You have too much and that creates somebody who hasn't proved helpful as difficult get harm emotions, side over your things. anyways on a serious observe, this guy should be prohibited from buying any activities ever. he clearly has no concept what he is referring to.
i love how he spends most of the article trying to hide the identity of the developer in question, as well as the game or company in question - and ends the article name dropping the company (riot games), which narrows down everything to one game, and considering the rest of the information in the article, an idiot can figure out the developer in question's identity. (i haven't gone through the trouble, and won't, out of respect for the dev)
That guy is just a huge troll begging for hits on his article. Every answer he writes in the comments is just nonsense and ignoring what people just told him or mocking them.
I couldn't quite concentrate on this article, I keep getting distracted by all shiny coins and fat stacks I have laying around because I'm a filthy rich games developer. What was it about?
Dunno man, i buy sports cars, drive them 10km max then throw some grenades at them. Ring my manslave to helicopter me another to my location, and rinse / repeat wherever I may roam. Pimpin.
Isn't the Examiner just The Onion but really awful and extremely vague about whether it's ironic or not? Or am I just being incredibly hopeful here because that article was pretty much a shitty piece of alphabet tetris.
Isn't the Examiner just The Onion but really awful and extremely vague about whether it's ironic or not? Or am I just being incredibly hopeful here because that article was pretty much a shitty piece of alphabet tetris.
Nope, in order to be a parody, you need to have enough of a distinction, either through Website maps (EI: this section here is all jokes) kinda like what The Onion does with certain parts of it's items, or have certain authors write specific articles, like saaaay, ToplessRobot, etc.
The Examiner doesn't have any indication like that, if the guy WASN'T serious, he wouldn't be defending his article the same way people defended Tomas Edison vs. Tesla Nicholas debate with passive-aggressive comments like "Oh, I heard you people, and I appreciated what you guys said, blah blah blah, BUUUUT, here is the deal, blah blah blah, we all make mistakes, we're human, the end, no more debates".
So sadly, I think it's safe to say the guy is a twat.
Has anyone taken a look at the response in the comments after the article? It's completely agreeing to everything everyone has been saying about that written piece of whatever. It's nice to see that readers on that article are thinking more clearly than the writer was.
He's really drawing the wrong conclusions from that average wage number, It's like he doesn't know what it means. His starting point is valid in a way, but going on to say that every average developer should be working for less "because it's fun" is plain silly.
If he'd gone into the whole 99 - 1%thing, that would actually be valid. I think we all recognize the sportscar-driving big shots that often don't seem to have any eye for the real issues in development. Or worse, the execs that drive a studio into the ground only to hop to the next one and receive an even bigger bonus. Those are a real problem, not the people actually making the game...
He's really drawing the wrong conclusions from that average wage number, It's like he doesn't know what it means. His starting point is valid in a way, but going on to say that every average developer should be working for less "because it's fun" is plain silly.
If he'd gone into the whole 99 - 1%thing, that would actually be valid. I think we all recognize the sportscar-driving big shots that often don't seem to have any eye for the real issues in development. Or worse, the execs that drive a studio into the ground only to hop to the next one and receive an even bigger bonus. Those are a real problem, not the people actually making the game...
I think you need to reread the article Xoliul. Those are exactly the people it was criticizing.
He's really drawing the wrong conclusions from that average wage number, It's like he doesn't know what it means. His starting point is valid in a way, but going on to say that every average developer should be working for less "because it's fun" is plain silly.
Yeah, that part was really disappointing. So because I have a job that I love and I'm passionate about, I should earn less money? Fuck you.
"This article is an asinine poorly thought out tantrum.
Stick around for subsequent smack down.
Firstly; you presume that you can tell a person what they are allowed to do with their income. You think yourself priest enough, that you can insist what their earnings can or cannot be spent on. I'm not even getting into the amounts they are paid yet, I just need you to be aware that you are essentially saying that you can be upset that a person spends their money on what they want to. You did this in print for all to see, and stand with arms akimbo like you are a proud revolutionary. Zero irony.
