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The biggest reason why gamedev jobs tend to have lower pay and more overtime compared to many other swdev jobs is really simple: there are lots of sw devs who a

The biggest reason why gamedev jobs tend to have lower pay and more overtime compared to many other swdev jobs is really simple: there are lots of sw devs who are willing to put up with those conditions because they want to work on games. Also, it's easy to claim that one "wants" to unionize on a survey. But that's quite a bit different from actually doing it. So I would take this survey with a large grain of salt. It's not like most game developers couldn't get other sw dev jobs if they wanted to, after all. If you want to know what people really value, ignore what they say and focus on what they actually do. Disclaimer: have worked for game companies before

sonnyblarney 8y ago
"But that's quite a bit different from actually doing it." I think if most of them could 'tick a box and join the union' they would - whereas actually establishing a union would be hard, yes. There could be some terrible fallout as well - companies shutting down studios and opening up another one elsewhere etc..
- xfitm3 8y ago
  Don’t forget the employees have to pay for the union.
  - vkou 8y ago
    Right now, they pay for not having a union, in dollars, stress, their health, divorce, etc.
    - serf 8y ago
      Some do. Others may lead totally balanced lives, with a fair employer, earning good wages -- a union may serve them only detrimentally. It's not as clear-cut as "unions are always good for all workers."
      - Frondo 8y ago
        Those for whom a union would not be a benefit are so exceedingly few, but this is the standard anti-union message that has been given out for the last 40 years. Game devs are hardest hit by bad conditions, but every worker in every company would benefit from collective negotiation -- use your imagination, you could have a much higher salary, more flexibility in your workplace, more autonomy, you name it. That's what unions do, they let you bargain for the things you can't as an individual. Lamentably, there's still a lot of folks in the software field who see themselves as the rock star, rather than the rank and file. Also lamentably, there's still a lot of perception that a union means: you can't fire dead weight (you can, you just have to follow a process), pay is based on seniority (doesn't have to be, but what's wrong with that anyway? we don't have a good way to measure productivity or value, so what other metric should we use?), that they're corrupt (they're democratic institutions, so they're as corrupt as the members make them), etc. All of it anti-union propaganda that's been working pretty well for the last 40 years.
        RandomTisk 8y ago
        Unions virtually always benefit the worker, the biggest losers if there are some are the community/everyone else.
        Frondo 8y ago
        Yep. It's just frustrating seeing anti-union propaganda repeated, uncritically, unthinkingly, year after year, especially on a forum where people pride themselves on being thoughtful people. Of course unions can be corrupt, but the only thing more corrupt than a union is management.
        sonnyblarney 8y ago
        I don't agree - gaming is notorious and specific for it's bad conditions. People in most tech firms are not clamouring for a union. When people are talking about it, it's for a reason. If you make a movie, everyone involved is 'union'. I don't see why gaming should be any different.
      - 8y ago
  - hinkley 8y ago
    And are expected to participate in voting and walkouts.
jayd16 8y ago
While this is true its not the biggest reason. The game dev cycle is just different than the tech cycle and it opens a window to exploitation. Games releases are seasonal so a common practice is to hire for an xmas release and gut the teams after that. Shady bonus practices are common. You often have very little recourse into how yearly profit is calculated and paid out. The separation of studio managing employees and publishers holding on to IP means that studios can close up shop without the rights holders being liable for any back pay or bonus.
- Terr_ 8y ago
  Sounds like a close parallel to "Hollywood accounting", where nested corporate structures are used -- and abused.
- vkou 8y ago
  This is the correct answer. Management promises a unicorn, works you like a dog, and then pulls the rug out from under you, just before you deliver. Alternatively, if you dig in, and refuse to deal with that bullshit, quitting, or being dismissed for not being a team player, half-way through crunch on a shitty project is a great way to burn bridges in that industry.
  - usefulcat 8y ago
    > Alternatively, if you dig in, and refuse to deal with that bullshit, quitting, or being dismissed for not being a team player, half-way through crunch on a shitty project is a great way to burn bridges in that industry. I don't doubt it, and your comment supports my original point: that there is a surplus of devs willing to tolerate such conditions. If that were not so, quitting would not be near as much of a problem for one's future employment prospects, because employers would not have as many candidates to choose from in the first place.
- solveit 8y ago
  And this is well known, yet people go into game dev anyway because they want to build games.
est31 8y ago
