13 ms·
And yet AFAIK little of that money makes it back to the creators. In the movies hit products pay millions to the stars, millions to the director. In games devs
by tokyodude 8y ago
And yet AFAIK little of that money makes it back to the creators. In the movies hit products pay millions to the stars, millions to the director. In games devs might get a small bonus after lots of overtime.
If I understand correctly it used to be the same in movies until the directors and stars started demanding more. IIRA United Artists was started because of these issues.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Artists https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Artists
Also few games have the budget of movies. There's a few exceptions like say GTA5 or RD2 but mostly title for title game budgets are at least an order of magnitude lower than movies.
- justicezyx 8y agoDevs in gaming industry are like the staff members of a moving shooting crews, they are not comparable to directors.
- vvanders 8y agoOff the top of my head: Carmack, Sweeny, Rami Ismail Could probably come up with many other examples. As someone who did dev in that industry I knew plenty technical people who had a outsized impact on gameplay, tone and style.
- Permit 8y agoHow many average people playing the games know of these people? How many average people watching movies recognize Tom Cruise?
- dfxm12 8y agoWell, I'd agree that John Carmack is more comparable to a film director than a crew member. On the other hand, John Carmack is better compensated for that, as he is worth $40 Million[0], the same as film director Spike Lee[1] (who has been active a bit longer). 0 - https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/business-executives/john-d-carmack-net-worth/ https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-businessmen/busine... 1 - https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/directors/spike-lee-net-worth/ https://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-celebrities/direct...
- phaus 8y agoTheir net worth isn't really comparable though. Spike Lee makes polarizing movies that appeal to niche audiences. Carmack made a couple of the best and most popular games of all time. He also achieved revolutionary technological advances that pushed gaming beyond what people thought was possible on the hardware that existed 3 generations in a row. Arguably 4. Given that the game industry is so large, his net worth should be comparable to lucas, Cameron, or Spielberg. When it comes to excelling in a field, I don't even think Spielberg, Lucas and Cameron compare to Carmack. I can think of some actors that might, such as Daniel-Day Lewis, but not a director.
- Impossible 8y agoCarmack is a hero for a certain generation of programmers, but id's most successful titles in it's heyday would be considered mid-tier indie successes by today's standards. Games derived from idtech (most Call of Duty games, most Valve titles) have seen orders of magnitude more success than anything released by id. I imagine at this point that most of Carmack's networth comes from the sale of id to Zenimax followed by Facebook stock granted for joining Oculus, not from game royalties. Doom and Quake are more niche than many movies Spike Lee has directed if you are outside of a tech/gamer bubble. According to wikipedia Doom as a series has sold 10 million units (by comparison a single Call of Duty game sells 30 million+) and Quake sold 1.1 million units life time (Gone Home sold 700K units). I agree that Carmack's impact and influence on the industry isn't captured in his networth (although really he's still ridiculously rich...)
- gamblor956 8y agoThe average A-list director, of which there are many, makes more than the average Carmack/Sweeny, of which there are far fewer. On the whole, video-gaming profits accrue almost entirely to the investors.
- Impossible 8y agoTim Sweeney's networth is now 7 billion which is higher than James Cameron (700 million) and Steven Spielberg (3.7 billion).
- gamblor956 8y agoAs I stated earlier, Sweeney owns his studio and would be classified as an investor.
- Impossible 8y agoMy comment was a direct response to you having Sweeney's name in the post I responded to, I had not read the earlier post where you mention investor classification. Why use Sweeney as an example if you think he's an exception, which he is.
- PhasmaFelis 8y agoAs I understand it, Hollywood movie crews are still treated a lot better than game devs. There's a reason for that, and it's not because movie producers are nicer than game producers.
- asdjasldkjkljd 8y agoUnions?
- slg 8y agoJust in case anyone doesn't get the implication, the answer is unions. Everyone in Hollywood has a union protecting and fighting for them.
- 1000units 8y agoNerds are very easy to take advantage of.
- 40acres 8y agoI agree with this point. Earlier today I made a similar comment regarding the lack of political strength among software developers, for such a well paid (relative to most Americans) trade, it's hard to name a powerful special interest group for developers. There are lots of theories regarding personality types that lead to speculation of why this is the case, but I'd really like to see some research that digs into this. Labor by developers is becoming more and more valuable, with this you expect more political strength.. but it does not seem to be happening.
- mywittyname 8y agoMost of us believe the world being this meritocracy and we all get what we deserve and work for. And think the only people who would band together are the weak ones that can't compete on merit. People may not agree, but every argument I've heard against unionization contains this sentiment. Even if it isn't expressed so boldly.
- moomin 8y agoYep, plenty of us believe things that are very convenient for our employers. Which is why we earn a historically tiny proportion of the value we add. The truly smart recognise it’s not their co-workers taking money away from them.
- rifung 8y ago> Which is why we earn a historically tiny proportion of the value we add. In capitalism the amount you get paid is dependent on supply and demand. The "value" you add is irrelevant if they could easily replace you with someone else.
