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I'd suggest that Blizzard employees consider the consequences of working in computer games, rather than almost any other branch of software engineering, where c

I'd suggest that Blizzard employees consider the consequences of working in computer games, rather than almost any other branch of software engineering, where conditions are better. Game companies take advantage of the fact that there is a large population of software engineers who want to meld their work and their hobbies by offering worse working conditions, lower pay, and less stable employment than they could get elsewhere. Just... play games. And work in a field that treats its employees well.

coding123 5y ago
You can't tell them to just play games. If they all did (at least the good ones) they would have any. We need people to work for better game companies or start their own.
MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
The only time I'd be a game developer is if I did an indie game solo or with an artist friend. I mean look at the wealth of indie games that exist. It's honestly the only place where original ideas come from now.
user-the-name 5y ago
"Don't try to make the world better" is a pretty shitty attitude to have. No, try to make it better! Fight like hell to make it better! That is how we progress. That is how we got the worker's protections we have now. They weren't given magnanimously. We fought long and hard for every single one, and it made everyone's life better. Demand better. Always demand better.
- newsbinator 5y ago
  Being more charitable to GP's point, I didn't read it as "don't try to improve conditions". I read it as "vote with your feet".
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    "Voting with your feet" might work if it was hard to find people to replace you, but it's not. And it means giving up on what you want to do because of oppression. You should not need to give up on what you want to do because of shitty bosses.
    - sokoloff 5y ago
      If what you want most is to work on games, you don’t have to give up on that. You just have to realize that the supply of people who also want that exceeds the demand by some amount large enough to give employers a lot of relative bargaining power. Unionizing may be a sensible response to that. I’d expect the company to make a sensible response as well.
    - gruez 5y ago
      >"Voting with your feet" might work if it was hard to find people to replace you, but it's not. If that's true, how would "Fight like hell to make it better" (presumably by threatening to withhold labor) work? They'll just replace you with the next batch of starry eyed graduates.
- repsilat 5y ago
  Working in games isn't courageous. As GP said, there's a glut of people who want to do it. It's oversupplied, and the lower wages reflect the lower marginal utility to society for engineers to work in games over other kinds of software.
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    And that is exactly why we need to fight like hell for better conditions.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      It's why more people should quit. Then the supply will go down until management offers better working conditions. Choosing to work there despite poor working conditions and the availability of work you're qualified to do with better working conditions is the thing that causes the poor working conditions.
      - scrollaway 5y ago
        Why should supply go down for this particular field? Just make more games then demand will go up? Wtf is wrong with people here asking thousands of people to quit their job? Would you quit your beloved job to improve other peoples working conditions?
        AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        > Why should supply go down for this particular field? Because it's too high, enabling employers to offer poor working conditions. The poor working conditions then drive away prospective employees, lowering supply until working conditions improve. Unless you for some reason volunteer to suffer the poor working conditions unnecessarily. > Just make more games then demand will go up? Making more games doesn't cause demand for games to go up. It causes the price of games to go down. Then each game maker has less to pay workers with. What you need is for the industry to make fewer games, so they cost more (or at least have higher sales volumes at the same price), allowing workers to be paid more. But fewer games means fewer employees and some of them have to go do something else. > Would you quit your beloved job to improve other peoples working conditions? You can't have it both ways. Either your working conditions are bad, in which case quit, or your working conditions are "beloved," in which case what are you complaining about?
nightowl_games 5y ago
I take less money to work in games. I love it. I've worked in different fields. I prefer game development. I am an artist and I love playing the games I've made with friends and strangers.
- Waterluvian 5y ago
  “Artist” as in game media assets or as in a romanticized version of “software engineering”? I think therein may lie the difference.
  - edoceo 5y ago
    Artists make the assets, like audio, sprites, effects and stuff; doesn't need quotes.
