I feel a union would help to level the playing field, and it would be great to have something equivalent to the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan for game developers. (though the OTPP worked through a combination of great investments and the stability and demand of the provincially supported teaching profession)
The problem besides studios shutting down to liquidate unions, is that game devs raise standards for game development across the board and are responsible for the higher standards we see when it comes to hiring.
I'd say perceived higher standards, since some dev teams implement this more than others. But it seems that for a company the profit to corporate and shareholders is what mattered more, so while many game dev's loved riot and blizzard and miss their game dev family, willing to do what ever it takes to make "their" game, I think they forget that they don't actually own any of it.
Like on linkedin I see posts from artists taking about "their game" and "their character" without any genuine ownership of the product it is. Its great to connect as an artist, but I do feel its important to remember that this is a business first and foremost.
Microsoft didn't even bother giving two weeks notice and we're the ones concerned about burning bridges. Its ridiculous.
Like sure maybe one day each of us will become top tier (which doesn't seem to make any real difference towards stability in the longterm) but unless we have any agency to create something that actually belongs to us and also pick up additional skills and alternative ways to express ourselves, we're completely at the mercy of corporates.
Like theres a lot of emphasis on becoming great artists but not enough awareness of the corporate nature of game production industry though I must admit that even if this was known many artists in my graduating class didn't seem to care.
From an art perspective, with the way its approached I'm guessing the conclusion to getting good and maintaining ownership is to approach the level of Keos Masons? So there is agency in operating as an exclusive high value contractor? I still think there is are simpler ways.
Particularly this bit about Game developer culture,
"Developers too often are willing to accept worse pay or working conditions for the good of the project or the company, while management is incentivized to trim any extravagance to run with the utmost efficiency. That has a tendency to produce some pretty unhappy outcomes for developers."
And,
"I can see how identifying those who don't fit your culture and paying them to go away can reinforce a monocultural workforce with a very specific kind of person overrepresented therein. And I don't even mean sexist dudebros here; I mean anyone without the emotional distance from the job to understand it as a business deal between them and their employers. I mean the type of "passionate" employee attracted by the prestige of a big-name developer as much as pay, one who just wants to work on a series they love, one who is only too eager to sacrifice for the company."
With regards to the race to the bottom to become top tier
"Right now, companies like Riot go into every contract negotiation – and we use that word lightly, considering how many individual developers are in no position to push back against whatever the initial offered terms of a deal are – as a business looking to make the most efficient use of its resources.
But developers are human beings with so many more motivations. They may be chasing a dream, eager to work on a game they're passionate about, or excited about working on a popular AAA franchise. Maybe they just want a team to work with, people to rely on who rely on them. Maybe they're just happy to be there, or desperate for any kind of paying work. Whatever motivations they bring to the table, it means they will often settle for what they can get instead of what they deserve.
And that would be fine, if it were only themselves they were selling short. It's their life and their choice to prioritize what they want, after all. But it hurts their fellow developers, lowers the going rate for talent, and undermines the ability of any developer to ask for more because these companies know there's a functionally limitless pool of people out there who won't try to negotiate better terms for themselves and are only too willing to throw their personal lives into a furnace for the sake of the umpteenth installment of a franchise or the next big live service flame out."
Also, "When game developers treat their job as a job rather than a load-bearing wall on which they have built their identity and self-worth, they're liable to demand things like better pay, limited work hours, appropriate time off, or work-life balance."
Lastly
"We are not our work.
We can enjoy it. We can take pride in it. We can do it to the best of our ability. I think most people who enter a field by choice rather than necessity do this, and making video games (like writing about them) is a hard enough field to break into (or remain in) that I suspect most of us are here because we wanted to be here.
So we can give our jobs all we have to give, and for many of us, we will do that with or without a union. But we cannot give them all that they will take, because in most jobs that is a bottomless pit that we can never begin to fill.
Having a union would just be recognition that we shouldn't have to."
