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Did you read the enclosing paragraph? "Their income pales in comparison to what’s offered in other fields with reputations for brutal hours, like banking and l

Did you read the enclosing paragraph? "Their income pales in comparison to what’s offered in other fields with reputations for brutal hours, like banking and law. The average American game developer earned $83,060 in 2013, according to a Gamasutra survey, or less than half the pay of a first-year associate at a New York law firm." Your answer is right there for goodness sake! The author compares game developers to a first-year associate because both are "fields with reputations for brutal hours." The author is also Jason Schreier, an editor at Kotaku which has frequently covered these topics. I would argue he's quite aware of the issues developers face, many journalists are close friends with developers in the industry. To echo your demeaning tone: did you do any research at all?

ekianjo 9y ago
> Your answer is right there for goodness sake! The author compares game developers to a first-year associate because both are "fields with reputations for brutal hours." To echo what other commenters said, brutal hours are also found in many other, non-law, non-banking related fields. Why single out the most lucrative ones as a comparison? It's purely biased. > The author is also Jason Schreier, an editor at Kotaku. Yeah Kotaku. I know. That's clearly the best source for reliable developer-related information right? I hope you are not being serious. In many circles, Kotaku is largely regarded as a tabloid in video games.
- PhasmaFelis 9y ago
  > In many circles, Kotaku is largely regarded as a tabloid in video games. In GamerGate circles, you mean?
- eropple 9y ago
  Among developers, media, and people who pay attention to the state of the games industry, Kotaku's reporting is as highly regarded as anyone in the field. Schreier in particular is one of the best-sourced reporters in the industry. And let's be real for a sec: those circles that don't like Kotaku also correlate with reflexive reactionary politics cloaked in "pro-consumer" rhetoric waaaay better than anything else, like "interest in or respect for truth or reality".
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > people who pay attention to the state of the games industry, Kotaku's reporting is as highly regarded as anyone in the field Checking today's Kotaku headlines: > That Time We Got To See Mario's Dick https://kotaku.com/that-time-we-got-to-see-marios-dick-1819859773 https://kotaku.com/that-time-we-got-to-see-marios-dick-18198... Yeah, my claim about it being a Tabloid is completely unsubstantiated, sorry.
    - dinkumthinkum 9y ago
      Yeah, but this is a bit dramatic right? I mean, you can find many trivial stories on NYT or probably even more in the Washington Times; it doesn't mean these are garbage sources like the Inquirer.
    - eropple 9y ago
      Huh! It's like there's a difference between filler stories, which are part of the modern views-based economy for news sites, and reporting. Can't for the life of me figure out why you'd elide that. (There's a reason why, in terms of general news, Buzzfeed, of all places, is well regarded for investigative reporting. And it's because other stuff pays the bills.)
  - imcrs 9y ago
    He has a point though. The author chose lawyers as a comparison point. Why? Manual laborers work long hours. People with two or three part time retail jobs work long hours. Lawyers have a different set of qualifications and requirements than game developers do.
    - dinkumthinkum 9y ago
      I think your point is a little hard to discern. Who do you think educationally game programmers are more similar to: Manual laborers or Lawyers? Other than the regulation of the latter, I think it is clear they are more similar to lawyers. Serious game programming requires fairly extensive knowledge in multiple disciplines of computing particular graphics and rendering, AI, at least some basic algorithmic knowledge and competency with programming that is much more technical than "make yet another web app in a hipster JS framework," to just be honest it. There are many people in the game development industry with MS degrees and even some PhDs. This I think is more similar professional "status" than brick laying, I think.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  Game developers aren’t flipping burgers. They’re working hard and deploying tremendous skill. The comparison to lawyers, another hard-working highly-skilled trade, is appropriate.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - dinkumthinkum 9y ago
    Yeah, I have been a bit surprised. There is much more skill and knowledge involved here than in churning out ReactJS interfaces. There's a lot of looking down at game developers, I think by "programmers" that tend to try to follow these crazes like "machine learning everywhere" but wouldn't even know basic linear algebra.
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > They’re working hard and deploying tremendous skill. The same can be said to folks making furniture. Yet they don't get paid like lawyers, even though their job is highly technical and skilled as well. Can we stop using only 2 variables to compare how much people should be paid? It's not like the reality is not a little more complex.
    - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
      > The same can be said to folks making furniture Certainly not if “skill” is defined within the context of supply and demand, i.e. scarcity. (If it isn’t, it’s identical to “hard work.”)
  - michaelg7x 9y ago
    Agreed: they are deploying tremendous skill, but not necessarily with the same level of academic achievement and formal traineeship. I say this as someone who has qualified and worked as a lawyer and subsequently cross-trained into and now works as a software developer. I suggest that you can be an accomplished hacker by the time you're 16 without any kind of formal qualification, but you can't be a lawyer (in the UK at least) until you've done yourself the unimaginable harm of forcing yourself to read legal dicta from hundreds of years ago. Part of you dies during legal training. I don't know much about NY first-year associates, but imagine they fall into the "rockstar" graduate category; perhaps a better salary comparison would be with rockstar (first-year) developers at a Silicon Valley giant?
- spaceseaman 9y ago
  > It's purely biased. You read "NYTimes" on the front-page, decided that you were gonna hate this article, and then found something that did it for you. Congratulations. You are justified in your hatred of "biased reporting". I honestly don't see how something so insignificant can be considered biased. You are being ludicrous. Law and banking are excellent examples because they are the fields that most Americans associate with brutal work hours. Law and banking also are skilled positions that require (at least) an undegraduate education. But ok - I can't convince you because the article is biased. Biased to what? Biased in favor of the right of game developers to get a fair wage? Biased towards allowing them a 40 hour work week? Oh no, what a shame that would be! Bias cannot be inherently bad because bias is inherent to any writing or any argument. If you're going to claim that Mr. Schreier is biased towards the perspective of game developers, explain why that could possibly be a bad thing in this scenario. > That's clearly the best source for reliable developer-related information right? Yes, actually. They broke several major stories this year that depended on internal leaks at various companies. This article (also by Jason Schreier) is a good example. https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428 https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-t... For those who may be unaware, Kotaku is hated by a certain subset of the alt-right. It appears that's why all the cockroaches have come out of the woodwork for this story. Do people really not see what's going on here? There's a large segment of people who will convince themselves of anything in order to "prove" that this article is "biased".
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > You read "NYTimes" on the front-page, decided that you were gonna hate this article, and then found something that did it for you. Congratulations. You are justified in your hatred of "biased reporting". You know, if you are so confident that the author is right, please find (or ask him) to provide relevant wage data from other related, non-lawyer, non-banking fields, and you know, not based in New York. We'll see how strong that argument actually is once we have proper comparison points across industries. When I see cherry-picked data like that, my bullshit detector self-activates. And no, this has nothing to do with hating the NYT. I routinely enjoy some very well written articles in the NYT, but this is one of of the worst ones they have ever published.
  - 9y ago
nradov 9y ago
Does the reputation match reality? The brutal hours in law firms are mostly for junior associates on partner track. Lawyers working in government, corporate, or non-profit jobs tend to work about the same hours as developers in those organizations.
ballenf 9y ago
The author had the universe of salaries to choose from and chose ... lawyers. And not nationwide, but lawyers in literally the highest (or very close) paid market in the world. A comparison to Hollywood union rates would have been much more logical and probably still supported the writer's thesis. So, yes, I think it fair to call it a lazy comparison and criticize the author for that point. Even if it doesn't really undermine any of the other well known issues with the field. The other reason the comparison is so flawed is the education requirements for lawyers in that market and the enormous debt usually incurred in getting there. (These characteristics are not unique to lawyers, but are not totally shared with game devs.) Large NYC firms will only hire from a dozen or so law schools and those schools accept students from relatively small pool of mostly pricey undergrads. Without scholarships or aid, you're looking at $2-350,000 in student loans over the 7 years of school. Then you generally don't work for 6 months after graduation in order to study for the bar exam because you didn't expect $300k to teach you that stuff did you?