    - runnerup 5y ago
      I suspect in this case he was quoting the other person directly, rather than trying to diminish the title as it applies to asset artists. This is an increasingly common way to use quotes in textual conversations, as a way to clarify which noun is being discussed. I'm not sure if its "correct" but it's increasingly common. Rephrased (accurately for intent) I thought it would be: > Just to clarify, when you say "I am an artist and I love playing the games I've made with friends and strangers", do you mean artist as in the game-asset creator type of artist, or artist as in a romanticized version of a software engineer? I could be wrong. Maybe he is just being a dick. But I primarily saw a somewhat more charitable interpretation.
      - shkkmo 5y ago
        if you are disscussing a word (or phrase) rather than using it, placing it in quotation marks is the correct way to do that. The usage of quotation marks in journalism to say things using other people's words or to imply doubt on if those words are correct has been growing looser and looser. I generally take such usage as an indicator of bad and lazy writing.
  - 5y ago
mym1990 5y ago
If the answer is to quit the game industry and just become a consumer, its very likely that the outcome will just be worse games and equally bad working conditions.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  I worked in games for a few years. For a good company, whose games sold well. With good leaders in charge. It still sucked compared to industry positions I took later. There’s a lot more pressure to ship for Christmas, to demo for E3, etc. New consoles invariably have terrible documentation (“it can never not be forgotten to fail to initialize the blah”), and in general the game (and entertainment broadly) industry is less linear/more hit-driven than others. I also hated that it broke my enjoyment of playing games if I got distracted wondering how they did some effect or why their renderer had a certain glitch.
- DrBazza 5y ago
  It entirely depends on what type of game you enjoy. Triple AAA MMOs and movie tie ins? They'd likely become worse, or just boilerplate drop-in graphics to WoW into Star Wars or Star Trek or whatever. Or some of the extremely high quality indie games? I'd take many of the indie games over WoW or CoD any day of the week. I don't need MMOs to enjoy a well written game.
  - mym1990 5y ago
    Indie games are certainly having a moment! I remember first playing stardew valley and then learning that it was a 1 dev show. Crazy.
- gruez 5y ago
  The bad conditions are caused in part due to excess supply, so companies have their pick of desperate/abuse-tolerant employees. Having less workers would force companies to compete on working conditions.
  - beefield 5y ago
StreamBright 5y ago
After working couple of years in gaming, it would be extremely hard to convince me to work in it again. Not only management is probably the worst kind I have seen but you know that the best can happen that the result of your work is going to make people spend time on video games instead of doing something better.
- dkersten 5y ago
  > you know that the best can happen that the result of your work is going to make people spend time on video games instead of doing something better. You could say the same thing about any hobby activity. Playing games isn't inherently bad just like drinking alcohol isn't inherently bad, its how much you let it consume your life (and in my personal opinion and experience, if you binge something its usually to fill some hole in your life, eg loneliness, and removing the thing to binge doesn't solve it and will simply get replaced with something else. The underlying issue needs to be addressed)
  - StreamBright 5y ago
    > Playing games isn't inherently bad Agree. Playing _video_ games is, _sometimes_. Playing for a limited time vs. excessive time, playing in your free time instead of playing during times when you should be learning or working, etc. I think there are some potentially negative outcomes associated with video games exclusively, as opposed to other game types (table games, etc.). Anecdotal evidence time: I have personally met with several players who got severely addicted to video games and had to go through therapy. Not to mention professional players. Of course, the waste majority of players still might be ok. Also, just because some people get addicted it does not mean that the rest of the gamers experience any negative impact. The kind of problem I see with video games is that it takes away time from children that could have been spent outside doing something more important to their development. I am not sure if this subject is studied, the studies I have seen are inconclusive (some claim positive impact, some claim negative). > if you binge something its usually to fill some hole in your life, eg loneliness, and removing the thing to binge doesn't solve it and will simply get replaced with something else. The underlying issue needs to be addressed Absolutely. I just think that playing video games is probably the least healthy option. https://www.scmp.com/abacus/tech/article/3087444/chinese-esports-superstar-uzi-announces-retirement-age-23 https://www.scmp.com/abacus/tech/article/3087444/chinese-esp... https://www.healthygamer.gg/blog/video-games-and-mental-health-explained https://www.healthygamer.gg/blog/video-games-and-mental-heal... https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00260/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.0026... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6676913/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6676913/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905489/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905489/