I think another part of the problem here is that there are simply too few jobs available which makes the impact of layoffs worse. Environment artist for example is probably the most numerous type of modeling job there is and yet there's only a few dozen jobs posted nationwide at any given point. Thats pretty rough to have to deal with constant layoffs and then have to fight like hell to get another job before the bills pile up. Its to where sometimes we're forced to take small temp jobs like customer service to make ends meet until we can find another industry job, but even that nowadays is almost out of the question because of the sheer number of people in the job market looking to take anything.
Then to make it worst the bulk majority of said jobs want senior/lead level experience of like 5 years.
How the hell is anyone supposed to get that much experience if your getting laid off every couple of months??? Getting 5 years of experience in this market would take like 10 years of job hopping if your getting consistently laid off every couple of months. Thats additionally assuming you can find a new job every couple of months which from what I gather is getting harder and harder to do.
I'd not want to be 40 and have a spotty resume history littered with jobs that only lasted a few months to maybe a year+ because of layoffs, then decide to switch industries. You pretty much gotta start over given how a lot of this work is specialized and probably wont transfer to another field. Thats going to cause a lot of life issues such as not being able to save properly for retirement and issues like this is probably why a number of people past 40 tend to leave the industry to go for something more stable even if they have to start over.
If your 20, your probably good even with frequent layoffs if your single without much financial responsibilities like being able to live at home. 30? Its kinda dicey. 40? I would not ever risk it. At that age I think unless you have good tenure in the industry already or really want to stay in it, your probably better off just doing something else for money and making games on the side.
I could forgive the layoffs more if there were more jobs available to balance it out, but not like this. There needs to be something to balance it out like perhaps mandatory severance packages that would atleast keep you on your feet for a few months until you found something else.
I think another part of the problem here is that there are simply too few jobs available which makes the impact of layoffs worse. Environment artist for example is probably the most numerous type of modeling job there is and yet there's only a few dozen jobs posted nationwide at any given point. Thats pretty rough to have to deal with constant layoffs and then have to fight like hell to get another job before the bills pile up. Its to where sometimes we're forced to take small temp jobs like customer service to make ends meet until we can find another industry job, but even that nowadays is almost out of the question because of the sheer number of people in the job market looking to take anything.
Then to make it worst the bulk majority of said jobs want senior/lead level experience of like 5 years.
How the hell is anyone supposed to get that much experience if your getting laid off every couple of months??? Getting 5 years of experience in this market would take like 10 years of job hopping if your getting consistently laid off every couple of months. Thats additionally assuming you can find a new job every couple of months which from what I gather is getting harder and harder to do.
I'd not want to be 40 and have a spotty resume history littered with jobs that only lasted a few months to maybe a year+ because of layoffs, then decide to switch industries. You pretty much gotta start over given how a lot of this work is specialized and probably wont transfer to another field. Thats going to cause a lot of life issues such as not being able to save properly for retirement and issues like this is probably why a number of people past 40 tend to leave the industry to go for something more stable even if they have to start over.
If your 20, your probably good even with frequent layoffs if your single without much financial responsibilities like being able to live at home. 30? Its kinda dicey. 40? I would not ever risk it. At that age I think unless you have good tenure in the industry already or really want to stay in it, your probably better off just doing something else for money and making games on the side.
I could forgive the layoffs more if there were more jobs available to balance it out, but not like this. There needs to be something to balance it out like perhaps mandatory severance packages that would atleast keep you on your feet for a few months until you found something else.
When I think about that, it's like....Well, what's the point? Work hard to get good, spend your time and energy, even money, and what's waiting for you at the end? It seems like every career is like that at the moment, though, and even if they're not, they're still looking for ways to get rid of us and automate out the work to increase their profit margins.
Working on anything that's not just being crushed under a corporate boot in a job you despise just so you can survive long enough to do it all again next week is a luxury of the wealthy, huh. Well, always has been, but more than ever, it seems like.
