"The heavy toll of making games in the San Francisco Bay Area"
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https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-04-30-the-heavy-toll-of-making-games-in-the-san-francisco-bay-area
I used to live and work in SF on games, so this speaks volumes to me.
I left in 2001, when it was already starting to get crazy. But now, whoa.
Met my wife while renting in North Beach in the early 90's. We rented in Pacific Heights for a bit, then North Beach again for a few years. Biking to work was great, down the Embarcadero to South of Market.
Then we bought a house in San Anselmo, and commuted across the Golden Gate bridge for a couple years.
And we thought it was expensive then, ha!
Curious if any of you are living and working there now. What's the experience like?
I used to live and work in SF on games, so this speaks volumes to me.
I left in 2001, when it was already starting to get crazy. But now, whoa.
Met my wife while renting in North Beach in the early 90's. We rented in Pacific Heights for a bit, then North Beach again for a few years. Biking to work was great, down the Embarcadero to South of Market.
Then we bought a house in San Anselmo, and commuted across the Golden Gate bridge for a couple years.
And we thought it was expensive then, ha!
Curious if any of you are living and working there now. What's the experience like?
Replies
Working in the US frankly seems scary to me nowadays. When I was a student it was the only thing I wanted for my professional life, but the more I heard about the conditions and people through podcasts or forums, the more I thought working at a dev studio seemed like too silly of a risk to take (not to mention the difficulty of getting a work visa for a junior position).
The US is big of course and SF's costs is just an extreme end of the situation, but with so many overwork-time stories and massive layoffs (specially recently), I tried working more with outsourcers so that at least the company's win/failure doesn't depend on the videogame we're working on's success. Of course we try to aim for our work to contribute to the product's success, or else no one would want to work with us, but it's a small relief from a job-security point of view.
While I really love what I do, it often feels like its impossible to keep up with the cost of living here. I've been living in Oakland and commuting to the Peninsula the entire time. The commute is soul crushing, but the cost of closer housing, combined with the inherent instability in our industry makes signing a new lease a scary proposition. And although my salary has climbed significantly since starting out, so has the cost of housing. Renting anything larger than a tiny one bedroom apartment, much less owning a home or starting a family seems like an impossibility. This line from the article hit me real hard:
It is somewhat surreal being surrounded by so much wealth, being by all accounts successful in your career, and yet feeling like having a laundry machine is an incredible luxury.
I moved here with my wife and kids in 2013 and found a house about 30 miles away that we could afford. A long commute then was around 45-50 mins. Now, the average commute time is about 90+ minutes; anything less than that feels like a breeze.
We've been very fortunate to only have had two rent increases in 5 1/2 years and we are still below average cost for the area. However, it is always looming over your head here. Any yearly raise/cost of living increase has the potential to get eaten up by an increase in rent.
There are lot of strengths to living in the area but it comes with the possibility of significant financial stress. You really have to have your personal finances locked down and have 6+ months of living expenses in an emergency fund to survive here.
Like Toronto and Vancouver all share the same fate.
And theres a lot of talent but they still hire from abroad for the roles that actually pay enough to live in the cities.
So...
That being said, game studios generally underpay in comparison to other industries (tech, visualization, etc.). If you can carve out a good salary in the Bay Area or CA in general, it really is a great place to cut your teeth and grow your career. There's a sickening amount of talent and expertise in CA between film and games and the networking alone can be a huge resource. And if things do go south, you've got a market that can absorb studio closures/layoffs without the local industry cratering all together.
Really depends on the role, and your own cost of living. Not to say every game dev needs to live in a bootstrapped way, but I do find that atleast in northamerica what constitutes decent living is pretty different from other places.
Toronto's issue is housing surplus which it lacks, the worst transportation network in north america for major cities and 1 major AAA studio catering to 10 game dev schools. (there's 2 more but they don't seem to advertise a lot)
I guess with san francisco its a similar situation in some respects.