ren_engineer 5y ago
>rather than almost any other branch of software engineering, where conditions are better I doubt a large percentage of the people requesting this are engineers. Activision/Blizzard has 9500 employees and only 1800 signed the request for the CEO to step down. They apparently need at least 30% of employees to sign up for the union but haven't released any numbers as far as I can tell.
pbalau 5y ago
There is an argument to be made that the majority of people working on video games are not engineers, but content producers. And for them the other field might be 3d modeling* kitchens. *I managed to confuse myself about how you spell this word...
- mastax 5y ago
  Yeah I have to say working on character or environment design is much more fulfilling than working on designing store-brand K-Cup packaging. (Where the packaging has to match the shitty branding of all the other products so there's no creativity allowed whatsoever).
  - ludamad 5y ago
    I had a game where an artist and I grinded for 1.5 months, I feel I made the vision come to life yet the art stands alone too. I look back fondly in ways I could shape the artistic vision with relatively simple but creative programming. The more you have technical challenges (vs creative) the more you have overworked purely systems programmers. Some people love that, but undoubtedly it's more competitive than similar systems fields
- deleted 5y ago
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- bastardoperator 5y ago
  Gamers themselves do not understand the dichotomy of game development. All changes good or bad are at the behest of the "game devs". Everyone gets lumped into a single category. If you're making a game engine like Sony did for GOW, I don't think you're a content producer, you're a hardcore engineer milking every bit of the playstation so that artists and content producers can make there visions a reality. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that devs get a bad rep in gaming based on decisions they're likely not making themselves or may even be against making.
skeeter2020 5y ago
This is maybe true, yet we have countless people working in their field of passion, and I'm very happy that they can make this choice.
- gruez 5y ago
  >I'm very happy that they can make this choice. ...and pay the associated costs for it. Alternatively, I'm happy that people churning out enterprise CRUD apps are well rewarded for working in a boring field.
pandaman 5y ago
It's as same as advertisement industry: one can be hanging billboards or one can be a SWE at Google/FB yet being in the same industry. Games industry is just as different.
blondin 5y ago
you are making a very good point! i have not considered this work-hobby aspect before. the gaming industry is not that different from other artistic fields. music and anime comes to mind because that's the other two i know about. the work conditions inside anime studios is awful. nothing you would want for anybody. and despite that fact, people kept choosing to do that kind of work. people with responsibilities too, families, kids, etc. they deliberately choose these awful work conditions.
- gruez 5y ago
  There's a name for this phenomena: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  I don't necessarily agree with calling this a "choice" because that implies accountability that isn't really there, and more importantly, removes said accountability from the people running these hellhole work environments. It's the responsibility of management to provide a healthy working environment. This isn't just a moral obligation, but a creative one as well - businesses that operate like large-scale game developers or Japanese[0] animation studios will ultimately produce uninspired work that people will stop buying. On the worker's end, there doesn't necessarily have to be a choice to work in the same industry forever, either. Most of these companies have dangerously high employee churn. The company doesn't have to convince people to stay forever, they just need to replace people faster then they burn them out. For the past few decades, they've been able to do that by managing their image and hiding public awareness of their working conditions. In other words, management can choose to operate their company like a KyoAni or like an A-1 Pictures. They can choose to be a Valve[1] or an Ubisoft[2]. [0] Technically speaking a lot of tween work gets outsourced to lower-COL countries in east Asia, but those studios are often run just as bad as domestic animation studios in Japan. [1] Hedging my bets: if a bunch of shit comes out of Valve about horrible working conditions please note that this comment was written before that came to light. [2] A lot of stuff has come out about Activision-Blizzard-King, but let's not forget that Ubisoft is still worse - they actively shuffled sexual predators around their organization, Vatican-style, to keep them on their payroll. The only reason why we're talking about ABK is that the dueling EEOC/CFEH investigations have basically exposed everything.
