7 ms·

This isn't unique to game dev. This is true in education as well - most white collar positions pay between 40 - 100k while vice presidents and presidents get 25

This isn't unique to game dev. This is true in education as well - most white collar positions pay between 40 - 100k while vice presidents and presidents get 250k + packages. I think more developers need to get better at negotiating. One 10 minute conversation can beat years of 2-4% raises. It's all about setting expectations and being willing to walk away.

yurishimo 5y ago
Walking away is only powerful if you have leverage. Game devs, unlike a lot of other software, are not super in demand. You can't apply for an entry level job at EA and then pop over to Ubisoft instead when the offer from EA is crap. There are way more folks trying to break into game dev than there are jobs available.
- gambiting 5y ago
  I actually work for a AAA games company and what you said only applies at kind of junior/intermediate level. Hit senior/lead/expert and you can walk out and get another job in a week, it's super hard to hire seniors and above and those positions hold a lot of leverage. Edit: obligatory "above is true in my experience, YMMV"
  - dijit 5y ago
    I work(ed) for the same company as gambiting and can confirm this to be true. Hit Senior (easy to do after 5y) and game companies throw money at you to come over because getting people in who have a shipping mentality is hard- most people who want to be gamedevs see the glamour, those that ship see the pain a mile away and how to avoid it. The issue might be that most who become senior do not really move because the tool chains are largely different between companies. Frostbite and Snowdrop are incredibly different game engines and even those working on Unreal/Unity at the AAA level invariably maintain a fork due to limitations in the engine itself which makes it not compelling to sacrifice all your knowledge. Also, I find that most companies end up turning their C++ into a custom C++-like language with fancy types like growable hash tables and vectors. Many of which have quirks which require experience otherwise there can be footguns. (Some functions may be more correct but quadratic and others are fast but less precise and knowing when to use what is part of being a senior in some companies)
  - yurishimo 5y ago
    Yeah, I largely agree. You as the developer know if you have leverage, and seniority generally means you have more leverage. This is true in any field. But, if there are more jobs available, then you need less leverage to walk at a bad offer. So yeah, of course all the guys leaving Blizzard are getting snatched up, and there is a lot of demand to fill their shoes, but those roles need to be filled by equally competent people, not just anyone off the street. It seems that in games, you either have leverage to negotiate, or you don't. There doesn't seem to be a credible middle-ground like in other software disciplines where warm bodies capable of writing for loops are all that's required to build the product.
  - vsareto 5y ago
    If there are so many at the junior/intermediate level, shouldn't they be advancing and the senior devs be a larger population? Plus if folks are really sticking to the industry out of passion, they have more of a chance to make it over time. I've heard about game dev's surplus of workers for at least 10 years for almost identical reasons in most of this thread, and that would make nearly anyone a senior for sure, so that problem should have been "fixed" by now.
    - olig15 5y ago
      I work in a AAA game company, and see similar to GPs comments. I guess the reason is that so many people also leave the games industry early on (relative to career span). From my experience (In in the programming dpt, at-least), lots of devs just aren't good enough, or want to improve enough to become senior devs.
    - gambiting 5y ago
