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Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

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Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#171

Post by louthy »

Crake wrote: post #157
louthy wrote: post #109

The reason I left the games industry after 10 years (aged 31) was because there was a serious lack of professionalism with project delivery, which leads to ridiculous hours, and the pay really isn't worth it after a while. As the consoles got more and more powerful, the pressure to deliver next-gen experiences just overwhelms the team. Quite often at the expense of delivering good gameplay. I worked at a number of me…

Off topic sort of, but--how is the programming market for developers in the UK? I'm an EE major and think it'd be cool to live abroad for a while after I get my degree, but I've heard the UK doesn't treat their engineers very well. Does this extend to developers too?

There's a strong startup community in the UK (well London at least), also lots of games companies, and then you have the financial sector where the rewards are very high (if soul destroying). So yeah there's lots going on.

Obviously it depends which company you work for in terms of how well you're treated, that's obviously an intangible. For example I employ several developers now, and I very, very rarely ask them to work out of hours.

If they have ever done it then it's because they wanted to, I also will stop them working excessive hours - which stops the peer-pressure aspect of the long-hours culture.

I give clear ownership of key areas of our product to developers, so they feel a sense of pride and responsibility for what they're doing.

I will also offer pay rises when I feel they're underpaid, I don't want to wait until they're halfway out of the door before offering what they're worth. Also I'm flexible with working-hours and remote working.

It's not hard to have a basic respect for your staff.

Even the games industry which I said didn't pay well, with long hours etc. is good to work in as a young developer. It's a very creative environment to be in, and most of the programmers I worked with were hyper-talented and have gone on to running their own startups, or are high up the food chain now.

So in terms of learning ones trade and gaining long term contacts it's great.

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#172

Post by MrScruff »

w1ntermute wrote: post #168
MrScruff wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in a related industry (film) and you're mostly wrong here. The work itself is what keeps people in the industry, and the work is genuinely more fun than other jobs I've had for a number of reasons. - You're expected to always be on the absolute cutting edge in an extremely fast moving area, computer graphics. - The ultimate goal of the projects is to make images that are so appealing, people will pay money to…

Sigh...you've completely missed my point. > The work itself is what keeps people in the industry, and the work is genuinely more fun than other jobs I've had for a number of reasons. Let me say once again: My point was that you should consider the bias of perception on market dynamics when determining your occupation, rather than falling prey to the trap of perception, like a lot of people do. If your job really is a…

I work in the post-production side of the film industry. Most people working in film aren't actors or celebrities. It has absolutely nothing to do with making it big in Hollywood.

It is very similar to working in the games industry, to the extent that people can easily move between the two.

It also suffers from some of the negative aspects of the games industry, namely punishing hours and relatively poor compensation compared to similarly challenging roles in other areas of technology.

However, as I said, it's fun work. Too much of it, certainly. But nonetheless fun. The games industry is similar. That's the point I'm making.

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#173

Post by w1ntermute »

MrScruff wrote: post #172
w1ntermute wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sigh...you've completely missed my point. > The work itself is what keeps people in the industry, and the work is genuinely more fun than other jobs I've had for a number of reasons. Let me say once again: My point was that you should consider the bias of perception on market dynamics when determining your occupation, rather than falling prey to the trap of perception, like a lot of people do. If your job really is a…

I work in the post-production side of the film industry. Most people working in film aren't actors or celebrities. It has absolutely nothing to do with making it big in Hollywood. It is very similar to working in the games industry, to the extent that people can easily move between the two. It also suffers from some of the negative aspects of the games industry, namely punishing hours and relatively poor compensation…

> However, as I said, it's fun work. Too much of it, certainly. But nonetheless fun. The games industry is similar. That's the point I'm making.

And the point I'm making is that the games industry isn't similar (in that it isn't as fun as people make it out to be), as evidenced by numerous such assertions by various people who have worked in the industry.

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#174

Post by MrScruff »

w1ntermute wrote: post #173
MrScruff wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the post-production side of the film industry. Most people working in film aren't actors or celebrities. It has absolutely nothing to do with making it big in Hollywood. It is very similar to working in the games industry, to the extent that people can easily move between the two. It also suffers from some of the negative aspects of the games industry, namely punishing hours and relatively poor compensation…

> However, as I said, it's fun work. Too much of it, certainly. But nonetheless fun. The games industry is similar. That's the point I'm making. And the point I'm making is that the games industry isn't similar (in that it isn't as fun as people make it out to be), as evidenced by numerous such assertions by various people who have worked in the industry.

I know plenty of people who work or have worked in the game industry. They're not claiming that the work isn't fun, they're claiming it's difficult to lead a normal life with the demands it makes on your time.

The actual work is fun, that's why many people work on similar things in their spare time.

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#175

Post by Crake »

louthy wrote: post #171
Crake wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off topic sort of, but--how is the programming market for developers in the UK? I'm an EE major and think it'd be cool to live abroad for a while after I get my degree, but I've heard the UK doesn't treat their engineers very well. Does this extend to developers too?

There's a strong startup community in the UK (well London at least), also lots of games companies, and then you have the financial sector where the rewards are very high (if soul destroying). So yeah there's lots going on. Obviously it depends which company you work for in terms of how well you're treated, that's obviously an intangible. For example I employ several developers now, and I very, very rarely ask them to…

Thanks for the information. :)

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#176

Post by louthy »

Crake wrote: post #175
louthy wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a strong startup community in the UK (well London at least), also lots of games companies, and then you have the financial sector where the rewards are very high (if soul destroying). So yeah there's lots going on. Obviously it depends which company you work for in terms of how well you're treated, that's obviously an intangible. For example I employ several developers now, and I very, very rarely ask them to…

Thanks for the information. :)

No problem :)

Re: Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men

#177

Post by endtime »

BSousa wrote: post #151
endtime wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, compared to most people [OP knows] not in the games industry, as the OP said. I've worked at a lot of different, varied places (including someone else's startup, and my own, and a government agency, and an investment bank, and a chip manufacturer, and a couple large software companies) and I'd say there's more to learn there than C/C++, GLSL, "AI" (game AI implementations might be large/complex planners or whatev…

Most definitively there is more to learn than what you learn in game development. Heck, since I left the industry I've been working on a few projects that taxed me as well (multi-platform threading code, nginx custom modules, metrology algorithms (most of the math here went over my head to be honest)). But in all honesty, and I may just have been unlucky, most developers I know can't do C/C++ or any kind of memory ma…

Fair enough. There are a lot of tedious jobs out there - but there are plenty of varied bigcorps (e.g. Google, AMD, Goldman Sachs, NASA) of whom the following isn't true: "Compared to most folks [I know] that didn't spend time in the industry, their only experience with those topics was a semester in University."
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