Should video developers have to "crunch"?
I don't really know that much about situation in the big industry, and I guess indies and small studios operate differently, so just have a bump.
Also, can't they make a union too? How does that work?
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Speaking from personal experience in the game industry, it's a big issue that maybe not enough people are aware of. Gamers are often very demanding of game companies, always demanding more in shorter time periods, and more for their money. The big companies make crunch practically mandatory with the threat of always being replaced by someone fresh out of college who's dying for a job in the industry and willing to take a much smaller salary. That or the continual cycle of layoffs at the end of big projects at larger companies. Smaller companies follow suit because it's the industry norm. Current solutions are, leave the industry, or find one of the rarer companies that cares about sustainable conditions for their employees.
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I'm not sure that's true.
I did my stint as a game programmer 15 or so years ago and even then my employer wanted to pay me less and demand more of me than any previous or subsequent software engineering jobs I've had.
Being the sort of person I am I told them what I wanted and when they didn't give it to me I moved on and got it in a non-game-related programming job. Back then, at least, there was this attitude that "games are fun, so you should enjoy your time at work and not need to be paid". I'm not sure if it's still the same in games, but I've never had that from any other non-game-related employer since.
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you know, as a kid i always dreamed of becoming a games developer. now i am a developer, but i do other stuff. and i thank the spaghetti monster that i didn't end up in games development. i read so many bad stories about this industry over the years. no thanks. i prefer developing boring image processing stuff and having time to play some games in the evening. ^^
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Average salary of an investment banker is $93k. For a game designer it's $84k, and for a programmer $95k
Only a handful of investment bankers make bank, the majority don't. And if you ever lose your job, even through no fault of your own, there's a high chance your career is over, you can't work your way back in.
the mean salary for a lawyer is much lower than people think, at $116k/year, which requires 3 years of law school and passing a grueling bar exam, as well as regular and costly continuing legal education, and you are at the whim of the court/client - including not being allowed to resign if the court deems it inappropriate. In addition, it's a bimodal industry - if you're one of the lucky few to get into a large law firm, you'll be rich, but if you don't win that lottery, you'll be poor - both with the same hour requirements and work pressure
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Hopefully shareholders (in the form of lower profits) but more likely customers (in the form of higher prices). But if you look at AAA publishers' share prices, the money is there--it's just being unjustly distributed.
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Nobody said justice is ever easy to achieve, and it's embarrassingly naive to think that lawfulness means fairness, or that companies (like individuals) can't have moral obligations that aren't also legal obligations.
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Congratulations! Your logical fallacy is: STRAW MAN!
The fact that Communism is a terrible idea has nothing to do with whether it's wrong of companies to mistreat or exploit their workers. This is why there are overtime regulations, work safety regulations, child labor laws, paid time off laws, parental leave laws, and so forth. Unless you think those should be repealed, you already agree in principle that businesses shouldn't be allowed to treat workers however they want, and we're just debating the specifics of that treatment. It also says a lot about you that you think "improve the conditions of workers" means the same thing as "overthrow capitalism."
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Yet nobody is forced to being "exploited" - we have capitalism, if there are 10 idiots accepting "human rats" conditions then it'll be only problematic to those 10 idiots, not me - the very same developer who is simply not agreeing on shitty conditions and being able to change job at any given point of time with dozen of job offers awaiting me right away. That privilege is coming from nothing else but skills and being smart. If I was stupid, I'd probably work like a human rat as well. And if everybody followed my vision, then we'd not have devs working like mcdonalds employees.
Communism tried to defend the stupid, capitalism exploits them. Neither is good, but I'd rather see stupid people being exploited and feeling sorry for them rather than government trying to defend those stupid in the same way that communism tried to defend workers. If people instead valued themselves properly and didn't agree on shitty conditions of being exploited and overworked, we wouldn't probably be able to notice the problem in the first place. The law (at least here in Poland) is good enough to defend all employees and their rights, as long as they won't intentionally take them away from themselves.
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Why are government control and letting people be exploited the only two options in your view? The whole point of this thread is about an intermediate solution (e.g., unionization).
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Sounds like you intentionally omitted the entire section where I talked about how people valuing themselves is another possibility.
