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>> He had no choice, really -- this industry works people overlong and threatens them with excommunication if they complain, knowing full well that enthusiastic
by doktrin 14y ago
>> He had no choice, really -- this industry works people overlong and threatens them with excommunication if they complain, knowing full well that enthusiastic young talent will gladly come fill in at a lower wage.
Having never worked in the gaming industry, just about every 1st hand account I read tends to emphasize its fairly brutal nature. Frankly it sounds like a shit-terrible environment. Is game dev really fun enough to justify this kind of treatment?
>> And this drama -- this tightrope walk between building virtual violence while fashioning a safe space for the next generation -- was forced to live in the same building that received countless letters, forum posts, YouTube videos, and more from angry gamers that threatened us -- and our families -- if we didn’t deliver them the bloodthirsty experience they wanted, the one they demanded.
Speaking of terrible environments, enter the gaming community. There's something about competitive online multi-player games in that they inevitably seem to breed awful. Years ago I gamed competitively at what would be considered "elite" levels, and all too often many of my fellow top-tier gamers were beyond the pale. Rampant racism & misogyny are only the tip of the iceberg, at times.
I suppose I think there's something pretty "off" with both the gaming industry and the community it serves. Wish I had a constructive solution in mind, but for the time being I simply avoid both.
- pms 14y agoI follow Starcraft 2 pro scene and it is not so bad, although, many players are young, so immature behaviors happens sometimes. I guess that competitive strategy games are different from competitive FPS.
- doktrin 14y agoYeah, I agree. The SC2 community is on average far more civil than those in shooters and even (PvP) MMOs.
- geon 14y ago> Is game dev really fun enough to justify this kind of treatment? By the same first hand accounts, it seems like it's not. The turn over rate is very high, with very few working in the industry more than 5 years. Young, naive people are attracted by the glamour, then exploited. As they mature, they realize, it is not the life they want, and leave.
- incision 14y ago>I suppose I think there's something pretty "off" with both the gaming industry and the community it serves. Wish I had a constructive solution in mind, but for the time being I simply avoid both. I have much the same conclusion drawn from essentially the same experience. Though, I think some of the reasons are fairly evident it's just they're all but impossible to discuss productively in or around the community echo chamber.
- pandaman 14y agoEvery time you are reading such an account - check out whose account it is. There is a website called mobygames.com listing most of the credits and searchable by the developer's name. Basically the working environment depends on the particular place of work much more than on the particular industry. If you read only people working for Yahoo, you could conclude that web-advertising is a horrible industry. People working for Myspace would give you an impression that working for Facebook is just as bad etc etc.