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Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#331

Post by rhexs »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #17
f430 wrote: post #2

What is it about game development field that makes it so labor intensive with consistent overtimes? I tried to make a simple FPS game and it was astounding how much work was involved. Took 6 month of learning Unreal and Unity and gave up with a functioning prototype. Took 4 months of back and forth with Steam to list my game. Even harder trying to make money off it. I'm just in awe of Roblox, Minecraft, Fall Guy and…

Modern AAA games involve an absolute ton of work, but the reason for the consistent overtime is that abusive labor practices have become institutionalized within the industry in the US. The EA lawsuit is a famous example, but truly is just the tip of the iceberg. Most gamedevs become personally invested in what they're doing enough that the studios/publishers know they can underpay and overwork their staff. I was bri…

The easy fix to this is to not exempt “IT Professionals” from overtime in a bullshit rider on a completely unrelated law. Pay overtime, make it expensive to drive employees over 40 hours, and the problem disappears overnight.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#332

Post by bigmutant »

sanxiyn wrote: post #299
glimshe wrote: post #241

I left the game industry for FAANG and I'm getting paid 2-3x more. I'm happy with this situation if I consider the big picture but, at least in my case, my game job was much, MUCH better than FAANG. No matter how many fancy drinks and energy bars FAANG gives me, if the pay in the game industry was higher I'd have stayed without a doubt. What this means is that FAANG is actually paying what it needs to pay to get empl…

My theory is that while work is dull, people are not overqualified. They need smart people not because logic they write is complex, but because navigating total chaos of internal system complexity needs smartness. If they could refactor and get internal systems in order they could lower qualification bar, but that refactoring requires super duper overqualified people, etc.

FAANGs/large companies in general have a ton of accidental complexity. A lot of the work devolves into "make this work in our complicated environment". Its just more pronounced at FAANG due to the scale.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#333

Post by tptacek »

_qwfv wrote: post #307
julienb_sea wrote: post #179

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,…

> should NOT be treated as an indicator for what "reasonable" pay looks like across the entire industry. Hard disagree. The comparatively low salaries in other sectors are just that, below what workers should be earning. Things are fuzzier in the indie space, but companies like Blizzard, Activision, EA, Epic, Ubisoft, Rockstar, CDPR, etc. all pay low and absolutely rake in profits. We should call worker exploitation…

When we talk about FAANG companies in this context, we do so with the subtext that there are so few companies that pay this way that they'd fit into a short acronym. The idea that the top of the market rate is the moral floor for compensation is hard to take seriously.

Besides, people trade compensation for all sorts of things: working at a nonprofit, working in their rural hometown. Why shouldn't problem domain be one of them?

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#334

Post by bogwog »

_qwfv wrote: post #319
ctvo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't about how the salary compares globally. It's about how does this compare to their peers. The asymmetrical nature of information available to employees vs. information available to the company generally leads to employees undervaluing themselves. By sharing what others in the company or in the region make for the same job, we help people ask for more.

And furthermore, it's how it compares to the profits of the company. If an engineer is returning $500,000k annually in profit to a company from their work, and getting paid $75k of that, they are being exploited. (Or at the very least are undervaluing their labor.)

That's an unnatural/weird way to look at it.

If the engineer provides $500k value per year, and they get paid $500k per year, the company makes $0 profit. By that logic, the only way to not be underpaid is for the company to be in the red; but if that happens, there won't be a company to pay you!

Plus, it's likely any other engineer could provide the same value. So (as always) it's about supply and demand. In this case, there are a lot of qualified engineers that want to work in games, and relatively few positions.

Unions could affect that, but I think it'd do more harm than good at the high end (it would definitely help lower paid positions like QA though).

Maybe if Epic wins their case against Apple, it'll unleash a tidal wave of anti-trust lawsuits against the likes of Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Google, etc. and the game industry will explode with new business opportunities, new investments, and new jobs to balance out the supply/demand curve for game developers at all levels!

(...or not)

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#335

Post by Kranar »

mtrpcic wrote: post #291
jedberg wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone I know who moved from another FAANG took a pay cut (and everyone who left Apple to another FAANG got a fat raise). So my data is anecdotal but consistent. Also MSFT isn't part of FAANG.

> Until 2017, FANG was limited to Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet. Another variant of this acronym is "FANGAM," which includes Microsoft. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech#FAANG I think Microsoft is up there and competitive in the same landscape, and calling out their lack of inclusion in the original acronym is just pedantic. Everything discussed in this thread applies just as much to MSFT as it does to…

It's not pedantic, MSFT does not pay as much as other FAANG companies. MSFT isn't by any means a bad company to work for, but it's not in the same league.

F: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Facebook/salaries/Software-En...

A: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Amazon/salaries/Software-Engi...

A: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Apple/salaries/Software-Engin...

N: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Netflix/salaries/Software-Eng...

G: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Google/salaries/Software-Engi...

M: https://www.levels.fyi/company/Microsoft/salaries/Software-E...