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Right, because exploited people are always stupid people who allow themselves to be exploited and always have the power to save themselves. It's never the case that individual workers, due to lack of organization, rationally and correctly conclude that they don't stand a chance of fixing the situation on their own.
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I didn't state anything like that, I said that they're not incapable of doing anything due to being tortured, restrained, forced to work in inhuman conditions or threatened. A developer working in gaming industry to me is somebody who can add 2+2 and actually fight for his own rights, because he's far above average and has far more possibilities than a regular low-level worker who can be easily replaced with basically anybody else. This doesn't mean that the problem doesn't exist and that we should ignore it, but the solution of creating an union is really not any different than government setting up fixed hours and salaries for jobs. I'm a human just like you, if I must work overtime to the point of sacrificing my family, free time, friends, daily activites, or hobbies, then I expect appropriate compensation for that. If I don't get such, then I have a choice of agreeing to that, or not doing so. Exactly the same choice has everybody else, people just don't have balls most of the time. It's a common thing that once somebody starts working for good he's never considering changing this job again, as if it was a super problematic thing for a game developer to find a new job that is at least comparable, and probably much better than his old one. A skilled IT dev has absolutely no problem doing so, but even an average programmer working in gaming industry should have absolutely no problems today. At least everybody I know doesn't. It's more a fear of losing a job than actual inability driven by money, skill, working conditions or motivation.
I just don't like how we're looking at this case like looking at a death camp in North Korea where people have no power to do so and are threated in inhuman way. Sure, it's not easy to stand up just like that and say "no, I won't sacrifice my own health and time, fuck you", but I'm always starting from myself when I want to change the world. If everybody acted like that, then we'd live in a better place. I'm not necessarily after or against creating such union, but I don't think that it'll solve the problem. The only thing that can happen is people being outsourced to cheaper countries, mainly China and India, just like what we did with technical support and all other positions that are too expensive to keep due to stupid government regulations.
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That makes a lot more sense than your previous comments, thanks. Still, I think there are important and fundamental differences involving coercion, autonomy, representativeness, and control that argue against your claim that "the solution of creating an union is really not any different than government setting up fixed hours and salaries for jobs." I would have hoped that was common ground, but so be it.
Also, I find your outsourcing scenario extremely unlikely (at least for the present, barring big leaps in machine learning and/or quantum computing) for most types of high-end creative and programming work that demands the sorts of concentrated clusters of talent that are hard to find outside of highly developed countries. Hollywood and Silicon Valley, for example, aren't going away any time soon. If it could have been outsourced so easily, it already would have been.
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Movie industry is quite similar, but still a bit different compared to gaming. Sure, you won't suddenly see US stopping developing games altogether, but you'll very likely see far less indie studios that are not made out of a single person. Outsourcing parts of the game to smaller studios e.g. in India is already a common thing for almost every AAA company, so there is no question whether it would happen or not, the only question is how big it is. What I'm talking about is not the disappearing of games, but those parts becoming more widespread, as suddenly 30 out of 40 things that were profitable to do in-house will change into 20 out of 40 things, or even 10 out of 40. The people that would be affected by such union change would be nobody else but the in-fact bottom of the gaming industry - the people that are already half or even fully-outsourced. I'm sure you can see how there would be far less job positions if minimum required salary would suddenly increase by 30% or 40% (simplification).
I'm not trying to play devil's advocate here, because personally I wouldn't be affected by such thing at all (which is why I'm neither after nor against), although there will be definitely long-term effects of this, from increased prices (at best), to people losing jobs (at worst) due to no longer being "profitable", while at the same time more companies outsourcing game development located in cheaper countries with less regulations, often working for wages that no human should ever accept.
Another important factor is the quality of games. It's not an uncommon thing to notice that the most polished game that was probably ever released - The Witcher 3, was the game where people worked the most, putting their last sweats into making it the best game that humanity has ever created. I don't approve people working overtime and sacrificing their health for the job itself, but I'd also be a fool if I didn't find a correlation between that and the end-product quality. Deadlines are not set just because they need to be, they're set to mobilize people, it's not anything rare to point out that the amount of dedication you put into work increases as the deadline comes closer. Paying people extra just because they didn't do anything productive in first 3 months of development and need to make up now after work hours is not a good thing to do.
