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> For many kids who grew up with controllers in their hands, being a game developer is a dream job, so when it comes to talent, supply is higher than demand Th

by CM30 8y ago

> For many kids who grew up with controllers in their hands, being a game developer is a dream job, so when it comes to talent, supply is higher than demand This is basically the reason for low wages in quite a few 'passion' driven industries. If a job is something enough people want to do, then talent is cheap and plentiful and companies can provide low wages and poor conditions that for every person who quits, ten more are lining up for the 'opportunity'. You can see this in all manner of arts or entertainment based fields, since there are far more people wanting to become artists/musicians/writers/whatever than there is demand for their services. You can see it in journalism, where in many cases organisations will try and get work done for free, and will pay so little that living off said wages is virtually impossible in a major city if you don't have a trust fund (though admittedly the huge increase in competition from the internet puts pressure there). And I even recall people saying it's one reason teaching wages aren't too high either. Unionisation may help, but the only practical solution is for people to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of 'passion', and to go where their skills are appreciated/where they're treated better/fairly compensated.

monsieurbanana 8y ago
That's only one half of the solution, the other half is taking into consideration that there's less demand for video games critics than there's people wanting to do it, and possibly choose another less crowded career.
- CM30 8y ago
  Well, the article mostly focused on game development rather than game journalism, but you're right, both fields have many of the same issues. In fact, video game journalism may be the worst of both the game development and media worlds, since it's got all the downsides of both (low pay, long hours, unstable employment, companies struggling) plus an endless supply of newcomers who (like with game development) think it'll be their dream job. Oh, and the basic skill requirements to get employed are really low too. So it's like a minimum wage career people are passionate about getting into where pretty much anyone can do the work.
  - bena 8y ago
    Games journalism is filled with people who want to work "in games" and know they aren't capable of actually making games.
r_smart 8y ago
|Unionisation may help By restricting the supply of talent, thus artificially driving up wages, but at the same time keeping a lot of people from being able to pursue their dream.
- merpnderp 8y ago
  A lot of people from pursuing their dream who would be willing to do it for less. That's always the crux of unions, is the people left at zero wages who were willing to do the exact same work for less wages than the current person with the job.
- pmyteh 8y ago
  Only if union membership is both required and restricted. In each of my workplaces, union membership has been optional and open to anyone who works there. It's weaker bargaining-wise than a closed shop with entry requirements, but we've still been able to collectively negotiate to better outcomes (the current round is UCU's dispute with the universities and their pension fund over proposed changes to the pension scheme, which we look to be fighting off).
  - r_smart 8y ago
    Fair enough. I'm used to union arrangements where membership is required for the given profession, which is pretty common in the US. There's been a movement to right to work, but even then, the non-union employees are forced to abide by the union negotiated contract, which is bullshit.
    - vkou 8y ago
      > There's been a movement to right to work By which you mean, there's been a movement by employers towards the right to work for less. > but even then, the non-union employees are forced to abide by the union negotiated contract, which is bullshit. What's bullshit is that non-union employees get the same benefits that a union fought for, without having to do any work to get them.
watwut 8y ago
Part of the problem is that while there is a lot of emphasis on "following passion", "dreams" and "sacrificing for the project", there is very little emphasis on "actual working conditions", "reality of that dream" and "impact of such sacrifice" (or whether it is even reasonable). It is changing a bit lately but to large extend, going through deadmarches was/is bragpoint. It gives you credibility and proves you are passionate. Ability to say no and negotiating for good conditions, scope control and good treatment is framed as weakness or laziness.
yomly 8y ago
Can confirm this having accidentally ended up working in the Media industry (in a non-passion capacity). More pertinently, I know someone trying to get an entry level role in a similar passion field and is struggling. Adding to the problem is: - Passion fields are quite insular and like to only hire from within the industry - Nepotism is everywhere. In something like art, hiring so and so's son/daughter may cost you $30k but could close you a $10M deal which is good business - Pulling up the ladder culture: "well I had to go through XYZ to get where I am so I don't see why this new person shouldn't also have to do it and maybe a bit more" I think the real problem is we've somehow managed to glamorize work as an end rather than a means. Is spending the first 5-10 years of your working career doing grunt work which could be making coffee and doing photocopying really "living the dream"?
- hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
  > Nepotism is everywhere. In something like art, hiring so and so's son/daughter may cost you $30k but could close you a $10M deal which is good business This is so true, and why you always see royals/semi-royals/royal-hangers-on work in a gallery/auction/museum capacity.
  - 4RealFreedom 8y ago
    I worked for a large cable company and nepotism was rampant there as well. It seems that if money is involved then nepotism follows.
    - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
      Yes, nepotism is everywhere, but I would argue that for some of these very insular sectors like art, many jobs exist solely so they can be filled with the relatives of rich potential clients. That's slightly different than some management job being filled by someone who may be less qualified but is still expected to do the work.
  - ohaideredevs 8y ago
    That's the main appeal of being a dev by far - they can't just hire an incompetent family member, no matter how much they want to. They do put them through the best schools and coding classes to hire them, but they still need.someone.competent.
luiscleto 8y ago
