The Game Industry's Disposable Workers

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I know this article is meant to be serious but it's hard to be sympathetic when a person takes temporary job, in this case repeatedly with the same company, yet is upset that it is only temporary employment with little to no benefits. Does it suck? Yes. But this is not something that is exclusive to the game industry.

Some contractors choose to live this way, and they enjoy the freedom and variety it offers. High-end contractors can earn more than $100 an hour, working from home. But most contractors work on-site for an hourly rate that starts at $15. They are often treated like employees, but without the benefits and protections, according to interviewees. Many contractors are frustrated that they can't land a full-time position.
 
Game contracting only at $15/hr.?? Really. That's like bad.... I mean ultra, kill them all kind of bad.

I would think a $40/hr. would be robbery. Back after the dot-bomb I lowered my rate to $75/hr. (temporarily). Most of my friends were still charging $100+ and that was back in the early 2000's.

Folks, if you're quality talent, don't suffer under those sub $40/hr. wages... that's ridiculous.
 
That's why they need a union...

But again if your dumb or desperate enough to take those jobs, you get what you get.
 
Probleminfected said:
That's why they need a union...

But again if your dumb or desperate enough to take those jobs, you get what you get.
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It has nothing to do with being dumb. I would imagine that these people almost have to take the jobs, even at less pay, because if they don't there will just be someone else willing to do it. If they always hold out for more they may never get any.

I don't know anything about the game industry, but this isn't really industry specific.
 
auntjemima said:
It has nothing to do with being dumb. I would imagine that these people almost have to take the jobs, even at less pay, because if they don't there will just be someone else willing to do it. If they always hold out for more they may never get any.

I don't know anything about the game industry, but this isn't really industry specific.
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It is dumb, because then more places will see that people will work for these rates and everybody's wages start to drop.

It's one thing to work as an intern at these rates, it's another to be a full time "contractor"
 
I fall into this situation, and have for the past 7 years or so. As for $40 being robbery, I'd agree, but companies, especially game companies, are always on the lookout for lower prices. Contractors are in a situation where if we ask for more, well, the odds of getting a job drop. And I'm no longer in my 20s (closing in on 40), which doesn't exactly help the situation, especially in the programming field.

The problem is finding a full time position is much harder. Well, everyone wants talent is one thing I hear a lot. Yet, what am I going to write on my resume? I've worked with like 15 different technologies within the past 4 years, and really aren't a master with any of them. Well, just learn at home is another thing. I know it sounds like I'm making excuses, and to an extent I am, but learning when you're in your early 20s is far easier than in your 30s. And it also tends to be younger people in their early 20s giving this advice. I just don't have that drive any more, after spending 60 hours a week staring at a computer and doing programming, to do it more when I get back home (after a fairly long commute [over an hour]).

And, outside of benefits, you pretty much are a full time employee. My last contract lasted about 3 years. Same meetings as everyone else, same work as everyone else, etc. The only difference is, within the past 2 years or so, it's become a "Will I have a job next week" situation, and currently, well, I have free time. The fortunate thing though is that I was able to save up money that I'm not worried about food and lodging for the near future.
 
H1B pretty much allowed American companies to treat tech workers as disposable. Don't like it, we'll import someone who does.
 
I've been stuck in that contractor rut for 8 years now. You really are just a full time employee without benefits. Hoping to land a real government job soon so I can get some benefits like a pension going. Luckily the pay has been pretty good as I am considered essential staff so I have had some leeway in adjusting my rates. The tech industry is just brutal, one of the reason I decided to go the law route. The amount of tech guys needed in litigation support for private and public law offices is starting sky rocket.
 
I wonder if independent truck drivers feel the same way? This sounds like it comes with the territory being a sub-contractor. Innovate and become someone more indispensable then others and reap the rewards. If you don't want the job don't take it, find something else or look into a different field. I just don't see the gaming industry going to a big staff, full time position between different games with annual pay raises, 401K's etc. This is similar to the construction field, you have a job when a project are in progress, not when not. If you are with a company that keeps getting projects you stay working or you will be collecting unemployment.
 