> there are lots of sw devs who are willing to put up with those conditions because they want to work on games. This is exactly the reason why I don't want to pursue a career in game development. I find games exciting but that doesn't make it feel worth to me to make compromises in pay and working conditions. Instead it can just be a hobby.
- cableshaft 8y ago
  I used to be in the game industry. It's now just a hobby for me. If you're willing to work on small games in your spare time, you don't have to kill yourself to work on those things, and can still make things. There are times where I'm tempted to get a full time job in the industry again, but then I read articles like these and I remember why I'm still out. I have nowhere near as much passion about any other industries though, and it can be really hard to keep going to work every day at "corporate job X".
- hinkley 8y ago
  I’m trying to talk my kid into doing FX instead of games, so I get to see him in his twenties. It’s not working so far but he has figured out that EA and Activision are both bad actors.
  - meheleventyone 8y ago
    Presuming you mean TV and movie FX then the working conditions aren’t great there either.
    - ido 8y ago
      Also the huge multinationals are...huge - it varies a lot between different offices and teams. There is no one EA or Activision experience, they are very heterogeneous entities.
meditate 8y ago
I won't even play games anymore because I find those conditions to be deeply disturbing on many levels. I can't in good conscience support these workers grinding themselves to the bone just so I can receive slightly more motor cortex stimulation than I would spending the night on HN. The film industry figured out long ago that they need to treat their employees with respect by giving them predictable hours, fair compensation for overtime, and guarantees that they won't lose health/retirement benefits across projects and studio closures. I do believe the game industry will get there eventually, but it seems it will take a lot of kicking and screaming.
- friendlybus 8y ago
  I don't think that VFX teams have a significantly better time than game devs. They compete for contracts with razor thin margins.
- solipsism 8y ago
  You can't support these workers grinding themselves to the bone? What are you talking about? There's no slavery here. I've been there. Unlike the people making your shoes in Bangladesh, everyone making your games is there because they love it. These are talented individuals who could easily go work in other industries. People in the industry want better conditions, and more power to them. But this is not slave labor and no one is stuck in the game industry. What you're saying is tantamount to not buying a painter's painting because he worked too hard on it. Trust me... the people you think you care about want you to buy the games.
  - flukus 8y ago
    > everyone making your games is there because they love it That's simply not true. I'm sure most of them entered the industry for the love of it, but that doesn't mean they love their current job or being expected to work long hours. > These are talented individuals who could easily go work in other industries. There's a lot of shovelware in the games industry and I doubt many people love working on it. Do you really think the people working at studios churning out hanah montana games love their jobs? At best their hoping to work on something better in future, at worst the probably can't move elsewhere. It can be a lot harder to break out than you think, the type of skills a game developer would have aren't in high demand in a lot of places and they could be missing some important skills used in the the more general industry, like SQL. This is an industry that loves to type cast, even something like getting a c# job as a java developer can be tough. And then you've got the non-developer jobs. Graphic artists, writers and music composers don't have nearly as many options available.
anigbrowl 8y ago
'Work like a slave on something you enjoy or get another job' is a scammy proposition. Games are highly profitable, no reason developers shouldn't negotiate for what their services are worth. Individual negotiation is difficult, collective negotiation is easier.
- taneq 8y ago
  SOME games are highly profitable, and many are borderline and probably wouldn't be profitable without exploiting the devs. I don't like it either, but that's how it is.
- skookumchuck 8y ago
  > Games are highly profitable The gaming industry notoriously wildly swings from boom to bust.
- bb88 8y ago
  If the issue is that someone will always be willing to accept a lower salary to break into the market, well then your fucked. And it's not a case where you have the ability to strike, because if you did, someone will just come along and take your job. The market is trying to tell you something, you just need to listen to it.
gaius 8y ago
most game developers couldn't get other sw dev jobs if they wanted to, after all. The C++ guys working on the engine, sure. But they are a minority and the rest don’t have easily transferable skills.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"But that's quite a bit different from actually doing it." I think if most of them could 'tick a box and join the union' they would - whereas actually establishing a union would be hard, yes. There could be some terrible fallout as well - companies shutting down studios and opening up another one elsewhere etc..

