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Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

nytimes.com

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Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#361

Post by hellllllllooo »

rubicon33 wrote: post #294

It's incredible reading through the comments on this post and nobody seems to see the game industry for what it is: the canary in the coal mine. Programming within the game industry is sliding rapidly toward blue collar, and you'd be a fool to assume the problem is contained. The problem for programmers is simple - Supply and Demand. Thanks to a massive publicity push from big tech, the public is being sold - hook li…

This. It's coming for the rest of the industry. Amazon and Google aren't encouraging young people to code for the good of the world. It's so the can hire people for less money once the pool is larger. The intent is to drive down the cost so that devs will do the exact same work and the company will take a larger cut of the profit. Once this gets to a point of exploitation like in the games industry a union is necessary unless you are lucky enough to choose the right speciality but this is a gamble.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#362

Post by ahaferburg »

pslam wrote: post #353

It is appalling that the top 3 comments (at time of writing this one) are victim-blaming. "They should get better jobs". "There's a high demand so they should go elsewhere". "They should have known before they went there". Where have you been in the last few years, and how have you not learned anything about abusive practices which entrap people? These companies are basically abusive — they abuse their staff with lon…

Unionization is never going to happen, and won't have much benefit.

Excessive overtime and crunch need to be outlawed. It's not a matter of whether or not it's paid, beyond a certain threshold it's a question of health. Nothing will change until people start suing. If companies can just abuse and then terminate people once their lives are ruined, they will continue to do so.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#363

Post by ohaideredevs »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #153
yomly wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm this having accidentally ended up working in the Media industry (in a non-passion capacity). More pertinently, I know someone trying to get an entry level role in a similar passion field and is struggling. Adding to the problem is: - Passion fields are quite insular and like to only hire from within the industry - Nepotism is everywhere. In something like art, hiring so and so's son/daughter may cost you…

> Nepotism is everywhere. In something like art, hiring so and so's son/daughter may cost you $30k but could close you a $10M deal which is good business This is so true, and why you always see royals/semi-royals/royal-hangers-on work in a gallery/auction/museum capacity.

That's the main appeal of being a dev by far - they can't just hire an incompetent family member, no matter how much they want to.

They do put them through the best schools and coding classes to hire them, but they still need.someone.competent.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#364

Post by ghaff »

BadassFractal wrote: post #357
ghaff wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also photography, writing, art, etc. Some professionals are in fact resentful to greater or lesser degrees of amateurs willing to work for free (either just for fun or because it's useful to them professionally for reputational or other reasons). I asked a journalist I knew whether he minded the fact that people like myself publish articles/blogs for free in publications that also have paid staff/freelancers. His…

Photography has been hit hard this last decade, with IG blowing up and everybody having a half decent camera in their pockets all the time, AND knowing exactly where to go to get high quality shots. For most people it's about replicating the exact formula, vs doing something original, but that's actually pretty common for every art form. It's simply more visible in photo than in other creative endeavors: https://www.…

I fully agree with all that. I was photo editor of my undergrad paper back in the day and just the mechanics of shooting film, developing it, printing it required quite a bit of knowledge just to get to output that was reasonably competent technically.

Of course, go back pre-35mm and that was even more the case but--as you say--even just a phone takes precent decent pictures for at least certain types of shots if you even halfway know what you're doing. I have tons of equipment and even I just default to my iPhone a lot of the time for casual "memory" type shots.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#365

Post by slg »

vharuck wrote: post #331
slg wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>In this case, the demand is “the ability to express myself to a huge audience.” People are willing to pay to do that. Because of that, they see any job where they get to do it as a net positive, even if the job is horrible. This is true for any job that is just an extension of a hobby. People put on local community theater productions in their spare time because they find it fun and fulfilling. You don't have to pay…

> People spend countless hours working on open source software for free just because they like it. Some people create or contribute as part of their job. If the job requires new software, the company doesn't want to sell the software, and the developer thinks others could use it, then why not open source?

Because open sourcing that code is taking work away from future software developers. The second company which needs that software would otherwise have to pay employees to build it or purchase it from third party software developers. The person open sourcing the software is therefore lowering the global demand for software developers which hurts the wages of all software developers.

For the record, I don't think this means we should abandon open source software. I simply thought it was a good analogy to illustrate why OP's argument was flawed and that we shouldn't be blaming people for taking these "terrible jobs".

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#366

Post by jedberg »

ohaideredevs wrote: post #363
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nepotism is everywhere. In something like art, hiring so and so's son/daughter may cost you $30k but could close you a $10M deal which is good business This is so true, and why you always see royals/semi-royals/royal-hangers-on work in a gallery/auction/museum capacity.

