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Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#421

Post by pjerem »

hnick wrote: post #379
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…

As an outsider looking at this it seems like you can just work a decade in that job and earn what you'd earn in 2-3 decades in the game job. Even more if you can invest. Unless you're truly miserable, it seems like the obvious choice. You can always go indie or head back after that first decade and at that point it's all gravy.

A decade is pretty long. Long enough to not be into video games anymore, long enough to raise your life expenses to match your income, long enough to burn out, long enough to have children and other interests …

Going back to lower income is really difficult, a lot of people bore themselves to death, dreaming of another job but stay just because they are well paid.

I’m not saying you are wrong, but how can you be sure that the « you » in ten years will have the willpower to follow your initial plan ? Good pay can sometimes be a trap.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#422

Post by JabavuAdams »

emtel wrote: post #30
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…

> What is it about game development field that makes it so labor intensive with consistent overtimes? I helped lead a team that built and shipped a 3D multiplayer game from scratch with a custom engine. I went into it expecting it to be harder than I thought it would be, and it was harder still. I think the thing that makes game dev fundamentally harder than other types of software is that most software products solv…

This is a good observation. You can have a feature list for a game and complete every one (hah, who am I kidding!), but if the end product isn't fun, so what? It's not going to be successful, and all your effort is wasted.

There's the in-principle estimatable work to implement all of the game systems and then there's all the other unpredictable work to actually make the damn thing fun.

Feature-creep is endemic because creative directors/stake-holders can just move the goalposts or insist on their pet features / vision.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#423

Post by saagarjha »

missedthecue wrote: post #387
zmalski wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you are that fresh grads get compensated with $200k but please, as a fresh grad who spent 6 months job searching and just accepted a software engineering job for $50k, let me know.

It's refreshing to see someone pushing back on this narrative a little. FAANG employ a cumulative total of about 100,000 software engineers globally (can't find US-specific numbers). There are 4.4 million software engineers in the USA. I'm sure the graduate -> $200k move happens, but it's only an extremely small number in terms of the occupation as a whole. People on this forum seem to casually mention it as if it's…

I would say that the average Bay Area new grad probably makes somewhere between $120k-$180k at a FAANG. $200k is on the high side, but not unheard of.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#425

Post by reducesuffering »

paxys wrote: post #267
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…

You are adjusting too hard in the other direction. "Most" people at FAANG companies are absolutely not miserable. The typical engineer at Google/Facebook works 40 hours a week, gets a good salary and is content with their life.

The typical FB engineer works 50/hr a week, eats 3 meals a day there, and is stressed out. Their life IS Facebook.

Source: extensive discussion on Blind from FB employees and personally know 5 of them.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#426

Post by thecleaner »

q_andrew wrote: post #14

Unfortunately this probably won't be changing any time soon. Similar to the movie industry in CA, execs see game developers as totally replaceable, because they kind of are. There are so many people who are extremely passionate about making games, that they will jump after any opportunity, even when they know it isn't paying what it should. The only thing that might bring about some kind of reform is a union or a cha…

This is another issue with the passion hypothesis that Carl Newport coined. It makes one blind to other opportunities where the pay and the treatment is better. You aren't born with passion, you just love doing things that you're good at. So why waste precious time and be miserable at these awful companies in this awful business.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#427

Post by rewgs »

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…

This is on point and similar to my experiences in game companies.

That said, I'm in music/audio, and from my side of the fence there seemed to be a sort of higher respect from management for programmers (and to a certain extent, art) in that they really tried to slowly ramp up their crunch and not keep it sustained for too long. In my experience, the truly crazy crunch tends to be borne by audio and QA.

Audio is hardcore, Naughty Dog being the most hardcore (but they wear this as a badge of honor and everyone who works there knows it before going in).

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#428

Post by bawolff »

onion2k wrote: post #412
comp_throw7 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, FAANG compensation lets you trivially retire (or achieve financial independence) by ~40 (if you're single), and that's assuming you're budgeting for 200k/year with an extremely conservative withdrawal rate (3%). If you're willing to resettle somewhere cheaper and live a somewhat less extravagant lifestyle, you could do it by your early 30s no problem. And, again, this is if you're single, i.e. no second incom…

I imagine this is true in theory . The math checks out. But every FAANG company has been around for at least 15 years now and we don't hear many stories of their early hires retiring. Where does it break down in practise? Is it just too hard to give up the high paying role? Is it that retirees don't talk about it? Or is it that the theory is actually wrong for some reason, and working for $200k for 20 years doesn't a…

Maybe the retirees feel less pressure to talk about themselves on blogs/twitter, since they are retired they don't have to try and stay relavent and instead can just enjoy life.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#429

Post by bawolff »

oreally wrote: post #386
sanxiyn wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> They need smart people not because logic they write is complex, but because navigating total chaos of internal system complexity needs smartness. Careful, that's the FANG SWE ego speaking. What you describe isn't smartness but a willingness and patience to put up with lots of bloat.

Much "smartness" is a willingness to work hard, being able to read the room and being willing to put up with a lot of BS.

If you think FAANG is bad, just look at academia.

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