8 ms·

If you think about employment as a business transaction, then you should insist on "Cash Up Front", e.g. signing bonus, higher salary, or immediate stock owners

by bb88 8y ago

If you think about employment as a business transaction, then you should insist on "Cash Up Front", e.g. signing bonus, higher salary, or immediate stock ownership to offset your personal risk. Joining a company is more of a risk to you as an employee than it is to them in hiring you. Basically it comes down to asking for "Cash Up Front". Expecting a cash settlement on the backend of a failed business transaction is fraught with perils of not getting your investment back in the company. And asking for severance is no different.

skh 8y ago
In an ideal world this would be feasible. Few people have the pricing power for their labor to do this. I'd classify what you call a failed business transaction as a failure of government to enact necessary labor laws.
- bb88 8y ago
  So in a world where there's a glut of labor, you're absolutely right. We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers. And besides, if you explained to the employer the risks you forsee in joining their company, they will most likely understand that reason for asking for a higher salary than the norm.
  - HarryHirsch 8y ago
    We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers If that's true, why are you folks working in open offices and are wearing noise-cancelling headphones?
    - BigJono 8y ago
      Because the price of rent in major city centres is ludicrous, I assume.
  - skh 8y ago
    I’m thinking beyond software engineers. I’m thinking about people who don’t have pricing power for their labor and are not at all in a position to negotiate. They have to rely on government to help them with unequal balance in power when it comes to pricing for their labor.
  - speeder 8y ago
    I have a game design degree... And there are waaaaay more of us than there are companies to hire us. I ended working with other things because all game companies I tried wanted to offer minimum wages because there was tons of people trying to get into the industry so no reason to offer more
  - pcwalton 8y ago
    There absolutely is far more labor than positions available for game designers. Same for game programmers, many of whom have education and background so specific to games that they are effectively unemployable outside that industry. There are a bunch of schools that train hundreds of students on nothing but how to build high-level game logic in Unity. Almost everyone directly involved in production of game titles (i.e. not middleware) would be financially much better off taking the skills they already have and working in another industry—e.g. management for game designers, tech for programmers—with the possible exceptions of artists and musicians.
    - bb88 8y ago
      To some extent, you're right. Point taken, there is a glut of game engineers. However, your comment about people being virtually unemployable outside the game industry rings hollow. In the course of my career, there have been many people from a variety of backgrounds that became full fledged software engineers. One was a truck driver who became a top Java coder at the company I used to work for. And the game engineer has a step up on that guy, since he actually understands how to code. He just needs to understand the way the web works.
- pavlov 8y ago
  Yes, this is something that can be fixed by law. At least my native country Finland has a sort of public bankruptcy insurance (“palkkaturva”) that extends automatically to all employees. In the event of a bankruptcy leaving you with unpaid wages, you file an application with the same office that handles unemployment benefits, and they will recompensate you. C-level managers are exempt.
  - Aeolun 8y ago
    But taxes!
  - sonnyblarney 8y ago
    This is something entirely different. And FYI a strong incentive for companies to never offer any kind of severance in these situations since it's all socialized. Better to just be transparent about things so employees can properly consider the risk in the situation.
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      Better it be required by law and provided by the government than you hoping you'll get severance and being beholden to a company's "generosity", and the company include the additional tax payments as cost of doing business (same as the other employment taxes they're required to pay).
      - sonnyblarney 8y ago
        The issue is severance during company bankruptcy. Nobody ever expects companies to be 'generous' that's not a thing - the issues are in contracts like anything else.
        toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Severance is never guaranteed though, bankruptcy or otherwise. If a company is going bankrupt, of course they're not going to have the funds to pay severance when closing up shop. Unless I'm misunderstanding the point (and the quotations around generosity were intended to convey that in bankruptcy, that doesn't exist). Regardless, I suppose the end result should be to make unemployment kick in faster so you don't need an insolvent company to provide a severance they don't have the funds to provide.
zemo 8y ago
game industry workers don't have the same bargaining power that people in other industries have. > "Cash Up Front" ... or immediate stock ownership to offset your personal risk so a grant with no vesting schedule? please enlighten us as to what employers are actually giving out such favorable deals.
- toomuchtodo 8y ago
  Why have game industry workers not unionized? If now isn’t the time, I don’t know when is. EDIT: I stand corrected.
  - zemo 8y ago
    Only 7% of private sector laborers are in a union of any kind in the US. That rate has fallen sharply for several decades, and the political apparatus of the United States, especially the Republican party, has been deliberately eradicating labor unions since WWII. That's the whole "Right to Work" thing. umm, maybe start here and just ... I dunno, click around a bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta...
    - toomuchtodo 8y ago
      There are ongoing efforts to fix this.
  - riffic 8y ago
    Some organizations for the curious. https://www.gameworkersunite.org https://www.gameworkersunite.org https://techworkerscoalition.org https://techworkerscoalition.org https://techsolidarity.org/events.html https://techsolidarity.org/events.html https://siliconvalleyrising.org https://siliconvalleyrising.org https://www.iww.org/pt/unions/dept500/iu560 https://www.iww.org/pt/unions/dept500/iu560
- ericdykstra 8y ago
  I don't mean to be callous, but the game industry is one where much of the benefit comes from the fact that one gets to work on games as opposed to B2B SAAS apps or other banal businesses. In exchange for getting to work on games, you are taking a lower salary, higher competition, and much less stable working environment. It's very similar to sports; there are many more people who want to work in sports than there are jobs available, so the ones that do end up with jobs working for a team are overworked and underpaid despite being in the top single-digit percentile of applicants. I imagine the same is true for other entertainment industries, but I don't know enough about them to comment. There are, of course, people in these industries who do have bargaining power, but it's a very small minority of those with outstanding reputations.
s73v3r_ 8y ago
While I agree, there are probably a handful of people who could actually make that happen. Most others would be told "I'm sorry, the position has been filled." It's a product of the vast power disparity between companies and individuals.

