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GTA 6 Developers Unionize

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Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#551

Post by nixon_why69 »

keybored wrote: post #549
nixon_why69 wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its not like the CEOs unilaterally said "we want to suck now". It's the cumulative effect of many people optimizing for the promotion process within the company and then coaching their mentees to do the same.

Are not the CEOs responsible for cumulative/emergent effects?

They should be but its very hard. It's a culture and you can't exactly order a chain of command that grew into it and hold all the levers to just he different.

I'm not lionizing Sundar Pichai here, just saying the cumulative attitudes of 10k L7/L8 is really what sets the culture.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#552

Post by socalgal2 »

sonzohan wrote: post #177
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?

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…

That's one frame. Another frame is video games is like movies, music. You start a band and think you're going to be the next hit band and be famous but the reality is only a few bands a year are successful. Movies are closer because most movies require a crew and a budget. How many movies are hits? The issue is not that game companies are evil, the issue is that it's a hit driven industry.

I worked on AAA and indie as well. I crunched for years. That crunch was on me because I was being paid to make MY games and like any creator, I wanted my game to be great.

GTA6 is an exception in games being the game with the biggest team (AFAIK). The bigger the team the more you're a cog.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#553

Post by socalgal2 »

ziofill wrote: post #408
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…

This is very interesting, what makes video game engineering so difficult?

It depends on what you're comparing to. Most game devs have no idea the complexity of Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Maps, Search, etc... Sure, compared to a CRUD app, games are generally more complex. Compared to those others they aren't even close.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#555

Post by jachee »

ETH_start wrote: post #539
jachee wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy: No one should do unpaid labor. Period. “Crunch time” has traditionally been deployed by games management as a license to free slave labor from game developers. Failures of management’s planning are imposed as emergencies on the devs.

Employees are idle during a lot of company time too. There's give and take on both sides.

No. Management will take and take and take during “crunch time” then immediately layoff large chunks of staff before they give anything back.

It’s happened scores of times. No company is as loyal to its labor as it expects labor to be to it.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#557

Post by matchbok3 »

Capricorn2481 wrote: post #471
matchbok3 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this "management" is so incompetent and ineffective, the workers shouldn't need them, right? They should just start their own company. Didn't think so. This simplistic view of "management" is detrimental to a productive conversation and doesn't reflect reality.

This is a puzzling comment. Are you asking why the famously underpaid game developers don't bootstrap their own company? Because the answer seems fairly obvious, and it says nothing about the quality of Rockstar's management. Does the concept of redundant middle management scandalize you? It's a relatively common experience, even if it's sometimes exaggerated. It actually takes a lot to be a good manager, and most pe…

I am directly responding to the claims that management is useless and not needed. It's not puzzling at all.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#558

Post by matchbok3 »

ionwake wrote: post #546
Capricorn2481 wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a puzzling comment. Are you asking why the famously underpaid game developers don't bootstrap their own company? Because the answer seems fairly obvious, and it says nothing about the quality of Rockstar's management. Does the concept of redundant middle management scandalize you? It's a relatively common experience, even if it's sometimes exaggerated. It actually takes a lot to be a good manager, and most pe…

Its actually brilliant I mentioned someone behaved like butthurt management last time and now its happening again with random insults and platitudes. Now we get to hear about how obviously great management at Rockstar is compared to the worker there. Apparently its just obvious because otherwise, those workers would be management themselves. If I was younger i would think this was a troll but Ive genuinely met manage…

Nobody is butthurt, kid. I responded to a specific claim. Instead you throw around insults like a child.

Literally nobody, including myself, is claiming anyone is "better".

Again, again, again. If you still management at these companies is not a key reason for their success and are instead redundant, useless, or otherwise not important, it should be trivial for competitors to do a better job. It's not that complicated.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#559

Post by ETH_start »

jachee wrote: post #555
ETH_start wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employees are idle during a lot of company time too. There's give and take on both sides.

No. Management will take and take and take during “crunch time” then immediately layoff large chunks of staff before they give anything back. It’s happened scores of times. No company is as loyal to its labor as it expects labor to be to it.

And employees will take and take when not tightly supervised. How could you even begin to deny this?

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#560

Post by jachee »

ETH_start wrote: post #559
jachee wrote: post #555

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Management will take and take and take during “crunch time” then immediately layoff large chunks of staff before they give anything back. It’s happened scores of times. No company is as loyal to its labor as it expects labor to be to it.

And employees will take and take when not tightly supervised. How could you even begin to deny this?

That is a management failure.

And a management failure should not result in unpaid (slave) labor.

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