      In my experience(again, I'm sure it doesn't apply everywhere) - a lot of people think they want to do games, but actually leave and do something else after a year or two - not enough to get to senior level, so not at the level when they can actually start seeing decent salaries and have that leverage I mentioned. So they are easily poached by software development/consultancy firms with better money. Then people who do stick around and advance to senior actually show very high level of loyalty, I work surrounded by people with 15-20 years of experience at the same company, they aren't interested in going anywhere, mostly because they still enjoy what they do and after that much time the money is usually more than decent so....why would you leave. But obviously people still do, and again, I see people leaving after 20 years making games to "try something else" and they actually leave the games industry entirely when that happens. What I also see is people leaving due to crunch and burnout - companies which are famous for it seem to lose a large number of employees every time they finish a project, I see that in applications. They aren't being fired, they are just burnt out and they look for a place with better work life balance. We have a bit of a reputation for being really good about it so we see those people apply to us. And then finally, the "I really wanted to work on X all my life" still applies regardless of seniority and if the opportunities appear people take them no matter the compensation.
  - SeanBoocock 5y ago
    Second this. Have worked at several AAA studios as an engineer. I am currently hiring for junior and senior engineering positions. The number of candidates for the former is two orders of magnitude greater than the latter. The good senior engineers in the game industry don’t have to worry about work, and the compensation largely accounts that. It isn’t FAANG level for the most part, but closer than it was a decade ago and a lot higher than what you would think from the hashtag.
- minimuffins 5y ago
  Yes! I keep seeing these idealistic responses about negotiation. When you negotiate a higher salary, you are saying to your boss, look, I know I am creating more value for you than I'm getting as a wage, and I know you can't just swap me out with somebody else. You're actually making a demand that needs to be underwritten with a credible threat, no matter how politely you communicate that. You demand that the company realign your wage with your value (actually, you demand that they get closer, they of course never pay you your full value, or they don't make any money). It's really that simple. You get what you have the power to get. It's not magic, and it's not all about the attitude or w/e. Of course we are all still constrained by material reality! If you can't make the credible threat, you can't "just" negotiate. (Duh)
o_p 5y ago
"If you get physically bullied just become stronger" is the opposite of society
ryandrake 5y ago
You see this advice a lot, but it's never very specific. "Just negotiate better!" OK, great... how? Most of us have no leverage besides our willingness to walk away, and when the market is saturated with talent, it's usually fine for a company to just let you walk away. I bet for someone who happens to be the world's foremost expert in some niche skill the company needs, negotiating a higher comp is straightforward. For the 95+% of the rest of us, it goes kind of like this: Candidate: I'd like $150K. Comparable companies offer people with my experience $150K. Company: We'll offer you $100K. Candidate: I'll walk if you give me less than $140K. Company: Ok... Bye? Candidate: How about a little more equity? Company: How about no? Candidate: OK. $130K and maybe a bigger potential bonus? Company: We're already interviewing the next person.
- jupp0r 5y ago
  The advice is to walk after "Company: We'll offer you $100K." and go to "Comparable companies". If there aren't any then you lied with point 1.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Just a pro-tip - there probably are companies willing to give you that bump, you just need to look for them. I really wish it were easier to get appropriate compensation but without a union or legislation it's all on you.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    That's not negotiation, though. That's just walking away when the number isn't high enough. Negotiation implies some kind of discussion: back-and-forth, give-and-take. I've rarely experienced any discussion actually working. It's usually the company, who has all the power, giving a "take it or leave it" offer, and that's it.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      Depends on the size. Larger places not so much but if you talk to the owner during your interview you can go back and forth.
jb775 5y ago
> I think more developers need to get better at negotiating. You're forgetting that hiring managers know exactly how much everyone gets paid. This gives them extreme leverage in the negotiation. If it were public information that the last person was offered $x (for a given position), it would be much harder for the hiring manager to justify an offer of $x-$25,000. We are all shooting ourselves in the foot for not sharing our salaries.