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In general USA should do something for working conditions of these professionals...
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Agreed! That may be the first reasonable thing I've ever seen you say on the forums, Ekaros!
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So instead of getting more money, they will be giving it to the union mob bosses in exchange for lip service.
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My department got laid off after getting repeated calls from the union that they won't let that happen and will provide assistance in case it does happen. They didn't bother to contact us after that and got told from the people still working that the store was better off without having that many people that would trigger additional taxes from government regulations related to having a certain number of people working at a store.
Years of service and the union gave us up. Unions are good until they have no use for you, then they are just parasites. 20+ people getting red-pilled on unions.
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shitty unions are shitty, good unions are good. your mileage may vary
I was mostly just talking like a wiseguy tho
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84k salary, damn I have 1/4 of that(40-43 hours a week). Not many jobs seem to be good lately, they just want more for less and law doesn't say they can't so what ever :)
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You're missing a critical option in the poll. Developers should be compensated for crunch time, but crunch time shouldn't be banned.
In the end, things need to be done on time. It's hard to get by that. Sure, in a perfect world we'd be able to delay everything as long as necessary and if need be, make games for even 5 years longer than expected.
In reality though... I don't know. I would rather say that devs should have a small grace period, after which they need to crunch. They're the ones that took on a project, they're the ones that get the investment in terms of salary and budget. Indie devs don't have this problem (from what I know, unless they need the income). If someone invests in you, you have a duty towards the investor.
$80,000 is what they make on average, if they've worked in the industry for 3-6 years.
That amount is almost double the amount of the median wage in the US ($44,148, full-time).
From what it looks like to me is that they get good money for doing something that they love. It's not perfect, but what is?
I'd say that you're looking at the wrong issue. Having to do overtime in a deadline driven industry is like looking at fishermen that sometimes have to swim. It might suck, but in the end, that's what they're paid well to do. In most cases, they could've at least prevented it.
Instead, look at the real issues here. Like developers being fired after projects, meaning that their income becomes very unstable. Now that's actually a problem, not the fact that people have to work with a deadline.
That's why they need to unionize.
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It's good that you're bringing attention to this issue. Especially because it affects gamers quite directly :)
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The crunch really does seem to be a pitfall of the industry, especially when the result needs to hit a certain form of 'critical mass' if the project can ever pan out. Budgeting and time constraints are always an issue regardless of how well funded or well organised you are, because even the best of coding is still an awful eldritch art that we need to sacrifice virgins to, because god forbid one person accidentally use a comma where there needed to be a semicolon in a project with trillions of lines of code across fifty cooperating employees. Hnnnng.
Like you said, making sure they're compensated for their time is the main issue. In a perfect world our work wouldn't eat our personal time or our health, but that's a much larger overarching issue with society and modern pressures that is too complex and nuanced for someone like me to even try grasp or scratch the surface of. If we can just avoid the horror stories of result-based payment where crunch-minions don't get a livable base wage then we're all good. We just need to avoid the ultimate horror story of all the gamedevs, coders and indie upstarts giving up and going to base retail. A world without games. Now THATs a halloween story worth telling.
Though when it comes to something as extreme as 'crunch time', within reason the staff shouldn't be penalised for declining what amounts to a complete lifestyle refitting, especially when it extends beyond the scope of a week. If it is absolutely required then there should be frank discussion about it on a contractual level, including negotiations on how they will be compensated for such a harsh undertaking. So long as any penalties aren't draconian and aren't so prohibitive that it creates a 'first world sweatshop' effect for those in the industry, it should pan out. If it doesn't, then something seriously needs to be gutted are altered in the way things are set up. I don't know if a union is the way to go about it, but I don't have enough industry knowledge to even hazard a deeper guess either way.
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This problem gonna solve when bosses and players start seeing us as human.
Edit : I'm blacklisted 😮😮😮
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But justice is never voluntarily given; it must be demanded.
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There is syndicates for this but you know they are here just for money.