Secondly; you carry on in this fit about how game developers make too much. Here is a simple truth. Games are a luxury item. You do not need your games. Yes, police, firemen, and teachers are vital and should be paid their worth. I absolutely believe that, and have voted, and paid to make it so. However you, and the public have put forth your vote on what is most important with your taxing decisions and your dollar. The American society values luxury more than necessity. Need an example? Did you stop to look up how much the designer of aforementioned sports car made? How about the engineer? The CEO of that company? What about the movies that CEO likes to watch? How much do the director, or actors make? A lot more than game devs, and an embarrassingly larger sum than the symbolic Teacher, the Fireman, or the Police Officer. The people of this country value luxury, and thus those that deliver it get paid more. Simple economics.
Thirdly; your math argument is boldly idiotic. "Keep in mind that many game studios employ literally thousands of people." -False. Most studios, even triple A studios employ literally a few hundred. LITERALLY. Few push into near quadruple digits. Riot, Blizzard, and maybe a few Activision satellites. And I can promise you those dev's salaries are wildly varied depending on necessity or perceived necessity. (See crushing point number 2).
Your average salary number contains the disparate incomes of Studio Heads, Game Directors, Art Directors, HEAD PROGRAMMERS, and QA teams, likely even janitorial staff, and security. So it's a very soft average. Did I mention Programmers? They make barrels of cash because their jobs are hard, and supremely vital. Dennis Nedry taught us a valuable lesson of why we don't fuck with programmers. PEOPLE DIE, MAN!
"If the average salary is $81,000, then a studio with 2,000 employees is paying out roughly $162 million in salaries alone." -False. We already discussed that salaries vary, and your numbers of employees are yanked directly from your rectum. But let's get into the budget of a game a little bit. Triple A game budgets are prepared with full knowledge and expectation of what they are trying to make back. It is a business after all. The goal is to make more money than you put in. Logical, right? Investors and publishers DO NOT throw a massive pile of money into a pit and HOPE that they'll get their return. Budgets to deliver the class of game that YOU and the public have come to demand are large, but not beyond the bare minimum of what they need to be to get that game shipped. Publishers invested the money and they want to make it back plus enough to have made it worth while. Devs are only a tool in that process doing what they love and getting paid to make publishers happy. Devs need to be paid less? Have you ever thought that gamers need to not expect a bowel loosening-paradigm shifting gaming experience from every disc they acquire? Of course not. No gamer does. I love my games as they are. Budgets are up because standards are also up.
"And that's not even including any of the bonuses of benefits which if the average is $17,000 yearly would be another $34 million." -False. Your source is for programmers, yet again, the highest paid on the floor devs in the industry. Fluffed numbers aside, most studios do not offer royalties. Bonuses are lean, and usually paid out to make up for profound amounts of overtime. You think seventeen or eighteen hour days are a thing of the past? Crunch is dead? Oh, my friend, you could not be more wrong. I did the math with my own salary and a few others. If you account for actual time at work in an hourly wage, you would find your absurd estimations are down right laughable. Game dev studios perform these crunches to keep from going OVER budget. They spend more time at work than with their families for a thing they are passionate about, to deliver a product that they; in their deepest wettest dreams, hope you will enjoy. I'm not complaining, or whining for them. We love what we do, that's why we do it. But an interview or two before you churn out drek would really help you not look the fool.
"No wonder games are so expensive to make! What if these numbers were cut in half? This would only benefit gamers." -True... and False. Yes, the games are expensive. What if the numbers were cut in half? Oh yes! Gamers would benefit, surely, the games would be cheaper. Game devs would not benefit directly, and your games would not be made, or be made sub-par. Enjoy the benefits of your utopian game developing fantasy. Indie games are out there, and they are on the rise. I see you partake yourself. Good on you. But don't presume to insult or insist that anyone else HAS to take your route of development.
The most damning part of this article is your terrible misrepresentation of Cliffy B's quote. I hope you purposefully messed that up, because the thought that you actually think that's a justification or defense for your argument will be an affirmation that I have indeed been wasting my time shedding some light.
He is talking about equalizing the cost to return ratio by removing what the publishers have implied is a seeping monetary wound in the industry and a justified reason for price hikes. He is not saying lower salaries. He is not suggesting that developers 'make too much'. He is saying lower the cost of production that is being woven into budgets to cover heavy losses in the rental/return market. This is obvious, and I truly hope you just had ill will and malicious intent in including it in the article. No one enjoys dunking on someone that is incapable of jumping. It loses all the fun.