Supply and Demand of Econ 101. Every Junior College and Vo-Tech is producing "programmers" with maybe 12-15 credit hours of programming time when they get a degree or certificate. Add in the companies gaming the H1B visas and you have too many inexperienced people chasing too few jobs. And folks wonder why so many games are behind schedule, over budget and under featured at launch.
 
I once had a limited non-benefit job for the state. When you were hired you were also given your end date, because if you went over that date it might be hard for them to say you were temporary. My end date was set to Dec 31, 9999.
 
Yeesh....

I've only been at my 'career' for just over 4 years now and I learned this lesson on my first year. Dangling carrot? It's your fault if you chase it. I had my hopes up in that first year that I would get flipped as a full time employee and when others got shot down, I started looking for a job elsewhere before my end date came up.

I don't know how the Game Industry works but it can't be all that different from IT work, which is what I do. Ultimately I plan to move into software development which I can safely say I'm already a good candidate for where I currently work and elsewhere. It's all about looking for opportunity even when it means ditching, for a moment, what you think your career trajectory should be.

I'm a millennial and I feel like most of the names dropped in that article, like Sarah and Tyler, are entitled millennials that believe they deserve their full time position. I have a cousin of mine that bitches on the daily about being a freelance video editor and only ever having contract work and inconsistent jobs. Does he try to look anywhere else? Of course he doesn't. He sticks with it because he has false hopes the company somehow values his work enough to get turned into an employee. That simply is never the case.
 
noko said:
I wonder if independent truck drivers feel the same way? This sounds like it comes with the territory being a sub-contractor. Innovate and become someone more indispensable then others and reap the rewards. If you don't want the job don't take it, find something else or look into a different field. I just don't see the gaming industry going to a big staff, full time position between different games with annual pay raises, 401K's etc. This is similar to the construction field, you have a job when a project are in progress, not when not. If you are with a company that keeps getting projects you stay working or you will be collecting unemployment.
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Dead Parrot said:
Supply and Demand of Econ 101. Every Junior College and Vo-Tech is producing "programmers" with maybe 12-15 credit hours of programming time when they get a degree or certificate. Add in the companies gaming the H1B visas and you have too many inexperienced people chasing too few jobs. And folks wonder why so many games are behind schedule, over budget and under featured at launch.
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The trucking industry is the same way. A few years ago the government was subsidizing CDL training for just about anyone that wanted to train. CDL schools and trucking companies looking to cash in on all that money began cranking out so many drivers is so little time that some of them literally graduated with virtually no driving experience, and very poor classroom experience. The end result was a flood of bad drivers on our roads, high turnover of drivers, and undercut wages. Some schools were accepting bribes to graduate people that had no business on the roads. A federal sting found cdl fraud schemes involving more than 16,000 drivers in 24 states. The final road test at one school was leaving the parking lot at the school, driving two blocks, making a right turn, driving a block, and pulling into a lot. If you didn't crash you got a Class A CDL.

One student at a company named CRST drove halfway across the nation while his lead driver was sleeping in the bunk, because he couldn't wake the guy up. Upon arrival at their destination, another employee of the school realized that the lead driver wasn't sleeping, he was dead.

 
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This is not at all industry specific. I had a full time "temporary" college teaching job for three years. I did everything the permanent people did, and then some. I was paid 60% of what they were salary wise and received no retirement.

I understand the supply and demand arguments, but they're a bit short sighted. Yes, you can manage to pay people peanuts and get away with it, but it comes at a cost in terms of retention and quality of the product. We don't even need to get into the ethical issues to see how flawed these practices are. Just because you can pay less up front doesn't mean it costs less over the long term when you look at the complete picture.
 
