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Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#531

Post by goatinaboat »

tharkun__ wrote: post #352
NamTaf wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a salaried developer I don't think I was ever expected to work more than 60 hours a week, and then after the crunch was over we always got 1 or 2 weeks of extra vacation ("comp time"). To be clear, the normal working schedule was 40 hours per week. Crunch time is like 1 or 2 times a year, for maybe 1-2 months each time. And like I said, depending on how much you crunch, you would get extra paid time off afterwar…

I wonder why you got downvoted as you're basically spot on. Can someone check my calculations, because I'm getting ridiculous numbers, not "marginally behind" He remembers 1-2 times of 1-2 months of crunch of "not being expected to work _more_ than 60 hours". My bet is that this means people usually stayed _at least_ 60 hours during the crunch time due to social pressures created by the employees themselves. Sort of…

Sort of like "unlimited vacation" usually means that on average everyone takes less vacation, because they don't want to be the one with the most vacation taken.

If you have defined vacation, the company has to pay you for any unused days when you resign. With "unlimited" vacation they do not. So it's a win-win for the company to offer this supposed perk: peer pressure not to use it, and no financial liability.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#532

Post by goatinaboat »

socialist_coder wrote: post #397
tharkun__ wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why you got downvoted as you're basically spot on. Can someone check my calculations, because I'm getting ridiculous numbers, not "marginally behind" He remembers 1-2 times of 1-2 months of crunch of "not being expected to work _more_ than 60 hours". My bet is that this means people usually stayed _at least_ 60 hours during the crunch time due to social pressures created by the employees themselves. Sort of…

No one expects the comp time to exactly equal how much extra time you worked. It's just like a little thank you for working hard, and so you can decompress and take care of whatever you've been neglecting in your life during crunch. Would I have enjoyed this if I wasn't a 20-something with no kids who who lived and breathed games? No. So I don't honestly expect everyone to understand this either. If you love your wor…

And the people who worked there who were parents with kids, I felt bad for them. I don't think I would have made that choice. But for me and many of my childless colleagues, the reality is that we loved working in games and getting that experience was vital to our careers.

Those people with kids were once people like you, say 10-20 years ago, and they didn't fully understand the precedent they were setting by accepting and normalising those working practices. I would bet if any of them could go back, they would undo it.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#533

Post by golemotron »

davidgould wrote: post #388
golemotron wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just glamour. There's an argument that teacher salaries are low because people find it more rewarding than a lot of other work.

So by this theory people must really love janitorial and fast food work.

Nope. That's affirming the consequent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#534

Post by goatinaboat »

ineptech wrote: post #262

I don't know why this is limited to game developers. I'm a mgr/dir and it seems obvious to me that secrecy around salaries is consciously perpetuated because it allows corporations to get away with underpaying some people. I can't think of any circumstance where it wouldn't be in the individual contributors' best interests to tell each other exactly what they all make. If everyone on my teams shared their salaries wi…

I can't think of any circumstance where it wouldn't be in the individual contributors' best interests to tell each other exactly what they all make. If everyone on my teams shared their salaries with each other, it would lead to two things: a) some short-term bad blood and awkwardness, and b) some underpaid people getting raises or quitting. And I think my bosses, especially the old-school ones, consciously play up a) and treat salary as a giant taboo to avoid b).

A previous employer explicitly stated in their contract that disclosing your salary was a disciplinary offence!

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#535

Post by DanBC »

labcomputer wrote: post #529
DanBC wrote: post #487

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By way of comparison, it is unusual for a doctor in the UK to earn even as much as $200k, and the average is around $100k. $100k is about £71k. Starting salary for consultants in England is £82096.

Sure, but: 1. Not every doctor is a consultant. Specialists range £41k to £76k. GPs range £61k to £91k. 2. The salary bands are fairly narrow. Consultants may start at £82k, but they only go up to £111k. Here you can have it from the horse's mouth: https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/pay-d...

When you include residents in the US pay the "average across all specialities" is way less than $300k.

> Specialists range £41k to £76k.

You've misunderstood what they said. They said "speciality doctors", not "specialist doctors". In England the trainee ranking is Foundation Years, Core Trainee, Speciality Trainee.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#536

Post by Bukhmanizer »

jayd16 wrote: post #411
Bukhmanizer wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing that I haven’t really seen mentioned is that the barrier for entry is high in a lot of video game development. Meaning, I can’t really take 3 of my friends and make the next GTA in my garage. Those type of games need developers, but also artists, writers, actors, etc. They’re expensive, risky operations of which development is only a part of. This is probably why it makes the most sense to treat developers…

I would say this is probably not too close to reality. Artists, writers, actors, qa can drop into a new game a lot easier than spinning up software developers. From my experience they're treated less like a commodity than the other disciplines. That said, not all games are services yet so once the game ships anyone can make it to the chopping block.

I'm not saying that software developers are more, or as replaceable as creative talent. I'm just saying that from the employers perspective, much much more has to go right than just software development to make a successful game.

Google/FB know that if they get the best engineers, they will have a top-tier product. But games don't have anything close to that same guarantee. You could have the most efficient, elegantly-written, perfectly abstracted game, but if the game-play sucks, it's not going to sell.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#537

Post by blaser-waffle »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #483
novok wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Basically google and FB pay the best, and then msft, amazon and apple are second tier as far as compensation goes. Twitter, square, uber, netflix, linked-in, pinterest, dropbox, airbnb, etc are all middle-big sized and are fairly variable comp wise.

I thought Netflix paid more than Google / FB (from online hearsay).

My understanding is that the 'Flix pays straight cash -- big ole sacks of money twice a month.

The other orgs pay in things like bonuses or RSUs.

Total comp may be as good or higher, but those aren't locked in a specific rate the way a direct deposit to your bank account is; e.g. you could get less bonus, or the stock price could drop, etc.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#538

Post by blaser-waffle »

majjgepolja wrote: post #452
golemotron wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just glamour. There's an argument that teacher salaries are low because people find it more rewarding than a lot of other work.

I might be downvoted to hell, but it's more likely because of same supply-demand thing. Teacher is not a high skilled job, not to mention most teachers are outright bad at their jobs thus not producing much value anyway.

Bollocks. Most teaching requires as much training as several other degrees.

I'm a solution engineer and only made it here with a BA in English. I learned a lot of code, but I haven't had to much else formally.

My wife is a teacher, and she has to jump through hoops for a teaching certificate, do regular, on-going re-certs, and be covered in basic first aid.

Plus there is a shit-ton of other issues to stay abreast of, like mandatory reporter status -- on top of learning new teaching tools, like integrating with the tablets they use in science class.

I spend 4 hours a day in meetings, and 3 hours a day doing basic code stuff that a fairly bright 17 year old could figure out. Her job is WAYYYY harder than mine.

> Teacher is not a high skilled job, not to mention most teachers are outright bad at their jobs thus not producing much value anyway.

Attitudes like this are why the state of education in the US is abysmal.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#539

Post by ncn »

reducesuffering wrote: post #425
paxys wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Blind is a cesspool.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#540

Post by johnnyanmac »

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.

you may not be as far off as you think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
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