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"Okay, you're saying we'll only get paid if we completely abandon our personal lives for more than a few weeks, living out of the office? Fine, because the law is on your side, we'll do this... but just so you know, all the characters are now grotesquely phallic, all audio is an artful edit of horse farts, and the protagonist is renamed to "Chuzzle Scrungus""
Never underestimate the power of resistance that the combo of the audio, visual, writing and coding teams can have when combined! They're like the ultimate nerd sentai force, so long as they can skim the inside of the contract.
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There is literally no reason they shouldn't unionize. I don't really understand the fear Americans have for unions
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Because labor unions are communism!!!!
Communist also likes universal healthcare! Don't be one of those!
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I don't think it's everyone. I'm American and I'm all for (good) unions.
That said, our government is incompetent and corrupt as shit... I would wager that a lot of people here hear "union" and imagine the most bastardized version possible that doesn't do jack shit but has outrageously high dues. I know I don't really have faith in our government to make good workers rights laws and without those it seems like a lost cause.
Honestly, if I could convince the fam, I would love to go live in Germany for awhile. Everything I've heard about their labor laws/healthcare/education sounds amazing compared to the sorry state things are in here (and I also have been meaning to wanting to learn German properly for years). Plus Autobahn :-)
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A union sounds nice until you realize that it would result in companies just outsourcing everything to other countries. Basically everything a game dev does can be outsourced thanks to the wonder that is the internet.
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Which is why accordant protections are in place. If what you said were completely true, then unions wouldn't exist.
Are unions perfect? No.
Are they currently the best way to protect employees from detrimental working conditions? Yes.
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Entirely applicable. Not everyone has the luxury of multiple job opportunities. Some people are truly working at the highest station they can reach, in deplorable conditions.
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Despite having some not so pleasant experiences with unions myself, others have good experiences and they protect the employees from exploitation. Obviously some unions are much better than others.
No idea really how prevalent exploitation is in the gaming industry, outside of the article you linked, but if it's bad enough that they're talking union, then perhaps that's exactly what's needed. If it means they're better compensated for their time and work and treated better as employees -- well yeah, I'm cool with it.
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unions implemented in gaming = default AAA price increased to $70
wait for it 😒
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That's when you stop supporting the company that makes its customers pay the difference.
If people actually voted with their wallets, we'd see a lot less consumer exploitation. Alas, this is the age of GIMMEGIMMEGIMME and everyone is happy little consumers-- chomping at the bit to spend that $$$$$.
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i will have to support the devs when they bundle all their games for $1 ❤️️
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NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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come on, support the devs. better to give them 4 cents than nothing!
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Steam Ticket : There seems to be an error on the store page, it says the game has left early access, but as you can see from the title, this is not the gold triple-plus advanced complete-complete multiball anniversary definitive edition.
The trend towards making base games obsolete by re-releasing games with engine upgrades or mandatory DLC inclusion is pretty weird. I remember buying Deus Ex HR, and then a year or so later feeling like buying a piece of DLC for it. Thats when I found that they stopped selling the original base game and only bundled the DLC as part of a complete set, so to get it I'd have to buy the game a second time. Dying Light then released the 'enhanced edition' you can only get by buying the expansion. Skyrim bumped up their engine and made that a pay-for thing (but I suppose at the very least made that free for those who already got in bed with all the DLC).
It's bad enough but when games sometimes release several different kinds of "Complete Edition" that have missing pieces, it goes beyond a joke. :P
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I suspect my good friend Debbie who is a paramedic who goes out saving lives all night for crap pay and occasionally gets ambushed by knife wielding junkies looking to steal drugs from her ambulance on fake call outs would have a few things to say about the inhuman working conditions of game developers. I'll try and remember to ask her when she sends me my a batch of pictures of maimed road traffic accident victims at 3:30 am with captions like 'LOL couldn't find his legs!'
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'Working conditions' isn't really the right term to use for the issues facing game devs. Work hours however can be brutal, destroying peoples health and personal/family lives.
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I think you have to look at the overall picture. I spoke to a game developer recently who was interested in purchasing some art assets from a failed project and he gave me a lot of insight that made me very sad about the state of Steam.