bob1029 5y ago
I used to work in game development before I did all this serious business banking shit. Some of the best people I ever worked with were in that area. I am planning to get back into game dev after I make enough money to start my own studio.
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schmorptron 5y ago
While this may be true, if they manage to unionize they might lessen some of those negatives in the future, and I really hope for them that they'll pull through!
- fermentation 5y ago
  That’s exactly what I was thinking. This sounds more like an opportunity to finally make gamedev an appealing job.
- q1w2 5y ago
  Unlike large immovable factories, or big supply chain companies - game companies rise and fall in a market that is kill or be-killed. Any game company that unionizes will, in my opinion, have those studios shut down, and new ones open up in non-union environments. To be honest, even if Blizzard doesn't unionize, I imagine that the parent company is going to wind down the employees in the studio and move content elsewhere.
  - schmorptron 5y ago
    On the other hand, players are incredibly attatched to existing IP and franchises, and very very fickle on "new" studios taking on their beloved franchises. I.e. when Halo moved from Bungie to 343 Industries etc.
teawrecks 5y ago
That's like telling starving artists to just enjoy the art that's already out there and get a real job.
dafelst 5y ago
Or, alternatively, just don't work for companies that treat their employees like shit. There are plenty of game dev companies where employees are treated well (I work for one of them) but "game company treats employees like human beings" is not an interesting enough headline, so you don't tend to hear about it. But in spite of working for a really good studio right now, I recognize that many people are not (I've also worked with ones that were middling at best), and unionization is a great step towards getting better conditions, especially for artists and content people. Engineers tend to get the best treatment since toxic management know they are more expensive, harder to replace and have more opportunities across a variety of industries. Conversely, if you are a 3d artist (just as an example), there are only so many places you can work, and unfortunately you are often considered more disposable.
- root_axis 5y ago
  > Or, alternatively, just don't work for companies that treat their employees like shit. Hmm... interesting advice, I wonder why people getting treated like shit by their employers never thought of that.
  - dafelst 5y ago
    I know that you are being sarcastic, but there is an honest answer - most people I have met in the industry who are treated like shit are either: a) Too young or inexperienced or fearful of reprisal to understand how to advocate for themselves and others; and/or b) Just unaware that better places to work do exist, and are convinced (much like the thread parent here) that "this is just how gamedev is" Unfortunately because gamedev is a dream job for a lot of folks they are unwilling to rock the boat because they want to live their dream. That is why unions are a great opportunity for people like this, it gives them some agency to make a positive change.
    - root_axis 5y ago
      > Too young or inexperienced or fearful of reprisal to understand how to advocate for themselves and others; and/or Reprisal is real, especially for the young and inexperienced in places where employees are treated like shit. > Just unaware that better places to work do exist, and are convinced (much like the thread parent here) that "this is just how gamedev is" I find it hard to believe that you really think people getting treated like shit at work are "unaware that better places to work do exist". They are absolutely aware that better places to work exist, the problem is knowing which places those are, and then getting a job there. The negative statements being made about gamedev in this thread are generalizations, of course there are some excellent gamedev studios out there, but on average you're going to do a lot more work for a lot less pay with a lot less respect and a lot more drama than pretty much anywhere else in the software industry.
cardosof 5y ago
The same can be said of any arts & humanities -related industry IMO. I believe working conditions at an ad agency are generally worse than in an industrial complex because in the latter everyone's sure they're there for the money, while in the former there are some artists trying to win industry awards and other subjective stuff. But hey maybe I'm wrong and biased and good and bad companies are there in any sector because that's human nature.
foogazi 5y ago
> I'd suggest that Blizzard employees consider the consequences of working in computer games 0% of Blizzard SWE are forced to work there and do so voluntarily - they obviously like it there

