff on hand. Instead what happens is a core team write and pitch a movie idea. Only after they've gotten funding and done preproduction then they hire contractors short term (1-3 months) to make the movie. In games most studios hire all the staff. They then have the issue that between projects 9…
However, the conversion to Hollywood-style waves of contractors hasn’t happened in games largely because the workers aren’t as interchangeable as they are in movies. Game pipelines have been very custom and quirky. It takes a long time to ramp up and get effective at a particular studio. That makes hiring and releasing a whole team for a single project very inefficient.
Or, at least it has been that way. All this is a big reason why Unity and Unreal Engine have become so popular. By becoming standardized pipelines, they “make hiring much easier” because new hires can show up already familiar with the engine. Give it another decade and the Hollywoodization of gamedev may yet happen.