Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter • Hacker News Board

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#211

Post by bko » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:06 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #204

julienb_sea wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ultimately a supply and demand issue. Google pays high salaries because they have to in order to hire the talent they want. Game devs apparently do not have to, because they are able to fill their roles for lower salaries. Don't pretend like all tech companies wouldn't love to lower dev salaries, they just can't because they wouldn't be able to hire. Game companies apparently have a meaningful differentiator,…

Well getting minimum wage at Wendy's is also a supply and demand issue, but that job isn't sold as "do it for the love of the fast food industry". Ultimately a large chunk of game developers do have the skillset to be able to get better pay and working conditions elsewhere. They like making games, sure, but the tiniest amount of collective action among workers in the industry could ensure that you get to do what you…

The problem then is that if the industry pays above market wages, then there will be too many prospective game developers for the roles. Then the question is how do you choose who gets to be in this industry where you can do what you love and get paid well for it? Things have a way of balancing out, and labor organizers will see this surplus and capture an ever increasing portion of it through fees or other means. This leads to nepotism or favoritism as you see in some jobs that pay above market wages.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#212

Post by inopinatus » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:14 PM UTC

markus_zhang wrote: post #181

inopinatus wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t get suckered by this argument, folks. It’s the start of an abusive relationship. Whatever your sector, you should expect to be paid for your time and your skill. No-one pulled this shit at my FAANG or global ISP gigs, despite the fact I love working on high scale infrastructure. There is no special magical wonderland industry that intrinsically bathes its staff in so much joy that you can lowball their pay and…

TBH a lot of people don't have that many choices. I mean if a dream company gives me an offer with a reasonable salary, I'd jump for it without hesitation. A lot of people are OK with median salary.

Putting my hiring manager’s hat on, I recommend asking for more, without hesitation. There is practically no downside. Especially if it’s your dream company, because you are likely to be extra motivated, and this is a case you can genuinely make. Once an offer’s already on the table, the worst possible outcome from asking will be “sorry, that’s as high as we can go right now” without any rancour.

If instead the response is in any way affronted, then run the fuck away because that’s a clear early warning sign of toxic, bullying management; avoiding such environments is also on my list of good outcomes. The only exception context being, if you don’t currently have any income at all.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#213

Post by sailingparrot » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #204

julienb_sea wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is ultimately a supply and demand issue. Google pays high salaries because they have to in order to hire the talent they want. Game devs apparently do not have to, because they are able to fill their roles for lower salaries. Don't pretend like all tech companies wouldn't love to lower dev salaries, they just can't because they wouldn't be able to hire. Game companies apparently have a meaningful differentiator,…

Well getting minimum wage at Wendy's is also a supply and demand issue, but that job isn't sold as "do it for the love of the fast food industry". Ultimately a large chunk of game developers do have the skillset to be able to get better pay and working conditions elsewhere. They like making games, sure, but the tiniest amount of collective action among workers in the industry could ensure that you get to do what you…

> minimum wage at Wendy's is also a supply and demand issue, but that job isn't sold as "do it for the love of the fast food industry"

That's a fallacy, no one goes to work at Wendy for the love of it. Some people do really want to work in video game for the love of it, they know that their salary will be lower, and they still do it.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#214

Post by dwaltrip » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

inopinatus wrote: post #171

socialist_coder wrote: post #150

Just to have a bit of a counter argument from me, a game developer who loves games and has worked in the US games industry for the majority of my 20 years career: If your argument is "You can make more at a FAANG company" - well yeah, you can. You don't work in gaming because you want to make the top salary. You work in gaming because you love games and you enjoy having all your coworkers also love games and being ab…

Don’t get suckered by this argument, folks. It’s the start of an abusive relationship. Whatever your sector, you should expect to be paid for your time and your skill. No-one pulled this shit at my FAANG or global ISP gigs, despite the fact I love working on high scale infrastructure. There is no special magical wonderland industry that intrinsically bathes its staff in so much joy that you can lowball their pay and…

It seems like you can’t even imagine that someone might not be interested or willing to work at FAANG?

If those aren’t an option, then it might not be a lowball offer anymore. FAANG compensation is in an entirely separate category, from what I can tell.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#215

Post by adventured » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

ironmagma wrote: post #92

rawtxapp wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, but most FAANG eng make more than that by their 2nd or 3rd year. With 15 years of experience, they could be making at least 500k+. edit: for the skeptical, this is what an L4 makes at Google[1], L4 is easily attainable within 3 years, pretty likely in 2 years, that's assuming you start at L3 (straight out of college or very little experience). 1: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-E…

Citation? Even in the Bay Area the median is considered somewhere around $150k.

That's definitely off the mark for the Bay Area.

