Like every high school nerd who is passably decent with computers, I once thought “I want to be a game developer.”
So I once had an opportunity to meet members of the team at Irrational Games right here around Boston, a studio I once thought would be nice to work for, right around when development of Bioshock Infinite was in full swing. And…yeah, it was definitely my scared straight moment. The poor devs I spoke with were so overworked and underpaid, being very frank about how much their passion had just drained since they entered the industry.
Doing a little extra research later on is when I learned about the standard industry practice of studios hiring the bulk of their devs as contractors and laying them off shortly before launch so they don’t have to offer insurance, benefits, or bonuses. This also leaves most developers in a perpetual state of job hunting and relocating, and NDAs prevent you from even putting projects you’re still working on on your resume.
Hell, even Irrational “closed” and laid off the bulk of their FTEs before rebranding as Ghost Story Games not long after Bioshock Infinite released, so I’m guessing those devs I met ended up out of a job, and I could have been one of them if I didn’t decide to settle for a stable IT job at a nonprofit (hah, as if I’d even get to start at a studio like that without a killer portfolio/crawling my way up from shovelware).
My wages now are higher than I’d be making in game dev, I get benefits, it’s stable, and when I go home every day I can actually enjoy playing games without resenting them, getting overly critical, or feeling bad about my own work. While I am proud of the work I do and the humanitarian work that enables my employer to do, it is incredibly tedious and I can’t say I wake up every day thinking “Yippee, I can’t wait to close more tickets!” But it respects my time and pays for my passions, which I know makes me a lot more fortunate than others out there who can’t say the same.
Seems to be the case more often than not.
Like every high school nerd who is passably decent with computers, I once thought “I want to be a game developer.”
So I once had an opportunity to meet members of the team at Irrational Games right here around Boston, a studio I once thought would be nice to work for, right around when development of Bioshock Infinite was in full swing. And…yeah, it was definitely my scared straight moment. The poor devs I spoke with were so overworked and underpaid, being very frank about how much their passion had just drained since they entered the industry.
Doing a little extra research later on is when I learned about the standard industry practice of studios hiring the bulk of their devs as contractors and laying them off shortly before launch so they don’t have to offer insurance, benefits, or bonuses. This also leaves most developers in a perpetual state of job hunting and relocating, and NDAs prevent you from even putting projects you’re still working on on your resume.
Hell, even Irrational “closed” and laid off the bulk of their FTEs before rebranding as Ghost Story Games not long after Bioshock Infinite released, so I’m guessing those devs I met ended up out of a job, and I could have been one of them if I didn’t decide to settle for a stable IT job at a nonprofit (hah, as if I’d even get to start at a studio like that without a killer portfolio/crawling my way up from shovelware).
My wages now are higher than I’d be making in game dev, I get benefits, it’s stable, and when I go home every day I can actually enjoy playing games without resenting them, getting overly critical, or feeling bad about my own work. While I am proud of the work I do and the humanitarian work that enables my employer to do, it is incredibly tedious and I can’t say I wake up every day thinking “Yippee, I can’t wait to close more tickets!” But it respects my time and pays for my passions, which I know makes me a lot more fortunate than others out there who can’t say the same.