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All I ever hear about it how hellish it is to work in the video game industry. Why do people stay? How do companies retain employees?

thrance 1y ago
It is hellish because there are a lot of people who want to work in video games. Workers having to compete lead to bad working conditions, as employers push the boundaries of what they can get away with while still finding enough workers to fill their positions.
- nonethewiser 1y ago
  For sure. Which is why it's weird that someone would stay and expect things to improve. As we've made abundantly clear, the willingness to stay is precisely why the conditions are bad.
gruez 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential Making video games is a cool job. Making enterprise CRUD software isn't. Video game studios can therefore treat workers worse and get away with it because for at least some subset of the workforce, they'll put up with it.
doctorpangloss 1y ago
the industry is vast and there are many experiences. It's certainly not hellish for the 3 guys + contractors who made Silksong, or for Lucas Pope, or for many of the people working at huge mobile game studios. EA makes games with numbers in their names. They do not take on a lot of risk, which means "anyone" could do it. So they have to work very, very hard. This is NOT a complicated idea.
gdulli 1y ago
I had good experiences, but that's not fodder for loud vanity blogging so the world doesn't hear about it.
nonethewiser 1y ago
It's one thing to stay despite the tough conditions because you love games. It's another thing to stay and expect things to change. The act of staying is precisely the thing that is enforcing the bad conditions.
uyzstvqs 1y ago
That applies to AAA games, where you make awful games for awful companies. Being an indie dev is great, and you can make millions by yourself if your game gets popular. Recent example: "Megabonk" was made by a solo indie dev in a few months. It has reportedly sold around 2 million copies at $10 in 1 month.
- sandspar 1y ago
  Thousands of indie games die on the vine for every one breakout. It's like saying you can make millions of dollars if your acting career takes off.
- tasuki 1y ago
  If it was that easy all those EA employees would go on to release their hugely successful games instead of working for EA...
- ericksoa 1y ago
  This. Working at EA punching out the next version of Madden, featuring roster updates, UI changes, and tinkering with a few settings isn't exactly work designing the new Unreal engine. Your average Java CRUDster could probably do a lot of that work. Gamedev isn't the black art it used to be.
a13o 1y ago
Most people don’t stay. They burn out and find work/life balance in other fields. Once they realize how depressed their wages were in the games industry there’s no hope of getting them back.
BeetleB 1y ago
The same reason people work at Tesla, I imagine.
ClimaxGravely 1y ago
Worked at many game development studios, only one truly bad experience. Granted I probably got extremely lucky but there are good studios/jobs out there. My current company is a 4 day work week, fully remote and good pay. I feel I get more work done in a 32 hour week than I did at another company where I had hit ~90 hour weeks a few times. I'm not going back and fixing code I wrote while sleep deprived. Also worked outside games in STEM, education and a couple startups. I wouldn't say they were particularly better.
kg 1y ago
For some skill sets the non-games options to work in are comparatively 'soulless' or 'soul-crushing' (not my words, but ways I've heard people describe it). For example: If you're a literature expert, do you really want to do copy-editing for doordash when you could be writing interactive narratives? If you're a UI designer, are wireframes for the latest AI chat app even 25% as exciting as designing the HUD for a new video game? And then some skill sets are just not really transferable at all. Game design leans on skills that are transferable but 'game designer' doesn't really map to other fields at all, and it is a real specialization that some people have decades of time spent honing.
xandrius 1y ago
You really cannot understand why someone would want to be part of a team creating something they love (or used to love) as kids + all the joys of programming times 100? I personally don't understand people who work for blockchain, or as cashiers, waiters, customer support, etc. I tried those jobs as there is no deep-rooted love of anything around those, just a job, and still a ton of people do it. On the other hand, working on video games, despite being often underpaid, often full of crunching and sometimes monotonous, is something I do understand. It's literally as close as "follow your dreams" go but for programmers who are into games.
- lII1lIlI11ll 1y ago
  > It's literally as close as "follow your dreams" go but for programmers who are into games. I mean, I could understand dreaming about working for (old) Blizzard, id, Westwood, Looking Glass, Valve, etc. but EA?! Really?
  - xandrius 1y ago
    I wasn't specifically speaking of EA but I guess many people don't necessarily know it for the bad stuff they pull off but rather for Fifa and such? Even though I would never touch them with a 2m stick, I still fondly remember them for "EA sports, it's in the game" era.