MarkVI said:
This is not at all industry specific. I had a full time "temporary" college teaching job for three years. I did everything the permanent people did, and then some. I was paid 60% of what they were salary wise and received no retirement.

I understand the supply and demand arguments, but they're a bit short sighted. Yes, you can manage to pay people peanuts and get away with it, but it comes at a cost in terms of retention and quality of the product. We don't even need to get into the ethical issues to see how flawed these practices are. Just because you can pay less up front doesn't mean it costs less over the long term when you look at the complete picture.
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I think that's part of the problem. No one looks at the complete picture anymore. It's always about next quarter now.
 
It's rough, the competition is so fierce. The two developers I'm working with, one is still working at Lowes Home Improvement and the other does odd jobs. Both have 4 year CS degrees and experience in game design. We are all working for free. (embroynic startup). It was so bad that I am pulling some strings to get one of them a better 9 to 5 job so he isn't living hand to mouth so much.
 
Nytegard said:
I think that's part of the problem. No one looks at the complete picture anymore. It's always about next quarter now.
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I think that the computer itself as a business tool has had much to do with it. No more waiting for quarterly reports, just reacting in real time. CEO's and the like can wake up every morning and micro analyze virtually every aspect of their operation. Everyone from management to the investors can watch every fluctuation in real time, down to the most minute fraction. They don't even have to be particular gifted at analyzing information or trends themselves, the information just presents itself with a click. Gains mean career prosperity, even short term trend losses on any level are met with utter disdain. It's become cold, hard, and impersonal. Executive compensation in America just creates a greater divide between the pretty people and the grunts. To make matters even worse, most major companies are multi-national now. They don't feel any form of loyalty to their own nation or their own workers, they're just prostitutes looking for a payday.
 
That's gotta be rough. I haven't been a contractor for around 15 years. I've always been kind of in demand so if I decide to leave where I'm at I'm got people waiting in line to pick me up. I've encountered people with extensive contracting careers, in some cases a new contract every 6 months for many years. Not by choice per-say but that they had no particular stand out talents. They'd been hopping for so long they'd never really picked up anything.

The best advice I can give people like that is that you need to give up your free time and dedicate yourself to afterwork studies or better on the job training. Always be asking for more complex work. Maybe you'll flail a bit but at least you'll learn via trial by fire.

For myself (I'm 34) though I'm a DOCSIS SME over the years I've picked up certifications for all kinds of nonsense from Cisco train garbage to advanced metropolitan network infrastructure design to Fiber and MPLS work. If I had to I could go work for Cisco or Yum or like last week I got a Job offer in Spain, if I were so inclined. It's mostly because my resume says I can do whatever the fuck you need me to. Need me to build SIP and work on switches? Sure I can do that. Need a BGP area built sure, need me to go pull fiber bundle out of the ground and do a splice? Better not be in fuckin winter. I'm not afraid to get my hands dirty.

But even today I have courses lined up at work for IPV6 architecture and DOCSIS 3.1 stuff. I was studying full HDR specifications the other day. I don't get comfy. If I'm not busy at work I'm often studying whatever suites my fancy. Most technology based work places still offer reimbursement for scholastic studies even for contractors. You just gotta ask.

Always be asking for any opportunity you can get your hands on. Don't be a have not, be a want more.

For what it's worth, at my place I give every contractor willing to put the time opportunities for advancement. More often than not all I get are excuses, but my door is always open.
 
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Of course, now I know why most games suck. You get what you (don't) pay for.
 
Actually in games and most of the digital content creation, most of the employees are temp to hire that don't ever get hired full time, as long as they are listed as temp to hire they don't count as independent contractors while they can simply not renew the contact. The staffing agencies pay the quote un quote temp employees and employee people at the companies work sites to handle most of the personnel issues. Both things like making sure people get paid on time, and random complaints by other employees against each other and the company they are at the work site of.

