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The videogame industry is in bad need of a more developed studio system like what's used in the movie industry. It exists to a point, but it's usually a large d
by bane 10y ago
The videogame industry is in bad need of a more developed studio system like what's used in the movie industry. It exists to a point, but it's usually a large developer establishing short-term studios to capture geographically located talent (or converting acquisitions into short-term studios to squeeze the last bit of talent out of a geographic area).
Too many videogame industry jobs are 1-off, lasting only so long as their part in the production of a single game exists. In essence, they work for the game. This is also true of the movie industry in many cases, but more often than not, work is farmed out to a variety of small production companies who each bring a few bits to the table. In a movie, the lighting guy works a steady-ish job for a lighting company, the cameras are rented from an equipment company, many of the actors will work for a couple agencies and so on.
The production company hires out and assembles these pieces, which are often union supported, and makes a movie. It's not too many people who work for the movie.
Once the movie shuts down production, the lighting guy goes back and asks his company where his next gig is, the actors have their agency working for them, the cameras go back into rentable inventory and so on.
This spreads risk out and keeps the industry from going through huge hiring/firing cycles.
The video game industry hasn't really matured to this point. You get a job working for EA Games East or wherever, get assigned to work on "Dog Touch Magic 2 - iOS" do your work, and if you're lucky will get asked to work on "Dog Touch Magic 3" or whatever. If you don't work for a studio directly, you're probably freelancing. But there's very little middle ground like in the film industry.
There's no real equivalent of say "I need 3d modelers for this game, let's get 2 or 3 contractors from Modelhaus Inc." bring them on for 4 months to make some models and then return them to their company to be hired out again. Instead EA Games East will have staff modelers or some freelancers, and their jobs may last beyond the game or task they're assigned to.
It kind of blows my mind that there aren't even unions yet in the gaming industry, they've been talked about for decades, but the industry hasn't done it yet.
- cableshaft 10y ago> It kind of blows my mind that there aren't even unions yet in the gaming industry, they've been talked about for decades, but the industry hasn't done it yet. Game industry veteran here. It's not surprising to me at all. Large dev studios don't want unions. They've been able to capitalize on an endless sea of starry eyed young devs willing to work 60+ hour weeks for months on end for half the salary they could make in other software fields until they get burned out, just so they can say they worked on the 10th sequel of a game they loved as a kid, or tell their friends 'I worked on this game you can download here!' and it doesn't look like the supply of that has gone down at all. Meanwhile, individual software developers not in the midst of a company death march and are probably doing the Indie thing and tend to see themselves as lone wolves and thus don't make much effort to organize with their other developers. There's associations like IGDA (International Game Developers Association), but in my interactions with them, I haven't seen them organize anything more than social activities with some veteran from the game industry to give a talk.
- Apocryphon 10y agoThere's been a lot of talk about software unions, and based on the horror stories from the video game industry, game developers would probably benefit most.
- cableshaft 10y agoThere's been a lot of talk for at least 15 years now. I'd like to see some action, finally.
- throwaway9475 10y agoI think it's also hard because it's not as if crappy hours, tight deadlines, and low pay are directly killing people. Sure, stress is bad for you and you deserve to make enough money to provide for yourself and have healthcare, but I imagine conditions are overall still better than at the beginning of the labor movement, which involved rather dangerous factory work. It's easier for people to tolerate 60+ hour weeks and the like if they're paid well enough or if they hold hostile views towards unions, which I don't think is uncommon in the software field as a whole.
- cookiecaper 10y agoThere's also a lot of talk about offshoring development jobs to contractors on Upwork who charge $2.50/hr. For games, you'd probably need an offshore person in the $30-$40/hr range, but still much cheaper than a domestic employee. If there's a union, what's to stop the big companies from doing that and bypassing Americans altogether, as some companies are already doing?
- Apocryphon 10y agoWorse quality of games leading to greater competition from domestic indie devs?
- cookiecaper 10y agoYep, this is exactly it. There is no shortage whatsoever of people who want to make video games, which means that even highly-skilled people are disposable in the industry.