5 ms·

> has no sign of going away due to the constant influx of young people willing to take it Why is the onus to change the industry on the inexperienced folk (who

by thex10 9y ago

> has no sign of going away due to the constant influx of young people willing to take it Why is the onus to change the industry on the inexperienced folk (who likely don't know any better) rather than the bosses/leadership who theoretically get paid the big bucks to figure out how to properly run their organizations?

s73v3r_ 9y ago
Because the bosses/leadership are getting paid the big bucks to keep things as they are. If they felt the need to change things, they would have already. As such, they've felt just fine trading their humanity for money.
vvanders 9y ago
The big bucks dudes(to be clear here we're talking about publishers, not developers) are incentivized to keep the status quo. They get a constant stream of new talent that works at sub-par rates. Very few studios are independent at this point so it's rare for any of them to have leverage. Since all the capital is organized around the big publishers unless you have a breakout success(which can be harder than the startup space) they can dictate terms and conditions. There used to be a fun clause where upon studio bankruptcy the code/assets would revert to the publisher. Seems reasonable right? Well what would happen is the publisher would start denying milestones for frivolous things, usually at peak headcount ~4mo from ship. This very quickly puts the studio in the red and they fold since they can't sustain a lawsuit and employ 100+ people while not getting paid. The publisher would then get source+assets, re-hire the team that was suddenly out of a job at 80% rate and ship the game with no royalty clause to the original studio + get IP. That's the kind of exploitation you see in that industry.
- WorldMaker 9y ago
  It's very similar to many of the abuses the Hollywood studio system has done over the decades. Hollywood seems to make it clear that the only working answer to making that somewhat sustainable for the talent, for the creative people, for all the people that aren't overpaid executive sharks and don't want to be entirely chewed up and spit out, is to unionize.
  - vvanders 9y ago
    Yeah, there's a lot of parallels. In my mind it was always closer to the shenanigans that went on in the music/record industry because there's very little unionization in gamedev.
- ghthor 9y ago
  That's fucking sick game the publishers played. Thank goodness there are multiple ways better ways to fund a game studio right now instead of getting roped into one of these toxic relationships.
jerf 9y ago
Observing that the root of the problem is an eternal influx of young people who think the only fun programming job is in gaming isn't putting the onus on them. You can't solve the problem if you refuse to understand it because the real problem offends you. I'm perfectly happy to put the onus on the businesses abusing these people, and to suggest even some regulation may be called for. However, on the flip side, it is vital that we, as in, we programmers and people posting on HN, understand the problem properly so we can address it to the extent we can. I've done what I can on HN and places like /r/programming to discourage people from monomaniacally focusing on gaming, thinking that the only other thing anybody ever does in programming is relentlessly program useless CRUD apps for banks or something. The truth is that while not every programming job is good, there's a lot more interesting jobs out there than just gaming, and a lot of gaming jobs suuuuuuccccckkkk, and the truth that you need to tell young people thinking about getting into programming is that your odds of landing an interesting job are actually way better if they do not monomaniacally focus on being a "games programmer". The reality of the games industry is that not only are you likely to go on crunch time for months at a crack, you're likely to be doing it on some licensed Disney crap game, not even the AAA game you're dreaming of. (I have no problem with people taking risks. If they insist on rolling the dice for the games industry, hoping they can make it, more power to them. But I want people to take risks with as much information as possible.)
- bitwize 9y ago
  As discussed on a previous thread -- I like making games, but I hate the gaming industry. So today I write games in my spare time while I turn one of the giant stone capstans on an enterprise Java installation to keep food and a roof. It's not sexy work by any means, but my team is great and I get to punch out after eight hours.
  - jerf 9y ago
    Yeah. I want to not hate work. I'd even like to enjoy it with some frequency. But it's not really my primary source of entertainment, fulfillment, or enjoyment, and while there are some artistic types here who will legitimately look at that and be horrified, it doesn't particularly bother me. I am large, I contain multitudes, and they don't all have to live at work.

by thex10 9y ago

s73v3r_ 9y ago

Because the bosses/leadership are getting paid the big bucks to keep things as they are. If they felt the need to change things, they would have already. As such, they've felt just fine trading their humanity for money.

vvanders 9y ago

The big bucks dudes(to be clear here we're talking about publishers, not developers) are incentivized to keep the status quo. They get a constant stream of new talent that works at sub-par rates. Very few studios are independent at this point so it's rare for any of them to have leverage. Since all the capital is organized around the big publishers unless you have a breakout success(which can be harder than the startup space) they can dictate terms and conditions. There used to be a fun clause where upon studio bankruptcy the code/assets would revert to the publisher. Seems reasonable right? Well what would happen is the publisher would start denying milestones for frivolous things, usually at peak headcount ~4mo from ship. This very quickly puts the studio in the red and they fold since they can't sustain a lawsuit and employ 100+ people while not getting paid. The publisher would then get source+assets, re-hire the team that was suddenly out of a job at 80% rate and ship the game with no royalty clause to the original studio + get IP. That's the kind of exploitation you see in that industry.

WorldMaker 9y ago
It's very similar to many of the abuses the Hollywood studio system has done over the decades. Hollywood seems to make it clear that the only working answer to making that somewhat sustainable for the talent, for the creative people, for all the people that aren't overpaid executive sharks and don't want to be entirely chewed up and spit out, is to unionize.
- vvanders 9y ago
  Yeah, there's a lot of parallels. In my mind it was always closer to the shenanigans that went on in the music/record industry because there's very little unionization in gamedev.
ghthor 9y ago
That's fucking sick game the publishers played. Thank goodness there are multiple ways better ways to fund a game studio right now instead of getting roped into one of these toxic relationships.

jerf 9y ago

Observing that the root of the problem is an eternal influx of young people who think the only fun programming job is in gaming isn't putting the onus on them. You can't solve the problem if you refuse to understand it because the real problem offends you. I'm perfectly happy to put the onus on the businesses abusing these people, and to suggest even some regulation may be called for. However, on the flip side, it is vital that we, as in, we programmers and people posting on HN, understand the problem properly so we can address it to the extent we can. I've done what I can on HN and places like /r/programming to discourage people from monomaniacally focusing on gaming, thinking that the only other thing anybody ever does in programming is relentlessly program useless CRUD apps for banks or something. The truth is that while not every programming job is good, there's a lot more interesting jobs out there than just gaming, and a lot of gaming jobs suuuuuuccccckkkk, and the truth that you need to tell young people thinking about getting into programming is that your odds of landing an interesting job are actually way better if they do not monomaniacally focus on being a "games programmer". The reality of the games industry is that not only are you likely to go on crunch time for months at a crack, you're likely to be doing it on some licensed Disney crap game, not even the AAA game you're dreaming of. (I have no problem with people taking risks. If they insist on rolling the dice for the games industry, hoping they can make it, more power to them. But I want people to take risks with as much information as possible.)

bitwize 9y ago
As discussed on a previous thread -- I like making games, but I hate the gaming industry. So today I write games in my spare time while I turn one of the giant stone capstans on an enterprise Java installation to keep food and a roof. It's not sexy work by any means, but my team is great and I get to punch out after eight hours.
- jerf 9y ago
  Yeah. I want to not hate work. I'd even like to enjoy it with some frequency. But it's not really my primary source of entertainment, fulfillment, or enjoyment, and while there are some artistic types here who will legitimately look at that and be horrified, it doesn't particularly bother me. I am large, I contain multitudes, and they don't all have to live at work.