I think it's because the industry used to be a lot smaller, and conditions and prospects for workers used to be a lot better. I was making fan art doodles of the warcraft 3 loading screen art in my early teens and always thought I'd join Blizzard and work on WoW or Diablo. Times change, and so must we.
There needs to be something to balance it out like perhaps mandatory severance packages that would atleast keep you on your feet for a few months until you found something else.
The lack of such a thing is due to labor laws in your country/region. I'm in NZ. I was made redundant 6 months into my first real game dev job. The whole process between announcing it and me losing my job was over a month. I was fully paid the whole time, didn't have to work, and at the end received decent severance. I'm no expert on international labor laws, but there are places in the western world that treat employees as people instead of expendable resources. There are reasons why game dev is seeing a lot of layoffs, but the way people are treated in the process is a function of law, not necessarily the industry itself.
I think it's because the industry used to be a lot smaller, and conditions and prospects for workers used to be a lot better. I was making fan art doodles of the warcraft 3 loading screen art in my early teens and always thought I'd join Blizzard and work on WoW or Diablo. Times change, and so must we.
I'm wondering if the inflation of the industry over the last 10-20 years was a kind of gold-rush scenario that was always going to be unsustainable in the longterm.
The US treats workers very poorly compared to most civilised parts of the world - on the other hand, base pay (in the game industry at least) trends a lot higher so it might even out.
What we're seeing I think is the covid bubble bursting and toppling the Jenga tower that's built up over the last decade or so. The decline was inevitable but the speed we're seeing the arse fall out is a direct result of the industry seeing a line go up rapidly for two years and having the hubris to interpret that as the result of genius business management rather than attributing it to the fact that billions of people were suddenly locked indoors with nothing better to do than play video games.
As someone who's trying to get into the industry, I don't know if I can compete with those who were laid off. Why risk time and money to train a junior when you can hire someone who got recently laid off?
As someone who's trying to get into the industry, I don't know if I can compete with those who were laid off. Why risk time and money to train a junior when you can hire someone who got recently laid off?
Junior wages are cheaper buts that's not the whole story
You're not in competition with experienced people because we don't hire them for the same jobs we hire juniors for. You're in competition with other juniors and grads, just like you always were. Are there less jobs? Maybe.. I don't think there's less than there were before the expansion a couple of years back
PlayStation is
laying off 900 workers. As part of this, it will shut down its London
Studio entirely, likely cancelling its announced new IP. There will also
be layoffs at other Sony-owned studios in the UK, including Firesprite studio, which it acquired in 2021.
Explaining why the cuts are being made, Ryan says that the industry "has
changed immensely". In an email to workers, Ryan also says that the
layoffs are being made in order to "continue to grow the business and
develop the company".
The 900 layoffs won't be felt with immediate effect, as Sony will have
to go through a consultation process in regions like the UK. However,
this is the figure that Sony is striving for, which accounts for roughly
eight percent of its worldwide workforce.
For the sake of growing the business and developing the company? Seriously....?
and I'm wondering what "changes" Ryan was referring to. Could it be that the changes in the industry he's referring to relate to AI workflows reducing the required number of employees in regards to art and programming?
Or do you think he's merely saying that they aren't making as much money as they had projected, and that constitutes as a "change" in the industry?
I think we're going to see some really shitty games coming out of AAA companies for a few years at least.
and I'm wondering what "changes" Ryan was referring to. Could it be that the changes in the industry he's referring to relate to AI workflows reducing the required number of employees in regards to art and programming?
Or do you think he's merely saying that they aren't making as much money as they had projected, and that constitutes as a "change" in the industry?
As I understand it it's down to some outlandish projections based on the numbers they (we?) did early in the pandemic and the expectation that this trajectory would simply continue. So staffing and budgets were increased to cope with the expected expansion and it was financed at low interest rates. Instead we are now down to 2019 levels or thereabouts of revenue while interest rates went up a lot during 2023.
