The game industry is bad yet more people keep applying?
interpolator
So I was reading this article that came out that once again, highlights how demeaning and grueling working in games must be.
Now of course, not every studio/game environment has to be like that (just only the popular ones) but this has me thinking. We know the game industry fires people like no tomorrow, there are crunches that deprive you of sleep and body health, if you're a woman you are a victim of extreme sexism/misogyny and other untold horrors and yet, the amount of people wanting to be apart of this game industry grinder keeps increasing.
Now, I've already shared my story on polycount on why I'm trying to get into games. Money means very little to me when I would just be happy to make stuff in 3DS Max or Unreal Engine 4 all day in a studio. And get some food while I'm at it. And a cozy chair....
But, what about the other 500 people with their own blogspot/weebly/facebook portfolios? What drives them and future game artists too to jump headfirst into an industry with lots of problems? Do they not care about layoffs, or the sexism or the non-stop crunches? Are they really in it because it's what they're passionate about and not the money or looking for "rockstar" status?
Now of course, not every studio/game environment has to be like that (just only the popular ones) but this has me thinking. We know the game industry fires people like no tomorrow, there are crunches that deprive you of sleep and body health, if you're a woman you are a victim of extreme sexism/misogyny and other untold horrors and yet, the amount of people wanting to be apart of this game industry grinder keeps increasing.
Now, I've already shared my story on polycount on why I'm trying to get into games. Money means very little to me when I would just be happy to make stuff in 3DS Max or Unreal Engine 4 all day in a studio. And get some food while I'm at it. And a cozy chair....
But, what about the other 500 people with their own blogspot/weebly/facebook portfolios? What drives them and future game artists too to jump headfirst into an industry with lots of problems? Do they not care about layoffs, or the sexism or the non-stop crunches? Are they really in it because it's what they're passionate about and not the money or looking for "rockstar" status?
Replies
Uhm.. what? I've worked in two different studios and this does not happen at all. And why is working in game "demeaning"? In what way exactly? I don't feel demeaned in the past 4 fours working in the industry.
https://www.google.com/#q=sexism+game+industry
Maybe demeaning is the wrong word. I just wanted to use something that refers to making you expendable because of how common layoffs are.
If they weren't they'd be the first ones out the door.
Would you rather hate your job and hate going to work everyday just to have the illusion of job security? or would you rather love what you do and look forward to going to work?
To me, it seems like the people who work on their own projects outside of work tend to be the ones to climb the chain from junior/middle/senior/director positions (Scott Homer *Sr. Env* and Tor Frick *Art Dir* immediately come to mind).
Are the majority of those laid off the ones who don't put in any outside effort once they've landed a AAA job or am I completely off base?
Edit: I realize there are some exceptions (Irrational Games for example).
Edit2: I'm still a student so my assumptions are made off of things I've read, not actual experience..
Interesting question, i would rather love my job but also hard to love what I don't have :poly124:
But i hear all these horror stories so i wonder how can anyone be happy with layoffs always looming and it sounds like no one is treated well. But i am on the outside looking in, banging at the glass
Personally, I think gameplay programming can be a ton of fun and it's always interesting to me, but when I try to listen to my brother talk about the automation software he programs at work I can barely stay focused because it isn't as interesting to me. Game development can be "fun" whereas many other fields are just jobs.
There's nothing wrong with not being happy with the current state of the industry though, I'm sure everybody hopes that certain things will change.
A lot of people get upset over the fact that they may have to do some work outside of their jobs, but I think people are overthinking it. Doing development outside of your job doesn't have to be boring or lame, in fact, it will probably be better than working at a job since you will have complete creative control over whatever you want to make.
I don't have an industry job yet and I probably won't even consider applying for anything other than an internship until after university, but I find that working on personal projects outside of class is very enjoyable and quite fun. When I'm not incredibly depressed, I often have to force myself to go to bed at a certain time because I end up wanting to stay up all day and night to keep working on something.
This! Just because you are passionate doesn't mean you shouldn't make money. On the contrary the more passionate you are the more you value you work the less likely you are to accept bad pay.
@ beefaroni - Layoffs have nothing to do with how passionate or how good of an artist you are. Neither does your title. I have seen/ heard about plenty of leads who do nothing and make poor decisions. Title doesn't always mean you are qualified or better.
Layoffs are about money pure and simple. Big publishers don't want to pay for you do stay around they don't care. So at the end of project they let a lot of people go ( especially contractors). The other scenarios are lack of funding, high burn rates, loss of funding, cancellation of projects, new management, etc. They are all about money.
A vast majority of people who apply are fairly new to the industry (universities and courses churn out tons more game art graduates that they used to) so they've yet to experience the industry for themselves without first hand knowledge of the positives/negatives of our career.
