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GTA 6 Developers Unionize

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Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#241

Post by antiframe »

kubrickslair wrote: post #226
bwestergard wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a unionized software developer in media, not games. I helped the game workers at Blizzard unionize and they all spoke of the "passion tax". One reason the "passion tax" is possible for employers is that there seems to be a degree of labor monopsony for the kind of development done by AAA game studios. In this respect it's quite a bit like Hollywood film production in its heyday.

Why do you think passion tax is not applicable in AI research? As that too is a very passion heavy industry at least recently.

How do we know it's not? Those positions might have paid higher were it not for employees passions.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#242

Post by paddim8 »

amazingamazing wrote: post #54
HugoTea wrote: post #5

This is great news, unions not only improve working conditions, but also improve the final product by not having underpaid stressed staff with high turn-over. It's a good sign for the future product quality of any company to see workers unionise.

Really? American cars suck compared to japanese and chinese which are not unionized. What’s an example of a unionized vs non unionized group producing the same thing where unionized is better?

Volvo workers in Sweden are unionised

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#243

Post by Scaled »

al_borland wrote: post #230
sonzohan wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Do you tend to see a high drop out rate or general dissatisfaction from graduates when they come to the realization that making a game is a very different experience than playing the games?

My first AAA game industry boss said to me only 10% of people make it 10 years in games. This has been, if anything, optimistic, with there being a sharp drop-off at 2~5 years.

(And in indie it's way worse, it's more like 1% making it one year)

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#244

Post by maldev »

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?

It's so bad man. I'm pretty specialized in Windows antivirus/malware dev. Big AAA company leading their anticheats? ~200 and that's PUSHING the band. Generic midsize company doing half the work, 300+, at the big names? 700 TC. Remote, game companies want in person 5 days a week, half the pay, and don't have proper interview timelines. And this is for a really niche skillset, my friend with 7 years experience at 2k is making 120k as a C dev. Now part of it, is they don't believe they can literally just double their salary AND do a fourth of the work by getting out of that horrible industry.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#245

Post by brianleb »

tadfisher wrote: post #146
tpmoney wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In order for that to change, the market has to increase in size by appealing to a more casual audience, or existing gamers have to pay more. Not something I think most gamers would like. To really drive this point home, the gaming community recently lost their minds when it became clear that this generation of video games were going to retail for ~$90 per game. Never mind that even in the early 90’s an average game…

There's a cool 1990s magazine scan that breaks down the margins for an SNES cartridge: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/11140t0/pricebreakd...

33.1%: Nintendo's charge

29.8%: Retailer's margin

15.1%: Publisher's margin

14.8%: VAT

That's... 92.8%.

Developer's royalty: 4.6%

"Yikes" -me, just now

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#246

Post by abcd_f »

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?

Way outdated info, but back in mid '00s when I was interviewing with EA, the recruiter guy who happened to like me said - "be careful when entering gamedev domain, because it's very hard to exit it once in."

Not in a sense that it's so good so you don't want to leave, but that other companies are leery of hiring people with the gamedev experience.

Make what you will out of that remark.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#247

Post by manmal »

matchbok3 wrote: post #117
tossandthrow wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust that you are able to translate yourself https://www.ae.dk/debatindlaeg/2023-05-staerke-fagforeninger...

There are countless counter examples that are obvious. Teacher's unions (hard to fire teachers, poor quality). Transit unions (mandating 2 drivers per subway car, crazy benefits, etc). Auto industry fighting EVs. Sorry, it just doesn't make any sense to make such a broad statement regarding this at all.

Teachers can be bad without union, and unionized EV manufacturing was never a problem. If you are playing at German auto unions. The lack of European sourced batteries is the problem, unions have nothing to do with that.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#248

Post by asdff »

maldev wrote: post #244
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?

It's so bad man. I'm pretty specialized in Windows antivirus/malware dev. Big AAA company leading their anticheats? ~200 and that's PUSHING the band. Generic midsize company doing half the work, 300+, at the big names? 700 TC. Remote, game companies want in person 5 days a week, half the pay, and don't have proper interview timelines. And this is for a really niche skillset, my friend with 7 years experience at 2k is…

Seems like game studios are distributed too where you just don't benefit in any way shape or form of economies of scale and agglomeration for the worker. Activition in Santa monica lays you off, where do you go now? Raytheon probably doesn't want you given how many actual aerospace people they can pick from and they all know the secret fire of software engineering too. Google in Playa vista would probably want more pure CS experience not someone pigeonholed into gamedev. Got to pack up your life and go somewhere else in all likelihood.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#249

Post by VanTheBrand »

matchbok3 wrote: post #117
tossandthrow wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I trust that you are able to translate yourself https://www.ae.dk/debatindlaeg/2023-05-staerke-fagforeninger...

There are countless counter examples that are obvious. Teacher's unions (hard to fire teachers, poor quality). Transit unions (mandating 2 drivers per subway car, crazy benefits, etc). Auto industry fighting EVs. Sorry, it just doesn't make any sense to make such a broad statement regarding this at all.

so there is no data or there are counter examples to the data? because you seem to have shifted to an entirely different assertion... Also to say the counter examples are countless is a pretty broad statement itself.
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