coding123 5y ago

You can't tell them to just play games. If they all did (at least the good ones) they would have any. We need people to work for better game companies or start their own.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago

The only time I'd be a game developer is if I did an indie game solo or with an artist friend. I mean look at the wealth of indie games that exist. It's honestly the only place where original ideas come from now.

user-the-name 5y ago

"Don't try to make the world better" is a pretty shitty attitude to have. No, try to make it better! Fight like hell to make it better! That is how we progress. That is how we got the worker's protections we have now. They weren't given magnanimously. We fought long and hard for every single one, and it made everyone's life better. Demand better. Always demand better.

newsbinator 5y ago
Being more charitable to GP's point, I didn't read it as "don't try to improve conditions". I read it as "vote with your feet".
- user-the-name 5y ago
  "Voting with your feet" might work if it was hard to find people to replace you, but it's not. And it means giving up on what you want to do because of oppression. You should not need to give up on what you want to do because of shitty bosses.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    If what you want most is to work on games, you don’t have to give up on that. You just have to realize that the supply of people who also want that exceeds the demand by some amount large enough to give employers a lot of relative bargaining power. Unionizing may be a sensible response to that. I’d expect the company to make a sensible response as well.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >"Voting with your feet" might work if it was hard to find people to replace you, but it's not. If that's true, how would "Fight like hell to make it better" (presumably by threatening to withhold labor) work? They'll just replace you with the next batch of starry eyed graduates.
repsilat 5y ago
Working in games isn't courageous. As GP said, there's a glut of people who want to do it. It's oversupplied, and the lower wages reflect the lower marginal utility to society for engineers to work in games over other kinds of software.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  And that is exactly why we need to fight like hell for better conditions.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    It's why more people should quit. Then the supply will go down until management offers better working conditions. Choosing to work there despite poor working conditions and the availability of work you're qualified to do with better working conditions is the thing that causes the poor working conditions.
    - scrollaway 5y ago
      Why should supply go down for this particular field? Just make more games then demand will go up? Wtf is wrong with people here asking thousands of people to quit their job? Would you quit your beloved job to improve other peoples working conditions?
      - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        > Why should supply go down for this particular field? Because it's too high, enabling employers to offer poor working conditions. The poor working conditions then drive away prospective employees, lowering supply until working conditions improve. Unless you for some reason volunteer to suffer the poor working conditions unnecessarily. > Just make more games then demand will go up? Making more games doesn't cause demand for games to go up. It causes the price of games to go down. Then each game maker has less to pay workers with. What you need is for the industry to make fewer games, so they cost more (or at least have higher sales volumes at the same price), allowing workers to be paid more. But fewer games means fewer employees and some of them have to go do something else. > Would you quit your beloved job to improve other peoples working conditions? You can't have it both ways. Either your working conditions are bad, in which case quit, or your working conditions are "beloved," in which case what are you complaining about?

nightowl_games 5y ago

I take less money to work in games. I love it. I've worked in different fields. I prefer game development. I am an artist and I love playing the games I've made with friends and strangers.

Waterluvian 5y ago
“Artist” as in game media assets or as in a romanticized version of “software engineering”? I think therein may lie the difference.
- edoceo 5y ago
  Artists make the assets, like audio, sprites, effects and stuff; doesn't need quotes.
  - runnerup 5y ago
    I suspect in this case he was quoting the other person directly, rather than trying to diminish the title as it applies to asset artists. This is an increasingly common way to use quotes in textual conversations, as a way to clarify which noun is being discussed. I'm not sure if its "correct" but it's increasingly common. Rephrased (accurately for intent) I thought it would be: > Just to clarify, when you say "I am an artist and I love playing the games I've made with friends and strangers", do you mean artist as in the game-asset creator type of artist, or artist as in a romanticized version of a software engineer? I could be wrong. Maybe he is just being a dick. But I primarily saw a somewhat more charitable interpretation.
    - shkkmo 5y ago
      if you are disscussing a word (or phrase) rather than using it, placing it in quotation marks is the correct way to do that. The usage of quotation marks in journalism to say things using other people's words or to imply doubt on if those words are correct has been growing looser and looser. I generally take such usage as an indicator of bad and lazy writing.
- 5y ago