by bb88 8y ago

skh 8y ago

In an ideal world this would be feasible. Few people have the pricing power for their labor to do this. I'd classify what you call a failed business transaction as a failure of government to enact necessary labor laws.

bb88 8y ago
So in a world where there's a glut of labor, you're absolutely right. We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers. And besides, if you explained to the employer the risks you forsee in joining their company, they will most likely understand that reason for asking for a higher salary than the norm.
- HarryHirsch 8y ago
  We, however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers If that's true, why are you folks working in open offices and are wearing noise-cancelling headphones?
  - BigJono 8y ago
    Because the price of rent in major city centres is ludicrous, I assume.
- skh 8y ago
  I’m thinking beyond software engineers. I’m thinking about people who don’t have pricing power for their labor and are not at all in a position to negotiate. They have to rely on government to help them with unequal balance in power when it comes to pricing for their labor.
- speeder 8y ago
  I have a game design degree... And there are waaaaay more of us than there are companies to hire us. I ended working with other things because all game companies I tried wanted to offer minimum wages because there was tons of people trying to get into the industry so no reason to offer more
- pcwalton 8y ago
  There absolutely is far more labor than positions available for game designers. Same for game programmers, many of whom have education and background so specific to games that they are effectively unemployable outside that industry. There are a bunch of schools that train hundreds of students on nothing but how to build high-level game logic in Unity. Almost everyone directly involved in production of game titles (i.e. not middleware) would be financially much better off taking the skills they already have and working in another industry—e.g. management for game designers, tech for programmers—with the possible exceptions of artists and musicians.
  - bb88 8y ago
    To some extent, you're right. Point taken, there is a glut of game engineers. However, your comment about people being virtually unemployable outside the game industry rings hollow. In the course of my career, there have been many people from a variety of backgrounds that became full fledged software engineers. One was a truck driver who became a top Java coder at the company I used to work for. And the game engineer has a step up on that guy, since he actually understands how to code. He just needs to understand the way the web works.
pavlov 8y ago
Yes, this is something that can be fixed by law. At least my native country Finland has a sort of public bankruptcy insurance (“palkkaturva”) that extends automatically to all employees. In the event of a bankruptcy leaving you with unpaid wages, you file an application with the same office that handles unemployment benefits, and they will recompensate you. C-level managers are exempt.
- Aeolun 8y ago
  But taxes!
- sonnyblarney 8y ago
  This is something entirely different. And FYI a strong incentive for companies to never offer any kind of severance in these situations since it's all socialized. Better to just be transparent about things so employees can properly consider the risk in the situation.
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    Better it be required by law and provided by the government than you hoping you'll get severance and being beholden to a company's "generosity", and the company include the additional tax payments as cost of doing business (same as the other employment taxes they're required to pay).
    - sonnyblarney 8y ago
      The issue is severance during company bankruptcy. Nobody ever expects companies to be 'generous' that's not a thing - the issues are in contracts like anything else.
      - toomuchtodo 8y ago
        Severance is never guaranteed though, bankruptcy or otherwise. If a company is going bankrupt, of course they're not going to have the funds to pay severance when closing up shop. Unless I'm misunderstanding the point (and the quotations around generosity were intended to convey that in bankruptcy, that doesn't exist). Regardless, I suppose the end result should be to make unemployment kick in faster so you don't need an insolvent company to provide a severance they don't have the funds to provide.

zemo 8y ago

game industry workers don't have the same bargaining power that people in other industries have. > "Cash Up Front" ... or immediate stock ownership to offset your personal risk so a grant with no vesting schedule? please enlighten us as to what employers are actually giving out such favorable deals.

toomuchtodo 8y ago
Why have game industry workers not unionized? If now isn’t the time, I don’t know when is. EDIT: I stand corrected.
- zemo 8y ago
  Only 7% of private sector laborers are in a union of any kind in the US. That rate has fallen sharply for several decades, and the political apparatus of the United States, especially the Republican party, has been deliberately eradicating labor unions since WWII. That's the whole "Right to Work" thing. umm, maybe start here and just ... I dunno, click around a bit. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_the_United_Sta...
  - toomuchtodo 8y ago
    There are ongoing efforts to fix this.
- riffic 8y ago
  Some organizations for the curious. https://www.gameworkersunite.org https://www.gameworkersunite.org https://techworkerscoalition.org https://techworkerscoalition.org https://techsolidarity.org/events.html https://techsolidarity.org/events.html https://siliconvalleyrising.org https://siliconvalleyrising.org https://www.iww.org/pt/unions/dept500/iu560 https://www.iww.org/pt/unions/dept500/iu560
ericdykstra 8y ago
I don't mean to be callous, but the game industry is one where much of the benefit comes from the fact that one gets to work on games as opposed to B2B SAAS apps or other banal businesses. In exchange for getting to work on games, you are taking a lower salary, higher competition, and much less stable working environment. It's very similar to sports; there are many more people who want to work in sports than there are jobs available, so the ones that do end up with jobs working for a team are overworked and underpaid despite being in the top single-digit percentile of applicants. I imagine the same is true for other entertainment industries, but I don't know enough about them to comment. There are, of course, people in these industries who do have bargaining power, but it's a very small minority of those with outstanding reputations.

s73v3r_ 8y ago

While I agree, there are probably a handful of people who could actually make that happen. Most others would be told "I'm sorry, the position has been filled." It's a product of the vast power disparity between companies and individuals.