We should not get paid for making games, it's art after all...
polycounter lvl 9
Game industry veteran writes Horryfying (and stupid) article in defense of poor working conditions.
http://kotaku.com/game-industry-veteran-writes-horrifying-article-in-defe-1771434170
Kinda funny to know there are still people thinking that way, even more, when they are people who worked in the field and know all the struggles involved.
Here's a direct link to the article:
http://venturebeat.com/2016/04/16/game-developers-must-avoid-the-wage-slave-attitude/
The article is short and well-written. I almost (almost) shared his view for a moment, but after reading more, when you get the core message of what he's saying, I just can't stand for that.
As a programmer himself, I have hard time comprehending how he can say stuff like that. Does he includes people that code tools, engine and the game logic too or just the art, I wonder.
WHo agrees?''Making games is not a job, pushing a mouse is not a hardship, it’s the most amazing opportunity you can possibly get paid to pursue … start believing it, and you’ll discover that you are even better at it.
Don’t be in the game industry if you can’t love all 80 hours/week of it — you’re taking a job from somebody who would really value it.''
I hope he also make an article to attacks musicians, sport athlete, professional cooks and so on since these people ''have fun'' doing their job.
Excuse me to post this but such article personally affects me since some people in my entourage have similar thinking.-_-
I'm aware of the bait title by the way.
Replies
People will always complain but even so I have met plenty of 16 year olds that are thrilled to be busy with digital technology and that sense of adventure will stand them in good stead regardless of how society will try to suck all the fun out of work. If you work at a bad studio, change that, but even if you do work at a great place there will still be complaints. Its just how our species rolls, unfortunately.
kanga, i dont really understand your point, but it sounds like you are siding with the arguments in the article. and then i have to ask you, if i really love what i do, if i consider doing it fun, why should i be punished with less working rights?
"-hey there, fast food burger flipper, do you like your job?
-yes, actually...
-would you consider it an art?
-yes, im really passionate about burgers!
-well now you have 20% lower pay and no overtime compensation!"
Winning?
Those are just my plastic pearls though.
Cheerio
I mean he is used to hunting for food so compared to that chefs/cooks have the privilege of having abundant ingredients and electric ovens and all the latest fancy gadgets to cook the food. tossing around food over a pan is not a job. cooking is art too...
his philosophy or logic seems so lacking. he seems to have become successful long long ago when there was a fraction of the competition compared to current times and now he himself is in a position of privilege to be able to complain about other people who complain.
he has taken the concept of wage-slave that exists everywhere and applied it to generalize and depreciate the value of current game developers.
if someone loves their job, they are usually pretty good at it with time and they usually do a good job too. so technically, people who love what they do are even more precious human resources compared to those who dont love what they do. so to live in an economy based in money in exchange of goods and services, these people who love their job are more expensive and should get even more money like many of them already do.
I feel like there's a weird thing with most start-ups where if people don't want to work for free or don't have completely unrealistic work expectations they're "not ready for a start-up game studio". I get this dudes passionate about games, but sometimes people have bills to pay.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8RCV0UWJgE
WHY R U WRITING ARTICLES???!!1111 GET BACK TO FIXING DIRECTX!!!!!
http://ramiismail.com/2016/04/an-inline-response-to-wage-slaves/
i read the article twice now and if you wanna TLDR the article then this should work:
"you are lucky to be working in game dev = salary cuts and lower wage = more money for the CEO = corporate greed"
fuck your scifi game, i am doing hand painted medieval stuff today !
I honestly can't recommend anyone going down this career route at this point unless they are either extremely talented while starting out or have major backup plans, when he says go find work for other tech companies.
I would tell some people, it's not a bad idea, my friend was recently trained up on the job as a systems admin he is paid decently has a lovely apartment and and a great work life balance, with big overtime bonuses.
Other industries look more appealing, other art focuses begin to look more appealing, I have been painting on canvas lately and getting deep into life drawing.
Ideally we want to work in the industry we all love, but we want to work, as in Fair work for Fair pay, we are not slaves.
What an stupid, asshole thing to say. I'm not sure I can bring myself to bother reading the rest of it.
I would love to see him live life with those 'values' he painted out for us with his article. Last time I checked, the digital games industry was rapidly approaching 100 billion. It took the games industry roughly 50years to reach 91 something billion in worth. Much more than just a weak "entrepreneurial endeavor" he is describing based on those numbers.
The attitude that just because we work in games we should be grateful is a pitiful one, sure there are other people out there with harder work conditions and less enjoyable jobs, but then I don't think they have the skills/training or experience to do games jobs? sure there are many out there who want to work in games that can't find games jobs, but until there is work available I am not sure why we should hinder our own job standards/expectations in the industry?
The sheer amount of money that the games industry generates (as the most profitable entertainment industry, $70bn in 2013 vs films $35bn in the same year) flies in the face of anyone saying that we should just put up with exploitation/poor standards and be just grateful for our jobs. if you are someone with that attitude then shame on you, the industry shouldn't be a struggle for anyone fortunate enough to be part of it, but rather an example of an industry that encourages the brightest and most talented to solve problems.
That said, most people I know read their contract and don't really understand it but still sign it anyway. There should be more of an effort to outline a general set of clauses we want regarding overtime (not mandatory or a set amount of consecutive days allowed/ overtime hour limit, or pay for overtime that is mandatory) and holiday limits (the length of/where a company sets a period of time that people cannot take time off) etc. Employees have the power to ask for these things collectively or on moving to a new job, we just need to be more assertive when it comes to contracts (considering contracts and the clauses are there for both parties not just the employer).
just saying we can ask for more money and better work-life balances but the only way to ensure them is to get them in a contract.
