4 ms·

I looked at the salaries people are posting, and what I am seeing is people (at least the ones comfortable with posting this kind of info on the Internet) rapid

by stewx 5y ago

I looked at the salaries people are posting, and what I am seeing is people (at least the ones comfortable with posting this kind of info on the Internet) rapidly climbing from $30-50k/yr USD to $75-150k/yr USD. These are excellent wages. They may be lower than outside the video game industry, but by any other standard they are phenomenally good wages, in the top 1% globally and at least the top 10-20% in developed countries. In terms of income, these people are unambiguously part of the upper class.

ctvo 5y ago
It isn't about how the salary compares globally. It's about how does this compare to their peers. The asymmetrical nature of information available to employees vs. information available to the company generally leads to employees undervaluing themselves. By sharing what others in the company or in the region make for the same job, we help people ask for more.
- Pfhreak 5y ago
  And furthermore, it's how it compares to the profits of the company. If an engineer is returning $500,000k annually in profit to a company from their work, and getting paid $75k of that, they are being exploited. (Or at the very least are undervaluing their labor.)
  - bogwog 5y ago
    That's an unnatural/weird way to look at it. If the engineer provides $500k value per year, and they get paid $500k per year, the company makes $0 profit. By that logic, the only way to not be underpaid is for the company to be in the red; but if that happens, there won't be a company to pay you! Plus, it's likely any other engineer could provide the same value. So (as always) it's about supply and demand. In this case, there are a lot of qualified engineers that want to work in games, and relatively few positions. Unions could affect that, but I think it'd do more harm than good at the high end (it would definitely help lower paid positions like QA though). Maybe if Epic wins their case against Apple, it'll unleash a tidal wave of anti-trust lawsuits against the likes of Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Google, etc. and the game industry will explode with new business opportunities, new investments, and new jobs to balance out the supply/demand curve for game developers at all levels! (...or not)
    - _qwfv 5y ago
      It's not unnatural at all, or at least it's not any more unnatural than someone getting to keep a portion of your labor's profit just because they put the most money down when they started the company. A workers co-op, for instance, splits all the profits between all the employees in an arrangement that is basically "we collectively produced profit X we all get an equal share of that profit." While "unnatural" is the wrong word, imo, I think it's fair to say that it's "unfamiliar" to most folks and "uncommon" out in the world.
      - missedthecue 5y ago
        There are no laws against worker co-ops. They are just a pretty inefficient way of running a business in that it's difficult if not impossible in most cases to raise sufficient capital. This is particularly true of software companies, where firms with 20 or 30 employees raise tens of millions of dollars. There is no conceivable way the employees would be able to put up that kind of money by themselves. It's why many existing co-ops such as Bob's Red Mill were founded, funded, and built by capitalists but later gifted to the employees once mature.
        Pfhreak 5y ago
        Of course. I just bristle at the suggestion that they are "unnatural".
      - johnnyanmac 5y ago
        it's unnatural because that's not how a business builds. Even with profit sharing, you need to put a portion back into the business (not the CEO, not the worker, but into a metaphorical savings account). if you're giving 100% of labor back to the workers, there's no room for the company to grow and eventually everyone gets $0 when the company shutters. Even a mom and pop shop of 1 needs to operate on these parameters. Heck, even a personal checking account. You keep some money in reserve for a rainy day, and some in the deep reserves for retirement (401k). You very rarely get 100% of your money in liquid (regardless of if you feel underpaid or not), nor do many desire to.
tgv 5y ago
$75k is considerably higher than the top 10% for almost the entire world. Even in most of Western Europe, $75k would be in the top 5%. It of course depends on what that salary actually contains: a Western European salary is taxed for around 40%, but health care is cheap.
- moksly 5y ago
  $75k a year will put you in the top 25-20% in “Western Europe”. In Denmark where education and healthcare is paid for collectively and our tax is 38%, you would need to earn $125k to be in the top 5%, and we’re pretty similar to countries like France and Germany. So you can say that 75k a year would be a decent pay in Europe, though maybe not for someone with a candidate degree in software engineering. https://www.detdanskearbejdsmarked.dk/den-danske-model/portraet-af-den-danske-model/loenningerne-i-danmark-er-blandt-verdens-hoejeste/ https://www.detdanskearbejdsmarked.dk/den-danske-model/portr...
- koyote 5y ago
  > Western European salary is taxed for around 40% You'll only get that tax rate at very high salaries and it's also of course marginal. In the UK the first 12k (~$17k) is entirely tax free for example. After that it's 20% up until you have earned 50k (~$70k). Only after that does the 40% tax kick in. So on a $75k salary, only $5k will be taxed at 40%. For a $75k salary you would be paying just over 16% tax and 9% national insurance (i.e. pension) in the UK. When I first started working as a SWE in the UK I worked out that my average tax rate was actually slightly lower than if I earned the same in California. If I was earning 2-3x more then the higher European taxes start to kick in.
  - tharkun__ 5y ago
    Careful with the "of course marginal" and lumping all of Europe into one bucket :) E.g. Germany has a progressive tax rate system and the salary ranges this applies to are rather small. Quoting from: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-personal-income https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-per... For a single taxpayer: Free amount: 9744 EUR Progressive tax from 14-42%: 9744-57918 EUR 42% on your entire salary from: 57918-274612 EUR 45%: > 274612 EUR Also see a nice explanation and graph here, though the numbers they use are different, because different tax years are assumed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Germany#Income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Germany#Income_tax

by stewx 5y ago

ctvo 5y ago

It isn't about how the salary compares globally. It's about how does this compare to their peers. The asymmetrical nature of information available to employees vs. information available to the company generally leads to employees undervaluing themselves. By sharing what others in the company or in the region make for the same job, we help people ask for more.