My favorite remark in your article is this: "Why are developers making so much money? It might be tedious or even grueling at times and require long hours and lots of commitment, but working in the video game industry is generally fun. People should be working in the gaming industry because they want to create awesome games. Not because they want to become rich. When did the gaming industry become so corporate?"
This logic could be applied to ANY job. Teachers, police men, corporate officers, architects, scribes of terribly researched and thought out articles, artists, musicians, politicians.
I want you to read it again. Slowly. Try to be objective. That's generally the job of a journalist. Especially one that gets paid for it. Read it one more time.
If you aren't cackling with laughter at that statement, you haven't the forebrain to deal with the world around you, and I hope you are institutionalized for your own safety. The world is just going to tear you apart.
Please take more care when you write. Get more rounded sources, the internet doesn't have all the answers. Try also to not let your own feelings of misguided injustice lead your fingers into saying things that are so non-purposefully funny.
I hope the Examiner reconsiders it's gaming journalists with more care and caution in the future. Actually, Examiner? If you are taking applications...
I partially apologize. This is my first response to a ridiculous article like this. So like a baby rattle snake, I am probably spurting more venom than necessary to drop the simple woodland critter I caught unawares."
game devs make too much? How about CEO's who do nothing , fail a company
and still get paid millions, yea its the artist's who make too much ...
and holy hell the average game dev makes 70k lol ... right where are they getting this research then jumping to teh conclusion each game dev makes 6 figures lol
Your first reaction might be something along the lines of "well if the game is really good, they deserve to be paid well for working on it," and that is a valid line of thought until you consider that these costs are then unnecessarily passed onto the consumer.
OHH NOOOOOoooOOooo.. Don't pay the magical fairies that work on video games for free and have no expenses or material needs.
..Oh wait, paying for entertainment? That sounds.. reasonable.
The whole argument is nonsense. You mean the cost of salaries is passed on to consumers in the form of the retail price? YOU DON'T SAY!! You mean like every other fucking industry?
Johnny, I love the reply you posted. It pretty much summed up many of my thoughts. I find it extremely pathetic that this 'journalist' did not bother gathering any real facts, and just assembled is random theories to create this trash.
And I have to say, I'm a software developer, making much less than he stated in the article. Given, I'm not in the gaming industry, so maybe I need to change jobs, where I can start rolling in the dough. I make a modest living, which manages to support my family, but also seems to keep my bank account at a zero balance
I'm honestly tired of people in general, trying to blame one object/activity on all of the game industries failings. There are a myriad of things keeping studios from complete success.
Ugh, the games industry just got trolled and is actually giving this guy the time of day to reply?
clearly a guy like Ambershee has better things to do with his time but good reply below:
Alex, your ignorance of the industry and how it works is being demonstrated quite clearly. Some of the largest development teams will hire around 400 people at their peak - it's unlikely that ever in the history of the industry has any development team reached 'thousands'. This is also at their peak - teams will often dramatically grow to double their size, and fall back again to half the original number in a period of only one year.
EA is a massive publishing house, not a developer. They're the equivalent of EMI in the music industry, or 20th Century Fox in film and television. Sure, they own several development houses, but each of those studios is only a small sum of their parts and will operate with relative independence.
Average salary is skewed. Programmers sure can make $100k a year - but these are very capable engineers with years of experience - $100k pales in comparison to what can be obtained in other specialised and skilled engineering roles (how much does the average aerospace engineer earn, as a comparison?). Furthermore, it's heavily skewed by CEOs - with each studio and development team being relatively small in size (most development teams number under 100 developers), the CEO salary will skew the average quite dramatically.
Programmers also make up a minority in a team - studios with around 150 employees may potentially only have as many as 25 engineers. The significant rest of the team consists of content creators and supporting staff; a large number of artists, designers and level designers, as well as supporting QA and production staff. All of these roles are paid considerably less - an average of around 2/3rds that of a programmer.