> Unionisation may help, but the only practical solution is for people to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of 'passion', and to go where their skills are appreciated/where they're treated better/fairly compensated This. Unionisation is basically an attempt to reject the reality that there isn't enough demand for all that labor to be valuable at/above market-average. Ultimately I don't think there is a right answer and which way you choose is up to you. But it sounds like a "you can't have your cake and eat it too" situation. Lucky are those who are passionate about things the majority of the labor pool hates but many businesses need. Edit: Just to prevent misunderstandings, this is my opinion on Unionisation in this particular industry where there are many (private) companies. It can be a different story if your only employers are not driven by profits and losses or are not in a competitive market (e.g. a government) and I wasn't trying to make a sweeping generic statement like "all unions are always bad"
- ghaff 8y ago
  You don't need to look any further than the film/TV industry in the US. There are any number of guilds with various rules and minimum pay scales, etc. It doesn't keep countless people from waiting tables in LA hoping for their big break.
  - departure 8y ago
    I think developers are more like the background technical staff and startup founders are the big name actor equivalents. Founders move to SF, work hard, and generally struggle trying to become Zuckerburg as much as LA actors trying to become Chris Pratt. But for every movie with the Micheal Bay or The Rock there are hundreds of unionized workers creating the explosions, car chases, and sets in the background. Just like developers they're the ones that make the production work but no one knows our name. (with few exceptions like John Carmack, but then again there are special effects experts with tv shows)
  - themoonbus 8y ago
    The job of the guild / union isn't to give everyone a job who wants one, though. It's to ensure that people who have a job are treated fairly.
neves 8y ago
The greatest difference is that in arts and journalism the companies are struggling. The videogame game industry have its troubles, but is full of money.
derefr 8y ago
> the only practical solution is for people to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of 'passion' So the “practical” solution is to change human nature? That doesn’t sound right. It’d be like saying that the practical solution to human trafficking is for people to stop visiting prostitutes; or that the solution to gangs’ drug income is for people to stop buying drugs. In all these cases, you can quash supply; or you can constrain and regulate the way that the supply supplies, so that it doesn’t hurt people in the process; but—even in the most totalitarian state you can imagine—you can’t quash demand. Humans gonna want what humans gonna want. In this case, the demand is “the ability to express myself to a huge audience.” People are willing to pay to do that. Because of that, they see any job where they get to do it as a net positive, even if the job is horrible. Because, in essence, they’re taking the original trade they had in mind (paying to reach an audience) and then balancing out an increase in the troublesomeness of doing that, with a payment for dealing with that troublesomeness that moves the needle all the way from “paying for” to “being paid for.”
- mdale 8y ago
  +1
- travbrack 8y ago
  Careful with those analogies
- slg 8y ago
  >In this case, the demand is “the ability to express myself to a huge audience.” People are willing to pay to do that. Because of that, they see any job where they get to do it as a net positive, even if the job is horrible. This is true for any job that is just an extension of a hobby. People put on local community theater productions in their spare time because they find it fun and fulfilling. You don't have to pay people to do that, so the pay for people to do it professionally would naturally be low in a free market system. Do you know another profession like that? Software development. People spend countless hours working on open source software for free just because they like it. The open source community saves businesses billions in labor costs every year. Would anyone suggest we get rid of the open source community so developers could be better compensated? We are just lucky enough that the global demand for general software development is much higher than the demand for video game development or theater/TV/movies that it can offset these other factors.
sizzle 8y ago
Will the influx of bootcamp grads cause the same effect on the supply and demand of developers?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- grigjd3 8y ago
  I have my doubts. Maybe a bootcamp can prep someone to make apps (though I know very little about mobile app development), but at least in my job, I need a pretty in-depth understanding of how technology works. It's not enough to have used Spark a few times but I really need to know what it's good at and what it lacks and I need this understanding across all my tools. I need to know at least the basics of the implementation and to have that understanding across all my tools, I have to have a pretty strong theoretical grounding that I just don't see the bootcamps providing. Like maybe a few really bright people figure that out while in bootcamp, but I suspect most don't.
  - kzzzznot 8y ago
    What field do you work in? In app and web dev this theoretical grounding is less important.
paulddraper 8y ago
Teaching is another such job.
Quarrelsome 8y ago
Personally I would argue that in terms of education we need to encourage academia to give students a cash cow to milk prior to chasing their passion. Learn the basics of a trade, THEN you can do Drama. There's this dreamy state of mind that bets way too much on making it and its important that "the worst case scenario" for an actor not making it isn't a dead-end job but a trade/profession they can also excel at.
jes5199 8y ago
This effect hits non-profit organizations really hard - people feel like they need to suffer to earn the right to make the world a better place, but the overall effect is that non-profit workers lead precarious lives, and their effectiveness suffers due to this instability. People with the ability to fix organizational dysfunction can rarely continue to make those wages, and so they move into for-profit industry. This is not a good way to run a society.
AWildC182 8y ago
To add to your list, aerospace is a big one. For senior stuff they usually pay ok but especially entry level jobs, even in software, they know that everyone wants to build jets, rockets, and satellites.
hackyhawk 8y ago
"Success often leads to passion." - The TechLead
- chrshawkes 8y ago
  when?
doctorpangloss 8y ago
I don’t know, I think Jason knows a lot more about this stuff than we do. The supply/demand thing, I wish he omitted because it lets people look at things way too reductionist. It’s actually very difficult to look at a salary and have that tell you something about supply and demand for a job. It’s obviously not that simple. In particular, it would be impossible to look at that figure and try to make heads or tails of what the “supply and demand” for executives is, because they’re paid so much radically differently. And yet accelerators churn out CEOs every day! You’d point out that I’m asking the wrong question, “it’s not about supply and demand when it comes to executive pay.” I agree, and I don’t think it’s about supply and demand for game developer pay either. From a strictly economic point of view, the bonus system is very distorting. You get paid a huge bonus if your game gets a lot of units sold after your crunch time. However, since the publishers own the studios now, that doesn’t happen as much, and the bonuses go to the “shareholder” (ie the CEO and other highly stock compensated executives). Seems like exactly the sort of thing a union could negotiate! But making the low line developer sound like the antagonist? “People to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of ‘passion.’” Like I know you didn’t mean to sound like the bad guy, but is your line of argument really to ignore how economic structures in the industry underpay people, and instead it’s the underpaid people’s fault for being passionate?