ekianjo 9y ago

> Your answer is right there for goodness sake! The author compares game developers to a first-year associate because both are "fields with reputations for brutal hours." To echo what other commenters said, brutal hours are also found in many other, non-law, non-banking related fields. Why single out the most lucrative ones as a comparison? It's purely biased. > The author is also Jason Schreier, an editor at Kotaku. Yeah Kotaku. I know. That's clearly the best source for reliable developer-related information right? I hope you are not being serious. In many circles, Kotaku is largely regarded as a tabloid in video games.

PhasmaFelis 9y ago
> In many circles, Kotaku is largely regarded as a tabloid in video games. In GamerGate circles, you mean?
eropple 9y ago
Among developers, media, and people who pay attention to the state of the games industry, Kotaku's reporting is as highly regarded as anyone in the field. Schreier in particular is one of the best-sourced reporters in the industry. And let's be real for a sec: those circles that don't like Kotaku also correlate with reflexive reactionary politics cloaked in "pro-consumer" rhetoric waaaay better than anything else, like "interest in or respect for truth or reality".
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > people who pay attention to the state of the games industry, Kotaku's reporting is as highly regarded as anyone in the field Checking today's Kotaku headlines: > That Time We Got To See Mario's Dick https://kotaku.com/that-time-we-got-to-see-marios-dick-1819859773 https://kotaku.com/that-time-we-got-to-see-marios-dick-18198... Yeah, my claim about it being a Tabloid is completely unsubstantiated, sorry.
  - dinkumthinkum 9y ago
    Yeah, but this is a bit dramatic right? I mean, you can find many trivial stories on NYT or probably even more in the Washington Times; it doesn't mean these are garbage sources like the Inquirer.
  - eropple 9y ago
    Huh! It's like there's a difference between filler stories, which are part of the modern views-based economy for news sites, and reporting. Can't for the life of me figure out why you'd elide that. (There's a reason why, in terms of general news, Buzzfeed, of all places, is well regarded for investigative reporting. And it's because other stuff pays the bills.)
- imcrs 9y ago
  He has a point though. The author chose lawyers as a comparison point. Why? Manual laborers work long hours. People with two or three part time retail jobs work long hours. Lawyers have a different set of qualifications and requirements than game developers do.
  - dinkumthinkum 9y ago
    I think your point is a little hard to discern. Who do you think educationally game programmers are more similar to: Manual laborers or Lawyers? Other than the regulation of the latter, I think it is clear they are more similar to lawyers. Serious game programming requires fairly extensive knowledge in multiple disciplines of computing particular graphics and rendering, AI, at least some basic algorithmic knowledge and competency with programming that is much more technical than "make yet another web app in a hipster JS framework," to just be honest it. There are many people in the game development industry with MS degrees and even some PhDs. This I think is more similar professional "status" than brick laying, I think.
JumpCrisscross 9y ago
Game developers aren’t flipping burgers. They’re working hard and deploying tremendous skill. The comparison to lawyers, another hard-working highly-skilled trade, is appropriate.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- dinkumthinkum 9y ago
  Yeah, I have been a bit surprised. There is much more skill and knowledge involved here than in churning out ReactJS interfaces. There's a lot of looking down at game developers, I think by "programmers" that tend to try to follow these crazes like "machine learning everywhere" but wouldn't even know basic linear algebra.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > They’re working hard and deploying tremendous skill. The same can be said to folks making furniture. Yet they don't get paid like lawyers, even though their job is highly technical and skilled as well. Can we stop using only 2 variables to compare how much people should be paid? It's not like the reality is not a little more complex.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > The same can be said to folks making furniture Certainly not if “skill” is defined within the context of supply and demand, i.e. scarcity. (If it isn’t, it’s identical to “hard work.”)
- michaelg7x 9y ago