It is a clear reason why you can compare the number of gaming companies in the Bay Area to that of say Bismark, North Dakota. Yet if big companies flooded into Bismark because of the lower cost, within a few years no one will be able to afford to live there.
The only offside being having a knowledge of french which may or may not be necessary depending on the circumstances.
This is attributed to its housing surplus and better zoning of the city. It almost as if they prepared for a large population that would remain within city limits.
Toronto Doesn't have enough housing blocks (rental housing), since most people seem to aspire to single family homes and are just greedy in general. (its the financial capital of canada)
Like the expected markup on a home sale is crazy, people want a million for a semi detached they bought in the 90's for about 100,000.
Weirdly that doesn't seem to be the attitude in Montreal where there's a day where everybody suddenly decides they want to live elsewhere and move.
My housing block is part of around 10 structures with 15, 2 bedroom units for around 1100$, and there are so many vacant units for less than half what you pay in toronto for something half the size. (in toronto a 2 bedroom half the size is almost 3500$ in rent monthly.
The only reason companies stay in these cities comes down to subsidies, grants and tax credits to offset the cost of their rents. But there is considerable bias on how this is given out.
Many companies can certainly do more to offset the cost of living closer to the studio given their revenue I feel. It only benefits them in the end.
The problem is not being able to afford to live there even while being paid and having to sacrifice a good deal because of that. Like in this case its not about the portfolio any more. They've done that and now they have the work they want, they're just finding that it doesn't satisfy them financially (mind you in many cases, a lot of artists don't negotiate, so its not all on the company)
In many cases the wages really do need to go up to offset the living cost. Like I have friends in Toronto they complain constantly about how difficult it is to get by given their cost of living. Mind you this is an extreme case since the city has serious problems that aren't going to be solved anytime soon.
They are happy they have the opportunity to work for AAA, but clearly not with the compensation which is reflected prominently all over glass door. (though oddly that is also the case in many 5 star reviews for some reason)
Of course they are welcome to leave for a better wage, so there's always that option going forward but honestly as artists and creators sky's the limit to how you can get the lifestyle you want.
I think onilne courses like CGMA face the same issues.
Still can't quite say everyone who has would get a job all the same, and many artists I know were hired for a lot of other reasons that are quire controversial, but reaching that bar in the quality of ones work is something every artist should do for themselves.
You can easily find 2 bedrooms appt. for 700-800$ within reasonable distances from downtown.
The french language requirement might become an issue for some devs attempting to get into the industry here though.
Still easier to learn french than hope for San Francisco, Vancouver or Montreal housing markets to become more affordable.
You can make $125k in San Francisco but live like you make $35k. You can make $60k in other places but live like you make $100k.
You can't use salary as the sole indicator of how well off you will be in any given location. As an example, a single person making less than ~$73k/year in SF can apply for low-income housing assistance (https://homeguides.sfgate.com/need-qualify-low-income-housing-1902.html) for rental properties. Add a family to that and you will really start to feel the financial pressure.
Montreal is the better option between Vancouver and Toronto, given the cost of living in those cities. Some companies have multiple hubs between the 3 cities so routinely shift employees about.
Of course if you do manage to make a good amount you could certainly live in vancouver/toronto. (you may have to sacrifice a fair bit though)
Its just really difficult to justify paying 3500$ monthly in rent when you compare to the 1000$ in Montreal for a larger apartment.
i think over time its really important to assess the value of being in such expensive cities and how it translates to the well being of employees and their families.
Like in Toronto, a lot of the employee costs are paid by the government (about 350,000$ per new employee), but the companies decide how much of that goes to the employee. (definitely not that much at one go lol)
Fact is that a lot of how artists choose companies does come down to what games they play. So they're likely to believe the company has their best interests in mind when they join.
That said if you do offer a company something of value, they will likely pay a fair wage since your skills are important to them. Really depends where you fit in the crowd and how much value they see in you.
Tech/IT companies make comparable revenue but have better benefits even though their workers aren't all unionised. That makes me wonder why the disparity exists if anyone has an answer to this.