It is usually a case of companies needing extra labour and using the temp employees to fill full time slots that they don't want to hire someone who might sit around and do nothing, then be harder to fire. The problems start happening when you get bureaucratic creep... where you have more management and less workers... which results in no one there to do any work. My guess is that it was this line that was the issue...

""My immediate boss says she would love to hire me full time," says Sarah. "But she's got bosses and they've got bosses, and they're just saying 'no way' to new full-time hires, especially in my area."

I worked for the Walt Disney Companies subsidiary Disney Media Company as a temp to hire. They had a policy that you can not work longer than eighteen months in a row as a temp employee but you have to work two years as a temp employee before you can be hired as a full time employee. Which was funny they considered hiring me directly anyway, likely since I was a voting shareholder at the time, but they wanted to pay me nineteen dollars an hour as a set rate and I knew that we would all get in trouble since I was doing localization as well as English technical support. So I know the laws and regulations they quote are usually misquoted to avoid the regulations that say you have to either hire them as temporary employees or full time employees and unless you are setting your hours and rate you are an employee.

People could sue over the lost wages of a year but then no company wants to hire them even if they are honest because they don't want the legal burden. I figure a couple companies, figured it out and are slowing trying to figure out who the good employees are while they are still temp and the rest of the industry is made up of companies that were started by guys who got laid off at the end of a project and don't want employees just revenge for missing a car payment or something equally stupid. For the record I have missed car payments and simply made up in the rest of the payments.., so the odds are that there are too many people who job is to made sure everyone has a task they can complete efficiently and not enough people actually doing those tasks. You need both other wise people end up doing over lapping work... but if you have too many people simply telling someone else to do something and not enough actually doing it... all that gets done is a circle of people talking...

The United States was built on investment in people and having people who were willing to learn a trade. These days we have more ad executives and hr people than we have people who know how to say fix your car or your plumbing... we need to fix the stigma on people learning how to wire a house or building right out of high school, or fix the plumbing, or fix people's cars or computers. Go back to companies that are founded by someone who comes into money in a legal fashion and then hires a bunch of people who learned from someone else how to build what ever widget the owner wants built. Management used to the staff the owner would hire to tell him or her that the company was really working when it was not generating as much money as they owner thought it should. The shareholders should be limited to stock holding companies investing money in actual companies. I know people swear by corporations but without someone who is morally and financially responsible for the company / corporation generally way too much over head is made about making as much money as possible in a short term period so people can flip stock despite more money is always made in the long run as long as the companies don't fail. The best way to make sure a corporation fails is to let the shareholders say we need a spike in earning so they can flip some stock to buy something.

If the only en-corporations are those of city's and state's and everyone else is company's most of the problems, just dissaper when the owner walks though a company and asks people how they are doing maybe only once a month but if he or she sees people staring a say an apple for lunch while other people are eating normal lunches, they will walk up and ask how the diet is going. When the person grumps about short funds or says nothing... a good owner simply looks into if the people have enough money to live on because if the company is doing well but it's workers are starving or even having rough times, it means they are looking for some where else to work. Even if the issue is not how much they are getting paid but a group of second class citizens. I know when I was at Disney they mostly did not have those issues but they did at Activision. I blame that on being owned by a foreign company that bought and sold companies nearly at random. Most of hollywood and game industry still has issues where people learned how to build games and understood the mechanics but the technology got past them and the bad artists simply made sure to avoid hiring any one that might expose they had no clue what they were doing with the technology even if they understood the principles. Then there are the people who learned how to make art when the computers had trouble drawling a box in real time and did want anyone to find out that they never learned how to use suggestion to create high resolution art. So those are all your mid level managers that don't do anything than hire people to do the job they should have been doing and taking a cut of the money they were paid to get it done. The good thing is the industry is fixing itself slowly but surely. People are getting hurt by the people spreading as much fear uncertainly and doubt to cover when they fire someone that was doing the majority of the work and has to be replaced with ten people so no one realizes that all the tasks the mid level manger is giving out are overlapping so that when they want to fire someone they don't lose the skill set, instead of simply hiring the people they need to get the job done, and if they don't have work for them figure out why no one planned a better use of the people and simply found something for them to do. If you only need someone at the end of project, run a series of games or movies in an overlapping start ten games each a month apart or two months apart or four or what ever you need so you are always completing a project... that makes more money anyway. Instead of worrying about what big title you are releasing against, release something once a month or every other month, people then start setting that money aside to buy that game or movie coming out...