I'm not saying game developers have it easy - but plenty of other people work long and shitty hours or have incredibly stressful jobs and might not even get paid so well (in the example that first sprung to mind possibly all of the above).
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So many people making this ridiculous argumentative move: 'Someone somewhere has it worse, so this problem isn't real and/or worth fixing.' Stop hitting yourself in the mind!
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Well I didn't say it wasn't real and/or worth fixing. Why did you leap to that assumption?
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Well, you did sorta belittle it by comparison. If that wasn't your intent, you may have phrased it poorly.
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I wasn't belittling game developers. I obviously enjoy games and I feel their work is important. I have spoken at length to game developers in my role as an artist and I am extremely sympathetic towards the stresses they face. I was recently tempted to have a lengthy rant on this site about it.
But those stresses are not unique and many other industries have dealt with them through unionization or similar practices. If game developers feel unfairly treated then the blame is arguably on them for not getting organised and sticking together.
The same can't always be said of other workers. In the UK many public service workers may be able to unionize but they may not be able to take action to defend their working conditions because their jobs are considered critical and lives might be lost. Some are now working long hours to save lives in stressful jobs and relying on food banks to feed their families. Don't even get me started on anybody with no choice but to stitch clothes 16 hours a day in sweat shops in Asia and then sleep on the floor.
That clearly doesn't lessen the plight of struggling game developers. But if I was being snarky it does start to lead into a bunch of issues that may have given me cause.
If video game developers are suffering under such crap conditions then why haven't they unionized already when there are other poor sods that don't have the luxury? If other fields are so much better then why aren't they working in those fields? I'm guessing the answers are exactly the same as why I persist with my half-assed attempts at art when I studied actually useful stuff at university and I don't ask for sympathy because I understand the trade-off.
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If video game developers are suffering under such crap conditions then why haven't they unionized already when there are other poor sods that don't have the luxury?
Although this looks like a bit a victim blaming, I understand where you're coming from. However, the key difference with devs and/or creative industries, is that there is often this general attitude of, "If you enjoy creating art, then that should be enough." In that, if creating art is your passion, then you should be fulfilled with or without good pay; with or without positive working conditions.
Even in Film/TV (my industry), you often see productions with non-union crews that are exploited to the maximum amount for meager pay. As you say, everyone should be happy to work in Film/TV right? And that's exactly what you're told if you request better conditions/benefits, you're immediately shown the door because, "there are thousands who would love this job." This is very much the same in videogames and other blossoming creative industries. As you can imagine, this is not usually a healthy environment that fosters the ability to unionize.
I wasn't trying to be a dick when I said I'm sick of false comparisons, and it obviously bothers you. I simply think without perspective it's entirely unfair to invalidate anyone's struggle. My people are dying right now in Puerto Rico, but I don't ignore every other tragedy out there. I also don't attempt to interlope those struggles and try to prioritize my own. These false comparisons are counter-productive and ultimately un-quantifiable. We all face our own monsters, but their ferocity is always a matter of perception.
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The whole premise of this discussion was 'but what about X' (the film industry vs the gaming industry, etc). Sorry about the late reply, but your reply of 'Yeah, this whole "but what about X" is stupid and needs to die.' pissed me off to the point of finally leaving this site and it's the first time in a while I've made the mistake of logging in. Just one topic after another of posting a cause and then shouting for debate to be shut down for ever more hypocritical reasons. I don't mind an argument but don't tell people tell people their shit needs to die for no better reason than is given for the shit you happen to support.
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Nice try. You don't get to whistle and claim you didn't call the dog.
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But apparently you get to be the dog that gets called without getting whistled. I don't know what that means but it makes as much sense as what you said. Metaphors are generally a bit shit.
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You're both just two birds in a bush while I'm worth one in the hand. Give a game-dev a lemon, and they'll code for a day, teach a gamedev to suck eggs and you'll count your basket before life makes your lemonade hatch.
~ Confusiouroboros.
But seriously, while your comparison may not have intended to be reductive, it totally was. :P
It created a false contrast when you omit the full details of what you're aiming to say. An equivalent of chastising someone for not happily eating their bowl of boiled goat intestines because other people are starving in africa.You have to see your comedic prods through to the actual point at the end or the context changes to something deflective rather than what you actually meant. I mean, if you read back over what you replied with, I'm sure you can see how they drew their conclusion, right?