Top this off with a distinct lack of job stability (layoffs of half a team or more every product cycle are the norm), salaries need to be higher to compensate for downtime between employment; which can last for months in many cases and can often lead to frequent relocation of skilled staff as individual studio requirements wax, wane and evolve over time - and $100k suddenly doesn't look great if you're potentially spending one year unemployed for every two employed.
It's more the point that there is a really big difference between what people are earning in the industry and some people is imo getting way too much. However those people are not the average person.
Well, while I'm never in favor of someone getting fired, based on internet rage, I do kind of thing it was the right move. Not because of the internet rage, but because clearly he was not a 'journalist'. A journalist should perform actual research, and base the article on the facts. They should NOT write articles developed from personal opinions, with no actual knowledge of the operations of the subject. For that reason alone, he should have been fired; developer rage, or not.
If his completely awful writing wasn't enough, the fact that he pretty clearly has some kind of axe to grind with Riot - and is willing to completely cast aside any pretense of journalistic integrity to pursue it - would close the book.
He needs help. Like, comfy couch and notebook help.
He fired himself, with his abject failure to do any kind of research or even contact a single source for clarity. His failure was compounded by his inability to function objectively, especially in the face of perfectly valid and easily verified criticism.
I'm guessing that's why he really got fired. It takes real balls to use your employer to carry out your personal vendetta about getting banned in League of Legends.
I'm guessing that's why he really got fired. It takes real balls to use your employer to carry out your personal vendetta about getting banned in League of Legends.
Ah, that's why he went full retard.
What an idiot. Now the pay gap between those evil LoL devs and him is even BIGGER. :poly142:
I'm guessing that's why he really got fired. It takes real balls to use your employer to carry out your personal vendetta about getting banned in League of Legends.
It takes something, but I'm not sure it's always balls.
Yeah, I've been trying to post there but he's been selectively deleting peoples' comments, repeatedly, and pretending he has no idea why. Here was our back-and-forth, for whoever's interested.
I said:
Developer here.
So League of Legends was cheap to make because the graphics look cartoony?
Also, youre confusing developers with publishers. Theres historically a huge amount of waste and crazy high salaries on the publisher side, like ATVIs CEO, who was the second highest-paid CEO in America in 2012. On the developer side, Gamasutras 2012 salary survey put the average developer salary at $84,337\yr. However, different positions and departments pay wildly different rates.
Starting out in QA could be $18 22k\yr, starting out in art is in the $40k range, and as you go from junior to senior to lead you can eventually hit the 60s or 70s. Based on my own experience and being in hiring manager level positions for many years, most dev salaries are in the 50 60 range. Higher level positions pay out differently and they take much longer to attain but it is extremely uncommon that an actual game developer makes enough to drive around a $70k car or being a big shot like you seem to think. CliffyB being worth $15m also doesnt point out the fact that this guy busted ass for 20 years making extraordinarily successful games and earning the money, not magically granting himself some huge salary just because.
The outrage over your article from developers isnt so much that theres some perceived threat to our way of life, but that the data you use and the conclusions youve made are incorrect, and your tone and delivery were both insulting and misdirected.
He said:
If you believe the data I have used is incorrect, you should take it up with the sources that I cited. They are all respectable and verifiable sources.
I replied:
Weak deflection. I believe the data you used was interpreted extremely poorly and misleadingly to fit some agenda you have.
I find it weird that someone that calls himself a journalist doesnt appear to care that his sources and published conclusions are being called into question by people that are the subject of your article and in a position to actually have verifiable facts that could support your article. Thats besides the fact that your initial article is full of extremely basic errors in terminology and math, any of which could be easily explained and corrected in a short conversation with an actual developer. Even a question as simple as Hey, does every single person at your studio make over $80,000 a year? would have saved you quite a bit of time doing bad math.
Are you more concerned about presenting factual information and being a credible journalist, or is it just clickbait?
I've repeatedly tried posting my last comment to his comment thread but he keeps letting them sit in moderation, then delete them. I've talked to him on Twitter and he claims to have no idea what's going on, but he's been doing it to other people I know, too. What a fuckstump.
Yeah, I've been trying to post there but he's been selectively deleting peoples' comments, repeatedly, and pretending he has no idea why. Here was our back-and-forth, for whoever's interested.