I know what goes into hollywood movies and TV, and video games... it simply requires that you hire the people, put them to work on projects and when they get done one, move them to the next project. In the late Victorian period people sewed clothes on armature machines, those were converted to making rounds both for small arms and shells for artillery but they hired a large amount of people trained them and keep them employed until war war one, where people worked Monday through Thursday, collected their pay on Friday and Friday and Saturday were for household chores and things people needed to get done, Sunday was for worship for most of the country, but some people of many different faiths worshiped in Saturday. The point was those are the ancestors who did not have to work hard because they got what they need to do for the day and went home. They did not work nine am to five pm, only bankers did that on Fridays to hold people's money that was not safe in their homes. The would be given a task when the got to work an hour after sun rise and work on it until it was done or sunset. You can look through old black and white TV as they make jokes about it, some of the Black and white movies were about people's daily lives it was not hollywood back them but normal people fascinated with recording anything. There is recording of train pulling into a rail road station for twenty fours because they got to see what people looked like going through their day.

As a country we need to get back to were people go to work to cover their necessary expenses and a reasonable about of expenses for down time. Making your lowest paid employees take a hit in pay because they have a doctor's appointment is stupid. If they are sick they are not as productive and might make everyone around them sick. If you tell them they have to come to work or lose the money they may need for rent they likely show up to work sick instead of using health care dollars to get some cheap amoxicillin spend a day relaxing with chicken soup and coming back a week later and not getting anyone else sick... half of flue season is because everyone is getting sinus head aches from going from hot buildings to cold outside to hot buildings and handling packages that they did not take the time to clean. Simply common sense and having someone say pay everyone in their company that is below a certain level another hundred bucks a month to cover a spike in gas prices and those who make above the point where does not hurt a christmas/holiday bonus at the end of year when the increase in moral results in a higher output of productivity.
 
Anyone working for a game studio as a developer who is classified as an independent contractor, there is is 99.99% chance you are misclassified. You are owed overtime, meal breaks, rest breaks, social security withholdings, all that fun stuff. Lawyer up.
 
illram said:
Anyone working for a game studio as a developer who is classified as an independent contractor, there is is 99.99% chance you are misclassified. You are owed overtime, meal breaks, rest breaks, social security withholdings, all that fun stuff. Lawyer up.
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This stuff happens all over. Employers love to push the bounds on who is a contractor vs an employee to save on payroll taxes and benefits. By the IRS definition "the general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done." https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/independent-contractor-defined

Unfortunately, lawyering up is the nuclear option. You might win, but it's costly, time consuming, and can damage how other potential employers view you. It's especially tough when you're an individual and you're dealing with a company that is large enough to have lawyers on retainer. The cost of litigation becomes much higher for you than for them, so they don't even have much incentive to settle.

I'm not in any way defending these practices. Heck, I've been on the wrong end of them several times. I wish it was as easy as retaining a lawyer and punishing the rule breakers.
 
Sonicks said:
I don't know how the Game Industry works but it can't be all that different from IT work, which is what I do. Ultimately I plan to move into software development which I can safely say I'm already a good candidate for where I currently work and elsewhere. It's all about looking for opportunity even when it means ditching, for a moment, what you think your career trajectory should be.
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Think it all depends on the IT field you're in and who you're working for. Civilian sector or government sector. I'm in the government sector as a contractor. Pay fluctuates any time there's a contract change. You never know if you'll have to swap companies or move on when the contract changes. Pay is still good, you get health benefits, and 401k. It's not bad at all.
 
