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SICKENING ARTICLE ABOUT GAME DEVELOPMENT AND THE "WAGE SLAVE" ATTITUDE
Posts
turkeyDawg
195
turkeyDawg
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Closeauthor=Ratty524And maybe reality in general. I mean, who in Florida (esp. the Everglades area) even has a basement?! Nobody I ever met, that's for sure.I’m talking about kids who made some of the worst games you can imagine and got rich accidentally, working in their parent’s basement in the Florida Everglades.This bit is what really gave me the sense that he doesn't have a damn clue about the actual game development process, let alone the reality of marketing.
author=TehGuyNot to mention that hours of being hunched over a computer is probably worse for your health than hours of normal physical labor.I can’t begin to imagine how sheltered the lives of modern technology employees must be to think that any amount of hours they spend pushing a mouse around for a paycheck is really demanding strenuous workIt's nice to know he boils his profession down to just "pushing a mouse around for a paycheck" and disregards the literal thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of lines of code and countless things that need to be done to spit out art assets.
I've already had a million reasons to avoid the vidjya industry like the plague *cough*people having to sue EA for their overtime pay*cough*. I think this guy might just be adding one more for me.
author=turkeyDawg
Not to mention that hours of being hunched over a computer is probably worse for your health than hours of normal physical labor.
I can agree with that.. yeah I can feel that setting in
i just feel the reality is games require people working on them. a lot.
and i don't know who exactly said these things in an article.
but to me they seem to be a stand up producer.
i feel you need to have it in you to devalue your workers time and tell them they should feel privileged
to work on the gam project for low pay or no pay.
to be a good producer.
because in the end the livelyhood of others
all that matters is the gam.
and i don't know who exactly said these things in an article.
but to me they seem to be a stand up producer.
i feel you need to have it in you to devalue your workers time and tell them they should feel privileged
to work on the gam project for low pay or no pay.
to be a good producer.
because in the end the livelyhood of others
all that matters is the gam.
not sure if OP was quote-mining or not, but going just by the quotes...wow that guy being quoted is a fucking a-hole of the highest order.
even people with "fun" jobs deserve to earn a living wage, and fucking nothing is fun if you are forced to do it 80 goddamn hours a week. my fav thing right now is playing Dark Souls III and if I had to do that 80 hours a week I'd probably blow my brains out
even people with "fun" jobs deserve to earn a living wage, and fucking nothing is fun if you are forced to do it 80 goddamn hours a week. my fav thing right now is playing Dark Souls III and if I had to do that 80 hours a week I'd probably blow my brains out
Max McGee
not sure if OP was quote-mining or not, but going just by the quotes...wow that guy being quoted is a fucking a-hole of the highest order.
even people with "fun" jobs deserve to earn a living wage, and fucking nothing is fun if you are forced to do it 80 goddamn hours a week. my fav thing right now is playing Dark Souls III and if I had to do that 80 hours a week I'd probably blow my brains out
Yeah...I read the article. He's one of these entitled assholes of the variety who think that the only way one could be poor is if he's too lazy to work.
LockeZ
I'd really like to get rid of LockeZ. His play style is way too unpredictable. He's always like this too. If he ran a country, he'd just kill and imprison people at random until crime stopped.
5958
He sounds like a douchebag, but there's actually a lot of truth in this quote:
No matter how shitty and awful creative jobs are, people still line up at the door to do them, because they want to be doing creative things with their life. There's no incentive for game development companies to treat them any better, because they are perfectly willing to do this job while treated like this. So much so that tens of thousands of them work self-employed and make thirty dollars a year because there aren't enough abusive jobs available.
"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."
No matter how shitty and awful creative jobs are, people still line up at the door to do them, because they want to be doing creative things with their life. There's no incentive for game development companies to treat them any better, because they are perfectly willing to do this job while treated like this. So much so that tens of thousands of them work self-employed and make thirty dollars a year because there aren't enough abusive jobs available.
