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This is what is known in economics as a compensating differential. It's also my pet theory for why bog standard backend devs tend to get paid a lot more than
by asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
This is what is known in economics as a compensating differential. It's also my pet theory for why bog standard backend devs tend to get paid a lot more than game devs, even though the game devs tend to be more skilled and harder working.
- cosmodisk 6y agoSo what you are saying is that because the job of the backend dev isn't as interesting as game dev,they are paid more? I very much doubt that's the reason.
- Aerroon 6y agoNo, it's the other way around. Gamedevs make less, because there are so many people that want to work as gamedevs.
- WorldMaker 6y agoWhile I absolutely disagree with the above comment that "bog standard" backend devs have less skills than game devs [0], the call to "passion" does tend to deflate salaries and inflate working hours (at very real costs of work/life balance and burnout/early "retirement") in games. (It's among many reasons game developers pretty much need to unionize to avoid mistreatment from management, because "passion" is always going to be a weakness in negotiation.) [0] The call to "passion" tends to work the other direction too in that game developers are overwhelmingly young, fresh out of school, and the turnover ratio in the industry implies a huge turnover of skills and experience over time as well as consequent losses to institutional memory. There aren't a lot of safe spaces in games to build skills and game companies have fewer incentives to retain skilled workers than a lot of the, for instance, "dark matter" enterprise uses of backend developers where the backend developer becomes an institutional knowledge bottleneck.