I'm a full stack developer and we can't hire enough people, my company has expanded the department three times just in 2016. Maybe developers should give up on trying to land gigs developing games and you know... go where the work is.
 
jonathonball said:
I'm a full stack developer and we can't hire enough people, my company has expanded the department three times just in 2016. Maybe developers should give up on trying to land gigs developing games and you know... go where the work is.
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It's possible they thought that's where the work was, cause there's always games being developed. By the time they got in, they found how shit it was and became stuck. They didn't feel like blowing more money to get educated in an offshoot field to get out of it.

I really have no idea. I don't know anything about game development and how much crossover there is with other industries. I'm just a sys admin, since I enjoy it and plenty of jobs out there to be had. I made sure to pick a portion of the field I enjoyed, pays decent, and has plenty of jobs, so long as you live in moderate sized cities. My home town has dick for IT jobs.
 
jonathonball said:
I'm a full stack developer and we can't hire enough people, my company has expanded the department three times just in 2016. Maybe developers should give up on trying to land gigs developing games and you know... go where the work is.
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krotch said:
It's possible they thought that's where the work was, cause there's always games being developed. By the time they got in, they found how shit it was and became stuck. They didn't feel like blowing more money to get educated in an offshoot field to get out of it.

I really have no idea. I don't know anything about game development and how much crossover there is with other industries. I'm just a sys admin, since I enjoy it and plenty of jobs out there to be had. I made sure to pick a portion of the field I enjoyed, pays decent, and has plenty of jobs, so long as you live in moderate sized cities. My home town has dick for IT jobs.
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The thing is the gaming industry (and entertainment industry) in general is considered a much more interesting (for most people) all else being equal. As such because the inherent nature of the job is much more desirable, the job itself more desirable even at things like lesser pay, benefits and/or job security.

People want to avoid this topic but unfortunately a lot of this is people wanting the upsides of working in entertainment (or some other more desirable area) without the downside trade offs.
 
Probleminfected said:
It is dumb, because then more places will see that people will work for these rates and everybody's wages start to drop.

It's one thing to work as an intern at these rates, it's another to be a full time "contractor"
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You're thinking in US wages. In many less fortunate countries 15/hour would be considered a prime wage. People from eastern europe would bend over backwards to get a job like that, that's why you're having the problems with outsourcing of IT jobs in the US.
You can't judge people that are living in much lesser circumstances from a position of power. They're not taking the 15/hour job because they're dumb, they take it because it's better than no job at all. Or for immigrants it's more money than they can ever hope to get at home even for a much higher position.
More and more companies choose to use contractors instead of full time employees. The games industry might have been the first to start this practice. They already told me in 2004 when I applied for a job at a game developer that they are only hiring contractors, which I declined, but not everyone has the option to decline a job offer.

Calling people dumb for choosing the "low" paying job over no job at all, is really bigoted. What would you have them do? Go out on the streets and live as bums?

It's the same issue with the minimal wage. Raising the minimal wage senselessly won't solve anything. On the contrary it can make many jobs redundant, because the employer will no longer be able to afford the same number of employees.
 
M76 said:
You're thinking in US wages. In many less fortunate countries 15/hour would be considered a prime wage. People from eastern europe would bend over backwards to get a job like that, that's why you're having the problems with outsourcing of IT jobs in the US.
You can't judge people that are living in much lesser circumstances from a position of power. They're not taking the 15/hour job because they're dumb, they take it because it's better than no job at all. Or for immigrants it's more money than they can ever hope to get at home even for a much higher position.
More and more companies choose to use contractors instead of full time employees. The games industry might have been the first to start this practice. They already told me in 2004 when I applied for a job at a game developer that they are only hiring contractors, which I declined, but not everyone has the option to decline a job offer.

Calling people dumb for choosing the "low" paying job over no job at all, is really bigoted. What would you have them do? Go out on the streets and live as bums?

