Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter • Hacker News Board

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#561

Post by johnnyanmac » Wed, May 12, 2021, 10:17 PM UTC

emtel wrote: post #30

f430 wrote: post #2

What is it about game development field that makes it so labor intensive with consistent overtimes? I tried to make a simple FPS game and it was astounding how much work was involved. Took 6 month of learning Unreal and Unity and gave up with a functioning prototype. Took 4 months of back and forth with Steam to list my game. Even harder trying to make money off it. I'm just in awe of Roblox, Minecraft, Fall Guy and…

> What is it about game development field that makes it so labor intensive with consistent overtimes? I helped lead a team that built and shipped a 3D multiplayer game from scratch with a custom engine. I went into it expecting it to be harder than I thought it would be, and it was harder still. I think the thing that makes game dev fundamentally harder than other types of software is that most software products solv…

good post, but to be pedantic:

>I suspect that even technically simpler games like 2d platformers are probably much harder to develop now than they were a few decades ago, due to necessity of competing against every other activity the player has to choose

I'd say they are harder to *succeed* than a few decades back. Especially for indies. Development is easier than ever with tools and assets available for no cost (during development at least).

e.g. If you make a platformer in 2008 and get it on a store for $20, you would probably get a decent following just because you managed to get it on the store.

If you make the same game in 2020, even if it was a really good game, it's harder to be noticed and gamers will always have "but is it as good as Hollow Knight/Celeste" in the back of their heads. Games that each spent years refining their mechanics and ultimately sold for $20 each. Games that right now sell for $10. It indirectly buries and caps your market to try and compete there.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#562

Post by Siira » Thu, May 13, 2021, 8:53 AM UTC

Thorrez wrote: post #434

_qwfv wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FAANG companies also underpay their workers. It can simultaneously be the case that they pay their workers best in class wages AND those wages are less than the workers deserve. Apple has immense cash reserves built from the labor of their employees. That is essentially the difference between what value those employees generated for Apple and what they were paid. More of it should go out to the employees, and we shou…

How much workers deserve is based on profitability of the company they work at? Do workers who are equally talented and hardworking but work for a failing company deserve less?

It’s unworkable at a market level, but ideally, yes. Working for failing companies means you’re just wasting your time and not contributing to the society.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#563

Post by blagie » Thu, May 13, 2021, 11:07 AM UTC

oblio wrote: post #472

blagie wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both the divorce rates and the divorce cost are thanks to the divorce industry and the divorce lobby. We have a massive industry set up to encourage and profit from divorce. Most countries don't have this problem, but it's a bigger problem than even the US' ballooning medical costs.

More and more countries are having this problem as women get emancipated and make more money. Few people want to be completely beholden to the whims of another person for their entire lives. I'm not arguing that people don't divorce for bad reasons, but there's also a solid reason why divorce is a good idea in many cases.

I'm not going to argue for or against divorces.

I will argue against a system where there is a lobby designed to glorify and encourage divorce and stoke marital conflict, followed by a litigation which costs around $200k between both sides to bring to completion, which ends when one side or the other runs out of money.

At that point, in most cases, the custody and financial arrangement is designed to be ridiculously complex and inequitable.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#564

Post by johnnyanmac » Thu, May 13, 2021, 6:46 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #72

ttul wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno. My friend is making $250K working for Roblox. He’s 15yrs into his career - all game dev. Doesn’t seem too bad.

And some college athletes will eventually end up in a Tom Brady situation, that doesn’t mean I would recommend anyone bank on getting drafted as a career.

weird comparison since even a regular 3 year professional will make millions in their short career.

250K is not unusual money if you are regularly advancing on oppurtunities (and for the people around here, it wouldn't even be seen as impressive). Whether you want to wait a decade to move to that point or 5 years at FAANG is up to the individual. But the topic here seems to assert that you can't make good money at all in the industry, not how fast you make it.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#565

Post by titanomachy » Fri, May 14, 2021, 12:21 AM UTC

onekorg wrote: post #524

titanomachy wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this might be about right. Google's internal tools were built by very smart engineers for use by other very smart engineers. (I'm thinking especially of the Producers Framework as I write this, but there are other examples.) I've seen plenty of intelligent people struggle to get their heads around Google's abstractions. The tools are powerful enough, though, that once you get it you can pretty easily build st…

Producers Framework is awesome. Took me a while to wrap my head around writing code that way. Is there anything open source that is similar to it?

Not that I know of. I don’t think it’s user-friendly enough to succeed as an open-source tool.

Re: Game developers sharing their salaries on Twitter

#566

Post by inopinatus » Sun, May 16, 2021, 6:28 AM UTC

johnnyanmac wrote: post #551

inopinatus wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting my hiring manager’s hat on, I recommend asking for more, without hesitation. There is practically no downside. Especially if it’s your dream company, because you are likely to be extra motivated, and this is a case you can genuinely make. Once an offer’s already on the table, the worst possible outcome from asking will be “sorry, that’s as high as we can go right now” without any rancour. If instead the respo…

The problem here is that (aside from the usual "FAANG or nothing" sentiment): you assume everyone can get a FAANG job to begin with. Apple never called back after my campus interview, I didn't make it past Google's automated programming test. I had no link to Microsoft so I just have a online resume in the virtual void. That first job hustle is painful. I definitely wouldn't be where I was today if I didn't spend a f…

Far from it; this advice is from my current perspective as a bootstrapped co-founder, but concurs with all my prior experience, including that at other startups and ordinary enterprises, as both manager and job candidate.

Funny how people assume that just because you’ve been at one of the tech giants, that it was either the only experience you have, or that it’s the only experience you valued, or speak from. The assumption is a category error, and seems to be mostly invoked dismissively.