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There's no easy way to say this

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Re: There's no easy way to say this

#201

Post by CydeWeys »

whack wrote: post #189
CydeWeys wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. I think he's unjustly going after the employees, or even if that isn't his intent, that's how it's coming off. I felt like I needed to speak up for them, because as an employee myself, I would hate to speak up about bad conditions in the workplace only to be dismissed by someone who knows little about the situation saying "But he knew what he signed up for, why is he complaining?"

To repeat what Eric said, I'm not "going after" anybody, particularly not the employees. They didn't like their working conditions, so they quit. Absolutely nothing wrong with what they did. My original post was mainly driven by confusion: many commenters talked about their yearly salary as though it is abnormally low. Hence my confusion about why these programmers would accept a job with an abnormally low salary. Re…

The disconnect here is that abysmal working conditions are a huge issue to me, and that the mere existence of them means that an employer is not morally upstanding. Employers have obligations to their employees to treat them well and fairly, and when those obligations are not met, I think people should both change jobs and speak up to save others from entering that same situation at their previous job.

Squad is taking advantage of its developers. There's no other way to put it. It's over-working them with massive crunch times (that may not have been communicated clearly to job seekers up front) and paying them a very tiny fraction of what they could be earning elsewhere. Who knows how much of that is related to false promises. A lot of scummy employers will say things like "The pay will go up after an introductory period", or "We'll give you a raise soon", and then it never happens. Maybe it happened here. We don't know until we listen to the employees' stories. That's why my first instinct is not to look for reasons why it's their fault.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#202

Post by loup-vaillant »

josephagoss wrote: post #167
r00fus wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, KSP's a hell of a resume entry. It's like asking someone why they might join the Peace Corps.

Well now KSP is going to be renowned for paying developers less than fast food workers. Hell I know homeless people making more in street change than these developers. I would be hesitant to hire anyone from KSP. From my admittedly limited experience interviewing people, those people who value themselves at the bottom end of the market generally are lacking in some manner that makes them unsuitable for working in a t…

You dangerously sound like you don't trust poor people. I bet such reasoning makes rising out of poverty harder than it otherwise already is.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#203

Post by emodendroket »

btym wrote: post #20
empath75 wrote: post #7

Background: http://www.develop-online.net/news/squad-devs-blast-kerbal-s...

>“$2,400 was my yearly salary working a full time eight hours a day, 40 hours a week job.” Why would you ever choose to work there in the first place?

Well, the obvious answer is that better offers weren't at hand.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#204

Post by emodendroket »

Mikushi wrote: post #193
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For coders thinking they'll just build something cool? This is your competition.

More reasons to evolve your career away from coding, it's a dead end by 35, you'll just be outcompeted on so many fronts.

And do what instead? Where is that not an issue?

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#205

Post by emodendroket »

dethstar wrote: post #147
lazaroclapp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~13% of the fraction of the country that is formally employed earns minimum wage[1]... just not usually people in any sort of specialized profession working in cities. [1] (in Spanish) http://www.milenio.com/politica/salario_minimo-aumento_salar...

13% are reported earning minimum wage. This is a known way for employers to avoid paying more taxes, seguro social, etc. Then they get all other part of their salary marked as 'bonus'

I don't see any reason to think that there aren't a number of laborers being paid the minimum wage in Mexico, or else why would anyone go to the trouble and risk of illegally crossing the US border to take sub-minimum wage work?

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#206

Post by LoSboccacc »

jasonwatkinspdx wrote: post #113
empath75 wrote: post #7

Background: http://www.develop-online.net/news/squad-devs-blast-kerbal-s...

First a disclaimer: I have no idea what's going on with KGS or any inside info. I'm just speculating, please treat it as such. As a generalization when a significant group from a successful game walks out en mass, it's because they feel the owners aren't fairly sharing profits. Letting this happen is usually a really dumb move by the owners. A great example is the Medal of Honor franchise, which raised a studio best…

owners basically used all the money (to the tune of millions) to start a music label and create a film instead of investing it in their golden laying hen

the project itself was a employee pet project (Harvester's) and he was about to quit to start it, but they convinced him to stay. Harvester should have seen it coming, since the very reason he was fed up to leave was the way Squad treated the employee as low quality tools, but hey, it's not an easy decision to start your own thing in a climate of financial insecurity

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#207

Post by usrusr »

vkou wrote: post #22
btym wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>“$2,400 was my yearly salary working a full time eight hours a day, 40 hours a week job.” Why would you ever choose to work there in the first place?

Because you're 21, and want to make video games, and live with your parents?

Sounds reasonable. We might be talking about a modder or someone in other ways deeply invested in the community who is given pocket change each month as some kind of hobby stipend. Which is perfectly all right precisely up to the moment where anyone involved starts to think of it as a full time gig, maybe a career even.

The failure on the side of squad then isn't so much in not paying them more (although that would certainly be one way to solve it), it's in not realizing that there can't be a middle ground.

What I don't get at all, no matter how you spin the story, is how anybody could be forced to overtime etc on pocket change. Sure, that stuff happens millions of times each day, but it would typically involve people at the brink of starvation in an isolated mining town or so. Remote tech workers with enough leisure time to fall deep into the rabbit hole of gaming don't quite fit that pattern.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#208

Post by RonanTheGrey »

emodendroket wrote: post #205
dethstar wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

13% are reported earning minimum wage. This is a known way for employers to avoid paying more taxes, seguro social, etc. Then they get all other part of their salary marked as 'bonus'

I don't see any reason to think that there aren't a number of laborers being paid the minimum wage in Mexico, or else why would anyone go to the trouble and risk of illegally crossing the US border to take sub-minimum wage work?

The very large population earning $30-$50 a week work for companies or individuals who will never report that salary in order to avoid paying taxes on it. This means any statistics related to this issue are going to be hard to trust namely, the situation looks better than it is and thus why so many desperately want to cross the border. It's not like Mexican companies don't make money, they make tons of it. They just don't share or invest it.

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#209

Post by garaetjjte »

mxvzr wrote: post #83
jcrites wrote: post #73

Kerbal Space Program is a really fantastic game that rekindled my love of flight (and space) simulation. For those who don't know about it, it's a spaceflight simulation game. You design a spacecraft from parts, assembling rocket engines, fuel tanks, thrusters, command modules, etc. into a design, and then test it and try to get it into orbit; or from there, to other planetary bodies. Multiple spacecraft if you want:…

> there's not much else out there like it Orbiter [0] is commonly mentioned. You trade a bit of the "fun" angle of KSP for more realism. The physics model is more advanced too: I believe halo/lissajous orbits are possible, it has lagrange points & more. > with a world that has a ton of depth to explore Very deep: on Duna's surface (KSP's Mars equivalent), there is a rock emitting an SSTV signal... [0] http://orbit.me…

> The physics model is more advanced too: I believe halo/lissajous orbits are possible, it has lagrange points & more.

There's mod for KSP for that: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/62205-w...

Re: There's no easy way to say this

#210

Post by dethstar »

emodendroket wrote: post #205
dethstar wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

13% are reported earning minimum wage. This is a known way for employers to avoid paying more taxes, seguro social, etc. Then they get all other part of their salary marked as 'bonus'

I don't see any reason to think that there aren't a number of laborers being paid the minimum wage in Mexico, or else why would anyone go to the trouble and risk of illegally crossing the US border to take sub-minimum wage work?

Oh there are. But we can not say if all the 13% reported earn minimum wage or not. I'm not saying there isn't. There just isn't 13% that's for sure. Even if it is at 12.9% we just really can't know.
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