- luiscleto 8y ago
  > I don’t think it’s about supply and demand for game developer pay either If there was a shortage of game developers, employers would be forced to give much better benefits and compensation to retain and hire staff (and probably there would be a lot less games and studios). There may be more to the analysis, but I don't agree that you can ignore supply and demand and turn this into just oppressor greedy guy vs oppressed exploited worker instead.
  - doctorpangloss 8y ago
    I don't want to make it reductionist at all, you're right. A more enlightened view of compensation, if you need a more general economic way of looking at it, is: "In a world where most of economic value exists in human relationships or in computation, compensation is more about (1) how accounting reflects that economic reality, and (2) how well the compensated individual extracts accounting value from whatever big picture the accountants came up with." In that sense, unions are exactly the remedy, because they negotiate how these employees are paid relative to the accounting value of their business. It's all accounting! I can't emphasize this enough--you can pay the employees 2x as much, or 10x as much, or 1/2x as much, and Fortnite will be EXACTLY as fun as it is now. That's what people are outraged about. This is totally unlike another notoriously unionized industry, autos, where a lot of the value is tied up in really objective, physical stuff like gas mileage or maintenance. Most of the economic value of Fortnite is in the experiences it makes between friends and the computer code consistently delivering that experience, whether on your phone or in the servers. Supply/demand as the framework is kind of a stupid point of view. We can't listen to too many finance/economics people, especially the rich ones we actually hear from as opposed to the poor ones who may be right but whom we don't give a shit about. The rich ones aren't in the ground level of humanity anymore. That's what the perspective on HN is really about: sorting out which rich person you agree with. But if you want to do the right thing, you unionize because it will get these people paid better and feel happier at basically no economic cost.
TallGuyShort 8y ago
I think the other dimension here is the number of people who equate passion with qualification. They enter the industry thinking that a lifetime of playing video games qualifies them, whereas you actually end up needing strong software engineering skills, often with an emphasis in graphics and other math-heavy niches, a strong work ethic and many other qualities. Passion helps. Years of being a customer helps. Doesn't replace other qualifications, though. I've seen more than a few friends on the losing end of some miserable attempts to create their own video game company (or graphic design business, photography business, etc.) because they equated interest with immediate ability.
gregcrv 8y ago
The other practical solution is basic income. In a basic income society people can do (if they want) the jobs they have a passion for without poor conditions. And people who will want a higher income will do the jobs that a few people can do (highly skilled jobs..), or wants to do (picking up garbage, cleaning toilets...). These jobs will probably have much better conditions than now.
- jquery 8y ago
  Who is going to pick up garbage in a basic income society and why? Don’t be surprised if you have to pay these people radically more than they are currently paid. In which case COL goes up significantly and the basic income doesn’t go as far and we are back to square one.
  - Retra 8y ago
    "Millionaires don't exist, because who would ever want more money?"
    - jquery 8y ago
      Are you suggesting garbage men will be millionaires? When we're talking about spending trillions and fundamentally changing the relationship between citizens, their government, and work, platitudes convince nobody but the choir.
      - Retra 8y ago
        No, I'm saying people will continue to be garbage men because they want more money. Basic income is not going to stop people from wanting more money.
sokoloff 8y ago
> the only practical solution is for people to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of 'passion', and to go where their skills are appreciated/where they're treated better/fairly compensated. I worked a couple years in game industry (shipping an auto racing game for Playstation and contributing to a few other titles; I did sleep under my desk a few nights during crunch time so we'd have a demo ready for E3). My overall experience was amazing. I have a passion for motorsports and loved gaming as a kid. Part of the overall enjoyment (read: value proposition) I derived from that position was that it was in motorsports and gaming. I loved going into a computer store and seeing "my" game on the shelf. I look forward to showing my kids the game [that will look like crap now by comparison]. (I also, without any hard feelings, left the industry because it was clear that it wasn't going to get me where I wanted to be financially.) I don't think that people should be prevented (or even shamed) for taking on work that they are passionate about. I'm glad I did it; I had some great experiences [spending Speedweek in the hot pits as a business trip is great], worked with some amazingly talented and passionate people, and took away some great memories before moving on(/selling out? :) ).
- marcelr 8y ago
  You seem like the exception rather than the rule.. I don't think anyone is suggesting people not follow their passions, its more about people not knowing what they're getting themselves into most of the time.
  - whyaduck 8y ago
    If they were unionized it would be much easier to understand what they're getting themselves into. Union contracts are typically public, unambiguous and well enforced; certainly better than relying on "company policy" to judge what work conditions will be like.
  - bena 8y ago
    Consider this though, he's not doing that now. He did that when he was young, dumb, and full of dreams... He couldn't sustain that lifestyle. We do sort of glorify the past and lionize struggle as if there were some nobility to it. There's not. There's no inherent nobility in struggling or being ignorant. Being a dumb kid willing to work awful hours for worse pay to get out a demo in time is not an ideal to strive towards.
Balgair 8y ago