mym1990 5y ago

If the answer is to quit the game industry and just become a consumer, its very likely that the outcome will just be worse games and equally bad working conditions.

sokoloff 5y ago
I worked in games for a few years. For a good company, whose games sold well. With good leaders in charge. It still sucked compared to industry positions I took later. There’s a lot more pressure to ship for Christmas, to demo for E3, etc. New consoles invariably have terrible documentation (“it can never not be forgotten to fail to initialize the blah”), and in general the game (and entertainment broadly) industry is less linear/more hit-driven than others. I also hated that it broke my enjoyment of playing games if I got distracted wondering how they did some effect or why their renderer had a certain glitch.
DrBazza 5y ago
It entirely depends on what type of game you enjoy. Triple AAA MMOs and movie tie ins? They'd likely become worse, or just boilerplate drop-in graphics to WoW into Star Wars or Star Trek or whatever. Or some of the extremely high quality indie games? I'd take many of the indie games over WoW or CoD any day of the week. I don't need MMOs to enjoy a well written game.
- mym1990 5y ago
  Indie games are certainly having a moment! I remember first playing stardew valley and then learning that it was a 1 dev show. Crazy.
gruez 5y ago
The bad conditions are caused in part due to excess supply, so companies have their pick of desperate/abuse-tolerant employees. Having less workers would force companies to compete on working conditions.
- beefield 5y ago

StreamBright 5y ago

After working couple of years in gaming, it would be extremely hard to convince me to work in it again. Not only management is probably the worst kind I have seen but you know that the best can happen that the result of your work is going to make people spend time on video games instead of doing something better.

dkersten 5y ago
> you know that the best can happen that the result of your work is going to make people spend time on video games instead of doing something better. You could say the same thing about any hobby activity. Playing games isn't inherently bad just like drinking alcohol isn't inherently bad, its how much you let it consume your life (and in my personal opinion and experience, if you binge something its usually to fill some hole in your life, eg loneliness, and removing the thing to binge doesn't solve it and will simply get replaced with something else. The underlying issue needs to be addressed)
- StreamBright 5y ago
  > Playing games isn't inherently bad Agree. Playing _video_ games is, _sometimes_. Playing for a limited time vs. excessive time, playing in your free time instead of playing during times when you should be learning or working, etc. I think there are some potentially negative outcomes associated with video games exclusively, as opposed to other game types (table games, etc.). Anecdotal evidence time: I have personally met with several players who got severely addicted to video games and had to go through therapy. Not to mention professional players. Of course, the waste majority of players still might be ok. Also, just because some people get addicted it does not mean that the rest of the gamers experience any negative impact. The kind of problem I see with video games is that it takes away time from children that could have been spent outside doing something more important to their development. I am not sure if this subject is studied, the studies I have seen are inconclusive (some claim positive impact, some claim negative). > if you binge something its usually to fill some hole in your life, eg loneliness, and removing the thing to binge doesn't solve it and will simply get replaced with something else. The underlying issue needs to be addressed Absolutely. I just think that playing video games is probably the least healthy option. https://www.scmp.com/abacus/tech/article/3087444/chinese-esports-superstar-uzi-announces-retirement-age-23 https://www.scmp.com/abacus/tech/article/3087444/chinese-esp... https://www.healthygamer.gg/blog/video-games-and-mental-health-explained https://www.healthygamer.gg/blog/video-games-and-mental-heal... https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00260/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.0026... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6676913/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6676913/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905489/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905489/

ren_engineer 5y ago

>rather than almost any other branch of software engineering, where conditions are better I doubt a large percentage of the people requesting this are engineers. Activision/Blizzard has 9500 employees and only 1800 signed the request for the CEO to step down. They apparently need at least 30% of employees to sign up for the union but haven't released any numbers as far as I can tell.