yurishimo 5y ago

Walking away is only powerful if you have leverage. Game devs, unlike a lot of other software, are not super in demand. You can't apply for an entry level job at EA and then pop over to Ubisoft instead when the offer from EA is crap. There are way more folks trying to break into game dev than there are jobs available.

gambiting 5y ago
I actually work for a AAA games company and what you said only applies at kind of junior/intermediate level. Hit senior/lead/expert and you can walk out and get another job in a week, it's super hard to hire seniors and above and those positions hold a lot of leverage. Edit: obligatory "above is true in my experience, YMMV"
- dijit 5y ago
  I work(ed) for the same company as gambiting and can confirm this to be true. Hit Senior (easy to do after 5y) and game companies throw money at you to come over because getting people in who have a shipping mentality is hard- most people who want to be gamedevs see the glamour, those that ship see the pain a mile away and how to avoid it. The issue might be that most who become senior do not really move because the tool chains are largely different between companies. Frostbite and Snowdrop are incredibly different game engines and even those working on Unreal/Unity at the AAA level invariably maintain a fork due to limitations in the engine itself which makes it not compelling to sacrifice all your knowledge. Also, I find that most companies end up turning their C++ into a custom C++-like language with fancy types like growable hash tables and vectors. Many of which have quirks which require experience otherwise there can be footguns. (Some functions may be more correct but quadratic and others are fast but less precise and knowing when to use what is part of being a senior in some companies)
- yurishimo 5y ago
  Yeah, I largely agree. You as the developer know if you have leverage, and seniority generally means you have more leverage. This is true in any field. But, if there are more jobs available, then you need less leverage to walk at a bad offer. So yeah, of course all the guys leaving Blizzard are getting snatched up, and there is a lot of demand to fill their shoes, but those roles need to be filled by equally competent people, not just anyone off the street. It seems that in games, you either have leverage to negotiate, or you don't. There doesn't seem to be a credible middle-ground like in other software disciplines where warm bodies capable of writing for loops are all that's required to build the product.
- vsareto 5y ago
  If there are so many at the junior/intermediate level, shouldn't they be advancing and the senior devs be a larger population? Plus if folks are really sticking to the industry out of passion, they have more of a chance to make it over time. I've heard about game dev's surplus of workers for at least 10 years for almost identical reasons in most of this thread, and that would make nearly anyone a senior for sure, so that problem should have been "fixed" by now.
  - olig15 5y ago
    I work in a AAA game company, and see similar to GPs comments. I guess the reason is that so many people also leave the games industry early on (relative to career span). From my experience (In in the programming dpt, at-least), lots of devs just aren't good enough, or want to improve enough to become senior devs.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    In my experience(again, I'm sure it doesn't apply everywhere) - a lot of people think they want to do games, but actually leave and do something else after a year or two - not enough to get to senior level, so not at the level when they can actually start seeing decent salaries and have that leverage I mentioned. So they are easily poached by software development/consultancy firms with better money. Then people who do stick around and advance to senior actually show very high level of loyalty, I work surrounded by people with 15-20 years of experience at the same company, they aren't interested in going anywhere, mostly because they still enjoy what they do and after that much time the money is usually more than decent so....why would you leave. But obviously people still do, and again, I see people leaving after 20 years making games to "try something else" and they actually leave the games industry entirely when that happens. What I also see is people leaving due to crunch and burnout - companies which are famous for it seem to lose a large number of employees every time they finish a project, I see that in applications. They aren't being fired, they are just burnt out and they look for a place with better work life balance. We have a bit of a reputation for being really good about it so we see those people apply to us. And then finally, the "I really wanted to work on X all my life" still applies regardless of seniority and if the opportunities appear people take them no matter the compensation.
- SeanBoocock 5y ago
  Second this. Have worked at several AAA studios as an engineer. I am currently hiring for junior and senior engineering positions. The number of candidates for the former is two orders of magnitude greater than the latter. The good senior engineers in the game industry don’t have to worry about work, and the compensation largely accounts that. It isn’t FAANG level for the most part, but closer than it was a decade ago and a lot higher than what you would think from the hashtag.
minimuffins 5y ago
Yes! I keep seeing these idealistic responses about negotiation. When you negotiate a higher salary, you are saying to your boss, look, I know I am creating more value for you than I'm getting as a wage, and I know you can't just swap me out with somebody else. You're actually making a demand that needs to be underwritten with a credible threat, no matter how politely you communicate that. You demand that the company realign your wage with your value (actually, you demand that they get closer, they of course never pay you your full value, or they don't make any money). It's really that simple. You get what you have the power to get. It's not magic, and it's not all about the attitude or w/e. Of course we are all still constrained by material reality! If you can't make the credible threat, you can't "just" negotiate. (Duh)

o_p 5y ago

"If you get physically bullied just become stronger" is the opposite of society

ryandrake 5y ago

You see this advice a lot, but it's never very specific. "Just negotiate better!" OK, great... how? Most of us have no leverage besides our willingness to walk away, and when the market is saturated with talent, it's usually fine for a company to just let you walk away. I bet for someone who happens to be the world's foremost expert in some niche skill the company needs, negotiating a higher comp is straightforward. For the 95+% of the rest of us, it goes kind of like this: Candidate: I'd like $150K. Comparable companies offer people with my experience $150K. Company: We'll offer you $100K. Candidate: I'll walk if you give me less than $140K. Company: Ok... Bye? Candidate: How about a little more equity? Company: How about no? Candidate: OK. $130K and maybe a bigger potential bonus? Company: We're already interviewing the next person.

jupp0r 5y ago
The advice is to walk after "Company: We'll offer you $100K." and go to "Comparable companies". If there aren't any then you lied with point 1.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Just a pro-tip - there probably are companies willing to give you that bump, you just need to look for them. I really wish it were easier to get appropriate compensation but without a union or legislation it's all on you.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  That's not negotiation, though. That's just walking away when the number isn't high enough. Negotiation implies some kind of discussion: back-and-forth, give-and-take. I've rarely experienced any discussion actually working. It's usually the company, who has all the power, giving a "take it or leave it" offer, and that's it.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Depends on the size. Larger places not so much but if you talk to the owner during your interview you can go back and forth.

jb775 5y ago

> I think more developers need to get better at negotiating. You're forgetting that hiring managers know exactly how much everyone gets paid. This gives them extreme leverage in the negotiation. If it were public information that the last person was offered $x (for a given position), it would be much harder for the hiring manager to justify an offer of $x-$25,000. We are all shooting ourselves in the foot for not sharing our salaries.