The forum has plenty of stink just lately, and this is a subject I was sure most of us could agree on.
Don't make me turn this into a cagematch, because you know SG is thirsty to build a thunderdome up in here!
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Well you're the weasel that ate his beans and no mistake, and if you don't know what that means then you are clearly the cat that stapled her tail to a ladybug.
I'm the first to admit that my post was clearly worded in a less than ideal fashion or else it wouldn't have led to such misunderstanding, but what else can I do but attempt to explain myself after the fact?
As I said to doctorofjournalism it is a subject I could easily have written about at length. I didn't have much time on my hands when I made the post. It was intended to be humorous - it probably came across as flippant due to my mood. And I probably should have learned from previous experience not to be flippant when I don't have the time to fully explain myself. It was intended to provide context that I felt was lacking in the topic description and it was intended to provide an answer to the question that was the title of the topic.
On the matter of context I think it is impossible to have a discussion about the working conditions in one industry without comparison to others. Game developers do not exist in a vacuum and if they want to improve their conditions they need to look at examples in other fields. You say I created a false contrast by omitting full details but I could just as easily say the same thing about the description for this topic.
"They may gaze with envy at their colleagues in the film industry, where unions help regulate hours and ensure overtime pay."
Most of us would gaze with envy at people working in the film industry but without full details or context this is just 'I want' entitlement. The film industry weren't just given their privileges one day by a magic leprechaun. It isn't just a case of those people get that so why shouldn't I? It has to be a case of what lessons can be learned from this and how can other people use those to improve their situation. And more importantly - is it possible to get the same benefits without all the work getting outsourced to developing economies?
The pay for game developers may well pale in comparison to that of lawyers. Go into a school and ask how many kids want to be lawyers and how many want to make video games. Then consider how many people need lawyers compared to game developers. If nothing else supply and demand has some pretty obvious things to say about the pay disparity - but let's ignore all of that and just move straight along...
Why is it fine to say that game developers should get X because of bankers and lawyers and the film industry but if paramedics are mentioned then 'the whole but what about X is stupid and needs to die.' If it is fine to raise comparisons with the film industry, bankers or lawyers without context then why does it appear to automatically be reductive or belittlement to bring paramedics and their conditions into the debate?
Why do some people think it is so threatening to the cause of game developers to mention somebody who also works hard and is exploited but actually saves peoples lives as well? I think certain reactions are more telling of what is going on in other peoples heads rather than mine. Are we only allowed to mention other careers in this topic if they provide beneficial comparisons for game developers?
What I intended in reply to the question of the topic was 'Is anybody going to lose their life if game developers take industrial action? Then sure, go ahead and unionise. If you have the option of sorting out your exploitation then why haven't you done it already?' That message may well have been lost somewhere in a clumsy post but other people have clearly read things into it that simply weren't there.
Much of the clumsiness in the post was frankly down to frustration because that isn't a rhetorical question and the answer is depressing. It's really easy to exploit creatives in the industry that they want to be in and that many, many other people would like to work in instead. And yes there may well also have been some snarkiness regarding the fact that plenty of other people do have it tough as well but that isn't in any way suggesting the issues that game developers face should be ignored - simply that they are part of a wider problem that should be considered accordingly.
The forum has had plenty of stink lately. I said in my recent event and above this was something I was intending making a lengthy post about. I decided not to because the forum already had a bunch of 'awareness' threads and the last thing I wanted to do was make it worse by wading in with 'video game developer awareness'. And after a bunch of those topics got prematurely killed the last thing I wanted was to be seen trying to evade recent decisions with a suddenly on-topic awareness thread that nobody could complain about.
But here we are and this is apparently the awareness thread that we can agree on so lets get on with making assumptions and sweeping generalisations about anybody who appears not to be sticking to the script;
"So many people making this ridiculous argumentative move: 'Someone somewhere has it worse, so this problem isn't real and/or worth fixing.' Stop hitting yourself in the mind!"