- 8y ago
- hnaccy 8y agoThere's plenty of game developers, there's only one Tom Cruise. And there's no path for modern devs to get any sort of selling star power unless they also do game design (Zacktronics, Kojima, etc).
- slg 8y agoThis is being downvoted, but I would curious to hear an argument for why it isn't true. It seems to me the skill set for a star in the movie business is rarer than a skill set for a star in the game industry. Also Tom Cruise isn't only a paid well because because he is a good actor, he is also paid well because he is a movie star. People go to the movies just to see him. Are there many people in the gaming industry that engender that kind of loyalty when they work on a game?
- bluedino 8y agoThere's only 1 Tom Cruise but there's also Keanu, The Rock, Bruce Willias, Jason Statham... There's only one Shigeru Miyamoto.
- gamblor956 8y agoThere's only one Hayao Miyazaki.
- oxide 8y agoAlso only one Hidetaka Miyazaki. the impact these people have is not entirely reflective by their salary, rather it is their status and reputation among the game purchasing public that tends to reflect their contributions to any given game development project
- rifung 8y agoI mean the reality is that developers can only have a limited impact on a game. People don't play a game because it's got 100% code coverage and the greatest end to end tests. Most of the time people play a game because it's fun. Programmers don't make games fun; it's the game designers that make it fun. Sure the game would not exist without programmers, but you can take one set of programmers and replace it with another set and largely the game will be the same to the players, assuming the skills/experience of the programmers are similar. In a way, programmers are necessary, but the most they can do is stop the game from completely falling apart. It's the game designers that have a much greater potential to make a game great.
- vvanders 8y agoAs someone who spent a bit of time in that industry the best way I've been able to describe it is a production schedule that looks like film but with a financial structure closer to the music industry. Your studio gets an 'advance' on development with milestones and the like. Only after you've paid back your advance + more do you start seeing royalties come to the studio. That advance allotment also usually includes the marketing budget which can be as much or more than the studio dev cost. Studio employees are usually a tier below that as well, in my time I never saw a penny of royalties, bonuses or the like. Combined with a pay that's 40-70% below standard dev rates it's not really a great industry if you live in a high cost of living area.
- leereeves 8y agoGames have the equivalent of directors who receive millions, like Sid Meier, Tim Sweeny, John Carmack, Gabe Newell, Markus Persson. And movies have the equivalent of underpaid overworked devs: extras and grips and so on.
- mywittyname 8y agoI feel like the programmers and artists are far more important to a game than the grips and extras are to a movie. For sure, there are some programmers and artists that work on trivial grunt work, but I'd absolutely consider lead P&As to be the equivalent to star actors. If you change any one of them out, you'll probably end up with a very different game feel.
- tachyonbeam 8y agoThe movie equivalent of devs is probably set builders, prop builders, people working on visual effects, costume design and artistic makeup. These are highly skilled jobs, but these people are considered replaceable by the movie executives, and so are not paid millions. The same can be said for devs. If you want to be paid a lot, you have to convince people that you are not replaceable.
- krapp 8y ago>If you change any one of them out, you'll probably end up with a very different game feel. The feel of the game is created through the cinemtography, sound, visual effects, assets, acting, etc. The only way programmers actually have an effect on the way the game feels to the player is if they screw up and introduce some game breaking bugs or fail to implement face rigging properly or something like that. Otherwise, no, I'm sorry, but programmers are to modern games what production staff are to movies. Necessary, but utterly inconsequential in terms of the value of the final product for the consumer.
- mywittyname 8y agoTake Fallout 3/4 and New Vegas. The concepts for the games were largely the same, so was the initial tooling. The difference was the development teams. The games have a completely different feel. Dev teams are not interchangable cogs. Different developers will have different ideas for solutions to problems, game mechanics, etc. And different artists will create a completely different assets, even if given the same themes to work with.
- EpicEng 8y agoNo one is buying a game because Joe Programmer worked on the network stack. People often see movies simply because they like the lead actor/actress. Additionally, programmers are not directors, and the vast majority of them are not akin to movie stars. This analogy fails on many levels.
- metalliqaz 8y agoBut it doesn't necessarily mean that devs aren't underpaid for what they produce.
- kbar13 8y agoYes, but devs are a lot more replaceable than stars, whose faces and performance represent the movie
- stcredzero 8y agoAre they, though? It's more that the causal connection is more obvious. The audience can immediately see the face has changed. However, bugs and missing features are just as loudly complained about. It just takes longer to notice, and the audience lingers on in dissatisfaction a bit longer. People caught onto this in comic books, however. There are savvy readers who follow writers and artists, not characters. There are savvy fans of Anime who do this as well. There are even people who do this with books and movies. There are some gamers who do this with games. Same old story. There are those fooled by surfaces, and those who try to see beneath them.