I said:
He said:
I replied:
I've repeatedly tried posting my last comment to his comment thread but he keeps letting them sit in moderation, then delete them. I've talked to him on Twitter and he claims to have no idea what's going on, but he's been doing it to other people I know, too. What a fuckstump.
I wouldn't sweat it, guy is clearly delusional. Nice responses though.
He attempts to defend himself by stating that he is only intending to target game executives, but he still insists on justifying his attack on "average" salaries. He also seems quite content to continue lumping developers and publishers together.
There wouldn't be nearly as many widespread objections if he specified that upper-echelon game industry executives make too much money. That's a fairly common sentiment. But of course, the same could be said of almost any publicly traded company, which would essentially negate his specific focus on the game industry. And that would mean less shock value and therefore less attention.
This is what I loathe about modern "journalism." It's no longer a profession that reports, but one that seeks to entertain. I prefer fiction for my entertainment, and my news to involve actual information. Attempting to mix the two to garner more attention is just wrong.
Does he really think that he's under attack by "the man?" The executives he claims to be targeting could care less about him or his article. They run their respective companies, and as long as the profits continue, their salaries will remain unaffected. That's how publicly traded corporations work. In the future, it's entirely possible that we'll see the abundance of corporate game development shrink in favor of more privately-owned start-ups. But for now the majority of people who could possibly be affected by this "journalists" "work" are over-worked and underpaid, and don't appreciate being lumped in with overpaid executives. Can you blame them for responding with a bit of acrimony?
I don't see why you guys are arguing so vehemently against his salary stats. His evidence is irrelevant because his entire conclusion is grounded in faulty reasoning. He's bought into the fallacy that any and all costs/savings incurred by a producer are simply passed onto the consumer in the form of higher/lower prices.
Suppose Activision or whoever did what he suggests and cut development costs in half by reducing developer salaries... why exactly should they lower the price of their games? Charity? Guilt? The most intelligent thing to do would be to channel that savings toward more advertising to ensure the games success.
Without the crutch of lower prices his whole article becomes a value judgement about what developers "deserve" to be paid.
I don't see why you guys are arguing so vehemently against his salary stats. His evidence is irrelevant because his entire conclusion is grounded in faulty reasoning. He's bought into the fallacy that any and all costs/savings incurred by a producer are simply passed onto the consumer in the form of higher/lower prices.
This is true. He does go out of his way to ignore how profit-driven corporations operate. If salaries were cut severely, it's highly unlikely that any of that money would be invested in making games cheaper. The supply/demand of the industry helps to determine game prices, the cost of production is only a small part of that equation.
He also points out the competition in the mobile and indie space as something that the AAA industry should seek to emulate. He conveniently misses the point that those efforts are active competition to the AAA industry. Modern mobile development is actively eating into sales that would have previously gone to AAA efforts. Ditto for smaller indie efforts. Smaller developers are fundamentally structured differently, and can take far more risks than any major publisher can afford to. They may not have the financial backing, but this lack of financial support provides them with far greater creative freedom.
No one is saying that anyone should feel sorry for highly-paid executives. But it is true that the video game industry is seeing a significant degree of turmoil and competition. Trying to pin the blame on any one group is silly.
Competition in the mobile arena has been a fucking disaster. The market is flooded with garbage, developers raced eachother to the bottom and that still wasn't low enough so they all started adopting F2P models in an attempt to become profitable.
In large part I blame this on the fact that it's purely digital and marketplaces like Google's Play store and iTunes have still not come up with a decent way of doing content selection or target marketing. Exploitive F2P models poison the well for legitimate developers and game cloning makes innovation difficult.
Also I'd love to get his source for the claim that Tomb Raider "lost hundreds of millions of dollars" because unless he has information that isn't available to the general public, he's pulling that straight out of his ass. The only thing anyone knows about Tomb Raider is that it missed its sales projections which does not necessarily mean that the game didn't recoup its investment. It just means it didn't perform as well as anticipated which says more about SquareEnix's ability to forecast sales than it does about the games success.
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Ah, there it is...
It's possible!
i thought i was the only one!!!!
ya kno' whut im sayin' here? we keepin' it real!