Here's a looooooooooong article that may be insightful. I certainly couldn't finish it (yet) but it came recommended by peers at least: https://www.matthewball.vc/all/gaming2024
100% that - line went up, people spent money without thinking about why it went up and are now panicking cos the investors want to know where the return is. It's not over yet either I don't think.
I've got several old colleagues/friends at London studio and Firesprite so it gives me no pleasure at all to see this even if I can't say I'm surprised about it. On a mildly positive note, Sony treated my colleagues and I pretty well when our studio was closed a few years ago so if history is anything to go by at least they won't be kicked out into the cold with nothing.
Replies
Just leave this here.
I also liked this article,
https://www.kotaku.com.au/2024/01/xbox-is-not-your-friend/
And this linkedin post
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dennisdetwiller_videogame-activity-7156680737394434048-fx-C?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop
I feel a union would help to level the playing field, and it would be great to have something equivalent to the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan for game developers. (though the OTPP worked through a combination of great investments and the stability and demand of the provincially supported teaching profession)
The problem besides studios shutting down to liquidate unions, is that game devs raise standards for game development across the board and are responsible for the higher standards we see when it comes to hiring.
I'd say perceived higher standards, since some dev teams implement this more than others. But it seems that for a company the profit to corporate and shareholders is what mattered more, so while many game dev's loved riot and blizzard and miss their game dev family, willing to do what ever it takes to make "their" game, I think they forget that they don't actually own any of it.
Like on linkedin I see posts from artists taking about "their game" and "their character" without any genuine ownership of the product it is.
Its great to connect as an artist, but I do feel its important to remember that this is a business first and foremost.
Microsoft didn't even bother giving two weeks notice and we're the ones concerned about burning bridges. Its ridiculous.
Like sure maybe one day each of us will become top tier (which doesn't seem to make any real difference towards stability in the longterm)
but unless we have any agency to create something that actually belongs to us and also pick up additional skills and alternative ways to express ourselves, we're completely at the mercy of corporates.
Like theres a lot of emphasis on becoming great artists but not enough awareness of the corporate nature of game production industry though I must admit that even if this was known many artists in my graduating class didn't seem to care.
From an art perspective, with the way its approached I'm guessing the conclusion to getting good and maintaining ownership is to approach the level of Keos Masons? So there is agency in operating as an exclusive high value contractor?
I still think there is are simpler ways.
Also recommend reading this post.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/dennisdetwiller_creator-magicthegathering-wotc-activity-7144345058547294208-4ruy?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop&lipi=urn:li:page:d_flagship3_detail_base;CXMbgp8NSIS/6iMQlL0b6w==
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/riot-and-microsoft-layoffs-the-same-but-different-this-week-in-business
Particularly this bit about Game developer culture,
"Developers too often are willing to accept worse pay or working conditions for the good of the project or the company, while management is incentivized to trim any extravagance to run with the utmost efficiency. That has a tendency to produce some pretty unhappy outcomes for developers."
And,
"I can see how identifying those who don't fit your culture and paying them to go away can reinforce a monocultural workforce with a very specific kind of person overrepresented therein. And I don't even mean sexist dudebros here; I mean anyone without the emotional distance from the job to understand it as a business deal between them and their employers. I mean the type of "passionate" employee attracted by the prestige of a big-name developer as much as pay, one who just wants to work on a series they love, one who is only too eager to sacrifice for the company."
With regards to the race to the bottom to become top tier
"Right now, companies like Riot go into every contract negotiation – and we use that word lightly, considering how many individual developers are in no position to push back against whatever the initial offered terms of a deal are – as a business looking to make the most efficient use of its resources.
But developers are human beings with so many more motivations. They may be chasing a dream, eager to work on a game they're passionate about, or excited about working on a popular AAA franchise. Maybe they just want a team to work with, people to rely on who rely on them. Maybe they're just happy to be there, or desperate for any kind of paying work. Whatever motivations they bring to the table, it means they will often settle for what they can get instead of what they deserve.
