341–350 of 561 posts
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Typically overtime pay requires approval from management
I don't think they are in a place to deny it if they are fighting a video game launch deadline.
I wish we had more (or maybe better yet one) software engineering union in America. The trouble seems to be that it's so easy to scab (outsource) or hire foreign competition (H1b et al) which is a pretty broken program even according to some of the people whom I've talked to who are on it. One multi-team architect I know working for a brand you've definitely heard of was making like $65K and doing a $250K job of it.…
Not so much anymore, still a lot but much less than it used to be
I don't want to make this a take on right vs left, but private unions in the US simply don't work. If unions work Flint wouldn't have had a water crisis, Detroit would still be a rich city, and the rust belt wouldn't exist. There's no reason to think after a hundred years of failed unions the guys at rockstar games suddenly figured it out, they'll just produce lower quality products until they either figure out a way…
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…
> 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. Yes. Having done everything from mainframe OS internals to proof of correctness to autonomous vehicles, video games are the most difficult. At the beginning, game dev looks easy, because the tools are good and modern hardware is very capable. But as you approach…
Wouldn't VRChat qualify?
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> Unions are the only legal way for workers to improve their situation around compensation and working conditions. How about going to work somewhere with better compensation and working conditions?
Individual exit is a short-term solution to a systemic problem. Unions raise the floor, and you have no power otherwise. “Be lucky” is not a strategy that scales. If workers could easily find jobs where employers aren’t maxing extraction at the lowest cost possible, your proposal might be realistic. In this timeline, it is a suboptimal proposal. > Today, the US Treasury Department released a first-of-its-kind report…
My reply was not to say unions were bad or ineffective at accomplishing the goal, it was simply refuting your blanket statement.
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.
But I’ve been annoyed at the significant shift in tone that software company executives’ have used when communicating with employees lately. For one, we went from being admittedly pampered compared to most other industries to getting threats of mass layoffs unless we do more and demand less.
I wouldn’t mind the idea of using the possibility of unions to have executives back off, but if people are going to pop off at mere suggestion of unions I don’t think we’d get very far.
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?
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…
so economics takes over.
whereas your typical saas, adtech - once the business is proven u print money unless u r doing stupid shit n being driven by ego such as having the biggest org or pursuing passion projects such as "a.i"
I don't want to make this a take on right vs left, but private unions in the US simply don't work. If unions work Flint wouldn't have had a water crisis, Detroit would still be a rich city, and the rust belt wouldn't exist. There's no reason to think after a hundred years of failed unions the guys at rockstar games suddenly figured it out, they'll just produce lower quality products until they either figure out a way…
This is wonderful news, congratulations to Anthropic, OpenAI and Google!