The Examiner doesn't have any indication like that, if the guy WASN'T serious, he wouldn't be defending his article the same way people defended Tomas Edison vs. Tesla Nicholas debate with passive-aggressive comments like "Oh, I heard you people, and I appreciated what you guys said, blah blah blah, BUUUUT, here is the deal, blah blah blah, we all make mistakes, we're human, the end, no more debates".
So sadly, I think it's safe to say the guy is a twat.
If he'd gone into the whole 99 - 1%thing, that would actually be valid. I think we all recognize the sportscar-driving big shots that often don't seem to have any eye for the real issues in development. Or worse, the execs that drive a studio into the ground only to hop to the next one and receive an even bigger bonus. Those are a real problem, not the people actually making the game...
I think you need to reread the article Xoliul. Those are exactly the people it was criticizing.
Still he's bringing traffic to that site for ad clicks if anything.
PS. "Politics of Envy"
"This article is an asinine poorly thought out tantrum.
Stick around for subsequent smack down.
Firstly; you presume that you can tell a person what they are allowed to do with their income. You think yourself priest enough, that you can insist what their earnings can or cannot be spent on. I'm not even getting into the amounts they are paid yet, I just need you to be aware that you are essentially saying that you can be upset that a person spends their money on what they want to. You did this in print for all to see, and stand with arms akimbo like you are a proud revolutionary. Zero irony.
Secondly; you carry on in this fit about how game developers make too much. Here is a simple truth. Games are a luxury item. You do not need your games. Yes, police, firemen, and teachers are vital and should be paid their worth. I absolutely believe that, and have voted, and paid to make it so. However you, and the public have put forth your vote on what is most important with your taxing decisions and your dollar. The American society values luxury more than necessity. Need an example? Did you stop to look up how much the designer of aforementioned sports car made? How about the engineer? The CEO of that company? What about the movies that CEO likes to watch? How much do the director, or actors make? A lot more than game devs, and an embarrassingly larger sum than the symbolic Teacher, the Fireman, or the Police Officer. The people of this country value luxury, and thus those that deliver it get paid more. Simple economics.
Thirdly; your math argument is boldly idiotic. "Keep in mind that many game studios employ literally thousands of people." -False. Most studios, even triple A studios employ literally a few hundred. LITERALLY. Few push into near quadruple digits. Riot, Blizzard, and maybe a few Activision satellites. And I can promise you those dev's salaries are wildly varied depending on necessity or perceived necessity. (See crushing point number 2).
Your average salary number contains the disparate incomes of Studio Heads, Game Directors, Art Directors, HEAD PROGRAMMERS, and QA teams, likely even janitorial staff, and security. So it's a very soft average. Did I mention Programmers? They make barrels of cash because their jobs are hard, and supremely vital. Dennis Nedry taught us a valuable lesson of why we don't fuck with programmers. PEOPLE DIE, MAN!
"If the average salary is $81,000, then a studio with 2,000 employees is paying out roughly $162 million in salaries alone." -False. We already discussed that salaries vary, and your numbers of employees are yanked directly from your rectum. But let's get into the budget of a game a little bit. Triple A game budgets are prepared with full knowledge and expectation of what they are trying to make back. It is a business after all. The goal is to make more money than you put in. Logical, right? Investors and publishers DO NOT throw a massive pile of money into a pit and HOPE that they'll get their return. Budgets to deliver the class of game that YOU and the public have come to demand are large, but not beyond the bare minimum of what they need to be to get that game shipped. Publishers invested the money and they want to make it back plus enough to have made it worth while. Devs are only a tool in that process doing what they love and getting paid to make publishers happy. Devs need to be paid less? Have you ever thought that gamers need to not expect a bowel loosening-paradigm shifting gaming experience from every disc they acquire? Of course not. No gamer does. I love my games as they are. Budgets are up because standards are also up.