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#336

Post by SeanBoocock »

rhexs wrote: post #331
jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern AAA games involve an absolute ton of work, but the reason for the consistent overtime is that abusive labor practices have become institutionalized within the industry in the US. The EA lawsuit is a famous example, but truly is just the tip of the iceberg. Most gamedevs become personally invested in what they're doing enough that the studios/publishers know they can underpay and overwork their staff. I was bri…

The easy fix to this is to not exempt “IT Professionals” from overtime in a bullshit rider on a completely unrelated law. Pay overtime, make it expensive to drive employees over 40 hours, and the problem disappears overnight.

That’s exactly what EA did in response to the “EA Spouse” episode. New grad employees are hired as hourly, non-exempt workers and paid overtime for their first couple years. The financial incentive alone doesn’t eliminate crunch, but it is one of many factors that has improved the culture at EA over the last 15 years.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#337

Post by dragonwriter »

darth_avocado wrote: post #275
darth_avocado wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US cost of living is ridiculous. You shouldn't just compare two numbers one to one. 150k in California is basically just scraping by.

Okay most of the replies I see in here claim here that 150k is a luxurious living are assuming a lot. First and foremost, most these 150k game dev jobs are near big cities, the remote ones at least pre covid never paid that much. Second, yes after taxes your take home pay per month is ~8k, and a little more if you have dependents. But here's a couple of things to put into perspective: 1. It's not a lot of money if th…

> It's not a lot of money if that's your household income and you have kids.

Its about 50% above median family income in California for a family of four, and most of those families of four aren’t getting by with just a single worker.

> That leaves you about 3000 for groceries, gas, medical expenses, school related expenses, recreation, clothing, and bunch of other expenses for say a family of 3-4. That's not a lot of money tbh if you want to save anything at all.

Yeah, it is. I mean, its not “eat out every day” money, but its quite comfortable.

> Sure 150k is a great salary if you're fresh out of college and share an apartment with other people

150K is almost the median household income of households headed by a Ph.D. holder (not the single personal income of someone who just graduated with a Ph.D., but the median of all households headed by a Ph.D. holder.)

> And it isn't a remote part of CA salary either. This is a salary paid in big cities that are too freakin expensive to stay in.

Then don’t stay in the big city; Sure, SF the Bay Area core cities are quite expensive, but you can drop to a much lower CoL within a reasonable commute distance, either within the 9-county Bay Area or adjacent, such as southwestern Solano County; that’s how plenty of people with families get by making far less than gamedev salaries working outside tech in core Bay Area cities.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#338

Post by Jagerbizzle »

I've worked in the Games industry since 1997. I got my first year-long job fresh out of high school in QA at EA in Canada, worked summers over the following years while getting my degrees, transitioned to a programming role after university, and ultimately moved to the US in 2013 for work in games at one of the big tech companies.

1997-2003 - QA @ EA, ~$9-12 an hour (CAD), 1.5x for hours 40-48, 2x > 48 hours. We worked a lot of 90 hour weeks, and I had no life outside of work, so I had a lot of spare cash.

2003-2008 - Game Dev in Eastern Canada. Started at 40k a year, ended at 62k a year (CAD).

2008-2013 - Game Dev in Western Canada, started at 80k a year, ended at 100k per year (CAD). Got promoted to "senior" in 2010 and managed a team of 6 programmers during my last year and a half prior to leaving.

2013-present - Moved to the United States at a big tech company that does games. Took a role-demotion to be a non-senior IC for a wage-promotion of 135k a year USD. Presently have a similar role to the one I left in Canada (albeit a much larger team) and make >350k USD a year.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#339

Post by jgwil2 »

mLuby wrote: post #327
BeetleB wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I currently make 6 low figures in a relatively boring but non-stressful systems administration job. For context, I was contacted by a game dev company recently. The max they could pay me was 5 figures. Doing a gaming job for 40 hours a week for low 6 figures is fine. However, it's not the reality for many, if not most, game devs.

The phrase "six-figure salary" is so strange. We're almost always referring to slightly above $100K. Does anyone ever say "I make six figures" and mean $900K, or even half a million?

It's a convenient floor for the time being. At some point inflation will probably render it useless and we'll come up with a new phrase.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#340

Post by dreyfan »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #288
glimshe wrote: post #241

I left the game industry for FAANG and I'm getting paid 2-3x more. I'm happy with this situation if I consider the big picture but, at least in my case, my game job was much, MUCH better than FAANG. No matter how many fancy drinks and energy bars FAANG gives me, if the pay in the game industry was higher I'd have stayed without a doubt. What this means is that FAANG is actually paying what it needs to pay to get empl…

My theory is FAANG pays for "the best" not because they necessarily need them. But because it's better for them if nobody else has them.

Yep. How is a startup supposed to compete when today's economy has resulted in fresh grads commanding $200k total-comp? Of course the answer is "you raise money!" so you can pay them "market-rates" at which point you may as well say fuck it and just get a job too because now you've given up so much equity and have such an aggressive burn-rate you're pretty well screwed from day one.
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