Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

GTA 6 Developers Unionize

rockstarintel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 561 posts

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#361

Post by bananaboy »

diath wrote: post #16
WarmWash wrote: post #4

Can anyone comment on why "big video game" dev pay has lagged "big tech" pay so badly? Ostensibly they are doing remarkably similar engineering problem solving, so why is there such a disparity?

It has not lagged behind depending on how you look at it, video game development can be split into engine programming and gameplay programming. For engine programming, you only need a handful of senior engineers specializing in low level details of a video game engine, and these will get paid high appropriate wages that match industry standard salaries. For the gameplay programmers, they just seek the cheapest labor…

It’s more nuanced than that. Programmers generally will be paid decently. Gameplay programmers aren’t really the bottom of the pecking order. That dubious honour usually falls to UI engineers. Other folks involved in development who often don’t get paid well and are usually involved in unions are QA, junior programmers, and junior artists. There are a lot more roles than just engine and gameplay programmer.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#362

Post by mrkpdl »

chasd00 wrote: post #92

What is the career ladder like for game devs? In a union, the only way up is seniority or, in other words, the amount of money you've paid in dues over the years. A great developer isn't going to get rewarded with higher pay or a better role unless they've spent enough time/money as a union member.

Yeah that’s not how unions work in my country

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#363

Post by varispeed »

hnlmorg wrote: post #284
varispeed wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say it has nothing to do with supply and demand, but more to do with captive labour market (e.g. in the UK ability to quit and run own business are limited) and C-suite greed levels and classism. Working class person being exceptional at low latency game development, will unlikely get a chance in finance and earning 10x for very much the same level of competence, because their accent might not be good enough and…

I’ve worked in pretty much every domain of IT in the UK (FinTech, gaming, broadcasting, Hollywood, public sector, etc) and I’ve not experienced any class bias in FinTech. I will say that different industries have different formalities (generally speaking). But that just means you have to interview with smarter attire in FinTech vs interviewing for a job in gambling. As a hiring manager, I can say that companies will…

It didn't affect me, therefore it doesn't exist.

Come on.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#364

Post by michaelsalim »

miiiiiike wrote: post #292
sonzohan wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Game dev here, have worked on AAA and indie. First off let me get on my high horse and say the engineering in video gaming is generally more complex than the engineering I've done working in big tech. You need a lot more creativity and ingenuity to solve the unusual problems you run into in gaming. From there, as others have said, it's a simple supply and demand issue. Nowadays I am a university professor, nearly eve…

> engineering in video gaming is generally more complex than the engineering I've done working in big tech. I always roll my eyes when I hear this from game developers. And my eyes hurt from rolling I've heard it so many times. I've done game dev, systems, backend, frontend, all of it. It's all the same. Maybe you developed low complexity "big tech" projects but, c'mon, you're really going to argue that games are cat…

Not a game dev but I used to dabble in it. Quite surprised by this take honestly. Sure, each domain has its own complex things to solve. But on average, I think it's quite safe to say that game development consistently demands more creative solutions to problems compared to many other fields.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#365

Post by jayd16 »

jayceedenton wrote: post #264
__natty__ wrote: post #237

> Together, we are organising around the things we want to change. Starting with: Pay transparency Flexible working An end to crunch That’s a lot of demands, what next? Competitive salary?! /sarcasm I hope more people will start fighting together for better work conditions. Company owners have money and lawyers so workers must unite to fight them back. I’m saying this as employer.

How do you end crunch? Teams always work at a more relaxed pace when the deadlines are years out. You can't beat Parkinson's law no matter how generous you are with the estimates. We've all tried methodologies to counter this problem and create a continuous, sustainable pace. Unfortunately there's something deep in human nature that prevents us spreading that effort out evenly from day one.

Hourly pay rate with OT. That'll clear up the crunch or at least compensate the workers.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#366

Post by bananaboy »

asdff wrote: post #256
LPisGood wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s only true in some instances. Do most AAA titles like Call of Duty, GTA, etc use Unity or Unreal?

Microsoft moved Halo to Unreal Engine. Call of duty engine is based off ID tech 3.

It barely resembles id tech 3 at this point (I am an engine and pipeline programmer at Sledgehammer Games). There are very very few remnants of it in the codebase. I occasionally do some spelunking to see what’s left and these days it’s just the occasional comment and function names (although the content of the functions will have changed significantly).

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#368

Post by sunaurus »

saltyoldman wrote: post #317
ernesto905 wrote: post #308

> An end to crunch I was unaware of the crunch concept: "In the video game industry, crunch (or crunch culture) is compulsory overtime during the development of a game. Crunch is common in the industry and can lead to work weeks of 65–80 hours for extended periods of time, often uncompensated beyond the normal working hours" -- wikipedia Needless to say this seems extremely predatory.

who is in hn these days, remember like 10/15 years ago everyone was just willingly working 65+ hours. now it's "extremely predatory".

Glorifying this type of abuse needs to be called out.

Every human gets only ~16 waking hours a day to live their lives, it is absolutely immoral to sign a contract to pay somebody for literally half of this time, and then pressuring them into giving up even more of their life on top of that. Especially when using threats of revoking the original contract if they don’t comply, and/or not offering any additional compensation.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#369

Post by jayd16 »

matchbok3 wrote: post #118
lucky_cloud wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of studies backed by plenty of data to support exactly these assertions.

There are countless counter examples that are obvious. Teacher's unions (hard to fire teachers, poor quality). Transit unions (mandating 2 drivers per subway car, crazy benefits, etc). Auto industry fighting EVs. Sorry, it just doesn't make any sense to make such a broad statement regarding this at all. A union's job is to protect the union. Nothing else.

> Sorry, it just doesn't make any sense to make such a broad statement regarding this at all.

After the first comment this really reads like "only Sith deal in absolutes."

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#370

Post by Animats »

xg15 wrote: post #345
Animats wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First off let me get on my high horse and say the engineering in video gaming is generally more complex than the engineering I've done working in big tech. Yes. Having done everything from mainframe OS internals to proof of correctness to autonomous vehicles, video games are the most difficult. At the beginning, game dev looks easy, because the tools are good and modern hardware is very capable. But as you approach…

> You'd think there would be some good examples still around, with small users bases, but there are not. Wouldn't VRChat qualify?

VRchat is impressive. It predates the metaverse boom, and it's not a big-world system. The metaverse was supposed to be like Ready Player One, but we didn't get there.
Post reply on HN