And that would be fine, if it were only themselves they were selling short. It's their life and their choice to prioritize what they want, after all. But it hurts their fellow developers, lowers the going rate for talent, and undermines the ability of any developer to ask for more because these companies know there's a functionally limitless pool of people out there who won't try to negotiate better terms for themselves and are only too willing to throw their personal lives into a furnace for the sake of the umpteenth installment of a franchise or the next big live service flame out."
Also,
"When game developers treat their job as a job rather than a load-bearing wall on which they have built their identity and self-worth, they're liable to demand things like better pay, limited work hours, appropriate time off, or work-life balance."
Lastly
"We are not our work.
We can enjoy it. We can take pride in it. We can do it to the best of our ability. I think most people who enter a field by choice rather than necessity do this, and making video games (like writing about them) is a hard enough field to break into (or remain in) that I suspect most of us are here because we wanted to be here.
So we can give our jobs all we have to give, and for many of us, we will do that with or without a union. But we cannot give them all that they will take, because in most jobs that is a bottomless pit that we can never begin to fill.
Having a union would just be recognition that we shouldn't have to."
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-01-29/embracer-group-cancels-deus-ex-video-game
Really ought to be wary of any company under Embracers wing.
Then to make it worst the bulk majority of said jobs want senior/lead level experience of like 5 years.
How the hell is anyone supposed to get that much experience if your getting laid off every couple of months??? Getting 5 years of experience in this market would take like 10 years of job hopping if your getting consistently laid off every couple of months. Thats additionally assuming you can find a new job every couple of months which from what I gather is getting harder and harder to do.
I'd not want to be 40 and have a spotty resume history littered with jobs that only lasted a few months to maybe a year+ because of layoffs, then decide to switch industries. You pretty much gotta start over given how a lot of this work is specialized and probably wont transfer to another field. Thats going to cause a lot of life issues such as not being able to save properly for retirement and issues like this is probably why a number of people past 40 tend to leave the industry to go for something more stable even if they have to start over.
If your 20, your probably good even with frequent layoffs if your single without much financial responsibilities like being able to live at home. 30? Its kinda dicey. 40? I would not ever risk it. At that age I think unless you have good tenure in the industry already or really want to stay in it, your probably better off just doing something else for money and making games on the side.
I could forgive the layoffs more if there were more jobs available to balance it out, but not like this. There needs to be something to balance it out like perhaps mandatory severance packages that would atleast keep you on your feet for a few months until you found something else.
https://www.ign.com/articles/ive-never-seen-it-this-bad-game-developers-explain-the-huge-layoffs-hitting-riot-epic-and-more
I'm no expert on international labor laws, but there are places in the western world that treat employees as people instead of expendable resources.
There are reasons why game dev is seeing a lot of layoffs, but the way people are treated in the process is a function of law, not necessarily the industry itself.
zetheros said: I'm wondering if the inflation of the industry over the last 10-20 years was a kind of gold-rush scenario that was always going to be unsustainable in the longterm.
What we're seeing I think is the covid bubble bursting and toppling the Jenga tower that's built up over the last decade or so.
The decline was inevitable but the speed we're seeing the arse fall out is a direct result of the industry seeing a line go up rapidly for two years and having the hubris to interpret that as the result of genius business management rather than attributing it to the fact that billions of people were suddenly locked indoors with nothing better to do than play video games.
junior is cheaper
You're not in competition with experienced people because we don't hire them for the same jobs we hire juniors for. You're in competition with other juniors and grads, just like you always were.
Are there less jobs? Maybe..
I don't think there's less than there were before the expansion a couple of years back
I've got several old colleagues/friends at London studio and Firesprite so it gives me no pleasure at all to see this even if I can't say I'm surprised about it.
On a mildly positive note, Sony treated my colleagues and I pretty well when our studio was closed a few years ago so if history is anything to go by at least they won't be kicked out into the cold with nothing.