For an example of unionization and certification issues that deal with this, look at the medical field. There are many more people that want to be doctors than there are spots in med schools (US-centric view point here). The AMA artificially keeps the enrollment numbers at med-schools low, so as to drive demand for doctors in general and therefore, increase their wages. The AMA is well aware of the current shortage of pediatricians and over-abundance of cardiologists. Though the employment dynamics of literal brain-surgeons are a bit different teachers or gig-bassists, they do largely follow the same patterns in terms of pay. Granted, most MDs in the US really are very good at their jobs, so I'm not all that put-off when they literally save the lives of my loved ones (money has no value there). Compare this to nurses and their employment dynamics. Phlebotomists aren't paid badly, but they aren't paid well either. Their shifts are hectic, long, and erratic. Hospice nursing in the US is nearly criminal in it's underpayment and overwork, especially for the emotional labor that goes into it. The reason here is that there is a vast oversupply of people that want to be nurses and in medicine. The core issue with both cases is that such jobs provide meaning to people that want to do those jobs. They trade off different things for that value. MDs trade their 20s and a lottery ticket into med school for that meaning in their lives, nurses trade comfort and pay for that meaning in their lives. MDs have what amounts to a very strong union, nurses (generally, but there are many exceptions in the US) do not have as strong of a union. Generally, any profession that provides meaning in the life of a human will either be very underpaid/overworked OR will have a very strong union/credentialing system to pass before becoming employed. We all regress to the same level of misery.
- lurquer 8y ago
  A more accurate term for what is 'required' is a Guild. Medicine and Law are the last two examples in the US. It is a crime to practice law or medicine without a license. And, for the most part, the amount of licenses dispensed each year is left up to the practitioners' professional association. In short, you'd want to make it illegal to program for pay (or to distribute free software) without being a member of the guild. That will never happen -- thank goodness. But, it is the model that allowed the economy to chug along through the Middle Ages.
  - 8y ago
SilasX 8y ago
In economics, there's the concept of a compensating differential[1]: when two jobs require the same skill and training, but one has an unpleasant aspect, so you have to pay people more to take that one. The canonical example would be window washers on the ground level vs for a high-rise building. The latter -- even with appropriate safety measures -- is scarier, so they make more, as people willing to go up in those things are harder to find. You can also have a negative compensating differential, where the job is so desirable that people take a lower wage to work in it, which is what's going on in the game industry; compared to developers and QA for other industries, they make less. Another example might be astronauts, which make a lot less compared jobs requiring similar qualifications (i.e. extensive education, training, memorization, and fitness). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential
samstave 8y ago
Also, there are a crap ton of people who think lazily: “i love playing video games / i am so good at playing video games, that i should be a game designer. Look at how stupid these developers are compared to me!!” Ive known several of this type. And they are terrible at understanding the grueling tediousness it takes to develop a good game. Basically they operate on the superficial end of things and think they can grok the actual reqs to develop something. (Same thing with pipe dream “app designers”)
3minus1 8y ago
> artists/musicians/writers/whatever I've met a lot of girls who want to be fashion designers, and a lot of guys who want to be sports announcers.
munk-a 8y ago
It's weird but even in sub-sectors of the gaming industry (like server/back end developers which are in permanent short supply) the experience of working in that industry is terrible - there is a general assumption that if people actually might enjoy part of their job you should treat them like crap. So, I partially agree but there is another factor there.
WalterBright 8y ago
> teaching wages On the other hand, the retirement and health care packages for public school teachers is quite generous
- fredophile 8y ago
  Retirement benefits for government employees typically also rely on the current government adequately funding those liabilities. There are several examples of governments that consistently failed to do this and then reducing those benefits when they need to be paid out.
  - WalterBright 8y ago
    Another way of saying that is the benefits package is so large it often throws the city/state government into a crisis.
WalterBright 8y ago
Pay for pilots is also poor. I've seen the sentiment from fighter pilots many times: "I can't believe they're paying me to fly!" Being a pilot is not only a dream job, it's high status.
crowdpleaser 8y ago
+1. Many of us working jobs we don't really have 'passion' for are doing it to fund the things we are passionate about. I really hate it when people talk about how they need public subsidies to follow their self-gratifying dream, like that money comes from people who aren't following their dream. I'm not going to work harder on stuff I don't like to support you having fun.
cgag 8y ago
The solution is lowering the salary of jobs in the field until people stop applying. It's already solved.
conanbatt 8y ago
Adam Smith literally mentions that wages and profits of industries where people can do it as a hobby, for pleasure, or part time, will go down. 1776.
bsanr2 8y ago
I don't think that's necessarily true. Sports are another passion-driven job thay many, many more people want to do than are able to. Unions are the answer, but not just because they're effective tools for equalizing relative leverage between labor and owners. It's because unionization engenders a self-respect for one's employment - "THIS job that I do in particular" - that forces cooperation from management. It helps in this analogy that athletes are bona fide top-of-the-class performers, but the success of unions in other creative areas, including ones involving only moderate skill, shows that this principle extends further than that. When people leave for greener pastures, they take their experience with them. There is no one that knows the tricks management uses to squeeze working hours out of employees (often unjustly and unfruitfully). The real solution is to unionize and force management to weed out the incompetence that creates inefficiencies that crunch is used to correct. Contrary to popular belief, unionization has thr potential to increase overall expertise.
RobLach 8y ago
What is life if getting rid of passion is sensible? It's a better goal to create systems where passions can flourish.
- chii 8y ago
  passion isn't always productive to society. Some passion is, but i would argue most passion isn't. That's just simple economics, and i dont think humanity can get away from that - at least, not until we reach post-scarcity.