For instance isn't that 9-5 statement saying that people think they can take a game dev job, indie or otherwise. And work the normal shift of say a full time McDonald's employee aka 9 -5. Crunch time or not, what ever the area, I'm certain that's not the case in the vast majority of contexts.
And the statement about quitting I've heard tons of times. People saying they used to work in game dev but got a family or something and shifted to more normal programming work, which had better pay, more benefits, and less hours. It's what they need but even then some still desire to return to game dev or do it on the side.
All this stuff he's saying send standard to me, and the same stuff I've heard repeated since I've researched this industry back in highschool. Never hurt my desire though, I'm a workaholic on my own.
it is a deliberate attempt at undermining employees(game developers in this case) and their value. it is a deliberate attempt at keeping wage down and keeping work hours up. it is a deliberate attempt to get more cheap labor and making sure it stays cheap. this is similar to tactics used by bad managers/CEOs to keep more money for the executive roles and less money for the general developers. that being said, this is nothing new and happens in all industries. so every time we hear something like this we should make sure to react just like this other wise it will be a race to the bottom soon.
everybody should keep in mind that the type of work we do take a lot of hard work, research, training, technical understanding, etc. etc. it cannot be done just by everybody, other wise it would have been. I am sure even Mr. Alex St. John knows this very well but it is a deliberate attempt by him to depreciate our value as a whole.
Second of all... If you're an artist I want to encourage you to get out of the mindset of the place where you work being the location where you give your best work. I say... go home and make personal art and make it way better then what you can do at work. Don't let your creativity and artistic skill level be tied to your workplace. That sort of thinking is what really creates "wage slaves."
For the most part, our industry pays OK. Yes, some places are terrible. I started at min wage. Some places are less than the industry average. But in the grand scheme of things, unless you`re at one of those places paying minimum wage, it's not nearly as bad as some people make it out to seem.
Could it be better? ABSOLUTELY! There are definitely a lot of places that could be much better! But if the entire industry was complete and utter shit, no one would be working in it, or there would have been a union created by now.
In a lot of cases, the only reason the conditions are so bad are because people let them stay like that. They put up with the over time. The put up with the shitty schedules. They don't speak up for themselves, or say you know what? Ive been here my 8 hours, Im going home. From what ive noticed, the people who have been in the industry longest have learned to just say no. They put in their hours and they go home.
Dont get me wrong. This guy is a douche, and using "you enjoy the work so you should get paid shit all" is a TERRIBLE reason to pay people crap all. If your employees are making you millions of dollars, pay them what they`re worth.
edit:
oops, it wasn't Tim Sweeney, it was Mark Rein who said similar things about "passion": http://www.develop-online.net/news/passionate-developers-are-willing-to-crunch-say-studio-heads/0112489
I like how he brings up hard working Policemen & Firemen (who are unionized) and Doctors (who make waaaaaaaaaay more money than us)
On the other hand, it's also just fair to ask about compensation. It's called a work contract, and both sides have obligations and privileges. If you as employee don't bring up the topic of compensation then you're stupid or in for some bad surprises. If it's the first thing you bring up in an interview, then yep, that's not clever either
Also you might want to consider that vacation days, good advancement options IS something that makes companies interesting. I still see game companies advertising "free fruit" and "modern open office spaces", like 15 years ago. It's ridiculous. Maybe the young people are just more clever than us who were impressed by "free fruit and soft drinks". If you don't advertise real perks and benefits, then don't be surprised if your candidates ask for them.
And i'm not interested in a job that's stable or pays a lot i'm interested in a job that lets me do what i love doing most of the time, and hopefully be a strong contributor to a major project one day preferably leading one. Like people who do freelance, that's even less stable than studio work , you guys often talk about encountering problems but learning to handle them. But you may prefer it due to the freedom or other factors, or may return to studio work for better stability. Or the difference between small studio work and and big studio work, threads here about working at EA compared to a small studio. Where the factor there is more about how important stability is to you compared to satisfaction. And i think most people who post here, take time out of their day, every day, to learn the software and improve their art are looking for satisfying work more than anything.
Do i think it's fair that i have to pick satisfying over stable? No, but i'll do it cause i want to, and so long as i feel satisfied i won't really have a need to complain. But certainly i'm no stranger to quitting a job simply because I feel like it's not giving me what I need/want. People complain all the time about lone/small indie dev work but they still express love for it and support others who want to do it. The reality is just part of the life, sure we'd all love it if it was easier but that's not the case yet, maybe never will be because of how rapidly things change.
I don't think anyone is saying anyone deserves anything, or anything should be one way, but they are saying if they're not happy with the work there's other fields your skill-set applies to (as far as game development/programming goes) that can provide a more stable 9-5 lifestyle and more benefits that someone may claim to desire while dwelling on their difficulties. "Go and become happy somewhere else, the rest of us are fine."
Cheerio
But yeah, just starting out with "what's in for me" is a pretty stupid strategy for interviewing, especially before the employer took the bait.
i honestly cannot fathom why people are wasting their mental capacity on this bullshit. do not let the trolls believe there is anything worth coming out from under their bridge for.
"While people occasionally choose to push themselves to work some extra hours at times when something big is going out the door, for the most part working overtime for extended periods indicates a fundamental failure in planning or communication. If this happens at Valve, it’s a sign that something needs to be reevaluated and corrected. If you’re looking around wondering why people aren’t in “crunch mode,” the answer’s pretty simple. The thing we work hardest at is hiring good people, so we want them to stick around and have a good balance between work and family and the rest of the important stuff in life."
Watched some videos about him yesterday because this whole thing made me curious. He's actualy a pretty entertaining guy and he makes no secret of it that he enjoys trolling people on the internet.
Crunch and working conditions are a serious topic but as the saying goes "don't feed the troll".