It's the same issue with the minimal wage. Raising the minimal wage senselessly won't solve anything. On the contrary it can make many jobs redundant, because the employer will no longer be able to afford the same number of employees.
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Exactly, plus many of those countries have highly trained people that won't get nearly half $15/hour and have even worse working conditions.
 
MarkVI said:
This stuff happens all over. Employers love to push the bounds on who is a contractor vs an employee to save on payroll taxes and benefits. By the IRS definition "the general rule is that an individual is an independent contractor if the payer has the right to control or direct only the result of the work and not what will be done and how it will be done." https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/independent-contractor-defined

Unfortunately, lawyering up is the nuclear option. You might win, but it's costly, time consuming, and can damage how other potential employers view you. It's especially tough when you're an individual and you're dealing with a company that is large enough to have lawyers on retainer. The cost of litigation becomes much higher for you than for them, so they don't even have much incentive to settle.

I'm not in any way defending these practices. Heck, I've been on the wrong end of them several times. I wish it was as easy as retaining a lawyer and punishing the rule breakers.
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If you're in a metro area, there should be a ton of lawyers that will take cases like this on a contingency, if it's worth enough, and front all of the costs. In the Bay Area you will have a line of lawyers waiting to take your case, if it's good. It is stressful and anxiety inducing to sue someone though, I agree. It sucks. But the risk is very high for the employer also as they pay all of your costs and attorney fees after trial if they lose, at least here in CA.

Also that IRS definition is way oversimplified and the IRS rule, while similar, is not the applicable test in a private lawsuit or a DOL enforcement action. (The IRS actually has a 63 question form to fill out when investigating so called indepndent contractors, you can check it out here.) Whether the employer is liable for violating the FLSA or your state's wage and hour laws (the Labor Code, in California) depends on a more in depth test that no employer is going to pass if they're sitting "independent contractors" along side full time employees who do the same work. For instance in CA it is presumed that everyone is an employee and the burden of proof is on the employer to prove you are a bona fide independent contractor under a fairly rigorous 11 part test you can find here. Employers who can't prove it pay a bunch of penalties and fines, all the lawyer's fees plus all the employee's costs AND get "named and shamed" by having to post a public notice that they misclassified people. I know a case where an employer staunchly refused to pay an employee owed wages of $500, lost at trial, and forked out $500,000 in attorney's fees for their stubborness. It's an extreme example but it happens.
 
EVERYONE I know that went into that industry regrets the hell out of it. I know 7 people that went full bore into it, and they all wish they had gone the lowly sysadmin/network eng route like me. They make decent money... when they are working. Then when the project finishes, they all get the axe and the suits get the bonus.
 
jonathonball said:
I'm a full stack developer and we can't hire enough people, my company has expanded the department three times just in 2016. Maybe developers should give up on trying to land gigs developing games and you know... go where the work is.
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krotch said:
It's possible they thought that's where the work was, cause there's always games being developed. By the time they got in, they found how shit it was and became stuck. They didn't feel like blowing more money to get educated in an offshoot field to get out of it.

I really have no idea. I don't know anything about game development and how much crossover there is with other industries. I'm just a sys admin, since I enjoy it and plenty of jobs out there to be had. I made sure to pick a portion of the field I enjoyed, pays decent, and has plenty of jobs, so long as you live in moderate sized cities. My home town has dick for IT jobs.
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We have a new developer who we brought on straight out of college just over a year ago - this is his first job. He went to school for game development, but seeing the state of the industry, decided that it was in his best interest to steer clear of that industry. The other developers on our team (I'm QA) all speak very highly of the skills that they taught him in university - a lot of the problems required for modern game design are directly transferable to enterprise software creation. Logic, threading problems, etc.

In the region that I'm familiar with (Hartford area of CT, and Boston) there is a huge demand for developers right now - people are picking up real employment, and those who are contractors are not underpaid and are mainly choosing to do contract work for the sake of flexibility.