by CM30 8y ago

monsieurbanana 8y ago

That's only one half of the solution, the other half is taking into consideration that there's less demand for video games critics than there's people wanting to do it, and possibly choose another less crowded career.

CM30 8y ago
Well, the article mostly focused on game development rather than game journalism, but you're right, both fields have many of the same issues. In fact, video game journalism may be the worst of both the game development and media worlds, since it's got all the downsides of both (low pay, long hours, unstable employment, companies struggling) plus an endless supply of newcomers who (like with game development) think it'll be their dream job. Oh, and the basic skill requirements to get employed are really low too. So it's like a minimum wage career people are passionate about getting into where pretty much anyone can do the work.
- bena 8y ago
  Games journalism is filled with people who want to work "in games" and know they aren't capable of actually making games.

r_smart 8y ago

|Unionisation may help By restricting the supply of talent, thus artificially driving up wages, but at the same time keeping a lot of people from being able to pursue their dream.

merpnderp 8y ago
A lot of people from pursuing their dream who would be willing to do it for less. That's always the crux of unions, is the people left at zero wages who were willing to do the exact same work for less wages than the current person with the job.
pmyteh 8y ago
Only if union membership is both required and restricted. In each of my workplaces, union membership has been optional and open to anyone who works there. It's weaker bargaining-wise than a closed shop with entry requirements, but we've still been able to collectively negotiate to better outcomes (the current round is UCU's dispute with the universities and their pension fund over proposed changes to the pension scheme, which we look to be fighting off).
- r_smart 8y ago
  Fair enough. I'm used to union arrangements where membership is required for the given profession, which is pretty common in the US. There's been a movement to right to work, but even then, the non-union employees are forced to abide by the union negotiated contract, which is bullshit.
  - vkou 8y ago
    > There's been a movement to right to work By which you mean, there's been a movement by employers towards the right to work for less. > but even then, the non-union employees are forced to abide by the union negotiated contract, which is bullshit. What's bullshit is that non-union employees get the same benefits that a union fought for, without having to do any work to get them.

watwut 8y ago

Part of the problem is that while there is a lot of emphasis on "following passion", "dreams" and "sacrificing for the project", there is very little emphasis on "actual working conditions", "reality of that dream" and "impact of such sacrifice" (or whether it is even reasonable). It is changing a bit lately but to large extend, going through deadmarches was/is bragpoint. It gives you credibility and proves you are passionate. Ability to say no and negotiating for good conditions, scope control and good treatment is framed as weakness or laziness.

yomly 8y ago

Can confirm this having accidentally ended up working in the Media industry (in a non-passion capacity). More pertinently, I know someone trying to get an entry level role in a similar passion field and is struggling. Adding to the problem is: - Passion fields are quite insular and like to only hire from within the industry - Nepotism is everywhere. In something like art, hiring so and so's son/daughter may cost you $30k but could close you a $10M deal which is good business - Pulling up the ladder culture: "well I had to go through XYZ to get where I am so I don't see why this new person shouldn't also have to do it and maybe a bit more" I think the real problem is we've somehow managed to glamorize work as an end rather than a means. Is spending the first 5-10 years of your working career doing grunt work which could be making coffee and doing photocopying really "living the dream"?

hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
> Nepotism is everywhere. In something like art, hiring so and so's son/daughter may cost you $30k but could close you a $10M deal which is good business This is so true, and why you always see royals/semi-royals/royal-hangers-on work in a gallery/auction/museum capacity.
- 4RealFreedom 8y ago
  I worked for a large cable company and nepotism was rampant there as well. It seems that if money is involved then nepotism follows.
  - hn_throwaway_99 8y ago
    Yes, nepotism is everywhere, but I would argue that for some of these very insular sectors like art, many jobs exist solely so they can be filled with the relatives of rich potential clients. That's slightly different than some management job being filled by someone who may be less qualified but is still expected to do the work.
- ohaideredevs 8y ago
  That's the main appeal of being a dev by far - they can't just hire an incompetent family member, no matter how much they want to. They do put them through the best schools and coding classes to hire them, but they still need.someone.competent.

luiscleto 8y ago

> Unionisation may help, but the only practical solution is for people to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of 'passion', and to go where their skills are appreciated/where they're treated better/fairly compensated This. Unionisation is basically an attempt to reject the reality that there isn't enough demand for all that labor to be valuable at/above market-average. Ultimately I don't think there is a right answer and which way you choose is up to you. But it sounds like a "you can't have your cake and eat it too" situation. Lucky are those who are passionate about things the majority of the labor pool hates but many businesses need. Edit: Just to prevent misunderstandings, this is my opinion on Unionisation in this particular industry where there are many (private) companies. It can be a different story if your only employers are not driven by profits and losses or are not in a competitive market (e.g. a government) and I wasn't trying to make a sweeping generic statement like "all unions are always bad"

ghaff 8y ago
You don't need to look any further than the film/TV industry in the US. There are any number of guilds with various rules and minimum pay scales, etc. It doesn't keep countless people from waiting tables in LA hoping for their big break.
- departure 8y ago
  I think developers are more like the background technical staff and startup founders are the big name actor equivalents. Founders move to SF, work hard, and generally struggle trying to become Zuckerburg as much as LA actors trying to become Chris Pratt. But for every movie with the Micheal Bay or The Rock there are hundreds of unionized workers creating the explosions, car chases, and sets in the background. Just like developers they're the ones that make the production work but no one knows our name. (with few exceptions like John Carmack, but then again there are special effects experts with tv shows)
- themoonbus 8y ago
  The job of the guild / union isn't to give everyone a job who wants one, though. It's to ensure that people who have a job are treated fairly.

