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Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

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Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#361

Post by golemotron »

bedhead wrote: post #258
julienb_sea wrote: post #179

This is ultimately a supply and demand issue. Google pays high salaries because they have to in order to hire the talent they want. Game devs apparently do not have to, because they are able to fill their roles for lower salaries. Don't pretend like all tech companies wouldn't love to lower dev salaries, they just can't because they wouldn't be able to hire. Game companies apparently have a meaningful differentiator,…

This is fairly normal for certain "glamour" industries. Back in the day when it was relevant, MTV was infamous for paying people almost nothing, for no other reason than they could because MTV had a coolness factor associated with it that people sought. Same is generally true for a lot of the entertainment industry.

It's not just glamour. There's an argument that teacher salaries are low because people find it more rewarding than a lot of other work.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#362

Post by bumby »

Aliabid94 wrote: post #294
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is FAANG pays for "the best" not because they necessarily need them. But because it's better for them if nobody else has them.

Something that also plays a big factor in the general over qualification of FAANG employees is that mistakes can be very very costly. It’s worth paying one engineer that gets things right 99.99% of the time twice the salary of engineer that gets things right only 99.9% of the time.

Is the "costliness" because of the scale the systems operate at?

It's not a knock on the companies or employees, but my initial reaction was that embedded code in safety critical systems like what operates infrastructure, cars, airplanes, etc. would be less forgiving in terms of mistakes

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#363

Post by WrtCdEvrydy »

xtracto wrote: post #251
WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #19

Spoiler: Without reading it, it's shit. People go into it thinking they're in love with video games and get chewed out of the machine after a few years.

I second this sentiment. I did my BSc Soft. Eng. between 1999 and 2004. At the time I wanted so bad to get into game development. Being myself from a third world country there was no clear path to that. More or less at the same time, the infamous "EA Spouses" scandal broke, and after giving a good look at the industry I decided against it. 17 years later, I don't regret my decision at all. I'm at the top of my career…

I think one thing I read was about artists.

Don't spend a lot on school for becoming an artist, find another job (welder) and then do art on your spare time as a hobby. The creative arts are rarely rewarded and there's stiff competition.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#364

Post by inopinatus »

therealdrag0 wrote: post #358
inopinatus wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is about not allowing yourself to be exploited, just because it’s what you love, and in any context. I earned as much in enterprise and consulting as I did in FAANG and ISP; there is sector median disparity, but to paint the differences as somehow magically intrinsic and inevitable would be as false for FAANG as it is for game dev and any other industry besides.

You can't avoid some level of exploitation when you have little power; and you have little power when there are 5 other people willing to do the job at a wage you think is too low.

Agreed (if you'll accept a couple of extra conditions: not just willing, but also able and available), but I don't see that as a simple supply-side glut driving lower prices, because people are not widgets. The willingness to accept the lower pay in specific sectors reads more like an abusive status quo maintained by a cycle of exploitation, one I suppose those sharing their salaries are hoping to break.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#365

Post by darth_avocado »

dragonwriter wrote: post #341
darth_avocado wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The short answer is, it's tough to do it on a single income that's 150k as a family. The lower you are the tougher it gets. There is a reason why even the lowest of the city employees get paid six figure salaries, a plumber charges you $250 and driving lessons are $60/hour. For example, in the city of San Fracisco, to qualify as "low income household", the limit is almost $120k for a family of 4 or $82k for a single…

> There is a reason why even the lowest of the city employees get paid six figure salaries Er, they don't. The median , not lowest , pay for employees of the City and County of San Francisco is barely into six figures. [0] The lowest pay categories (calculated by annualizing the biweekly max,so this is probably a slight overestimate) pay $36,114/yr, which is far short of 6 figures. [1] [0] https://transparentcaliforn…

Okay, maybe lowest was not the best word to be used. What I meant was a lot of the city employees get paid six figure salary. And that's because it's expensive to live here. Comparing game dev salaries from the bay area to UK kind of misses that point.

Sure those numbers exist, because the city has to have pay scales for every job category, but I think the more important thing to ask is what percentage of the workers are actually low paid employees.

