3 ms·

What is the career ladder like for game devs? In a union, the only way up is seniority or, in other words, the amount of money you've paid in dues over the year

by chasd00 5mo ago

What is the career ladder like for game devs? In a union, the only way up is seniority or, in other words, the amount of money you've paid in dues over the years. A great developer isn't going to get rewarded with higher pay or a better role unless they've spent enough time/money as a union member.

flohofwoe 5mo ago
The typical carreer ladder for most people on a game dev team is basically to get fired when a game project ends and trying to get hired by another game company that's just starting a new project ;) Maybe exaggerating a bit, but that's the reality in many game dev shops, especially when a game doesn't immediately sell in great numbers.
- dude250711 5mo ago
  "...when a game project ends..." ...regardless of whether the game is successful or not. On the upside, you get freedom to create stuff like Concord and Highguard.
wasabi991011 5mo ago
> In a union, the only way up is seniority This isn't a strict requirement of unions though, right? As a trivial example grad student unions have no real career ladder, though the union negotiates a minimum pay and amount of work for everyone.
criddell 5mo ago
> the only way up is seniority That’s not true at all. Look at professional athletes. The starting pitchers in a baseball game are the best pitchers. Or consider WGA screenwriters in Hollywood. Their ability to make money doesn’t depend in seniority.
MagicMoonlight 5mo ago
Unions have nothing to do with career progression…
- groundzeros2015 5mo ago
  how could they possibly be unrelated?
rozab 5mo ago
I've never quite understood how unions in the US work or why they have the perception of them that they do. But rest assured, that is not what a union is elsewhere in the world.
mrkpdl 5mo ago
Yeah that’s not how unions work in my country
gsnedders 5mo ago
> In a union, the only way up is seniority or, in other words, the amount of money you've paid in dues over the years. I’m unaware of this ever being the case in the UK — the lack of closed shop units means that even when collective agreements cover promotion they cannot meaningfully set this based on dues paid, both because they don’t necessarily know how long each employee has been a member of the union, and regardless that would be illegal discrimination based on union membership vs not. In the common case for private-sector white-collar collective agreements in the UK, promotion is mostly just required to be transparent, rather than setting out procedural rules for promotion. Your focus on union dues also makes me suspect you’re commenting from the US, expecting a union environment much more like the US — and US unions are outliers in many ways. Per https://iwgb.org.uk/en/join/game-worker/ https://iwgb.org.uk/en/join/game-worker/ union dues max out at £35/month for those earning £80k and more — this is vastly less than unions require as dues in the US, and that almost certainly reduces the impact that union dues have, even beyond the illegality of closed shop units.

by chasd00 5mo ago

flohofwoe 5mo ago

The typical carreer ladder for most people on a game dev team is basically to get fired when a game project ends and trying to get hired by another game company that's just starting a new project ;) Maybe exaggerating a bit, but that's the reality in many game dev shops, especially when a game doesn't immediately sell in great numbers.

dude250711 5mo ago
"...when a game project ends..." ...regardless of whether the game is successful or not. On the upside, you get freedom to create stuff like Concord and Highguard.

wasabi991011 5mo ago

> In a union, the only way up is seniority This isn't a strict requirement of unions though, right? As a trivial example grad student unions have no real career ladder, though the union negotiates a minimum pay and amount of work for everyone.

criddell 5mo ago

> the only way up is seniority That’s not true at all. Look at professional athletes. The starting pitchers in a baseball game are the best pitchers. Or consider WGA screenwriters in Hollywood. Their ability to make money doesn’t depend in seniority.

MagicMoonlight 5mo ago

Unions have nothing to do with career progression…

groundzeros2015 5mo ago
how could they possibly be unrelated?

rozab 5mo ago

I've never quite understood how unions in the US work or why they have the perception of them that they do. But rest assured, that is not what a union is elsewhere in the world.

mrkpdl 5mo ago

Yeah that’s not how unions work in my country

gsnedders 5mo ago

> In a union, the only way up is seniority or, in other words, the amount of money you've paid in dues over the years. I’m unaware of this ever being the case in the UK — the lack of closed shop units means that even when collective agreements cover promotion they cannot meaningfully set this based on dues paid, both because they don’t necessarily know how long each employee has been a member of the union, and regardless that would be illegal discrimination based on union membership vs not. In the common case for private-sector white-collar collective agreements in the UK, promotion is mostly just required to be transparent, rather than setting out procedural rules for promotion. Your focus on union dues also makes me suspect you’re commenting from the US, expecting a union environment much more like the US — and US unions are outliers in many ways. Per https://iwgb.org.uk/en/join/game-worker/ https://iwgb.org.uk/en/join/game-worker/ union dues max out at £35/month for those earning £80k and more — this is vastly less than unions require as dues in the US, and that almost certainly reduces the impact that union dues have, even beyond the illegality of closed shop units.