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GTA 6 Developers Unionize

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Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#421

Post by Thaxll »

miiiiiike wrote: post #292
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…

> engineering in video gaming is generally more complex than the engineering I've done working in big tech. I always roll my eyes when I hear this from game developers. And my eyes hurt from rolling I've heard it so many times. I've done game dev, systems, backend, frontend, all of it. It's all the same. Maybe you developed low complexity "big tech" projects but, c'mon, you're really going to argue that games are cat…

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Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#422

Post by jhatemyjob »

maccard wrote: post #401
jhatemyjob wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said they are low skill. They just don't have their priorities straight. Those QA teams, automation people, production, level designers, vfx artists, tech artists, character artists, 2d artists, prop artists, gameplay scripters, etc are doing all that work just to put some pretty pixels on a 14 year old's screen. There's very little value there.

Sorry - you said it’s “grunt work”, not low skill. > There's very little value there. As opposed to the 373rd X-as-a-service crud app with AI features?

Ok so now you're lying. I never said that.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#423

Post by ZivenChang »

doublerabbit wrote: post #74
HugoTea wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a never-ending pool of young, fresh, and naïve graduates happy to sell their soul to make video games has been a strong contributor for low wages for a while. Any time someone gets too senior, just replace them with another graduate. Naturally, the product quality and timescale suffers too.

Yep, 0-day contracts. Don't like it? Move on and we'll hire another set of university grads. That's how most studios work.

Can AI replace game developers now?

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#424

Post by Thaxll »

miiiiiike wrote: post #384
michaelsalim wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a game dev but I used to dabble in it. Quite surprised by this take honestly. Sure, each domain has its own complex things to solve. But on average, I think it's quite safe to say that game development consistently demands more creative solutions to problems compared to many other fields.

All development requires creativity. Different types of creativity for different types of problems. Creativity isn’t narrowly defined to exclude everything but art, game mechanisms, and narrative. You think the creation of GMail didn’t take creativity? I’m suspicious of anyone who tries to lay a special claim to creativity for their class or type of work. Creates a false creative vs cog narrative that always seems to…

In web dev there is little creativity because everything has been done and there is a library / service to solve every problems, none of that exists in major games. Try Claude in your frontend/backend service, then try that in a game client.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#425

Post by xenophonf »

sonzohan wrote: post #258
RobRivera wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your route to teaching like? I kinda am considering putting my hat in a similar ring on a part time, evening class type basis if I can get away with it.

I graduated in 2011, went straight to work at Blizzard entertainment. At the same time I had gotten accepted into graduate school so I opted for an internship at Blizzard to try both. I went back to Blizzard in 2012, but quickly realized I wanted to do my PhD. So I left Blizzard and went full-time as a student. I didn't have funding so I TAd classes. Eventually my advisor and I scored a big NSF grant, so she used the…

> most people who work in tech do not make good instructors

Guilty as charged, despite my best attempts to the contrary. I wish I had time to go back to school for some kind of teaching degree. Is there something else I can do or read or watch or something to make me a better teacher? Knowledge transfer is probably the most important aspect of my job.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#426

Post by jhatemyjob »

Auracle wrote: post #395
jhatemyjob wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said they are low skill. They just don't have their priorities straight. Those QA teams, automation people, production, level designers, vfx artists, tech artists, character artists, 2d artists, prop artists, gameplay scripters, etc are doing all that work just to put some pretty pixels on a 14 year old's screen. There's very little value there.

Jesus Christ dude. First off, adults play video games too. I think they’re actually the leading consumers, though I don’t care to look that up. Second, people like entertainment. Videogames are certainly no less important than movies, TV, or most novels. Entertainment can be important. Personally I find really hard videogames to be meditative and it’s bad for my mental health when I can’t get some time now and again…

I touched a nerve huh? You wanna know another leading consumer? Recreational drug users. Lot of money in that industry.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#427

Post by avadodin »

deaddodo wrote: post #287
Scaled wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I mean, when you're getting paid 40-60% for doing more complex work than app/web development...yeah, the drop-off is almost inevitable. Eventually people (unless they just really love making games) just go "f this, my career is more important". If you wanna do low-level code, you can go into embedded, sponsored OSI-companies, Microsoft, etc and get paid the same to more than gamedev with 10% of the stress and no crun…

Why write a line of code for a car's fuel injection and go back home at 5pm to your wife and kids when you could stay overnight and be hacking on an ill-designed networking protocol for an AAA game while eating 5% discount cheetos?

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#428

Post by jpttsn »

This is a funny self-own, what am I missing?

Timing v. trends: - big game studios are already reviled as lazy, bloated - nimble indies are hitting a lot of records - gen. AI coming for many studio roles - employees have lower friction to be entrepreneurial

It’s like if home cooking and self checkout were going really strong and then the restaurants workers picked that time to riot for higher wages

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#430

Post by cyberax »

Jach wrote: post #409
jayd16 wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're conflating has crunch and has non-exempt employees with everyone is getting crunch OT. It is simply not the case.

Certainly exempt FTEs are crunching and not getting (directly) compensated for it. But the above comment's "overtime pay makes crunches disappear" claim is also simply not the case, just given the still-present abundance of crunch time for non-exempt employees who do get overtime pay.

Non-exempt employees are typically cheap enough to not care about the OT pay. The lower limit for the exempt employees is around $20 per hour.

Any OT pay above that is typically negotiated by unions in the current market.

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