neves 8y ago

The greatest difference is that in arts and journalism the companies are struggling. The videogame game industry have its troubles, but is full of money.

derefr 8y ago

> the only practical solution is for people to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of 'passion' So the “practical” solution is to change human nature? That doesn’t sound right. It’d be like saying that the practical solution to human trafficking is for people to stop visiting prostitutes; or that the solution to gangs’ drug income is for people to stop buying drugs. In all these cases, you can quash supply; or you can constrain and regulate the way that the supply supplies, so that it doesn’t hurt people in the process; but—even in the most totalitarian state you can imagine—you can’t quash demand. Humans gonna want what humans gonna want. In this case, the demand is “the ability to express myself to a huge audience.” People are willing to pay to do that. Because of that, they see any job where they get to do it as a net positive, even if the job is horrible. Because, in essence, they’re taking the original trade they had in mind (paying to reach an audience) and then balancing out an increase in the troublesomeness of doing that, with a payment for dealing with that troublesomeness that moves the needle all the way from “paying for” to “being paid for.”

mdale 8y ago
+1
travbrack 8y ago
Careful with those analogies
slg 8y ago
>In this case, the demand is “the ability to express myself to a huge audience.” People are willing to pay to do that. Because of that, they see any job where they get to do it as a net positive, even if the job is horrible. This is true for any job that is just an extension of a hobby. People put on local community theater productions in their spare time because they find it fun and fulfilling. You don't have to pay people to do that, so the pay for people to do it professionally would naturally be low in a free market system. Do you know another profession like that? Software development. People spend countless hours working on open source software for free just because they like it. The open source community saves businesses billions in labor costs every year. Would anyone suggest we get rid of the open source community so developers could be better compensated? We are just lucky enough that the global demand for general software development is much higher than the demand for video game development or theater/TV/movies that it can offset these other factors.

sizzle 8y ago

Will the influx of bootcamp grads cause the same effect on the supply and demand of developers?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
grigjd3 8y ago
I have my doubts. Maybe a bootcamp can prep someone to make apps (though I know very little about mobile app development), but at least in my job, I need a pretty in-depth understanding of how technology works. It's not enough to have used Spark a few times but I really need to know what it's good at and what it lacks and I need this understanding across all my tools. I need to know at least the basics of the implementation and to have that understanding across all my tools, I have to have a pretty strong theoretical grounding that I just don't see the bootcamps providing. Like maybe a few really bright people figure that out while in bootcamp, but I suspect most don't.
- kzzzznot 8y ago
  What field do you work in? In app and web dev this theoretical grounding is less important.

paulddraper 8y ago

Teaching is another such job.

Quarrelsome 8y ago

Personally I would argue that in terms of education we need to encourage academia to give students a cash cow to milk prior to chasing their passion. Learn the basics of a trade, THEN you can do Drama. There's this dreamy state of mind that bets way too much on making it and its important that "the worst case scenario" for an actor not making it isn't a dead-end job but a trade/profession they can also excel at.

jes5199 8y ago

This effect hits non-profit organizations really hard - people feel like they need to suffer to earn the right to make the world a better place, but the overall effect is that non-profit workers lead precarious lives, and their effectiveness suffers due to this instability. People with the ability to fix organizational dysfunction can rarely continue to make those wages, and so they move into for-profit industry. This is not a good way to run a society.

AWildC182 8y ago

To add to your list, aerospace is a big one. For senior stuff they usually pay ok but especially entry level jobs, even in software, they know that everyone wants to build jets, rockets, and satellites.

hackyhawk 8y ago

"Success often leads to passion." - The TechLead

chrshawkes 8y ago
when?

doctorpangloss 8y ago

I don’t know, I think Jason knows a lot more about this stuff than we do. The supply/demand thing, I wish he omitted because it lets people look at things way too reductionist. It’s actually very difficult to look at a salary and have that tell you something about supply and demand for a job. It’s obviously not that simple. In particular, it would be impossible to look at that figure and try to make heads or tails of what the “supply and demand” for executives is, because they’re paid so much radically differently. And yet accelerators churn out CEOs every day! You’d point out that I’m asking the wrong question, “it’s not about supply and demand when it comes to executive pay.” I agree, and I don’t think it’s about supply and demand for game developer pay either. From a strictly economic point of view, the bonus system is very distorting. You get paid a huge bonus if your game gets a lot of units sold after your crunch time. However, since the publishers own the studios now, that doesn’t happen as much, and the bonuses go to the “shareholder” (ie the CEO and other highly stock compensated executives). Seems like exactly the sort of thing a union could negotiate! But making the low line developer sound like the antagonist? “People to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of ‘passion.’” Like I know you didn’t mean to sound like the bad guy, but is your line of argument really to ignore how economic structures in the industry underpay people, and instead it’s the underpaid people’s fault for being passionate?