Pfhreak 5y ago
And furthermore, it's how it compares to the profits of the company. If an engineer is returning $500,000k annually in profit to a company from their work, and getting paid $75k of that, they are being exploited. (Or at the very least are undervaluing their labor.)
- bogwog 5y ago
  That's an unnatural/weird way to look at it. If the engineer provides $500k value per year, and they get paid $500k per year, the company makes $0 profit. By that logic, the only way to not be underpaid is for the company to be in the red; but if that happens, there won't be a company to pay you! Plus, it's likely any other engineer could provide the same value. So (as always) it's about supply and demand. In this case, there are a lot of qualified engineers that want to work in games, and relatively few positions. Unions could affect that, but I think it'd do more harm than good at the high end (it would definitely help lower paid positions like QA though). Maybe if Epic wins their case against Apple, it'll unleash a tidal wave of anti-trust lawsuits against the likes of Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Google, etc. and the game industry will explode with new business opportunities, new investments, and new jobs to balance out the supply/demand curve for game developers at all levels! (...or not)
  - _qwfv 5y ago
    It's not unnatural at all, or at least it's not any more unnatural than someone getting to keep a portion of your labor's profit just because they put the most money down when they started the company. A workers co-op, for instance, splits all the profits between all the employees in an arrangement that is basically "we collectively produced profit X we all get an equal share of that profit." While "unnatural" is the wrong word, imo, I think it's fair to say that it's "unfamiliar" to most folks and "uncommon" out in the world.
    - missedthecue 5y ago
      There are no laws against worker co-ops. They are just a pretty inefficient way of running a business in that it's difficult if not impossible in most cases to raise sufficient capital. This is particularly true of software companies, where firms with 20 or 30 employees raise tens of millions of dollars. There is no conceivable way the employees would be able to put up that kind of money by themselves. It's why many existing co-ops such as Bob's Red Mill were founded, funded, and built by capitalists but later gifted to the employees once mature.
      - Pfhreak 5y ago
        Of course. I just bristle at the suggestion that they are "unnatural".
    - johnnyanmac 5y ago
      it's unnatural because that's not how a business builds. Even with profit sharing, you need to put a portion back into the business (not the CEO, not the worker, but into a metaphorical savings account). if you're giving 100% of labor back to the workers, there's no room for the company to grow and eventually everyone gets $0 when the company shutters. Even a mom and pop shop of 1 needs to operate on these parameters. Heck, even a personal checking account. You keep some money in reserve for a rainy day, and some in the deep reserves for retirement (401k). You very rarely get 100% of your money in liquid (regardless of if you feel underpaid or not), nor do many desire to.

tgv 5y ago

$75k is considerably higher than the top 10% for almost the entire world. Even in most of Western Europe, $75k would be in the top 5%. It of course depends on what that salary actually contains: a Western European salary is taxed for around 40%, but health care is cheap.

moksly 5y ago
$75k a year will put you in the top 25-20% in “Western Europe”. In Denmark where education and healthcare is paid for collectively and our tax is 38%, you would need to earn $125k to be in the top 5%, and we’re pretty similar to countries like France and Germany. So you can say that 75k a year would be a decent pay in Europe, though maybe not for someone with a candidate degree in software engineering. https://www.detdanskearbejdsmarked.dk/den-danske-model/portraet-af-den-danske-model/loenningerne-i-danmark-er-blandt-verdens-hoejeste/ https://www.detdanskearbejdsmarked.dk/den-danske-model/portr...
koyote 5y ago
> Western European salary is taxed for around 40% You'll only get that tax rate at very high salaries and it's also of course marginal. In the UK the first 12k (~$17k) is entirely tax free for example. After that it's 20% up until you have earned 50k (~$70k). Only after that does the 40% tax kick in. So on a $75k salary, only $5k will be taxed at 40%. For a $75k salary you would be paying just over 16% tax and 9% national insurance (i.e. pension) in the UK. When I first started working as a SWE in the UK I worked out that my average tax rate was actually slightly lower than if I earned the same in California. If I was earning 2-3x more then the higher European taxes start to kick in.
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  Careful with the "of course marginal" and lumping all of Europe into one bucket :) E.g. Germany has a progressive tax rate system and the salary ranges this applies to are rather small. Quoting from: https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-personal-income https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/germany/individual/taxes-on-per... For a single taxpayer: Free amount: 9744 EUR Progressive tax from 14-42%: 9744-57918 EUR 42% on your entire salary from: 57918-274612 EUR 45%: > 274612 EUR Also see a nice explanation and graph here, though the numbers they use are different, because different tax years are assumed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Germany#Income_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Germany#Income_tax