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Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

nytimes.com

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Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#421

Post by WhompingWindows »

SamuelAdams wrote: post #396
Waterluvian wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enh... They're not victims. They're just people who picked a profession that doesn't have great terms. By changing professions they may get better terms. That might also change the supply in the industry and help others too. One lucky thing about game dev is that your skills do transfer. Whether to graphic design or programming or marketing or whatnot. It's not like they got a gamedev license and are locked in.

Exactly. A victim can't get out of whatever situation they are in. Each employee probably signed an "at-will" employment agreement, so they can leave at any time, for any reason.

I take issue with your definition of a "victim" as someone who can't get out of a situation they are in. If we are speaking counter-factually about what any victim of an assault could have done, let's look to the "why didn't they leave?" question to those in abusive intimate relationships. Surely, you're not claiming it's all on the abused spouse, as they could have left at any time? Could they really have, when their emotional, financial, and personal livelihood is wrapped up in this relationship? Could they break their psychological barricades and escape? Some can, some do, and some can't.

It just comes across as a very callous definition, the 22 year old brain is much more idealistic and hopeful, and far less experienced/knowledgeable about workplace rights/conditions. Surely, you see the difficulty of these naive, youhtful video game makers' situations, who get exploited with unpaid overtime, unrealistic demands, and being cut from their company with little cause?

My point is 100% of the blame can not fall on an employee here, there is agency on both sides. Companies can be better to their workers, and workers can save money more diligently, improve their skills, and apply around for other jobs to improve their situation.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#422

Post by scythe »

ebiester wrote: post #299
thr0awaz wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we're honest with kids, it's going to be hard to get them to do anything. "Well.. Tina's going to get a great job whatever she does, and however little effor she puts into it, but it's because her mom's a doctor and they have a lot of money. It doesn't matter if she owns an iPhone X and doesn't do homework. You need to, and it doesn't matter if you really love cooking because chefs make like $10 an hour and you ne…

Ah, but she's uphill on that investment banking job as well - she's looking at vast odds for getting into Harvard. Tina's mom went to Harvard, so she's legacy and has classes to improve her SAT and her grades from her private school Ivy League feeder are artificially inflated.

Investment banking is certainly metasyntactic here. You could just replace it with chemical engineering or B2B marketing or construction management or something else sufficiently dry and lucrative.

Ultimately the reason that we view some jobs as more fun than others derives to some extent from the natural human tendency to build a sense of identity by pretending our work is more interesting than everyone else's; the caricature of the soulless office worker is intentionally, not unintentionally, dehumanizing, because it's necessary to reinforce the narrator's pride in their own work. People in visible professions inevitably present their professions as being admirable while trying to present themselves as admirable. The age of mass media creates the illusion that whatever is being talked about is in fact more interesting than what isn't being talked about. Which actually makes the world a better place, Fallout or Tide? Which generates more fame for its creators? The only complete solution requires the nomenklatura to relinquish--or be deprived of--their privileged position in the collective unconscious. (Woe on the invisible.)

Not that that's particularly easy. The kids aren't stupid. Everyone knows that being, say, an artist, doesn't just pay off in terms of money, but in the way people interact with you. The people chasing these rewards aren't unpaid; in fact, they go to great lengths to ensure they do get paid, in precisely the way they seek to be. The lionization of indolents makes people seek indolence--and why shouldn't they?

Years ago, I had the occasion to drive across the country with a traveler in my passenger seat. We spent dozens of hours discussing philosophy, law, farm work, and how to determine which cigarettes in an ashtray are still safe to smoke. When we passed through Denver, hundreds of miles from either our origin or destination, he recognized some of his friends walking on the sidewalk of an overpass; we met up and enjoyed chips and soft drugs by a creek under the bridge. My erstwhile friend is still hopping trains and sleeping outside to this day. As they say, "be careful what you wish for--you might just get it".

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#423

Post by Pfhreak »

UnpossibleJim wrote: post #186
pjc50 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tech industry in general has a bit of a toxic machismo problem, but it seems to be far worse in games. Probably it's coupled to the wider culture there.

LOL, WTF do machismo and the tech industry have to do with each other? That seems a bit of a stretch to try to connect two disparate topics into a connected "issue". I get the whole problem with Rockstar Games (if that was where you were pointing - I can only assume), but that was a singular studio. As someone who works in the game industry, and has for almost 20 years, that is not representative of the vast majority…

I only spent ~3 years in the games industry on the west coast. I was surrounded by machismo and toxic masculinity from the engineers. It wasn't everyone, but it was definitely present to a non-trivial degree.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#424

Post by crowdpleaser »

CM30 wrote: post #97

> For many kids who grew up with controllers in their hands, being a game developer is a dream job, so when it comes to talent, supply is higher than demand This is basically the reason for low wages in quite a few 'passion' driven industries. If a job is something enough people want to do, then talent is cheap and plentiful and companies can provide low wages and poor conditions that for every person who quits, ten…

+1.