(P.S money should always be an issue, it shouldn't supersede your passion for art but it always matters).
I realize that chance of getting into the studio is highly dependant on people skill, personality, contacts, approach and dozens of other factors but didn't gaming industry already enter the stage where there's multiple times more people who actually look for job than actual workplaces.
but let me tell you this ... being underpaid suck....
imagine how yummy those greasy pizza , juicy steak and oily fried chicken but oh too bad you can't afford them because you're passionate :lol
so yes .like what has been mentioned before
Just because you are passionate doesn't mean you shouldn't make money
Yes , layoffs are real.
Yes , getting a job is very hard.
But it's all just temporary right?
If you scare yourself too hard then you get demotivated and start slacking. Where there's a will there's a way.
Depending on where you are in the world, employment law isn't as employee-centric as it is in Germany. In some of the USA as an example, you don't have the protections in place like redundancy laws, a company can easily just turn around and tell you to leave the office right now and that's the end of your pay cheque. I have known of one studio that fires the employee who scores least in peer review every year without fail, even if everyone's work is way above average standards. Some parts of the world don't have adequate social systems in place to catch you when this does happen, so if you've been unfortunate and don't have huge savings to cover your costs, you risk defaulting on your mortgage or whatever, and losing your home.
So whilst these things are indeed 'temporary', even a small amount of temporary downtime can ruin you - and the games industry is notoriously unstable compared to more common work in other IT sectors.
The problem you're having is that you're looking at these issues like it's unique to the Games Industry. Sure the Game Industry has some unique aspects to it but it's an industry like any else. Simple put, these are aspects ubiquitous to corporate life, but there are exceptions.
Granted our industry has a late start compared to others in terms of employee protection, but it's not like you'll find paradise in some other industry. Just be smart about the situations and work places you find yourself in.
The video game industry is notorious for this kind of abuse. And it's also notable for the contrast between itself and comparable industries. Let's not forget the kind of work that normally happens in games. Video game development is a technically demanding industry. When people leave the game industry they are usually able to get jobs in other technical industries. And technology jobs tend to pay rather well.
The games industry looks shabby because of this sharp contrast. Comparable professionals in other tech-related fields earn way more and have much higher quality-of-life.
A large part of the reason why the game industry persists in it's current practices is because of the glut of starry-eyed applicants knocking on their door. I remember being young, and stupid, and optimistic. I can't necessarily blame these youngsters for their enthusiasm. If more of them bothered to do a little more research and take a more practical approach to such decisions, we'd probably see less of this.
And the continued expansion of game development as a viable hobby will also help. Constant development of middleware tools will make it easier for people to scratch that particular itch without trying to pursue a full-time career.
In all the studios i just only see this: nomad pawns used as coins of exchange (3d monkeys). People you can use and dispose of, sadly. You must LOVE what you do to tolerate such suffering.
My advice is: if you like 3D... keep it as a hobby. No matter how good you are, you will end kicked in the balls someday. I'm fed up of watching huge talents threated as trash. there's always someone who will replace you doing the same or better.. and the best: earning less money! they don't care about it at all. It's sad, but true.
It's hard to start a guild when there are tons of scabs just waiting for the opportunity to take up where the guild members leave off. That's the situation that the industry is in right now. Larger companies churn through young, idealistic employees specifically because that is one of the best methods for keeping the employee base disenfranchised. The majority of your employees are young, underpaid, and overworked. The majority of older developers simply leave for better paying jobs in other fields. Everyone with experience and authority bails before they go insane.
The current game industry is also not structured for guilds or unions. Mobilizing a large chunk of the developers in that fashion would fundamentally alter the nature of the industry. This could be for the best. But in the short-term it would mean a huge shake-up, and a lot of large-scale games simply couldn't be made.
http://kotaku.com/why-game-developers-keep-getting-laid-off-1583192249?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow
if we get all the talent in the union the dynamics will change instantly, people need to come together and realize its not about my interests or your interests but all of our interests, we have more in common with each other than we do with these people who hire and fire based on development cycle, and the sooner we can stand up and say we are skilled intelligent human beings and deserve better treatment across the board is the sooner we will get it.
I'm not working with big studio, but I've heard some horror story. is it true that people working 12-15 hour/ day ?
You may be right. It's a bit harder for me because I never joined the game industry. I made a few attempts in my younger days, but a truly committed attempt would have required me to move to California. And I much prefer it here in the Arizona desert. I transitioned into web design and development instead. Now I'm working contract, I make more money than most entry-level game artists and programmers, I live in a much more affordable area, and I haven't worked a single hour of overtime in months. And if I did have to work overtime, I get paid for it.
Instead of leaping into the current talent grinder that is the game industry, I just kept game development as a hobby. I learned in my free time, and never stopped. I can honestly say that I don't regret it.