pbalau 5y ago

There is an argument to be made that the majority of people working on video games are not engineers, but content producers. And for them the other field might be 3d modeling* kitchens. *I managed to confuse myself about how you spell this word...

mastax 5y ago
Yeah I have to say working on character or environment design is much more fulfilling than working on designing store-brand K-Cup packaging. (Where the packaging has to match the shitty branding of all the other products so there's no creativity allowed whatsoever).
- ludamad 5y ago
  I had a game where an artist and I grinded for 1.5 months, I feel I made the vision come to life yet the art stands alone too. I look back fondly in ways I could shape the artistic vision with relatively simple but creative programming. The more you have technical challenges (vs creative) the more you have overworked purely systems programmers. Some people love that, but undoubtedly it's more competitive than similar systems fields
deleted 5y ago
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bastardoperator 5y ago
Gamers themselves do not understand the dichotomy of game development. All changes good or bad are at the behest of the "game devs". Everyone gets lumped into a single category. If you're making a game engine like Sony did for GOW, I don't think you're a content producer, you're a hardcore engineer milking every bit of the playstation so that artists and content producers can make there visions a reality. I guess what I'm really trying to say is that devs get a bad rep in gaming based on decisions they're likely not making themselves or may even be against making.

skeeter2020 5y ago

This is maybe true, yet we have countless people working in their field of passion, and I'm very happy that they can make this choice.

gruez 5y ago
>I'm very happy that they can make this choice. ...and pay the associated costs for it. Alternatively, I'm happy that people churning out enterprise CRUD apps are well rewarded for working in a boring field.

pandaman 5y ago

It's as same as advertisement industry: one can be hanging billboards or one can be a SWE at Google/FB yet being in the same industry. Games industry is just as different.

blondin 5y ago

you are making a very good point! i have not considered this work-hobby aspect before. the gaming industry is not that different from other artistic fields. music and anime comes to mind because that's the other two i know about. the work conditions inside anime studios is awful. nothing you would want for anybody. and despite that fact, people kept choosing to do that kind of work. people with responsibilities too, families, kids, etc. they deliberately choose these awful work conditions.

gruez 5y ago
There's a name for this phenomena: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential
kmeisthax 5y ago
I don't necessarily agree with calling this a "choice" because that implies accountability that isn't really there, and more importantly, removes said accountability from the people running these hellhole work environments. It's the responsibility of management to provide a healthy working environment. This isn't just a moral obligation, but a creative one as well - businesses that operate like large-scale game developers or Japanese[0] animation studios will ultimately produce uninspired work that people will stop buying. On the worker's end, there doesn't necessarily have to be a choice to work in the same industry forever, either. Most of these companies have dangerously high employee churn. The company doesn't have to convince people to stay forever, they just need to replace people faster then they burn them out. For the past few decades, they've been able to do that by managing their image and hiding public awareness of their working conditions. In other words, management can choose to operate their company like a KyoAni or like an A-1 Pictures. They can choose to be a Valve[1] or an Ubisoft[2]. [0] Technically speaking a lot of tween work gets outsourced to lower-COL countries in east Asia, but those studios are often run just as bad as domestic animation studios in Japan. [1] Hedging my bets: if a bunch of shit comes out of Valve about horrible working conditions please note that this comment was written before that came to light. [2] A lot of stuff has come out about Activision-Blizzard-King, but let's not forget that Ubisoft is still worse - they actively shuffled sexual predators around their organization, Vatican-style, to keep them on their payroll. The only reason why we're talking about ABK is that the dueling EEOC/CFEH investigations have basically exposed everything.

bob1029 5y ago

I used to work in game development before I did all this serious business banking shit. Some of the best people I ever worked with were in that area. I am planning to get back into game dev after I make enough money to start my own studio.