- krapp 8y ago>There are savvy readers who follow writers and artists, not characters. There are savvy fans of Anime who do this as well. There are even people who do this with books and movies. There are some gamers who do this with games. Yes, but game developers aren't the ones doing the art, or writing, for games.
- AmVess 8y agoWriters get paid very little, too. There are outliers, but for the most part, scripts demand very little money even when they are turned into movies. Writing staff on hit tv shows also don't see the monetary gain that actors do unless they own the production, which is rare.
- gamblor956 8y agoI'm not sure who told you that but they clearly are unfamiliar with the WGA minimums... Writers get paid a minimum of $500k for a Hollywood film with a budget of $5 million or more. TV writers for broadcast and cable make a minimum of $75k per episode regardless of budget. In both cases, this does not include royalties.
- AmVess 8y agoI am looking at the WGA contract...that's where I get my info from. Your average staff writer gets nowhere near $75k per episode. A bit above $4k which is a far cry from $75,000.
- gamblor956 8y agoYou must be looking at the wrong contract. I've a good number of friends who are WGA members and they've all been able to buy houses with the earnings from a single scripted episode of a broadcast network show based solely on the WGA negotiated amounts. They're all just parts of the writer's room, not show runners.
- rifung 8y agoI'm not sure this analogy works though because the difference is that most game developers could choose to work in a different industry with the same skill set and make a lot more. They nevertheless choose to be there and there are plenty of people who are willing to take their spots if they don't want to be there. I'm guessing once people get fed up enough they just leave which is much easier than forming some kind of special interest group or union.
- aczerepinski 8y agoA quick google search says game developers make around $100k. That's a lot more than what the bottom 99% of musicians and actors make. Let me know when there's a star developer who's name on the front of a video game cover will guarantee a moderate number of sales no matter how bad the game is. That's when the comparison against the top 0.1% of actors will make sense.
- redblacktree 8y agoSid Meier?
- rc_hadoken 8y agoHideo Kojima...but he's never been fully involved in a bad title I have actually played.
- detritus 8y agoPeter Molyneux, or at least the Studios he headed... ...until he finally oversold his overselling, that is.
- krapp 8y ago> A quick google search says game developers make around $100k. That's a lot more than what the bottom 99% of musicians and actors make. I seriously doubt most game developers make anywhere near that.
- vvanders 8y agoYeah, no where close to that. Entry level is around 30-40k, after a 3-5 years you can be expecting 50-60k if you're lucky. There are exceptions but I saw my salary double when I left the industry and from talking with other people it seemed like a pretty common pattern. FWIW games follows the 90/10 rule(90% of revenue goes to 10% of the market) so while the 100k average may be "accurate" it doesn't paint a clear picture.
- maxerickson 8y ago
- Impossible 8y agoAt the super high end Tim Sweeney and Gabe Newell are both billionaires on the Forbes list, but they are both owners and founders of their respective companies so that's a little different than director. Jason West and Vince Zampella (directors of Call of Duty) had 36 million in owed royalties for Modern Warfare 2, the Housers who are directors of GTA and RDR get millions in royalties, etc. Anyone that has made a popular indie game (like one that people have heard of) has made millions. Your average game industry employee is not equivalent to directors and stars in movies though. They're much closer to employees/contractors at visual effects companies or grips, none of them are getting millions even on the biggest films. At least as a mid-tier engineer on a hit AAA game you can get total compensation equal to or better than big tech pays in some cases, and as an artist you can make more than you would in film with more stability.
- SeanBoocock 8y agoThis is a good description and aligns with my experience of the last decade or so in the industry. VFX for films is the closest to games but I would sooner work in games as an engineer than VFX in terms of compensation or job stability.
- Sileni 8y agoWe really messed up the "superstar" aspect early on. Anyone else remember John Romero? He single-handedly made an entire industry reconsider "Great man theory". After that, the idea of the "rock star developer" sort of died in gaming.
- conanbatt 8y agoHow is your gaming union going to make international developers and game designers of the entire world stop producing games at heavily discounted rates?
- justtopost 8y agoAs a musician, who has also worked on film, lmao. We don't see much money either. Not everyone is a star.
- shmerl 8y agoAvoiding publishers is one way to deal with it. Crowdfunded gaming has grown, but it also hit certain ceiling. Companies like inXile, Obsidian and Compulsion Games were using crowdfunding, but got swallowed by MS apparently because they couldn't sustain projects of the size they wanted to, using just crowdfunded money. It's a problem really.
- tokyodude 8y agoAdd this in, a talk from 2004 by Jason Rubin https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhmYENdFZc8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhmYENdFZc8 I see lots of replies that a network programmer is not a name to anyone. To that I'd say that's a strawman. People, the game director, the art director, maybe the lead programmer, are all people that generally have a reputation for making hits. They arguably deserve at least as much credit as Sorkin or Spielberg or Fincher. The talk about points out no one cared about directors until the directors started doing their own PR and then eventually convincing the powers that be that promoting the staff "You'll love this new game because it's made by the director of the last game you loved" is a huge marketing advantage.