The Industry Fortress

Eric Chadwick

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/industry-fortress-rogelio-olguin-ad2ac

Recent article by @rogelio , worth a read! 

I’m going to say something that a lot of people won’t like, but it needs to be said; especially for students and aspiring game artists. Breaking into a top AAA studio or Top VFX Company right out of college is almost impossible. Not “hard.” Not “rare.”  
…

Lots of hard truths here, and I’ve personally experienced a lot of it. 

For me it’s been a great career. But I kind of fell into it, in a wholly different era. I wouldn’t even try if I was starting out today though, unfortunately.

Rima

Forget the low odds of going from school to AAA. The way I hear it, the odds of going from anywhere to AAA if you don't already have experience are quite remote. And of course, even if you were in it, you'll just as easily get booted out because they massively overspent on production and can't possibly turn a high enough profit to please some suit, or there's just "nothing for your role to do after the game ships"....What a shitshow. 

I think it must be an industry that only masochists would want to get into, at this point.

zetheros

it's pretty insane what you have to do. I think artists need to branch out and learn more technical skills and form new studios. Spend some time on the side and pick up programming or animation instead of trying to make a model 0.1% better to have a chance of out-competing fellow artists who are also doing the same thing. And even if you do your best, if you're living in the west studios will outsource to Asia where they can hire 4-5 professionals for the cost of 1, or replace their entire art team with outsourcing studios due to eroding regulations and political corruption

Honestly there needs to be more studios and more leaders. Games are supposedly a red ocean market, but it doesn't really act like one which is strange to me. Studio heads consistently say and do absolutely dumbass shit which allows indie/AA to gain a foothold, but thanks to them I guess, and keep it up?

Rima

zetheros said:

it's pretty insane what you have to do. I think artists need to branch out and learn more technical skills and form new studios. Spend some time on the side and pick up programming or animation instead of trying to make a model 0.1% better to have a chance of out-competing fellow artists who are also doing the same thing. And even if you do your best, if you're living in the west studios will outsource to Asia where they can hire 4-5 professionals for the cost of 1, or replace their entire art team with outsourcing studios due to eroding regulations and political corruption

It's kind of crazy to be in that position. Like, imagine if we were talking about anything else, and the situation was something like "dentists should probably branch out and learn podiatry". For the hiring situation to be so bad the advice is basically just "don't do the thing you're actually gunning for" is really dire. 

zetheros

there simply aren't enough positions for the amount of artists wanting in, which creates a breeding ground for bad working conditions and low wages. It's been this way since.... like 2008, only now are we really seeing the apex of a lack of future-proofing. The sooner people realize this, step out of their comfort zone, and act to improve this trend, the better. Waiting for things to improve is a losing strategy.

 Senior artists with a decade or more under their belt likely have the experience to go off and become independent, forming their own studios, which in turn means more jobs, lower barrier to entry, less nepotism, and less power concentrated in the hands of few.

NikhilR

Our industry is unique in that experienced professionals don't always branch out to start independent studios and remain rooted to their current studio long term taking on additional work to stay relevant because redundancies owing to lack of work are commonplace.

This is more the case at studios that have stability because of core projects having large audiences.
One other issue I noticed is that the industry has a lot of young unmarried professionals, so this demographic doesn't have the incentive to demand more and this ends up being the opposite extreme to the long term employee who started a family in their mid 40's and its nearing the end of his career in his 50's.

It is easy and lucrative for studios to keep the teams small with low wages and outsource as much as possible.
Consumers also have shorter attention spans so there is more emphasis on live service games and while innovation is praised and can be a breakout success larger studios prioritising shareholder returns don't often see it as sustainable strategy.