Former game studio guy who got out and into general software dev and doubled his pay back in like 2012 and haven’t looked back…
This is correct… that plus a couple other things :
Western game studios have ZERO qualms burning through people because they believe an endless fresh crop of 20-somethings can be brought in to burn out by forcing 96-hr work weeks for garbage pay
They got rid of the bonuses / profit-sharing you used to get when a game was successful and just fire people after the games ship… which means if you ever want to be a home owner, or have time to set aside for a family, you’re kinda screwed.
So what this means you’ve got a bunch of people who largely have ZERO experience on each project, and are in survival mode and learning as they go, making usually games that are worse than their previous entries as far as tech goes (see Far Cry series where they show the tech used in FC2 vs newer entries), and when it’s done, they are fired and have to struggle to find another job somewhere else… or they bounce… like I did.
The only outliers are game companies outside the U.S. and a handful of ones in the U.S. (whose games I guarantee you love) and - surprise surprise - when you look at their teams… they’re a bunch of guys in their 50s and up who’ve been making games since the 90s and aren’t being fired after each thing ships or being asked to stay at the office and work over the weekend until Sunday at 3am for the entire 4th quarter of the year.
Former game studio guy who got out and into general software dev and doubled his pay back in like 2012 and haven’t looked back…
This is correct… that plus a couple other things :
Western game studios have ZERO qualms burning through people because they believe an endless fresh crop of 20-somethings can be brought in to burn out by forcing 96-hr work weeks for garbage pay
They got rid of the bonuses / profit-sharing you used to get when a game was successful and just fire people after the games ship… which means if you ever want to be a home owner, or have time to set aside for a family, you’re kinda screwed.
So what this means you’ve got a bunch of people who largely have ZERO experience on each project, and are in survival mode and learning as they go, making usually games that are worse than their previous entries as far as tech goes (see Far Cry series where they show the tech used in FC2 vs newer entries), and when it’s done, they are fired and have to struggle to find another job somewhere else… or they bounce… like I did.
The only outliers are game companies outside the U.S. and a handful of ones in the U.S. (whose games I guarantee you love) and - surprise surprise - when you look at their teams… they’re a bunch of guys in their 50s and up who’ve been making games since the 90s and aren’t being fired after each thing ships or being asked to stay at the office and work over the weekend until Sunday at 3am for the entire 4th quarter of the year.