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schmorptron 5y ago

While this may be true, if they manage to unionize they might lessen some of those negatives in the future, and I really hope for them that they'll pull through!

fermentation 5y ago
That’s exactly what I was thinking. This sounds more like an opportunity to finally make gamedev an appealing job.
q1w2 5y ago
Unlike large immovable factories, or big supply chain companies - game companies rise and fall in a market that is kill or be-killed. Any game company that unionizes will, in my opinion, have those studios shut down, and new ones open up in non-union environments. To be honest, even if Blizzard doesn't unionize, I imagine that the parent company is going to wind down the employees in the studio and move content elsewhere.
- schmorptron 5y ago
  On the other hand, players are incredibly attatched to existing IP and franchises, and very very fickle on "new" studios taking on their beloved franchises. I.e. when Halo moved from Bungie to 343 Industries etc.

teawrecks 5y ago

That's like telling starving artists to just enjoy the art that's already out there and get a real job.

dafelst 5y ago

Or, alternatively, just don't work for companies that treat their employees like shit. There are plenty of game dev companies where employees are treated well (I work for one of them) but "game company treats employees like human beings" is not an interesting enough headline, so you don't tend to hear about it. But in spite of working for a really good studio right now, I recognize that many people are not (I've also worked with ones that were middling at best), and unionization is a great step towards getting better conditions, especially for artists and content people. Engineers tend to get the best treatment since toxic management know they are more expensive, harder to replace and have more opportunities across a variety of industries. Conversely, if you are a 3d artist (just as an example), there are only so many places you can work, and unfortunately you are often considered more disposable.

root_axis 5y ago
> Or, alternatively, just don't work for companies that treat their employees like shit. Hmm... interesting advice, I wonder why people getting treated like shit by their employers never thought of that.
- dafelst 5y ago
  I know that you are being sarcastic, but there is an honest answer - most people I have met in the industry who are treated like shit are either: a) Too young or inexperienced or fearful of reprisal to understand how to advocate for themselves and others; and/or b) Just unaware that better places to work do exist, and are convinced (much like the thread parent here) that "this is just how gamedev is" Unfortunately because gamedev is a dream job for a lot of folks they are unwilling to rock the boat because they want to live their dream. That is why unions are a great opportunity for people like this, it gives them some agency to make a positive change.
  - root_axis 5y ago
    > Too young or inexperienced or fearful of reprisal to understand how to advocate for themselves and others; and/or Reprisal is real, especially for the young and inexperienced in places where employees are treated like shit. > Just unaware that better places to work do exist, and are convinced (much like the thread parent here) that "this is just how gamedev is" I find it hard to believe that you really think people getting treated like shit at work are "unaware that better places to work do exist". They are absolutely aware that better places to work exist, the problem is knowing which places those are, and then getting a job there. The negative statements being made about gamedev in this thread are generalizations, of course there are some excellent gamedev studios out there, but on average you're going to do a lot more work for a lot less pay with a lot less respect and a lot more drama than pretty much anywhere else in the software industry.

cardosof 5y ago

The same can be said of any arts & humanities -related industry IMO. I believe working conditions at an ad agency are generally worse than in an industrial complex because in the latter everyone's sure they're there for the money, while in the former there are some artists trying to win industry awards and other subjective stuff. But hey maybe I'm wrong and biased and good and bad companies are there in any sector because that's human nature.

foogazi 5y ago

> I'd suggest that Blizzard employees consider the consequences of working in computer games 0% of Blizzard SWE are forced to work there and do so voluntarily - they obviously like it there