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Amy Hennig: "Triple-A development an arms race that is unwinnable"

Mustawd

Guest
People talk about markets and industries as if they were intangible units, but they aren't. Devs are getting seriously fucked up, probably the worst in any sort of industry, and nobody seems to care.

Nobody seems to care because they are adults making their own decisions.

Someone with technical or organizational skills to work in AAA games can get work elsewhere for more pay and better hours. So it's not like this is indentured servitude, where you truly don't have an economic choice.

At some point you need to make a personal decision to either gtfo or stay in it.
 

Mustawd

Guest
Why?

Not to seem callous, but I jist think we have different politics.

I'm not an absolutist, but in this case people have plenty of options. They should vote with their feet.
 

Mustawd

Guest
And to be fair, the flipside is true as well. Companies shouldn't be allowed to prevent workers from discussing/comparing pay.

It's just a way to obfuscate the labor market, and it's BS.
 

Lyric Suite

Converting to Islam
Joined
Mar 23, 2006
Messages
56,164
The people who should be pushing for some kind of workers right in video games are kinda busy shitting on the devs for being such evil misogynist shitlords. Get on with the program.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
Exactly. In today's indie landscape where we have the engine and every software available to smaller developers, you can make a living off of indie projects if you are talented. I could even argue that you can earn more money with a kickass and unique indie game, than in a AAA company.
Depends, on a simple platformer on Steam there are five or more people working on it, while you can certainly do a game alone, that is a huge undertaking specially if you are trying for anything more than absolute primitive and trying to get an stable income. If you have 5 or so people working for an entire year on US wages and costs... boy... that adds up on a year. I won't even mention more complex projects that require even more people.

So, you need capital to keep this going (you are trying to make a living of this not just some hobby) and to get that you need a)to know some investor, b)crowdfunding, c)pay from your own pocket and d)loans, a)if you are a asocial nerd, you will never meet one, b)Requires you have a decent reputation to get enough money but that is something you don't have when you are a newbie or even a veteran that is mostly unknown, c)Are you rich? No? HaHaHaHaHa!, d)Maybe placing a rope around your neck for the next years and trying to avoid falling from the chair is a less stressful experience.

Steam takes a 30% cut, taxes another bite and you are expected to charge less on 50% off or more promotions, all of this with a fierce competition with probably more money than you fighting for any visibility, your game could just die unknown and there is nothing you can do about it as you don't have a marketing budget. While slaving away as some corporate drone is a big failure, living like some broke indie developer isn't something glamurous either, especially if you wanna have a family.

Another problem, if you are a rookie, where are you going to get experience? Your first games are going to be probably complete broken shit and not many people are going to pay for them. No indie team will accept you if you can't carry your load as they don't have many resources to waste time teaching you. If you are a veteran, how are you going to get the other talent required to make a game when you were only used to deal on your area? How are you going to convince them to leave their job and work for you?

It isn't entirely fair to compare the failed Ubisoft nameless drone to a successful indie developer because the chances of you being one are as small as you going anywhere on the AAA industry. If your projects fail hard, you are going to probably work like a slave to someone else for the food anyway, have no decent career AND pay for the expenses you had while trying to make a game and failing. If you work part time on your project, your marriage will go to shit as the time you should be having with your family will be wasted on a gaming project and you could end broke anyway.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
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Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
Exactly. In today's indie landscape where we have the engine and every software available to smaller developers, you can make a living off of indie projects if you are talented. I could even argue that you can earn more money with a kickass and unique indie game, than in a AAA company.
Depends, on a simple platformer on Steam there are five or more people working on it, while you can certainly do a game alone, that is a huge undertaking specially if you are trying for anything more than absolute primitive and trying to get an stable income. If you have 5 or so people working for an entire year on US wages and costs... boy... that adds up on a year. I won't even mention more complex projects that require even more people.

So, you need capital to keep this going (you are trying to make a living of this not just some hobby) and to get that you need a)to know some investor, b)crowdfunding, c)pay from your own pocket and d)loans, a)if you are a asocial nerd, you will never meet one, b)Requires you have a decent reputation to get enough money but that is something you don't have when you are a newbie or even a veteran that is mostly unknown, c)Are you rich? No? HaHaHaHaHa!, d)Maybe placing a rope around your neck for the next years and trying to avoid falling from the chair is a less stressful experience.

Steam takes a 30% cut, taxes another bite and you are expected to charge less on 50% off or more promotions, all of this with a fierce competition with probably more money than you fighting for any visibility, your game could just die unknown and there is nothing you can do about it as you don't have a marketing budget. While slaving away as some corporate drone is a big failure, living like some broke indie developer isn't something glamurous either, especially if you wanna have a family.

Another problem, if you are a rookie, where are you going to get experience? Your first games are going to be probably complete broken shit and not many people are going to pay for them. No indie team will accept you if you can't carry your load as they don't have many resources to waste time teaching you. If you are a veteran, how are you going to get the other talent required to make a game when you were only used to deal on your area? How are you going to convince them to leave their job and work for you?