thrance 1y ago

It is hellish because there are a lot of people who want to work in video games. Workers having to compete lead to bad working conditions, as employers push the boundaries of what they can get away with while still finding enough workers to fill their positions.

nonethewiser 1y ago
For sure. Which is why it's weird that someone would stay and expect things to improve. As we've made abundantly clear, the willingness to stay is precisely why the conditions are bad.

gruez 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compensating_differential Making video games is a cool job. Making enterprise CRUD software isn't. Video game studios can therefore treat workers worse and get away with it because for at least some subset of the workforce, they'll put up with it.

doctorpangloss 1y ago

the industry is vast and there are many experiences. It's certainly not hellish for the 3 guys + contractors who made Silksong, or for Lucas Pope, or for many of the people working at huge mobile game studios. EA makes games with numbers in their names. They do not take on a lot of risk, which means "anyone" could do it. So they have to work very, very hard. This is NOT a complicated idea.

gdulli 1y ago

I had good experiences, but that's not fodder for loud vanity blogging so the world doesn't hear about it.

nonethewiser 1y ago

It's one thing to stay despite the tough conditions because you love games. It's another thing to stay and expect things to change. The act of staying is precisely the thing that is enforcing the bad conditions.

uyzstvqs 1y ago

That applies to AAA games, where you make awful games for awful companies. Being an indie dev is great, and you can make millions by yourself if your game gets popular. Recent example: "Megabonk" was made by a solo indie dev in a few months. It has reportedly sold around 2 million copies at $10 in 1 month.

sandspar 1y ago
Thousands of indie games die on the vine for every one breakout. It's like saying you can make millions of dollars if your acting career takes off.
tasuki 1y ago
If it was that easy all those EA employees would go on to release their hugely successful games instead of working for EA...
ericksoa 1y ago
This. Working at EA punching out the next version of Madden, featuring roster updates, UI changes, and tinkering with a few settings isn't exactly work designing the new Unreal engine. Your average Java CRUDster could probably do a lot of that work. Gamedev isn't the black art it used to be.

a13o 1y ago

Most people don’t stay. They burn out and find work/life balance in other fields. Once they realize how depressed their wages were in the games industry there’s no hope of getting them back.

BeetleB 1y ago

The same reason people work at Tesla, I imagine.

ClimaxGravely 1y ago

Worked at many game development studios, only one truly bad experience. Granted I probably got extremely lucky but there are good studios/jobs out there. My current company is a 4 day work week, fully remote and good pay. I feel I get more work done in a 32 hour week than I did at another company where I had hit ~90 hour weeks a few times. I'm not going back and fixing code I wrote while sleep deprived. Also worked outside games in STEM, education and a couple startups. I wouldn't say they were particularly better.

kg 1y ago

For some skill sets the non-games options to work in are comparatively 'soulless' or 'soul-crushing' (not my words, but ways I've heard people describe it). For example: If you're a literature expert, do you really want to do copy-editing for doordash when you could be writing interactive narratives? If you're a UI designer, are wireframes for the latest AI chat app even 25% as exciting as designing the HUD for a new video game? And then some skill sets are just not really transferable at all. Game design leans on skills that are transferable but 'game designer' doesn't really map to other fields at all, and it is a real specialization that some people have decades of time spent honing.

xandrius 1y ago

You really cannot understand why someone would want to be part of a team creating something they love (or used to love) as kids + all the joys of programming times 100? I personally don't understand people who work for blockchain, or as cashiers, waiters, customer support, etc. I tried those jobs as there is no deep-rooted love of anything around those, just a job, and still a ton of people do it. On the other hand, working on video games, despite being often underpaid, often full of crunching and sometimes monotonous, is something I do understand. It's literally as close as "follow your dreams" go but for programmers who are into games.

lII1lIlI11ll 1y ago
> It's literally as close as "follow your dreams" go but for programmers who are into games. I mean, I could understand dreaming about working for (old) Blizzard, id, Westwood, Looking Glass, Valve, etc. but EA?! Really?
- xandrius 1y ago
  I wasn't specifically speaking of EA but I guess many people don't necessarily know it for the bad stuff they pull off but rather for Fifa and such? Even though I would never touch them with a 2m stick, I still fondly remember them for "EA sports, it's in the game" era.