4 ms·
One thing to keep in mind is that employers in 'creative' (film, games, etc) industries often treat their tech employees worse than employers whose main source
by santaclaus 11y ago
One thing to keep in mind is that employers in 'creative' (film, games, etc) industries often treat their tech employees worse than employers whose main source of income is the tech itself. I haven't worked at Blizzard specifically, but I've spent time at other game shops and VFX shops, and my experience is that you are expected to work for longer hours and for lower paychecks than your friends writing REST apps for web oriented startups (let alone established players like Google, Facebook, or even Apple).
Are you interested in Blizzard because you only see yourself developing games and games alone? Are you interested in graphics and '3D math' and find Blizzard appealing because they need those skills? Will you be happy being a 'tech' employee without the tech paycheque?
- InclinedPlane 11y agoThis varies a lot from place to place, a big part of the cause of the problem is supply side. For a lot of people working in GameDev or doing artistic work is a "dream job" so there tends to be no shortage of fairly talented young folks who are willing to put up with anything just to get into the business. And often that labor pool is abused by big companies. But that's not always the case, it's just more common than elsewhere in tech.
- mercurial 11y agoI'd say that another big factor is the financial part. Take your average game studio, even large-ish ones always have a very uncertain future after their next game. When your ability to make payroll depends on getting your game out at the deadline agreed with/imposed by the publisher, this is going to mean plenty of crunch time. And then you may get laid off once the game is out, because the studio doesn't need a lot of programmers during the pre-production phase of their next game.