Yeah, there are a lot of truths in the whole article, but they've all been twisted into meanings that I doubt many people, if anyone, could get behind.
author=LockeZ
No matter how shitty and awful creative jobs are, people still line up at the door to do them, because they want to be doing creative things with their life. There's no incentive for game development companies to treat them any better, because they are perfectly willing to do this job while treated like this. So much so that tens of thousands of them work self-employed and make thirty dollars a year because there aren't enough abusive jobs available.
exactly.
anyways the evil video game producers don't care for your feelings.
they don't care if you have a family, or if your back hurts because your horribly depressed.
or that you had all these inspired dreams about being a game dev and making something that 'mattered'
or if your just sick that day and can't come into work.
they care for releasing, this years fps, or this years sports game.
and if your not up to working 80 hours a week, for 40 hours of pay.
someone else will
Shinan
4314
author=Red_Nova
To go a little off-topic, those business schedules seem to be the main issue from what I've seen. I'm clearly in the minority here, or at least different from the marketing teams behind big publishers, but I can't understand why delaying a game is such a terrible thing. If it's clear that 40 extra hours of crunch a week is necessary for the game to get finished on time, then just delay the game for another month to take the stress off your employees and improve it's overall quality rather than a rushed mess of patches.
Depending on where in the schedule you are delaying a game is a huge deal. Often release dates are set in stone very early and marketing starts doing its thing at a certain point. Pouring lots and lots of money into a campaign for something that doesn't come out when it should. Considering the considerable marketing budgets this can be pretty damn bad.
Now of course it doesn't matter to us who follow games press. But think about seeing a GTA billboard in a store that has a date (or even just "spring 2016") and then the game comes out in fall. You have to redo all of that. All of those billboards for something that didn't even come out.
Of course. It's all about project management. You shouldn't set release dates you almost certainly can't make. Like you said it's no big deal to delay a game before there's a set release date. (or even before there's a "maybe we'll release Q4")
This is not defending crunch obviously because the perpetual state of unpaid crunch the game industry is in is really terrible.
And a side note I sort of love how the article writer (He made a follow-up thing so I don't remember if it's in the original too). But it starts out "People are complaining about 70 hour work weeks BAH HUMBUG" to "Don't join if you can't deal with 80 hour work weeks." and then "I did 120 hour work weeks and it was great." It just sounds like how the fish got bigger and bigger and it was uphill both ways for 50 miles every day.
kentona pays me in gum
That pretty much sums it up for me. The dude starts with a lot of truths and then comes to the wrong conclusion each time.
also polygon quoted my scathing tweets about the whole thing //// whoops
author=pianotm
Yeah, there are a lot of truths in the whole article, but they've all been twisted into meanings that I doubt many people, if anyone, could get behind.
That pretty much sums it up for me. The dude starts with a lot of truths and then comes to the wrong conclusion each time.
also polygon quoted my scathing tweets about the whole thing //// whoops
that advice basically amounts to "if you find yourself sucking, stop sucking and be awesome instead"
pro tip there, dude.
pro tip there, dude.
Fun-fact: I'd probably be doing a postgrad degree in video games development right now if it weren't for the cut-throat state of the industry highlighted in this article.
I started a degree in Computer Science with the aim of becoming a video games programmer at the end of it, but that idea went to shit after I spoke to a couple of actual full-time developers who basically said "Yeah don't do it".
The sad part is I'm not the only one who came across this, uh, revelation. Qualified talent is actively avoiding the industry not because it's not cool or cutting-edge - it obviously is - but merely because of the low pay and poor work/life balance. How screwed up is that?
I started a degree in Computer Science with the aim of becoming a video games programmer at the end of it, but that idea went to shit after I spoke to a couple of actual full-time developers who basically said "Yeah don't do it".
The sad part is I'm not the only one who came across this, uh, revelation. Qualified talent is actively avoiding the industry not because it's not cool or cutting-edge - it obviously is - but merely because of the low pay and poor work/life balance. How screwed up is that?