My points being: If you went to a good school or have skills, you can use those skills anywhere. There's no such thing as a 'good games coder' - just good coders, some of which happen to write games; and if you're a good coder who can write games, it means you can get a job outside the games industry that will pay and give benefits. Go where the work is - both location and industry. Maybe writing insurance software is less exciting than writing games, but if your choice is to be ripped off writing games or properly compensated pumping out business code, well, make your decision and don't complain. Likewise, if you want to live in an area with no work vs moving to an area with more employment opportunities, that is your choice.
 
schizrade said:
EVERYONE I know that went into that industry regrets the hell out of it. I know 7 people that went full bore into it, and they all wish they had gone the lowly sysadmin/network eng route like me. They make decent money... when they are working. Then when the project finishes, they all get the axe and the suits get the bonus.
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If you can get your time in, the video game path can grant you a ticket to nearly any company that you want though after. Many go into finance, which pays well (but worse hours, and far more boring).

That said, working in gaming is sort of an illusion. Many people who go into it don't realize that in the end, it's just a job. And it's not nearly as interesting as you'd believe.
 
limitedaccess said:
The thing is the gaming industry (and entertainment industry) in general is considered a much more interesting (for most people) all else being equal. As such because the inherent nature of the job is much more desirable, the job itself more desirable even at things like lesser pay, benefits and/or job security.

People want to avoid this topic but unfortunately a lot of this is people wanting the upsides of working in entertainment (or some other more desirable area) without the downside trade offs.
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I can see where the more creative and artistic people are drawn to the entertainment end of it, while the less artistically creative yet more methodical minds gravitate toward the more utilitarian projects. Seems logical to an extent.
 
Stoly said:
Exactly, plus many of those countries have highly trained people that won't get nearly half $15/hour and have even worse working conditions.
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It's not just poor countries. American IT workers and developers are making at least twice as much as those in Germany. If you don't like your pay, you better learn new skills. Coz if you don't, thing are only going to get worse for you
 
TrailRunner said:
We have a new developer who we brought on straight out of college just over a year ago - this is his first job. He went to school for game development, but seeing the state of the industry, decided that it was in his best interest to steer clear of that industry. The other developers on our team (I'm QA) all speak very highly of the skills that they taught him in university - a lot of the problems required for modern game design are directly transferable to enterprise software creation. Logic, threading problems, etc.

In the region that I'm familiar with (Hartford area of CT, and Boston) there is a huge demand for developers right now - people are picking up real employment, and those who are contractors are not underpaid and are mainly choosing to do contract work for the sake of flexibility.

My points being: If you went to a good school or have skills, you can use those skills anywhere. There's no such thing as a 'good games coder' - just good coders, some of which happen to write games; and if you're a good coder who can write games, it means you can get a job outside the games industry that will pay and give benefits. Go where the work is - both location and industry. Maybe writing insurance software is less exciting than writing games, but if your choice is to be ripped off writing games or properly compensated pumping out business code, well, make your decision and don't complain. Likewise, if you want to live in an area with no work vs moving to an area with more employment opportunities, that is your choice.
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That's good there's a lot of crossover. So ya, I don't see why these people can't get jobs doing something else. Like I said, I have no idea about anything coding. Not a field I enjoy, so never knew much about what other things they could move into.

dgz said:
It's not just poor countries. American IT workers and developers are making at least twice as much as those in Germany. If you don't like your pay, you better learn new skills. Coz if you don't, thing are only going to get worse for you
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I'm in Germany right now, but I work for the US government here. I've gotten job offers and such from companies here in Germany and....no thanks. Pay is crap, then I'd get raped in German taxes and higher gas prices. It's no wonder I see 25+ year olds still living with their parents.
 
I don't know why these people are complaining, at the low end the person making the least amount still made $15 more per hour than any full time Crytek employee this year. :)
 
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