"And that's not even including any of the bonuses of benefits which if the average is $17,000 yearly would be another $34 million." -False. Your source is for programmers, yet again, the highest paid on the floor devs in the industry. Fluffed numbers aside, most studios do not offer royalties. Bonuses are lean, and usually paid out to make up for profound amounts of overtime. You think seventeen or eighteen hour days are a thing of the past? Crunch is dead? Oh, my friend, you could not be more wrong. I did the math with my own salary and a few others. If you account for actual time at work in an hourly wage, you would find your absurd estimations are down right laughable. Game dev studios perform these crunches to keep from going OVER budget. They spend more time at work than with their families for a thing they are passionate about, to deliver a product that they; in their deepest wettest dreams, hope you will enjoy. I'm not complaining, or whining for them. We love what we do, that's why we do it. But an interview or two before you churn out drek would really help you not look the fool.
"No wonder games are so expensive to make! What if these numbers were cut in half? This would only benefit gamers." -True... and False. Yes, the games are expensive. What if the numbers were cut in half? Oh yes! Gamers would benefit, surely, the games would be cheaper. Game devs would not benefit directly, and your games would not be made, or be made sub-par. Enjoy the benefits of your utopian game developing fantasy. Indie games are out there, and they are on the rise. I see you partake yourself. Good on you. But don't presume to insult or insist that anyone else HAS to take your route of development.
The most damning part of this article is your terrible misrepresentation of Cliffy B's quote. I hope you purposefully messed that up, because the thought that you actually think that's a justification or defense for your argument will be an affirmation that I have indeed been wasting my time shedding some light.
He is talking about equalizing the cost to return ratio by removing what the publishers have implied is a seeping monetary wound in the industry and a justified reason for price hikes. He is not saying lower salaries. He is not suggesting that developers 'make too much'. He is saying lower the cost of production that is being woven into budgets to cover heavy losses in the rental/return market. This is obvious, and I truly hope you just had ill will and malicious intent in including it in the article. No one enjoys dunking on someone that is incapable of jumping. It loses all the fun.
My favorite remark in your article is this: "Why are developers making so much money? It might be tedious or even grueling at times and require long hours and lots of commitment, but working in the video game industry is generally fun. People should be working in the gaming industry because they want to create awesome games. Not because they want to become rich. When did the gaming industry become so corporate?"
This logic could be applied to ANY job. Teachers, police men, corporate officers, architects, scribes of terribly researched and thought out articles, artists, musicians, politicians.
I want you to read it again. Slowly. Try to be objective. That's generally the job of a journalist. Especially one that gets paid for it. Read it one more time.
If you aren't cackling with laughter at that statement, you haven't the forebrain to deal with the world around you, and I hope you are institutionalized for your own safety. The world is just going to tear you apart.
Please take more care when you write. Get more rounded sources, the internet doesn't have all the answers. Try also to not let your own feelings of misguided injustice lead your fingers into saying things that are so non-purposefully funny.
I hope the Examiner reconsiders it's gaming journalists with more care and caution in the future. Actually, Examiner? If you are taking applications...
I partially apologize. This is my first response to a ridiculous article like this. So like a baby rattle snake, I am probably spurting more venom than necessary to drop the simple woodland critter I caught unawares."
and still get paid millions, yea its the artist's who make too much ...
and holy hell the average game dev makes 70k lol ... right where are they getting this research then jumping to teh conclusion each game dev makes 6 figures lol
OHH NOOOOOoooOOooo.. Don't pay the magical fairies that work on video games for free and have no expenses or material needs.
..Oh wait, paying for entertainment? That sounds.. reasonable.
Oh wait, wtf, my bank balance is telling me I cant afford one......huh?
But you're cars are made out of polygons...
Shut up, don't ruin it for me.
And I have to say, I'm a software developer, making much less than he stated in the article. Given, I'm not in the gaming industry, so maybe I need to change jobs, where I can start rolling in the dough. I make a modest living, which manages to support my family, but also seems to keep my bank account at a zero balance
I'm honestly tired of people in general, trying to blame one object/activity on all of the game industries failings. There are a myriad of things keeping studios from complete success.
clearly a guy like Ambershee has better things to do with his time but good reply below:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-07-04-ex-xbox-boss-don-mattrick-to-earn-over-USD19m-in-first-year-at-zynga
I don't think that he would drive up the average salary numbers of "programmers" or "developers." Mattrick is neither of those things.
http://www.gamespot.com/forums/topic/29421444/examiner.com-fires-journalist-due-to-complaints-from-developers
If his completely awful writing wasn't enough, the fact that he pretty clearly has some kind of axe to grind with Riot - and is willing to completely cast aside any pretense of journalistic integrity to pursue it - would close the book.
