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Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#181

Post by markus_zhang »

inopinatus wrote: post #171
socialist_coder wrote: post #150

Just to have a bit of a counter argument from me, a game developer who loves games and has worked in the US games industry for the majority of my 20 years career: If your argument is "You can make more at a FAANG company" - well yeah, you can. You don't work in gaming because you want to make the top salary. You work in gaming because you love games and you enjoy having all your coworkers also love games and being ab…

Don’t get suckered by this argument, folks. It’s the start of an abusive relationship. Whatever your sector, you should expect to be paid for your time and your skill. No-one pulled this shit at my FAANG or global ISP gigs, despite the fact I love working on high scale infrastructure. There is no special magical wonderland industry that intrinsically bathes its staff in so much joy that you can lowball their pay and…

TBH a lot of people don't have that many choices. I mean if a dream company gives me an offer with a reasonable salary, I'd jump for it without hesitation. A lot of people are OK with median salary.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#182

Post by Silhouette »

gambiting wrote: post #44
Nursie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it’s just games! UK software dev money is terrible, outside of contracting.

Correct. I've had this discussion here with someone saying if you don't make at least $150k/year(or equivalent in local currency) as a dev, leave immediately. I was like.....in UK, that would mean 90% of the programming workforce would leave tomorrow :-P to get that much as a programmer you need to either be in contracting, or few of the companies paying that much in London(but then you're paying London rent so I'm n…

I agree, except that I don't believe anywhere close to 10% of programmers working in the UK earn that much on salary. You're probably a senior at certain big name employers probably in London or possibly working at a FAANG or similar if you're making that as an employee today. Contracting and freelance work has a much higher ceiling if you're experienced, well connected and working in a high-demand field, but obviously that income is not directly comparable to salary because you have the downtime, overheads and loss of employment benefits to consider as well.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#183

Post by _delirium »

gpm wrote: post #127
Raed667 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 differen…

> I.e. your share of healthcare for everyone instead of what you purchase in the US, which is approximately just healthcare for you

This is getting off-topic, but maybe surprisingly, Americans pay more to subsidize other people's healthcare than the average French taxpayer does, despite the American system not being universal. Some back-of-envelope numbers,

France: Total French healthcare spending in 2017 was $337 billion, of which 77%, or $259 billion, was publicly financed. [1]

U.S.: Total U.S. healthcare spending was $3.8 trillion in 2019, of which 45%, or $1.7 trillion, was publicly financed (29% federal, 16% state/local, 55% private). [2]

Adjusting for the two countries' population sizes, that puts publicly financed healthcare spending at about $3900 per capita in France, versus $5200 per person in the US. Basically the somewhat lower public share for the US (45% vs. 77%) is outweighed by costs being about twice as high.

[1] https://www.commonwealthfund.org/international-health-policy...

[2] https://www.cms.gov/Research-Statistics-Data-and-Systems/Sta...

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#184

Post by labcomputer »

munk-a wrote: post #108
AS_of wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US salaries also have to include cost of healthcare.

Not in their dollar amount unless something really weird is going on - the effective cost of US employees is a lot higher than employees elsewhere in the world due to the overhead of health insurance - but US salaries remain pretty much at the top of major nations world-wide even ignoring that cost.

> to the overhead of health insurance

Not really. The ACA (Obamacare) caps overhead and profits at either 15% or 20% depending on market (google "medical loss ratio").

The dirty secret is that too many doctors go into medicine for the wrong reasons (making money, instead of helping people), and collude to limit the number of new doctors created each year. The AMA is by far the most effective union in the US.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#185

Post by selestify »

Impossible wrote: post #161
socialist_coder wrote: post #150

Just to have a bit of a counter argument from me, a game developer who loves games and has worked in the US games industry for the majority of my 20 years career: If your argument is "You can make more at a FAANG company" - well yeah, you can. You don't work in gaming because you want to make the top salary. You work in gaming because you love games and you enjoy having all your coworkers also love games and being ab…

It's also possible to work on games or game like software at FAANG, not crunch (although FAANG companies have plenty of other toxic qualities that can make them worse than a game job in subtle ways) and get paid a FAANG salary.

What are the toxic qualities that are unique to FAANG?

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#186

Post by gpm »

Keats wrote: post #180
gpm wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 differen…

French always use before taxes numbers ("brut"). €62k is about 41k after taxes.

I'm the first to admit I have no clue about the French tax system, but a quick search finds this [1] that suggests there are both employer and employee paid taxes. Would I be right in assuming that the reported numbers are after the employer paid taxes and before the employee paid ones?

[1] https://www.cabinet-roche.com/en/payroll-taxes-in-france/

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#187

Post by sailingparrot »

paxys wrote: post #163
socialist_coder wrote: post #150

Just to have a bit of a counter argument from me, a game developer who loves games and has worked in the US games industry for the majority of my 20 years career: If your argument is "You can make more at a FAANG company" - well yeah, you can. You don't work in gaming because you want to make the top salary. You work in gaming because you love games and you enjoy having all your coworkers also love games and being ab…

The whole "do it for the love of the craft not money" is bullshit propaganda that only serves to keep labor costs low. The entities on top are large multi-billion dollar corporations who are running a business, just like any other industry. And this has been more and more apparent in recent years seeing just how anti-consumer the video games industry is getting. If a Google recruiter told me "take a low salary and wo…

> "do it for the love of the craft not money" is bullshit propaganda that only serves to keep labor costs low

It's not, it's simply reality.

When deciding where to work, people don't just myopically look at the $ amount on the salary and nothing else. The company reputation, industry, culture etc. all have intrinsic value.

That's why SpaceX and some game dev's studios can get away with lower salaries than the market rate, because working there in itself has value for some people. And that's why Morgan Stanley and Facebook can't.

Good old supply and demand.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#188

Post by ttul »

martincmartin wrote: post #63
ttul wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. My friend is making $250K working for Roblox. He’s 15yrs into his career - all game dev. Doesn’t seem too bad.

So is he making games, or making a game platform ? There's a big difference.

This is a good point. He works on the platform.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#189

Post by Silhouette »

gambiting wrote: post #56
ngngngng wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why in the world is software money so terrible in the UK? I always look up salaries and cost of living when traveling and the UK was one of the more surprising instances of that. It seems like the only way to live comfortably in London is in finance.

London skews all comparisons though, literally move to any other city in the UK and you'll see rents drop by 50% if not 75% for not a lot less pay in salaries. Try Manchester or Edinburgh, you'll get decent pay and rent a nice place for affordable money.

London skews all comparisons though, literally move to any other city in the UK and you'll see rents drop by 50% if not 75% for not a lot less pay in salaries.

/cries in Cambridge, Oxford, Bristol...

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