That's the main appeal of being a dev by far - they can't just hire an incompetent family member, no matter how much they want to. They do put them through the best schools and coding classes to hire them, but they still need.someone.competent.

Not really. They just need to hire someone competent to take work alongside the family member and take up the slack. Happens in all industries with a measurable work product.

At one point my dad was doing finance for a 20ish person company, where five of the employees were family members. He said that they basically did nothing all day, but all collected paychecks. As the finance guy, he could see how their results were compared to everyone else.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#367

Post by gridlockd »

pslam wrote: post #353

It is appalling that the top 3 comments (at time of writing this one) are victim-blaming. "They should get better jobs". "There's a high demand so they should go elsewhere". "They should have known before they went there". Where have you been in the last few years, and how have you not learned anything about abusive practices which entrap people? These companies are basically abusive — they abuse their staff with lon…

Apparently, everyone is a victim these days simply by making life decisions they end up regretting. Nobody is responsible for anything concerning themselves anymore.

The idea that these people are entrapped is a bunch of nonsense. We're not talking about people that have zero alternatives besides scraping at the bottom of a barrel. We're talking about people that are already well-paid and would be even higher paid if only they decided to switch industries. They can switch jobs and they do switch jobs.

That's simply the truth. It's not victim blaming. The allegation of victim blaming itself is dishonest. These people aren't victims. These people have jobs they don't like. Welcome to adulthood, comrades!

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#368

Post by hellllllllooo »

justin66 wrote: post #169
magduf wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but by extension that unions are evil, corrupt and lazy organizations infiltrated by organized crime. That's because, in the US, it's all true, historically. Auto unions were a big reason why Detroit's automakers were so uncompetitive against the Japanese automakers in the 80s; autoworkers got ridiculous pay for menial work, which is why Detroit moved a lot of their production to Mexico and Canada, and other automak…

We've had singularly successful industries like Hollywood rely on unions as well - SAG, WGA, IATSE, etc. Their work bears a lot more similarity to software development than the auto industry does, so hopefully that is food for thought. It's fair enough to say that American auto unions (and very importantly, auto company management and ownership) would do well to model themselves after Germany's system. It's not a uni…

Exactly. People on here treat companies with nuance and analyze their pros and cons but often with unions they get lumped into the all unions are bad bucket without considering what aspects of unionizing are good and bad with any real depth.

I could compare all companies to the worst examples too (e.g. all startups are Theranos) but that would never be taken seriously nor would it be fair yet somehow with unions that level of analysis is taken seriously.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#369

Post by [deleted] »

gridlockd wrote: post #367
pslam wrote: post #353

It is appalling that the top 3 comments (at time of writing this one) are victim-blaming. "They should get better jobs". "There's a high demand so they should go elsewhere". "They should have known before they went there". Where have you been in the last few years, and how have you not learned anything about abusive practices which entrap people? These companies are basically abusive — they abuse their staff with lon…

Apparently, everyone is a victim these days simply by making life decisions they end up regretting. Nobody is responsible for anything concerning themselves anymore. The idea that these people are entrapped is a bunch of nonsense. We're not talking about people that have zero alternatives besides scraping at the bottom of a barrel. We're talking about people that are already well-paid and would be even higher paid if…

[deleted]

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#370

Post by moate »

usefulcat wrote: post #101
maxehmookau wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>They should grow a spine and say no to ridiculous work conditions. YES! You're absolutely right! > They don’t need to unionize. Err... Why on earth not? That would literally be the definition of growing a spine and saying no to ridiculous work conditions but also having it be effective.

A big part of the root cause of sucky gamedev working conditions (and I'm speaking mainly about developers here, as that is what I have first hand experience with) is the fact that a lot of people just really want to work on games and choose to put up with it. This is especially true for developers; there are plenty of developer jobs out there that are nothing like your typical game studio, and the skills that game d…

Unions do not exist to protect potential members, they exist to protect actual members. Saying "it's harder to break into the industry" isn't going to discourage someone already in the industry.

This actually does hit on the major difficulty in unionizing, which is that people want to make games. It seems fun. It feels rewarding to point to something bringing joy to your friends and family and go "I helped make that!" Because this feeling is so common, it's extremely easy to find someone to to do the job for less. If you're a cost minded manager (instead of a results minded manager) you might be willing to take on 3 dirt cheap juniors to do the work of one really expensive senior dev.

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