He needs help. Like, comfy couch and notebook help.
http://www.riotgames.com/articles/20130712/847/positive-feedback-earns-riot-4-spot-%E2%80%9C25-best-tech-companies-work-2013%E2%80%9D
What a tool.
He fired himself, with his abject failure to do any kind of research or even contact a single source for clarity. His failure was compounded by his inability to function objectively, especially in the face of perfectly valid and easily verified criticism.
Ah, that's why he went full retard.
What an idiot. Now the pay gap between those evil LoL devs and him is even BIGGER. :poly142:
You registered just to post in this thread... how interesting.
It takes something, but I'm not sure it's always balls.
Where are you people getting that?
Also, sorry, banned from the League of Legends forums. Really an unimportant distinction.
I said:
He said:
I replied:
I've repeatedly tried posting my last comment to his comment thread but he keeps letting them sit in moderation, then delete them. I've talked to him on Twitter and he claims to have no idea what's going on, but he's been doing it to other people I know, too. What a fuckstump.
I wouldn't sweat it, guy is clearly delusional. Nice responses though.
He attempts to defend himself by stating that he is only intending to target game executives, but he still insists on justifying his attack on "average" salaries. He also seems quite content to continue lumping developers and publishers together.
There wouldn't be nearly as many widespread objections if he specified that upper-echelon game industry executives make too much money. That's a fairly common sentiment. But of course, the same could be said of almost any publicly traded company, which would essentially negate his specific focus on the game industry. And that would mean less shock value and therefore less attention.
This is what I loathe about modern "journalism." It's no longer a profession that reports, but one that seeks to entertain. I prefer fiction for my entertainment, and my news to involve actual information. Attempting to mix the two to garner more attention is just wrong.
Does he really think that he's under attack by "the man?" The executives he claims to be targeting could care less about him or his article. They run their respective companies, and as long as the profits continue, their salaries will remain unaffected. That's how publicly traded corporations work. In the future, it's entirely possible that we'll see the abundance of corporate game development shrink in favor of more privately-owned start-ups. But for now the majority of people who could possibly be affected by this "journalists" "work" are over-worked and underpaid, and don't appreciate being lumped in with overpaid executives. Can you blame them for responding with a bit of acrimony?
Suppose Activision or whoever did what he suggests and cut development costs in half by reducing developer salaries... why exactly should they lower the price of their games? Charity? Guilt? The most intelligent thing to do would be to channel that savings toward more advertising to ensure the games success.
Without the crutch of lower prices his whole article becomes a value judgement about what developers "deserve" to be paid.
This is true. He does go out of his way to ignore how profit-driven corporations operate. If salaries were cut severely, it's highly unlikely that any of that money would be invested in making games cheaper. The supply/demand of the industry helps to determine game prices, the cost of production is only a small part of that equation.
He also points out the competition in the mobile and indie space as something that the AAA industry should seek to emulate. He conveniently misses the point that those efforts are active competition to the AAA industry. Modern mobile development is actively eating into sales that would have previously gone to AAA efforts. Ditto for smaller indie efforts. Smaller developers are fundamentally structured differently, and can take far more risks than any major publisher can afford to. They may not have the financial backing, but this lack of financial support provides them with far greater creative freedom.
No one is saying that anyone should feel sorry for highly-paid executives. But it is true that the video game industry is seeing a significant degree of turmoil and competition. Trying to pin the blame on any one group is silly.
In large part I blame this on the fact that it's purely digital and marketplaces like Google's Play store and iTunes have still not come up with a decent way of doing content selection or target marketing. Exploitive F2P models poison the well for legitimate developers and game cloning makes innovation difficult.
Also I'd love to get his source for the claim that Tomb Raider "lost hundreds of millions of dollars" because unless he has information that isn't available to the general public, he's pulling that straight out of his ass. The only thing anyone knows about Tomb Raider is that it missed its sales projections which does not necessarily mean that the game didn't recoup its investment. It just means it didn't perform as well as anticipated which says more about SquareEnix's ability to forecast sales than it does about the games success.