  Agreed: they are deploying tremendous skill, but not necessarily with the same level of academic achievement and formal traineeship. I say this as someone who has qualified and worked as a lawyer and subsequently cross-trained into and now works as a software developer. I suggest that you can be an accomplished hacker by the time you're 16 without any kind of formal qualification, but you can't be a lawyer (in the UK at least) until you've done yourself the unimaginable harm of forcing yourself to read legal dicta from hundreds of years ago. Part of you dies during legal training. I don't know much about NY first-year associates, but imagine they fall into the "rockstar" graduate category; perhaps a better salary comparison would be with rockstar (first-year) developers at a Silicon Valley giant?
spaceseaman 9y ago
> It's purely biased. You read "NYTimes" on the front-page, decided that you were gonna hate this article, and then found something that did it for you. Congratulations. You are justified in your hatred of "biased reporting". I honestly don't see how something so insignificant can be considered biased. You are being ludicrous. Law and banking are excellent examples because they are the fields that most Americans associate with brutal work hours. Law and banking also are skilled positions that require (at least) an undegraduate education. But ok - I can't convince you because the article is biased. Biased to what? Biased in favor of the right of game developers to get a fair wage? Biased towards allowing them a 40 hour work week? Oh no, what a shame that would be! Bias cannot be inherently bad because bias is inherent to any writing or any argument. If you're going to claim that Mr. Schreier is biased towards the perspective of game developers, explain why that could possibly be a bad thing in this scenario. > That's clearly the best source for reliable developer-related information right? Yes, actually. They broke several major stories this year that depended on internal leaks at various companies. This article (also by Jason Schreier) is a good example. https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-troubled-five-1795886428 https://kotaku.com/the-story-behind-mass-effect-andromedas-t... For those who may be unaware, Kotaku is hated by a certain subset of the alt-right. It appears that's why all the cockroaches have come out of the woodwork for this story. Do people really not see what's going on here? There's a large segment of people who will convince themselves of anything in order to "prove" that this article is "biased".
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > You read "NYTimes" on the front-page, decided that you were gonna hate this article, and then found something that did it for you. Congratulations. You are justified in your hatred of "biased reporting". You know, if you are so confident that the author is right, please find (or ask him) to provide relevant wage data from other related, non-lawyer, non-banking fields, and you know, not based in New York. We'll see how strong that argument actually is once we have proper comparison points across industries. When I see cherry-picked data like that, my bullshit detector self-activates. And no, this has nothing to do with hating the NYT. I routinely enjoy some very well written articles in the NYT, but this is one of of the worst ones they have ever published.
- 9y ago

nradov 9y ago

Does the reputation match reality? The brutal hours in law firms are mostly for junior associates on partner track. Lawyers working in government, corporate, or non-profit jobs tend to work about the same hours as developers in those organizations.

ballenf 9y ago

The author had the universe of salaries to choose from and chose ... lawyers. And not nationwide, but lawyers in literally the highest (or very close) paid market in the world. A comparison to Hollywood union rates would have been much more logical and probably still supported the writer's thesis. So, yes, I think it fair to call it a lazy comparison and criticize the author for that point. Even if it doesn't really undermine any of the other well known issues with the field. The other reason the comparison is so flawed is the education requirements for lawyers in that market and the enormous debt usually incurred in getting there. (These characteristics are not unique to lawyers, but are not totally shared with game devs.) Large NYC firms will only hire from a dozen or so law schools and those schools accept students from relatively small pool of mostly pricey undergrads. Without scholarships or aid, you're looking at $2-350,000 in student loans over the 7 years of school. Then you generally don't work for 6 months after graduation in order to study for the bar exam because you didn't expect $300k to teach you that stuff did you?