xfitm3 8y ago
Don’t forget the employees have to pay for the union.
- vkou 8y ago
  Right now, they pay for not having a union, in dollars, stress, their health, divorce, etc.
  - serf 8y ago
    Some do. Others may lead totally balanced lives, with a fair employer, earning good wages -- a union may serve them only detrimentally. It's not as clear-cut as "unions are always good for all workers."
    - Frondo 8y ago
      Those for whom a union would not be a benefit are so exceedingly few, but this is the standard anti-union message that has been given out for the last 40 years. Game devs are hardest hit by bad conditions, but every worker in every company would benefit from collective negotiation -- use your imagination, you could have a much higher salary, more flexibility in your workplace, more autonomy, you name it. That's what unions do, they let you bargain for the things you can't as an individual. Lamentably, there's still a lot of folks in the software field who see themselves as the rock star, rather than the rank and file. Also lamentably, there's still a lot of perception that a union means: you can't fire dead weight (you can, you just have to follow a process), pay is based on seniority (doesn't have to be, but what's wrong with that anyway? we don't have a good way to measure productivity or value, so what other metric should we use?), that they're corrupt (they're democratic institutions, so they're as corrupt as the members make them), etc. All of it anti-union propaganda that's been working pretty well for the last 40 years.
      - RandomTisk 8y ago
        Unions virtually always benefit the worker, the biggest losers if there are some are the community/everyone else.
        Frondo 8y ago
        Yep. It's just frustrating seeing anti-union propaganda repeated, uncritically, unthinkingly, year after year, especially on a forum where people pride themselves on being thoughtful people. Of course unions can be corrupt, but the only thing more corrupt than a union is management.
      - sonnyblarney 8y ago
        I don't agree - gaming is notorious and specific for it's bad conditions. People in most tech firms are not clamouring for a union. When people are talking about it, it's for a reason. If you make a movie, everyone involved is 'union'. I don't see why gaming should be any different.
    - 8y ago
- hinkley 8y ago
  And are expected to participate in voting and walkouts.

jayd16 8y ago

While this is true its not the biggest reason. The game dev cycle is just different than the tech cycle and it opens a window to exploitation. Games releases are seasonal so a common practice is to hire for an xmas release and gut the teams after that. Shady bonus practices are common. You often have very little recourse into how yearly profit is calculated and paid out. The separation of studio managing employees and publishers holding on to IP means that studios can close up shop without the rights holders being liable for any back pay or bonus.

Terr_ 8y ago
Sounds like a close parallel to "Hollywood accounting", where nested corporate structures are used -- and abused.
vkou 8y ago
This is the correct answer. Management promises a unicorn, works you like a dog, and then pulls the rug out from under you, just before you deliver. Alternatively, if you dig in, and refuse to deal with that bullshit, quitting, or being dismissed for not being a team player, half-way through crunch on a shitty project is a great way to burn bridges in that industry.
- usefulcat 8y ago
  > Alternatively, if you dig in, and refuse to deal with that bullshit, quitting, or being dismissed for not being a team player, half-way through crunch on a shitty project is a great way to burn bridges in that industry. I don't doubt it, and your comment supports my original point: that there is a surplus of devs willing to tolerate such conditions. If that were not so, quitting would not be near as much of a problem for one's future employment prospects, because employers would not have as many candidates to choose from in the first place.
solveit 8y ago
And this is well known, yet people go into game dev anyway because they want to build games.