Here's another link for you, where he says that "women we do get in high-tech who are raised in the US are often fatally compromised with victimology psychosis before they ever reach the work place" and that "kids and especially engineers conforming to the Asperger nerd stereotype are ripe for exploitation."
author=pianotmThis guy makes me want to puke every time he types. Read the comment threads, too.
Here's another link for you, where he says that "women we do get in high-tech who are raised in the US are often fatally compromised with victimology psychosis before they ever reach the work place" and that "kids and especially engineers conforming to the Asperger nerd stereotype are ripe for exploitation."
e: I'm also particularly offended in his post about people with aspergers, being diagnosed with it myself. He seriously assumes that I don't want a fucking life outside of doing just one thing? He is recommending me as a prime candidate to fit a cog in a machine and not think about the bigger picture? Fuck him.
A lot of people underestimate the work others do. I've seen it for many different things than just game developing.
Construction work, trash cleaning, and lawn care seem to be big ones. A lot of people look down on other people working because they think that their job is so menial or low-classed compared to what they're blessed with. Perhaps.... But if it's so easy that you could train a chimp to do it, why not just do it yourself?
Most of those people are really just looking for self-glory, whether they realize it or not. So.... Stepping on other people, regardless of feelings, is just one way of doing it.
It's just sad.
Unfortunately, though, there's nothing much that we can do about it. People will be people, and some people are just like that.
Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
9192
author=Aetherrevival
A lot of people underestimate the work others do. I've seen it for many different things than just game developing.
Construction work, trash cleaning, and lawn care seem to be big ones. A lot of people look down on other people working because they think that their job is so menial or low-classed compared to what they're blessed with. Perhaps.... But if it's so easy that you could train a chimp to do it, why not just do it yourself?
Most of those people are really just looking for self-glory, whether they realize it or not. So.... Stepping on other people, regardless of feelings, is just one way of doing it.
It's just sad.
In this instance, I feel like it's less about self glory/stepping on others and more, like you said at the beginning, just not understanding exactly what goes into actually making games. (Spoiler alert: it consists of a little more than pushing a mouse!)
I'm noticing some similarities in arguments between St. John's article and a general attitude towards Youtubers. Vloggers, Let's Players, and game critics, etc. do it as a full time job whether people want to accept that or not, and I've heard many an argument from others saying essentially, "that's not a 'real' job."
Because of this, I want to believe that root of the problem isn't an inherently cruel mentality so much as it is just a generational gap not understanding one another. I want to believe that eventually this sort of mentality will die out as times change or that opinions like his are already in the minority. I seriously wonder how many people feel the same way as him and just aren't in a position to make their voices heard as loudly? Hm...
Unfortunately, though, there's nothing much that we can do about it. People will be people, and some people are just like that.
It's really bad that you're right. We can certainly voice our opinions, and that will serve as an example to others to be extremely cautious before thinking about forcing employees to crunch, but nothing we say is going to change the mind of someone so rooted in his own beliefs.
I disagree that it's just people being people, though. As the owner of WildTangent Studios, he actively practices what he preaches to those working for him. I feel very sorry for those people and hope that they try to reason with him to bring about some sort of positive change.
... I hope...
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
author=Red_Nova
I disagree that it's just people being people, though. As the owner of WildTangent Studios, he actively practices what he preaches to those working for him. I feel very sorry for those people and hope that they try to reason with him to bring about some sort of positive change.
... I hope...
They'll get shown the door if they try and do this. Good employees are a dime a dozen and managers know that (they get a stack of resumes every day from bright-eyed hopefuls). If you're not willing to do your job with a smile on your face, they'll find someone who will. The last thing a boss wants is for a subordinate (especially an entry level employee) to tell them how they should do their job.
women we do get in high-tech who are raised in the US are often fatally compromised with victimology psychosis before they ever reach the work place
fatally compromised...like they have "victimology psychosis" (whatever the fuck that is) so bad they die from it??