The median software developer nationally, with a pool of 1.47 million developers, is $110,000 as of 2020 according to the BLS. That median developer is going to be in places like Atlanta, Des Moines or Pittsburgh.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#216

Post by yurishimo » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:28 PM UTC

gambiting wrote: post #65

yurishimo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Walking away is only powerful if you have leverage. Game devs, unlike a lot of other software, are not super in demand. You can't apply for an entry level job at EA and then pop over to Ubisoft instead when the offer from EA is crap. There are way more folks trying to break into game dev than there are jobs available.

I actually work for a AAA games company and what you said only applies at kind of junior/intermediate level. Hit senior/lead/expert and you can walk out and get another job in a week, it's super hard to hire seniors and above and those positions hold a lot of leverage. Edit: obligatory "above is true in my experience, YMMV"

Yeah, I largely agree. You as the developer know if you have leverage, and seniority generally means you have more leverage. This is true in any field. But, if there are more jobs available, then you need less leverage to walk at a bad offer.

So yeah, of course all the guys leaving Blizzard are getting snatched up, and there is a lot of demand to fill their shoes, but those roles need to be filled by equally competent people, not just anyone off the street.

It seems that in games, you either have leverage to negotiate, or you don't. There doesn't seem to be a credible middle-ground like in other software disciplines where warm bodies capable of writing for loops are all that's required to build the product.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#217

Post by stevezsa8 » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:30 PM UTC

blacktriangle wrote: post #168

paulpauper wrote: post #100

being a game dev. seems like the worst tech job: few perks, minimal promotion opportunity, no ipo riches, no buyout riches, no lucrative stock options, high failure rate, low pay relative to revenues and exec pay, long hours, no credit, low salary cap, etc.

It's all about the environment. The pay was shit, but having the devs on another project letting you play their in-progress work and give real feedback at lunch or playing board games with the design team whose job is to literally go out to Walmart, buy board games, and come back and analyze them, then go home and play WoW in your company guild, its just not an experience you can get anywhere else. It may be an unpop…

I've worked in many software companies. We had lunch time/after hours boardgames at every single one. OK, I was the one organising it, but still.

Plus we got paid well. Win/win :]

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#218

Post by moksly » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:34 PM UTC

tgv wrote: post #198

stewx wrote: post #160

I looked at the salaries people are posting, and what I am seeing is people (at least the ones comfortable with posting this kind of info on the Internet) rapidly climbing from $30-50k/yr USD to $75-150k/yr USD. These are excellent wages. They may be lower than outside the video game industry, but by any other standard they are phenomenally good wages, in the top 1% globally and at least the top 10-20% in developed c…

$75k is considerably higher than the top 10% for almost the entire world. Even in most of Western Europe, $75k would be in the top 5%. It of course depends on what that salary actually contains: a Western European salary is taxed for around 40%, but health care is cheap.

$75k a year will put you in the top 25-20% in “Western Europe”. In Denmark where education and healthcare is paid for collectively and our tax is 38%, you would need to earn $125k to be in the top 5%, and we’re pretty similar to countries like France and Germany.

So you can say that 75k a year would be a decent pay in Europe, though maybe not for someone with a candidate degree in software engineering.

https://www.detdanskearbejdsmarked.dk/den-danske-model/portr...

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#219

Post by stevezsa8 » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #138

pasquinelli wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what i learned as a gamedev: the saying, "do what you love for a living and you never work a day in your life", is false. it's actually, "do what you love for a living and what you love becomes a job." what you need is a job you don't mind doing, which is the scam of higher education, because you plunk down all that money or debt or both, and years of time, and you get no guarantee that there'll be any job for you, b…

The one thing that has pissed me off the most about job markets is that companies have outsourced the training on you... the most common remark when interviewing is "we want someone be able to hit the ground right away" I remember hearing about companies actually training their people.

So true.

Each time I was hired, I was expected to learn on my own time. The best I could get was a $30 book paid for.

I kinda assumed the company was responsible to train you. The only training I received was when I volunteered to be first aid for the office. But I assume it was only due to it being a legal requirement to have some trained people.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#220

Post by filleduchaos » Mon, May 10, 2021, 9:38 PM UTC

bidirectional wrote: post #57

node-bayarea wrote: post #23

If my software is online and the company can make profit from across the world, why should I get paid locally?

Surely this line of thinking leads to lower salaries? Silicon Valley salaries are purely a function of the local labour market, Facebook still pays Oxford graduates in (insanely expensive) London a fraction of what they would be earning in the US.

> Surely this line of thinking leads to lower salaries?

Only if one falls for the canard that employers anywhere - yes, in Silicon Valley as well - are actually paying their employees their full worth. If they were doing that, they wouldn't be making any money.

Most of the companies that are large enough to be hiring internationally are already paying even their top-earning non-executive staff a tiny fraction of what they bring to the table. Any company that's trying to undercut that even more in the name of "location awareness" isn't a company I want to work at.