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I think this raises many questions that are somewhat similar to raising minimum wage. Can companies survive without this "cheap" accessible labour? Are the gam

I think this raises many questions that are somewhat similar to raising minimum wage. Can companies survive without this "cheap" accessible labour? Are the game devs being screwed by their employers or the markets? Is it better to regulate for higher salaries, and potentially less total jobs and maybe less games per year? I think the answers to these questions are hard to find, but ultimatly would dictate the pros and cons of the current situation. If execs are just pocketing all the money, ya, that's a problem and maybe unions or regulation is needed. If game development of the current scale just isn't sustainable by the markets given higher salaries, we need to explore what kind of game development scale can? Is it one which reduces the number of jobs? If so, we have the taxi vs uber dilemma... Is it better for fewer people to get good wages, or for more people to get lesser wages? Finally, we must explore the lengthy crunches. Are they truly delivering productive value? Is management in the game industry just poorer? Would reasonable hours impact cost and profits? Maybe it wouldn't, if we believe all the science about how lack of sleep and overwork nullifies productivity. This is all a complex problem.

pfranz 9y ago
> Finally, we must explore the lengthy crunches. Are they truly delivering productive value? They're not. It's a huge waste of money. It's all poor planning. But each company has to learn that individually, over and over, before an industry figures it out. There's some quote about making movies (or art) that the hard part is making the movie the first time. Once they knew what they were making, doing it a second time would cost 1/10th as much. A lot of the leadership at Pixar talk about how difficult Toy Story 2 was on the staff [1]. '"a full third of the staff" ended up with some form of RSI by the time the film was finished.' 'In one instance, an animator had forgotten to drop his child off at daycare one morning and, in a mental haze, forgot the baby in the back seat of his car in the parking lot.' Even though 'Pixar did not encourage long hours, and, in fact, set limits on how many hours employees could work by approving or disapproving overtime.' It created a huge culture shift at Pixar. Luckily, they've in a comfortable enough position to carry out and keep up with those changes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_2#Controversy_and_troubled_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_2#Controversy_and_tr...

pfranz 9y ago

> Finally, we must explore the lengthy crunches. Are they truly delivering productive value? They're not. It's a huge waste of money. It's all poor planning. But each company has to learn that individually, over and over, before an industry figures it out. There's some quote about making movies (or art) that the hard part is making the movie the first time. Once they knew what they were making, doing it a second time would cost 1/10th as much. A lot of the leadership at Pixar talk about how difficult Toy Story 2 was on the staff [1]. '"a full third of the staff" ended up with some form of RSI by the time the film was finished.' 'In one instance, an animator had forgotten to drop his child off at daycare one morning and, in a mental haze, forgot the baby in the back seat of his car in the parking lot.' Even though 'Pixar did not encourage long hours, and, in fact, set limits on how many hours employees could work by approving or disapproving overtime.' It created a huge culture shift at Pixar. Luckily, they've in a comfortable enough position to carry out and keep up with those changes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_2#Controversy_and_troubled_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toy_Story_2#Controversy_and_tr...