3 ms·

Typical Bay Area game devs with under 5-10yrs of experience are making something like $80k-$140k/yr and working 80 hr weeks, without a cushy stock package, taki

by hansvm 2y ago

Typical Bay Area game devs with under 5-10yrs of experience are making something like $80k-$140k/yr and working 80 hr weeks, without a cushy stock package, taking a pay cut if they agree to rev share, and getting normal healthcare benefits, sometimes retirement. That's not nothing, or even bad per se, but those same people have much better options. Even for normal people at a normal startup and not fishing around till they get lucky they ought to be in the $140k-$200k range, working 30-60hr weeks. Separately, it's slightly bad. Working at Trader Joe's and McDonald's double full time gets you better pay and benefits than the $80k/yr game dev, especially if they still have any student loans. After taxes, getting lucky with a cheap apartment, and utilities, they're banking $22k/yr. Their chunk of healthcare, either car expenses if they drive in or extra rent if the live close to work, food, ..., makes the situation a lot worse. It's mostly fine starting out if you're single, pretty good even, but adding in any other dependents puts them under water, and they definitely don't have the financial headroom to weather any kind of financial emergency.

PeterHolzwarth 2y ago
"same people have much better options" No, no they don't: people seem to forget that at a game company, the minority of people are engineers. The extremes are designers: there is pretty much no equivalent to, say, level design outside of the games industry. Other design disciplines - it takes a bit of mental gymnastics to find a way their game work could translate into something out of that industry. Art? There's a bit of fleeing of hollywood VFX going on - it's no more attractive for 3D artists that the gaming industry. Other forms of art in games as well pretty much only have an overlap with hollywood as well (audio too). Game industry QA? Doesn't really exist in that form anywhere else, but it's a minimum wage job either way. All this to say that many of the jobs in the games industry don't translate to much outside of it.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  You're right, but most of the complaints about low paying salaries focus mostly on the programmers. Management is paid about as well as in/out the industry (many from out the industry. Which explains modern game dysfunction). Art is underrespected but that's across all the industry except maybe animation (the article even links to a NYT article titled "Trump Proposes Eliminating the Arts and Humanities Endowments". Even the government doesn't respect it, and it's not a new trend). Other places like Sound, VA, and design do transfer but are traditionally gig economies instead of a full time employment.

by hansvm 2y ago

PeterHolzwarth 2y ago

"same people have much better options" No, no they don't: people seem to forget that at a game company, the minority of people are engineers. The extremes are designers: there is pretty much no equivalent to, say, level design outside of the games industry. Other design disciplines - it takes a bit of mental gymnastics to find a way their game work could translate into something out of that industry. Art? There's a bit of fleeing of hollywood VFX going on - it's no more attractive for 3D artists that the gaming industry. Other forms of art in games as well pretty much only have an overlap with hollywood as well (audio too). Game industry QA? Doesn't really exist in that form anywhere else, but it's a minimum wage job either way. All this to say that many of the jobs in the games industry don't translate to much outside of it.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
You're right, but most of the complaints about low paying salaries focus mostly on the programmers. Management is paid about as well as in/out the industry (many from out the industry. Which explains modern game dysfunction). Art is underrespected but that's across all the industry except maybe animation (the article even links to a NYT article titled "Trump Proposes Eliminating the Arts and Humanities Endowments". Even the government doesn't respect it, and it's not a new trend). Other places like Sound, VA, and design do transfer but are traditionally gig economies instead of a full time employment.