I’m not from the US, but is 150k considered a bad salary?
Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
#122What 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…
OT in the gaming field is insidious and mostly comes from the fact that the majority of your employees are salaried and working in fields where OT pay is not required. Overtime is an inefficient use of employee stress when compared to working regular hours - you'll burn people out and cause health issues in your workforce (a friend of mine had tension headaches when they worked too much OT - I turned to sugary drinks to keep myself going and put on weight). However, if the cost of those extra hours to the company is nothing then just see how quickly shops like EA are willing to force you into 20 hour days while you see nothing extra in your take home.
Overtime laws need real overhauls and nobody should be able to bargain away standard working hours or it hurts all of us.
Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
#123This isn't unique to game dev. This is true in education as well - most white collar positions pay between 40 - 100k while vice presidents and presidents get 250k + packages. I think more developers need to get better at negotiating. One 10 minute conversation can beat years of 2-4% raises. It's all about setting expectations and being willing to walk away.
> I think more developers need to get better at negotiating.
You're forgetting that hiring managers know exactly how much everyone gets paid. This gives them extreme leverage in the negotiation.
If it were public information that the last person was offered $x (for a given position), it would be much harder for the hiring manager to justify an offer of $x-$25,000.
We are all shooting ourselves in the foot for not sharing our salaries.
Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was shocked at the pay at Roblox. I was on levels.fyi the other day and came across a list of companies with the highest pay for new grads and it was in the top five I believe.
This is because of recent IPO inflating TC
Their cash compensation is more like Netflix than Google.
Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
You see this advice a lot, but it's never very specific. "Just negotiate better!" OK, great... how? Most of us have no leverage besides our willingness to walk away, and when the market is saturated with talent, it's usually fine for a company to just let you walk away. I bet for someone who happens to be the world's foremost expert in some niche skill the company needs, negotiating a higher comp is straightforward.…
The advice is to walk after "Company: We'll offer you $100K." and go to "Comparable companies". If there aren't any then you lied with point 1.
Just a pro-tip - there probably are companies willing to give you that bump, you just need to look for them. I really wish it were easier to get appropriate compensation but without a union or legislation it's all on you.
Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
US cost of living is ridiculous. You shouldn't just compare two numbers one to one. 150k in California is basically just scraping by.
Most game dev seems to be in LA which is quite a bit cheaper than the bay. 150k is solidly upper middle class in most of LA. I think only Roblox is in the bay.
There is way more gamedev in the Bay Area than Roblox...
Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
The health check is paid for out of taxes though, in the end money/goods/services aren't free. I mean sure, France's government and health care system is probably a bit more efficient than America's, but I doubt it's order of magnitude different. Maybe more importantly, but in the other direction, as a developer in France you're probably paying more for healthcare than you use (subsidizing the average person who pays…
Hence my inability to compare a 150k$ offer in California to a 62k€ offer in Lyon.
I mean, completing my argument with those numbers
62k€ = 75k usd, 150 - 75 = 75. so assuming both numbers are before tax (and neglecting things like bonuses, benefits, equity, etc that you probably need to add into both numbers), there's your comparison.
Now the question to you is "is Lyon worth 75k/year over California". That's not a question of compensation, that's just a question of how much you value the difference in culture and society. Do you want to spend 75k$/year on purchasing universal healthcare (edit: I.e. your share of healthcare for everyone instead of what you purchase in the US, which is approximately just healthcare for you), a better public education system, a better social security system, less... American... neighbors, and/or whatever else you think Lyon gives you over California.
Edit: Accidentally had this saying "after tax" instead of "before tax" for an hour, I think everyone replying to me mentally corrected that anyways, but noting that I fixed it here in case they didn't.
Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
#128My early salary history as a midwest gamedev: 17yo: unpaid intern, 1 year (2005) 18yo: $20k/yr (2006) 19yo: $35/yr (2007) 22yo: $70k/yr (2010) I don't regret it; I learned most of my skills during those formative years. But I was also "part of the problem" in the sense that I was happy as a clam being paid $20k/yr living at my parents' house, putting every dollar into the bank. Saved up $15k and felt like I was rich;…
I was paid similar rates at a midwest non-gamedev company in early and mid-2000s. Left to get in gamedev and got a 2x salary bump instantly...
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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
#129It's really weird how this article starts by showing how through negotiation and job searching you can increase your salary, but bizarrely then talks about unions, which are known to depress wages for top performers (just look at teachers unions, where pay is totally disconnected from competence and performance). If you're a really good game developer, artist or animator then you should learn the skill of negotiation…
> just look at teachers unions, where pay is totally disconnected from competence and performance
I think this is a poor example because the challenge exceptional teachers have is that it's really hard to prove their outcomes in a short time-span. It might be 10, 20, 30 years before it becomes clear that a teacher had a large positive impact on the world, and by then they likely won't be around to collect a bonus.
Compare this to say, a trader who can point to hard PnL numbers over the previous quarters, or a sales person who has shipped X units.
Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
You see this advice a lot, but it's never very specific. "Just negotiate better!" OK, great... how? Most of us have no leverage besides our willingness to walk away, and when the market is saturated with talent, it's usually fine for a company to just let you walk away. I bet for someone who happens to be the world's foremost expert in some niche skill the company needs, negotiating a higher comp is straightforward.…
The advice is to walk after "Company: We'll offer you $100K." and go to "Comparable companies". If there aren't any then you lied with point 1.
That's not negotiation, though. That's just walking away when the number isn't high enough. Negotiation implies some kind of discussion: back-and-forth, give-and-take. I've rarely experienced any discussion actually working. It's usually the company, who has all the power, giving a "take it or leave it" offer, and that's it.