luiscleto 8y ago
> I don’t think it’s about supply and demand for game developer pay either If there was a shortage of game developers, employers would be forced to give much better benefits and compensation to retain and hire staff (and probably there would be a lot less games and studios). There may be more to the analysis, but I don't agree that you can ignore supply and demand and turn this into just oppressor greedy guy vs oppressed exploited worker instead.
- doctorpangloss 8y ago
  I don't want to make it reductionist at all, you're right. A more enlightened view of compensation, if you need a more general economic way of looking at it, is: "In a world where most of economic value exists in human relationships or in computation, compensation is more about (1) how accounting reflects that economic reality, and (2) how well the compensated individual extracts accounting value from whatever big picture the accountants came up with." In that sense, unions are exactly the remedy, because they negotiate how these employees are paid relative to the accounting value of their business. It's all accounting! I can't emphasize this enough--you can pay the employees 2x as much, or 10x as much, or 1/2x as much, and Fortnite will be EXACTLY as fun as it is now. That's what people are outraged about. This is totally unlike another notoriously unionized industry, autos, where a lot of the value is tied up in really objective, physical stuff like gas mileage or maintenance. Most of the economic value of Fortnite is in the experiences it makes between friends and the computer code consistently delivering that experience, whether on your phone or in the servers. Supply/demand as the framework is kind of a stupid point of view. We can't listen to too many finance/economics people, especially the rich ones we actually hear from as opposed to the poor ones who may be right but whom we don't give a shit about. The rich ones aren't in the ground level of humanity anymore. That's what the perspective on HN is really about: sorting out which rich person you agree with. But if you want to do the right thing, you unionize because it will get these people paid better and feel happier at basically no economic cost.

TallGuyShort 8y ago

I think the other dimension here is the number of people who equate passion with qualification. They enter the industry thinking that a lifetime of playing video games qualifies them, whereas you actually end up needing strong software engineering skills, often with an emphasis in graphics and other math-heavy niches, a strong work ethic and many other qualities. Passion helps. Years of being a customer helps. Doesn't replace other qualifications, though. I've seen more than a few friends on the losing end of some miserable attempts to create their own video game company (or graphic design business, photography business, etc.) because they equated interest with immediate ability.

gregcrv 8y ago

The other practical solution is basic income. In a basic income society people can do (if they want) the jobs they have a passion for without poor conditions. And people who will want a higher income will do the jobs that a few people can do (highly skilled jobs..), or wants to do (picking up garbage, cleaning toilets...). These jobs will probably have much better conditions than now.

jquery 8y ago
Who is going to pick up garbage in a basic income society and why? Don’t be surprised if you have to pay these people radically more than they are currently paid. In which case COL goes up significantly and the basic income doesn’t go as far and we are back to square one.
- Retra 8y ago
  "Millionaires don't exist, because who would ever want more money?"
  - jquery 8y ago
    Are you suggesting garbage men will be millionaires? When we're talking about spending trillions and fundamentally changing the relationship between citizens, their government, and work, platitudes convince nobody but the choir.
    - Retra 8y ago
      No, I'm saying people will continue to be garbage men because they want more money. Basic income is not going to stop people from wanting more money.

sokoloff 8y ago

> the only practical solution is for people to stop taking on terrible jobs because of some sense of 'passion', and to go where their skills are appreciated/where they're treated better/fairly compensated. I worked a couple years in game industry (shipping an auto racing game for Playstation and contributing to a few other titles; I did sleep under my desk a few nights during crunch time so we'd have a demo ready for E3). My overall experience was amazing. I have a passion for motorsports and loved gaming as a kid. Part of the overall enjoyment (read: value proposition) I derived from that position was that it was in motorsports and gaming. I loved going into a computer store and seeing "my" game on the shelf. I look forward to showing my kids the game [that will look like crap now by comparison]. (I also, without any hard feelings, left the industry because it was clear that it wasn't going to get me where I wanted to be financially.) I don't think that people should be prevented (or even shamed) for taking on work that they are passionate about. I'm glad I did it; I had some great experiences [spending Speedweek in the hot pits as a business trip is great], worked with some amazingly talented and passionate people, and took away some great memories before moving on(/selling out? :) ).

marcelr 8y ago
You seem like the exception rather than the rule.. I don't think anyone is suggesting people not follow their passions, its more about people not knowing what they're getting themselves into most of the time.
- whyaduck 8y ago
  If they were unionized it would be much easier to understand what they're getting themselves into. Union contracts are typically public, unambiguous and well enforced; certainly better than relying on "company policy" to judge what work conditions will be like.
- bena 8y ago
  Consider this though, he's not doing that now. He did that when he was young, dumb, and full of dreams... He couldn't sustain that lifestyle. We do sort of glorify the past and lionize struggle as if there were some nobility to it. There's not. There's no inherent nobility in struggling or being ignorant. Being a dumb kid willing to work awful hours for worse pay to get out a demo in time is not an ideal to strive towards.

