artists in Cali make 100k because rent is like fucking 5k/month for a 4x4 foot cardboard box in a parking lot at walmart that's been tastefully decorated with homeless people (actually your coworkers, who got fired) vomit, so glad I moved out For you europeans out there; it's like living in London, but unironically
It happens everwhere (not only in 3D) and all the time.. big (or wanna be big) companies buy smaller companies and say the smaller can go on like usual but they are now part of a new big and nice family.. and because of this the bigger ones get more money from investors.. but then alas.. you can not double, triple, tenfold…
The constant layoffs are a big part in why I left this field. There is little to no stability even if you become 'tenured', too few jobs to go around and a lot of the jobs you'll run into are in SoCal where rent is unaffordable for many. Because the field is built on 'hope and dreams' that a game will be able to sell…
Is it that hard to start your own studios? even if online? and try to make games outside these "main stream/control" sources of "employment", even if you have to start small and work your way up, we all do very difficult artworks, how hard or long could it be for simple things with the talent that is already around here…