The current industry would definitely benefit from some manner of organization to foster and protect developers, instead of just exploiting them.
Take it you've never worked web dev. Companies tripping over each other and trying to break down your door with six figure starting salaries, trying to one-up each other on ridiculous benefits and perks, sane work hours, and rock solid security. All for what essentialy boils down to knowing how to re-make the same piece of work to conform to the newest fad.
While of course I idealize it a bit for the sake of making a point, you'd be surprised how often this tends to be the case.
Gamedev is miserable in comparison. I totally see this industry unionizing at some point in the next few decades, I'd say we're akin to the early movie industry before a lot of safeguards were put into place. That or the culture changed.
WarrenM: working in an area with a low cost of living is great too. Carey is probably the only city I'd leave Austin for.
It's pretty pronounced in the games industry. Design, Marketing, Tech Startups, etc, don't have these issues. Maybe startups - but the mass layoffs are generally due to the company closing, not constantly "restructuring".
Saying that other industries have these issues isn't really fair. The closest thing I can think of is maybe VFX.
Yea, you probably have it pretty good. I think on average, any artist can expect to get laid off every 1-2 years and last 3 if you're lucky. Only a select amount of studios can really say they haven't laid anyone off for longer than that. There's always new jobs but most of the time, it just means you have to move.
I know some people at web companies, one enacted mandatory 80 hour crunch and the other has regularly laid off entire departments only to immediately restaff them. There hasn't really been much coverage about them in blogs.
You commonly see people make a bunch of money in other tech industries decide it would be fun to make games, how come they don't bring over those friendlier tech business practices?
Are games more tumultuous than other industries? sure. But I'd question just how much worst it is than just about anywhere else. We do not, for example, get laid off as often as say...(UNIONIZED) construction workers.
People in games, however, tend to be a pretty tight knit community. We talk to eachother - tell everybody when a studio shuts down and everyone pulls together to help them find work.
I couldn't tell you how many studio closure threads are filled with "we're hiring" comments.
do you think this kind of stuff happens for people who work in bank software, or graphic designers? i suppose it's possible, but i kind of doubt it.
If you work for a publicly traded company - i don't care what industry - you have to face the possibility that they will "cut operating costs" and axe you. if you work for a non-publicly traded company you have to face the fact that they might just run out of money and shed staff. this is the job market.
now game studios happen to be scattered pretty far and wide and not ALL of them are ALWAYS hiring - so to find a new job means there's a very real possibility that you'll have to move.
My opinion is that if you have a passion for this work then you should do it and take your chances. there are studios out there that are stable. there are even LARGE studios that aren't slave camps. But kotaku doesn't write an article about every studio that DOESN'T lay people off.
if you don't have a passion for it - or you'd be happy doing anything really - then get a job in medecine. there are hospitals everywhere and they pretty much always need people. (sorry. my mother's advice always seeps into job market discussions)
if your job is fullfilling and you're doing what you want to do It's worth the risks and troubles. Weigh it against the relative job insecurity in pretty much every private sector occupation - it's worst than some, better than others. job security is a myth anyways. you never know what can happen in the next year or two - not really.
this is coming from somebody who's married with 3 (going on 4 kids) and has already relocated once, dodged a layoff and found a nice quiet steady studio to stick with and see what happens.
The music industry is the same, run by dicks in suits who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. I am sure a minority of you are actually treated well as an artist and not just a number on a payslip.
Maybe the whole thing is still too new.
People getting arbitrarily laid off with zero job security, people getting severely underpaid for their work, idiots accepting negligible pay because it's just a hobby and lowering the standard for everyone, people not even getting paid at all for the work they put in, sweatshop-esque crunch periods, etc.
With artists, there is much more potential for a structured solution. Game artists are a more specialized sub-set. They require both natural talent, and discipline that is fostered over many years. They also need a decent level of technical training, and constant updates to that training.
Personally, I'm still confused as to why we haven't seen more U.S. outsourcing firms. The need for such companies is only growing. With modern telecommuting, you could start a game art outsourcing firm anywhere in the U.S. and cater to any number of different game companies. A company like that could provide measured service to game publishers, while insuring that their employees don't get overworked. By locating in a more affordable area, they could undercut what a lot of more expensively located charge, and still turn a solid profit.
They did work us quite hard tbh
I also worked at monumental games and again they were nice people, down to earth, the schedules were ok on the whole.
Since then I have found that working in vfx style roles is much more fun - The people are on the whole charming and friendly and the ego/bitterness thing is not as prevalent.
maybe that's just me though, i am sure that games can be a great environment too, it's just a case of choosing the right company
I think that is a pretty good quote. To apply for that statistic you would only have to face that once, some person saying something stupid aaand youre in the 60%. When 40% never even had that occurance even once, I would think thats a pretty decent quote. Also there are many stupid things people can say to you, man or woman, and while the woman may have a higher occurance of sexism, they likely have lower occurance on other stupid stuff.