Many of us working jobs we don't really have 'passion' for are doing it to fund the things we are passionate about.

I really hate it when people talk about how they need public subsidies to follow their self-gratifying dream, like that money comes from people who aren't following their dream. I'm not going to work harder on stuff I don't like to support you having fun.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#425

Post by Balgair »

largecoredump wrote: post #419
Balgair wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an example of unionization and certification issues that deal with this, look at the medical field. There are many more people that want to be doctors than there are spots in med schools (US-centric view point here). The AMA artificially keeps the enrollment numbers at med-schools low, so as to drive demand for doctors in general and therefore, increase their wages. The AMA is well aware of the current shortage o…

IAAD. Most of these points on medicine are either outdated or plain inaccurate. 1. The AMA had tight control on med schools 50-100 years ago. These days a mediocre score on the MCAT and a desire for $300k+ in debt will get you into a for-profit medical school. More DOs match with MDs, there are more foreign IMGs, and even US med school slots have grown in the past 10 years. The (over)supply of med students is a non-i…

Thanks for the update to my mental schemas! I had no idea it was that far out of whack!

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#426

Post by cortesoft »

hannasanarion wrote: post #34
jfk13 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a civilised society, it would be illegal for an employer to behave like that. (Yes, I know, I'm imposing my view of what it would mean to be "civilised", and not everyone will agree.)

There are plenty of countries where all employers are required to give certain notice, and you can't suddenly fire someone. It is outrageous that your ability to eat and pay rent can be taken away with zero notice in America.

Well, unemployment is supposed to be the protection against this. It is basically mandatory insurance that an employer is required to pay premiums for so that if they fire an employee that employee still gets money to live.

It is not a perfect system in practice, but I don't think it is conceptually incorrect.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#427

Post by LanceH »

lacey wrote: post #272
ghaff wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See also photography, writing, art, etc. Some professionals are in fact resentful to greater or lesser degrees of amateurs willing to work for free (either just for fun or because it's useful to them professionally for reputational or other reasons). I asked a journalist I knew whether he minded the fact that people like myself publish articles/blogs for free in publications that also have paid staff/freelancers. His…

I’m a photographer by hobby and you very often see people wanting to hire someone good but who isn’t expecting to make a living at it with offers like “I’ll let you shoot my event to help build your portfolio, and all you have to do is give me a copy of all the photos.” Or alternatively offering something like $100 for four hours to do lifestyle street shoots. I don’t know how often they are successful at getting pho…

I'm not keen on how most professional photographers for these events don't point out they'll retain copyright on all shots. I know what that means, but they let their customers find out when they aren't allowed to get raw/negatives or prints from anyone else.

I'll take a work for hire option, thanks, without the attitude that it's an art and they're above that.

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#428

Post by unethical_ban »

ahaferburg wrote: post #362
pslam wrote: post #353

It is appalling that the top 3 comments (at time of writing this one) are victim-blaming. "They should get better jobs". "There's a high demand so they should go elsewhere". "They should have known before they went there". Where have you been in the last few years, and how have you not learned anything about abusive practices which entrap people? These companies are basically abusive — they abuse their staff with lon…

Unionization is never going to happen, and won't have much benefit. Excessive overtime and crunch need to be outlawed. It's not a matter of whether or not it's paid, beyond a certain threshold it's a question of health. Nothing will change until people start suing. If companies can just abuse and then terminate people once their lives are ruined, they will continue to do so.

Collective bargaining will never happen, but outlawing overtime will?

Re: Making Video Games Is Not a Dream Job

#429

Post by LanceH »

ghaff wrote: post #364
BadassFractal wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photography has been hit hard this last decade, with IG blowing up and everybody having a half decent camera in their pockets all the time, AND knowing exactly where to go to get high quality shots. For most people it's about replicating the exact formula, vs doing something original, but that's actually pretty common for every art form. It's simply more visible in photo than in other creative endeavors: https://www.…

I fully agree with all that. I was photo editor of my undergrad paper back in the day and just the mechanics of shooting film, developing it, printing it required quite a bit of knowledge just to get to output that was reasonably competent technically. Of course, go back pre-35mm and that was even more the case but--as you say--even just a phone takes precent decent pictures for at least certain types of shots if you…

The sheer quantity of shots changes everything. Back in the day of film, a pro could burn a roll of film for a single usable shot (maybe). An amateur had development and printing combined (expensive) and had to make every shot count, leading to most shots being of a staged and unnatural variety.
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