Balgair 8y ago

For an example of unionization and certification issues that deal with this, look at the medical field. There are many more people that want to be doctors than there are spots in med schools (US-centric view point here). The AMA artificially keeps the enrollment numbers at med-schools low, so as to drive demand for doctors in general and therefore, increase their wages. The AMA is well aware of the current shortage of pediatricians and over-abundance of cardiologists. Though the employment dynamics of literal brain-surgeons are a bit different teachers or gig-bassists, they do largely follow the same patterns in terms of pay. Granted, most MDs in the US really are very good at their jobs, so I'm not all that put-off when they literally save the lives of my loved ones (money has no value there). Compare this to nurses and their employment dynamics. Phlebotomists aren't paid badly, but they aren't paid well either. Their shifts are hectic, long, and erratic. Hospice nursing in the US is nearly criminal in it's underpayment and overwork, especially for the emotional labor that goes into it. The reason here is that there is a vast oversupply of people that want to be nurses and in medicine. The core issue with both cases is that such jobs provide meaning to people that want to do those jobs. They trade off different things for that value. MDs trade their 20s and a lottery ticket into med school for that meaning in their lives, nurses trade comfort and pay for that meaning in their lives. MDs have what amounts to a very strong union, nurses (generally, but there are many exceptions in the US) do not have as strong of a union. Generally, any profession that provides meaning in the life of a human will either be very underpaid/overworked OR will have a very strong union/credentialing system to pass before becoming employed. We all regress to the same level of misery.

lurquer 8y ago
A more accurate term for what is 'required' is a Guild. Medicine and Law are the last two examples in the US. It is a crime to practice law or medicine without a license. And, for the most part, the amount of licenses dispensed each year is left up to the practitioners' professional association. In short, you'd want to make it illegal to program for pay (or to distribute free software) without being a member of the guild. That will never happen -- thank goodness. But, it is the model that allowed the economy to chug along through the Middle Ages.
- 8y ago

SilasX 8y ago

In economics, there's the concept of a compensating differential[1]: when two jobs require the same skill and training, but one has an unpleasant aspect, so you have to pay people more to take that one. The canonical example would be window washers on the ground level vs for a high-rise building. The latter -- even with appropriate safety measures -- is scarier, so they make more, as people willing to go up in those things are harder to find. You can also have a negative compensating differential, where the job is so desirable that people take a lower wage to work in it, which is what's going on in the game industry; compared to developers and QA for other industries, they make less. Another example might be astronauts, which make a lot less compared jobs requiring similar qualifications (i.e. extensive education, training, memorization, and fitness). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential

samstave 8y ago

Also, there are a crap ton of people who think lazily: “i love playing video games / i am so good at playing video games, that i should be a game designer. Look at how stupid these developers are compared to me!!” Ive known several of this type. And they are terrible at understanding the grueling tediousness it takes to develop a good game. Basically they operate on the superficial end of things and think they can grok the actual reqs to develop something. (Same thing with pipe dream “app designers”)

3minus1 8y ago

> artists/musicians/writers/whatever I've met a lot of girls who want to be fashion designers, and a lot of guys who want to be sports announcers.

munk-a 8y ago

It's weird but even in sub-sectors of the gaming industry (like server/back end developers which are in permanent short supply) the experience of working in that industry is terrible - there is a general assumption that if people actually might enjoy part of their job you should treat them like crap. So, I partially agree but there is another factor there.

WalterBright 8y ago

> teaching wages On the other hand, the retirement and health care packages for public school teachers is quite generous

fredophile 8y ago
Retirement benefits for government employees typically also rely on the current government adequately funding those liabilities. There are several examples of governments that consistently failed to do this and then reducing those benefits when they need to be paid out.
- WalterBright 8y ago
  Another way of saying that is the benefits package is so large it often throws the city/state government into a crisis.

WalterBright 8y ago

Pay for pilots is also poor. I've seen the sentiment from fighter pilots many times: "I can't believe they're paying me to fly!" Being a pilot is not only a dream job, it's high status.

crowdpleaser 8y ago

+1. Many of us working jobs we don't really have 'passion' for are doing it to fund the things we are passionate about. I really hate it when people talk about how they need public subsidies to follow their self-gratifying dream, like that money comes from people who aren't following their dream. I'm not going to work harder on stuff I don't like to support you having fun.

cgag 8y ago

The solution is lowering the salary of jobs in the field until people stop applying. It's already solved.

conanbatt 8y ago

Adam Smith literally mentions that wages and profits of industries where people can do it as a hobby, for pleasure, or part time, will go down. 1776.

bsanr2 8y ago

I don't think that's necessarily true. Sports are another passion-driven job thay many, many more people want to do than are able to. Unions are the answer, but not just because they're effective tools for equalizing relative leverage between labor and owners. It's because unionization engenders a self-respect for one's employment - "THIS job that I do in particular" - that forces cooperation from management. It helps in this analogy that athletes are bona fide top-of-the-class performers, but the success of unions in other creative areas, including ones involving only moderate skill, shows that this principle extends further than that. When people leave for greener pastures, they take their experience with them. There is no one that knows the tricks management uses to squeeze working hours out of employees (often unjustly and unfruitfully). The real solution is to unionize and force management to weed out the incompetence that creates inefficiencies that crunch is used to correct. Contrary to popular belief, unionization has thr potential to increase overall expertise.

RobLach 8y ago

What is life if getting rid of passion is sensible? It's a better goal to create systems where passions can flourish.

chii 8y ago
passion isn't always productive to society. Some passion is, but i would argue most passion isn't. That's just simple economics, and i dont think humanity can get away from that - at least, not until we reach post-scarcity.