est31 8y ago

> there are lots of sw devs who are willing to put up with those conditions because they want to work on games. This is exactly the reason why I don't want to pursue a career in game development. I find games exciting but that doesn't make it feel worth to me to make compromises in pay and working conditions. Instead it can just be a hobby.

cableshaft 8y ago
I used to be in the game industry. It's now just a hobby for me. If you're willing to work on small games in your spare time, you don't have to kill yourself to work on those things, and can still make things. There are times where I'm tempted to get a full time job in the industry again, but then I read articles like these and I remember why I'm still out. I have nowhere near as much passion about any other industries though, and it can be really hard to keep going to work every day at "corporate job X".
hinkley 8y ago
I’m trying to talk my kid into doing FX instead of games, so I get to see him in his twenties. It’s not working so far but he has figured out that EA and Activision are both bad actors.
- meheleventyone 8y ago
  Presuming you mean TV and movie FX then the working conditions aren’t great there either.
  - ido 8y ago
    Also the huge multinationals are...huge - it varies a lot between different offices and teams. There is no one EA or Activision experience, they are very heterogeneous entities.

meditate 8y ago

I won't even play games anymore because I find those conditions to be deeply disturbing on many levels. I can't in good conscience support these workers grinding themselves to the bone just so I can receive slightly more motor cortex stimulation than I would spending the night on HN. The film industry figured out long ago that they need to treat their employees with respect by giving them predictable hours, fair compensation for overtime, and guarantees that they won't lose health/retirement benefits across projects and studio closures. I do believe the game industry will get there eventually, but it seems it will take a lot of kicking and screaming.

friendlybus 8y ago
I don't think that VFX teams have a significantly better time than game devs. They compete for contracts with razor thin margins.
solipsism 8y ago
You can't support these workers grinding themselves to the bone? What are you talking about? There's no slavery here. I've been there. Unlike the people making your shoes in Bangladesh, everyone making your games is there because they love it. These are talented individuals who could easily go work in other industries. People in the industry want better conditions, and more power to them. But this is not slave labor and no one is stuck in the game industry. What you're saying is tantamount to not buying a painter's painting because he worked too hard on it. Trust me... the people you think you care about want you to buy the games.
- flukus 8y ago
  > everyone making your games is there because they love it That's simply not true. I'm sure most of them entered the industry for the love of it, but that doesn't mean they love their current job or being expected to work long hours. > These are talented individuals who could easily go work in other industries. There's a lot of shovelware in the games industry and I doubt many people love working on it. Do you really think the people working at studios churning out hanah montana games love their jobs? At best their hoping to work on something better in future, at worst the probably can't move elsewhere. It can be a lot harder to break out than you think, the type of skills a game developer would have aren't in high demand in a lot of places and they could be missing some important skills used in the the more general industry, like SQL. This is an industry that loves to type cast, even something like getting a c# job as a java developer can be tough. And then you've got the non-developer jobs. Graphic artists, writers and music composers don't have nearly as many options available.

anigbrowl 8y ago

'Work like a slave on something you enjoy or get another job' is a scammy proposition. Games are highly profitable, no reason developers shouldn't negotiate for what their services are worth. Individual negotiation is difficult, collective negotiation is easier.

taneq 8y ago
SOME games are highly profitable, and many are borderline and probably wouldn't be profitable without exploiting the devs. I don't like it either, but that's how it is.
skookumchuck 8y ago
> Games are highly profitable The gaming industry notoriously wildly swings from boom to bust.
bb88 8y ago
If the issue is that someone will always be willing to accept a lower salary to break into the market, well then your fucked. And it's not a case where you have the ability to strike, because if you did, someone will just come along and take your job. The market is trying to tell you something, you just need to listen to it.

gaius 8y ago

most game developers couldn't get other sw dev jobs if they wanted to, after all. The C++ guys working on the engine, sure. But they are a minority and the rest don’t have easily transferable skills.