As artists I've always believed that there is no limit to artistic expression and gaining a following for your brand. So that's something to definitely work towards.
- There are tons of potential employees trying to get into a limited number of positions. New employees are willing to work for a lower wage to get their feet into the industry.
- When potential employees are constantly being told that it's a super competitive industry, they are less willing to negotiate a higher compensation and/or benefits. They take the first offer and accept it.
- It's a young industry still and finding it's feet in regards to workplace maturity. This includes hiring practices, compensation amounts and types (non-wage/salary compensation), and production practices.
Granted, that is a very broad stroke to apply to the industry as a whole. Yet I am sure there are a few other companies that fall under this brush.
The one thing that distinguishes the game industry from the rest of tech seems to be the fact that it is also a part of the entertainment industry, think film/television, so comes with all that baggage.
So that's probably why despite not really being young, it has these problems surface from time to time. It also has a high turnover (like film) which also accounts for the disparity, though I think that's more the case in the western game dev scene where you don't have the concept of lifetime employee, and of course a vast pool of eager newer talent.
On the ground, most employees (from what I've seen) just want to do their job and go home. And its only natural that a game company attracts gamers who are likely in it of the bragging rights and nothing more, well atleast until they figure out what else they want.
Also about diversity, I think that also depends on the role/ responsibility involved.
Like for a 3D prop artist making barrels off a concept and going home, would the gender/race of the employee making them matter? Like you're going to get a barrel regardless of who makes them. Well hopefully they are up to the task of making them.
It looks great in promotional media given the current trends, but unless they really leverage the diversity, i.e having distinct backgrounds and experiences rather than just the surface and have more of this in decision making areas, the whole prospect of having diversity doesn't really have the impact it should.
It sure doesn't look like riot was hiring people with diversity for diversity's sake in mind, I mean as far as the women in the complaint its pretty obvious what some key people in the management had in mind when they hired them.
Disgusting really.
There needs to be proper protocol on what is acceptable in any workplace, and it needs to apply to all levels equally.
- Hiring practices are still modeled after a churn and burn mentality (ramp up, layoff, ramp up, layoff, rinse and repeat). The blatant taking advantage of new hires just leads to burn out and does not reinvest the cumulative experience gained from one project into the next.
- Compensation amounts and options for non-executive positions are woefully underwhelming, especially in regards to artists. Sign on/yearly bonuses, stock options/RSUs, maternal/paternal leave, transportation stipends and other non-monetary compensation tend to fall behind other industries.
- Production pipeline/workflows are changing fast but the scheduling, external development practices, and general rush-it-out the door mentality is outdated. I will agree that this area of development is changing pretty quickly (yay!).
Perhaps I'm being too harsh on the industry. I loved working in the industry and I could see myself working in it again.
It's shit, but that's the reason this has continued, and will continue.
- Ask for a sign on bonus.
- Ask for 2-3 work-from-home days per month.
- Ask for a monthly transportation stipend.
- Ask for RSU/stock options.
- Ask for a flex-schedule.
All of these things I didn't know were a thing until much later in my career and, in some cases, not until I got out of the industry.
Like fair enough if you do genuinely see a perceivable advantage, like maybe you're building a startup strapped for funds then sure.
But if you're being paid way lower than the expected wage required to sustain yourself in an expensive city and the government is providing the company substantial incentives towards operational cost and at times directly to employee wages, you should very well receive a fair amount.
This also improves employee retention, of course if that isn't the goal then it probably didn't matter to begin with.
I think in the end it really comes down to the artist and creating a brand and audience and work to become someone worth investing in. I mean it shouldn't have to come to this but then you can end any exploitative practices for yourself at least.
If there is a greivance its possible to seek redressal within the company, else there is the labor board that can be approached.
I know riot has an arbitration clause that prevents lawsuits from going to court but that would not be possible in the eu for instance.
Some regulation is certainly necessary to prevent abuse by employers.