Also how is that game industry specific ?
@Topic
Im super passionate about what I do, and I could easily have a decent job in luxemburg that offers a lot more money and way easier times, and no afterwork comittment, but I rather do game stuff for low wage than doing stuff I do not care about for a lot more. But im a crunch type of person that never stops working, but this may change, we will see.
My main problem is that stuff is run by managers and producers having often no clue and just dont belong
just my 2 cents..
I do art since 2000, worked on maps for quake 3 and start learning doing 3d models in the years after.
In the same time i worked on some normal jobs and was in the German army for 3 years. All i can say, after now almost 10 years professional game dev. i would go again this way. I know time can be pretty hard, but still.. to work on something you like to do private anyway is something great and if you are good, the money is also good.
SO if you like to model and texture stuff, keep doing it and get money for it.
Those are mostly mild examples, and all have happened repeatedly to women in all sorts of roles in this industry. There are not many other lines of work in which one receives an unending stream of violent bile for describing an unpleasant experience (by which I mean I can't think of any). Hope that helps clear things up some for you.
More on topic: Keep in mind that most open positions are never advertised. There's not a set statistic I've found that compares the number advertised to the number not, but for what it's worth I've heard that in business in general it's a significant majority that are filled before being advertised. There's a lot more hiring than is readily apparent.
Well, I can't speak directly to the state of sexist tendencies in the game industry, as I've never worked in the game industry. But I too have heard numerous stories about the kinds of attitudes and behaviors that keep cropping up.
And I think the very young employee-mill is partially to blame for these. The vast majority of employees in the game industry get hired young, often fresh out of college. You don't usually see older, more experienced employees trying to "break in" to the industry. The reasons for this should be obvious given the various anecdotes already shared.
So the vast majority of game developers have spent the lion's share of their professional careers in the games industry. They never got a chance to cut their teeth or develop professional skills in any other industry. The gender imbalance in the games industry is the stuff of legend. All these young games professionals are learning all of their business interaction skills in enormous boy's clubs. They're being trained in handling themselves professionally in companies that are predominantly male.
In my career I have never had a job where I didn't have a large number of female co-workers and bosses. I've always worked with women, both on the same level as me, and above me in the corporate structure. I've been trained for almost a decade to work alongside women and to take orders from women. For me treating women as peers is almost second nature. But most young game professionals aren't getting the same experience.
A solid influx of female talent at all levels of the games industry is the best goal to correct some of these attitudes. If game professionals have to regularly interact with female co-workers and superiors, they will be able to learn to comport themselves in a more professional manner. The problem at the moment is that they are too comfortable in a predominantly male environment.
Just because you don't hear it doesn't mean it's not happening. Our gaming subculture is so massive right now; there are a lot of news outlets for games and how they are made compared to news outlet for tech, design or marketing companies. One small studio that no one outside of the industry has heard of gets shut down, restructured, etc. a lot of gamers will hear about it.
How many design or marketing companies do we really know of? I only know of 1 design company off the top of my head.
It's corporate life
@dustinbrown: Hit the nail on the head.
years i've worked in the game industry: 3.5
times i've been layed off: at least 5 or 6 (maybe more)
# of those jobs that have been game jobs: 0
job security is a myth. you can get layed off from anywhere - but nobody writes articles on the internet about it.
to be fair i've only been working in the industry for just under 4 years...and i dodged one layoff by hunting down work when things started to spiral downward...but don't think leaving the game industry will keep you from ever losing your job.
It might not apply to artists but if you are a programmer with the skill to make it in the games industry, then you can easily transition into many other technical positions that will offer an equal or greater salary, have less work or looser deadlines, and you will very likely have more job security (assuming you work at a tech company.)
It seems like in the games industry there isn't enough room for everybody in the sense that the people who are very good will still sometimes be out of work. In other fields of software development, there almost always seems to be room for people who are skilled.
I think people want to pay their bills, but at the same time they want to do a job that they find appealing, and what could possibly be more appealing than making games or art?
My dad was working at NASA as a software engineer and was making a six figure salary and had a completely stress-free work environment. Projects were given incredibly loose deadlines with extensions if needed, and the deadlines for even simple tasks could be as long as 2-3 months for a task that could be finished in a week. Still, my dad hated his job, he always told me it was the most boring experience imaginable and the only reason he took it was because he wanted a paycheck.
I think a lot of people who apply for game development jobs go in knowing they will be making less money than many people in similar fields, but it doesn't matter. I know I'd be perfectly fine if I got paid to just support myself if it meant working at a job that I really enjoyed.