I couldn't find a report that would easily displays that info, but here's a news item from a couple years back where 75% of the bay area city employees were earning 6 figures. [0]

Another question you want to ask is what positions exist in that excel spreadsheet, do people even take those jobs full time and what percentage of people do sit in that spectrum? For example here's another story that reports a starting wage of almost 50k for a Janitor. Of course there's going to be a few jobs that exist in lower end of the spectrum, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that it's expensive to live here and therefore, you shouldn't compare high salaries in the bay with others elsewhere one to one. [1]

[0]https://www.dailyrepublic.com/all-dr-news/solano-news/fairfi...

[1]https://sfist.com/2016/08/29/san_franciscos_city_worker_sala...

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#366

Post by zmalski »

dreyfan wrote: post #340
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My theory is FAANG pays for "the best" not because they necessarily need them. But because it's better for them if nobody else has them.

Yep. How is a startup supposed to compete when today's economy has resulted in fresh grads commanding $200k total-comp? Of course the answer is "you raise money!" so you can pay them "market-rates" at which point you may as well say fuck it and just get a job too because now you've given up so much equity and have such an aggressive burn-rate you're pretty well screwed from day one.

Not sure where you are that fresh grads get compensated with $200k but please, as a fresh grad who spent 6 months job searching and just accepted a software engineering job for $50k, let me know.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#367

Post by pjanoman »

sushisource wrote: post #325
_qwfv wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> should NOT be treated as an indicator for what "reasonable" pay looks like across the entire industry. Hard disagree. The comparatively low salaries in other sectors are just that, below what workers should be earning. Things are fuzzier in the indie space, but companies like Blizzard, Activision, EA, Epic, Ubisoft, Rockstar, CDPR, etc. all pay low and absolutely rake in profits. We should call worker exploitation…

What you're saying really boils down to whether or not you think capitalism makes sense, which is a much bigger argument, but ignoring that -- Who defines "should be earning"? You? Currently, we let the market determine it. It's fine to say you don't like that system, but that's the argument you should make, not "Big game companies are unfair". They're just playing the game the way we set it up. Alternatively, you co…

I'd argue that hiding behind "we let the market determine it" is much more uninspired and unproductive. Economic research now a days is constantly showing that markets are extremely flawed. One example of that is society pressuring employees to not share their wages, which is exactly what this whole article is about.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#368

Post by throw123123123 »

ineptech wrote: post #262

I don't know why this is limited to game developers. I'm a mgr/dir and it seems obvious to me that secrecy around salaries is consciously perpetuated because it allows corporations to get away with underpaying some people. I can't think of any circumstance where it wouldn't be in the individual contributors' best interests to tell each other exactly what they all make. If everyone on my teams shared their salaries wi…

It's a tragedy of the commons situation. You can share yours and nobody shares theirs, so you lose a bit. You need a large number to make it work effectively.

I personally never feared sharing my salary, but even after that not a single person ever in multiple jobs shared their salary with me.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#369

Post by [deleted] »

zmalski wrote: post #366
dreyfan wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. How is a startup supposed to compete when today's economy has resulted in fresh grads commanding $200k total-comp? Of course the answer is "you raise money!" so you can pay them "market-rates" at which point you may as well say fuck it and just get a job too because now you've given up so much equity and have such an aggressive burn-rate you're pretty well screwed from day one.

Not sure where you are that fresh grads get compensated with $200k but please, as a fresh grad who spent 6 months job searching and just accepted a software engineering job for $50k, let me know.

[deleted]

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#370

Post by ptmcc »

aidenn0 wrote: post #153
dahfizz wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you're uninsured. Any halfway decent health insurance plan has out of pocket maxes that a software engineer can easily cover. I'm general, QOL is going to be better in Europe if youre in a low income bracket because you get so much as a public service. But if you make real money, you're going to be better off in America.

I have never seen a health-care plan in the US with real out-of-pocket maxes. The fine-print is crazy on those clauses. We got burned by going to an ER while traveling, and while the ER bill was covered under out-of-pocket maxes, both doctors who saw our son in the ER were not employees of the ER, and so counted as neither in-network nor emergency room care. Basically 90% of the bill was not subject to the out-of-poc…

Washington state passed a law making this sort of balance billing illegal, effective Jan 1 2020.

It's a huge problem nationwide, though, and ultimately needs to get addressed at the federal level. It's absolutely insane and fraudulent that an in-network hospital has out-of-network providers within it.

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