It isn't entirely fair to compare the failed Ubisoft nameless drone to a successful indie developer because the chances of you being one are as small as you going anywhere on the AAA industry. If your projects fail hard, you are going to probably work like a slave to someone else for the food anyway, have no decent career AND pay for the expenses you had while trying to make a game and failing. If you work part time on your project, your marriage will go to shit as the time you should be having with your family will be wasted on a gaming project and you could end broke anyway.
Oh I agree about that. For a startup developer it must be hard as hell. I was thinking more about established devs who have some capital and connection in the business. The are more likey to develop a game with a handful of people.
 

moraes

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 24, 2011
Messages
701
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Codex USB, 2014 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Go on strike, organize an union, kidnap one or two execs, agitprop in all your games.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,999
Location
Platypus Planet
jeff vogel probably earn more money than 95% of videogame programmer in regular company. most of the money goes to the higher ups
Depends on the company. Blizzard compensates all their employees pretty well, and not just with a salary either. They've always been pretty top tier when it comes to offering all kinds of extra services such as fitness trainers and good health care.
 

Jarpie

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
Messages
6,603
Codex 2012 MCA
I agree with Grimlorn, you (as in they) always have a choice, they don't have to work in gaming industry. You made your bed, you lie in it, "waah waah we have to work long hours", Choices and Consequences, motherfuckers!
 

octavius

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 4, 2007
Messages
19,184
Location
Bjørgvin
The video games industry is weird. In other industries, like movies and music, and sports, the "stars" have much more power and can dictacte terms to a degree.
 

Mozg

Arcane
Joined
Oct 20, 2015
Messages
2,033
Invisibility in the final product is hell on your leverage in negotiation.

Unionize, retards. I don't even like it because unions are sure to fuck up indies due to regulation and scale problems but it's the right move for AAA workers.
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
The video games industry is weird. In other industries, like movies and music, and sports, the "stars" have much more power and can dictacte terms to a degree.
Because game development is much more technical. You can't just substitute let's say Brad Pitt, Madonna and Ronaldo with a noname person, because you can't simply replace talent. On the other hand, game developers are much more expendable, you can catch designers, programmers by the dozens. Only artists like music composers and art designers are the ones who are much harder to replace.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
The video games industry is weird. In other industries, like movies and music, and sports, the "stars" have much more power and can dictacte terms to a degree.
Because game development is much more technical. You can't just substitute let's say Brad Pitt, Madonna and Ronaldo with a noname person, because you can't simply replace talent. On the other hand, game developers are much more expendable, you can catch designers, programmers by the dozens. Only artists like music composers and art designers are the ones who are much harder to replace.

Art designers are even cheaper than programmers (and equally replaceable), if you are talking about the people who do all the "art" in a game and not exceptions like Amano.
 

Mustawd

Guest
I think Gozma is right though. When you can plug and play anyone in a position, the employee becomes commoditized.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
I think Gozma is right though. When you can plug and play anyone in a position, the employee becomes commoditized.

I don't think you can do this in games anymore than in for example business software development. .net developers aren't less replaceable than a C developer in games, yet a .net developer in a Fortune 500 company gets a better wage and working hours than a developer in the game industry.

Finding and training new hires is a time and money consuming process on every business, so in a stable business environment, you should have an incentive to stick to keep your employees. But game development seems to be a more project focussed environment, where companies can't provide a steady stream of work, but inflate and decrease their employee numbers according to the development cycle.
 
Self-Ejected

Davaris

Self-Ejected
Developer
Joined
Mar 7, 2005
Messages
6,547
Location
Idiocracy
Sometimes you really wonder why such kick-ass talent is even bothering with such bloated and stressful projects when their creative juices could be easier elicited with more concentrated efforts. I know I know, teh money.

Actually, aren't ppl in the vidya game industry underpaid?

The thing is there are a thousand people lined up to do your job for probably a bit less pay. So you really have no leverage if you want to keep making video games.

It really sounds like a crap industry tbh.

Or better put...

the devs and programmers let themselves be treated like slaves just so they can fulfill their dream of making video games.


Really though, these people have no one to blame but themselves for being taken advantage of. Want a life? Go do something else.

^
This.

I watched a video made by Jonathon Blow and he said he regards burnout as an actual physical injury. I think he said when he burned out, he couldn't program for a decade or more.

Just had a thought. Would be fun if the burnouts lawyered up and started suing their former employers. The chaos it would cause if they were able to extract money would be hilarious. :terrorist:
 

Grimlorn

Arcane
Joined
Jun 1, 2011
Messages
10,248
It's not just the fact they choose to work in those environments, sell shitty, buggy games, cut off pieces of a game to sell as day one DLC and lie constantly when marketing a game.

It's also the fact that devs had a chance to turn things around with the whole GG fiasco. That's what's so ironic about it. Here you have tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of gamers organizing and demanding better games journalism and supporting and promoting devs including Amy Hennig. They would have fought for the devs to have better working conditions and for journalists to report on this more often to create the necessary outrage to change the industry. But they didn't do that, and stayed silent while the media slandered all those gamers as misogynists and racists making the entire game industry look bad.
 

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