Or should I say that I'm the dragon that did the whoopsie and got all the chips!
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I obviously can't answer for the OP and their opinions or word used in other posts, much less the person quoted in the OP given it was from someone elses article. I'm not even going to get into that side of things, as the majority of your full reply appears to be meant more for someone else. Though to clarify (re:your question why the paramedic comparison was thrown out), is because in the instances of knife wielding maniacs, the maniacs are considered the bad guys and she wouldn't be considered whiny for being shaken by such an incident, and if told she has to pull a 48 hour shift otherwise her pay can't be guaranteed, and if she challenges it she may be fired and blacklisted, she wouldn't be considered someone who just isn't doing their job. :P
"Just suck it up" is not a rhetoric to be supported at face value, and that's what your original post was. The existence of substandard pay or rough working conditions in other career paths does not stand as a reason why it should be tolerated in this one. By creating the comparison you did, that's what you were saying. Even though I appreciate your wording was off and you're playing catch-up to what you really meant, that is exactly why your comparison was faulty. You can compare the stresses, but you can't pull the "but people starving in africa" logic. That's the distinction.
The big contrast in treatment comes from the treatment of coders and the sheer degree of pressured placed on them when contrasting against other industries. All professions come with their unique stressors, but when it is commonplace to be expected to skip sleep, stay at work in excess shifts, and even hit a point of living at your damn desk? That's an extreme that other industries don't typically have a true comparison for, given that they are typically compensated for such excesses and are usually protected if they decline. I think that's a key distinction, providing the horror stories of crunch time are to be believed (not an industry insider). My cousin works in A&E and often has to deal with bonkers shift patterns and 12 hour stretches that sometimes extend in a real pinch, but these things are compensated for and are elaborated on when he signed on (and further outlined whenever there is a significant shift in his duties, and I imagine if he ever changed to a different hospital, etc). The key element is compensation and forewarning (including entries into the contract about crunch time), which doesn't seem to be a regular thing. I'm pretty sure a lawyer doesn't need to worry about months of pay evaporating unless they live out of an office cubicle and regularly pull all-nighters (and face possible blacklisting if they don't do this or draw the line at a certain point).
The issue is with ensuring that the 'crunch' mentality isn't allowed be to accepted as the norm, because it'd be great if EVERY career no matter how intense or easy could avoid sweatshop mentality. The objections we had were primarily to your badly written post, because its connotations were drastically different to the ones made in your larger post, so it's better we don't cross-contaminate our replies to your original paramedic remark, by reponding to them as if we were addressing the points you didn't yet raise in full.
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Also your friend is almost certainly breaking the law if she is actually sending photos like that.
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Yeah, this whole "but what about X" is stupid and needs to die.
NEWSFLASH: If you live in the 1st world, all of your problems are 1st world problems.
That said, I know you're coming from a place than means well.
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I'm from Llanbedr. I'm not sure if it is in the first world but it certainly doesn't mean well.
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Yes, they need to be unionized. It's appalling that they aren't already, tbh. Without a system in place to protect the devs-- which in this ideal, would be the said union-- then their working conditions are maintained purely at the whimsy of the employer, That's just so open to exploitation, it needs to stop.
Also, another ideal: a National Overseer Committee of some fashion that would actually do something in the case of a Local being run by assholes. My mother was a gung-ho CWA union person, then her local decided to drain her department dry in favour of lining their own pockets, and the National just kind of shrugged. The devs need to be protected not only from their own employer in that case, but whoever decides to use the union as a possible cash-grab :/
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A lot of professions actually have crunch time especially in the consulting sort and law etc. In a lot of cases, the overtime is required for bonus and advancement, and if there is no bonus or only a small amount tied to it, sometimes there is overtime compensation for junior members. Anyways, I believe it would be different from company to company (especially differing by size), but do devs get bonuses by year or when game cycle ends? If so, I'm not sure if it would be the norm to also expect overtime.
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The funny thing is when you work in the game industry, you just don’t have time to play games
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I would say that not just video game developers but ALL developers should unionize... I work for a megacorp and devs get drastically overworked here too. A lot of the problem in the US is due to the way the laws give companies all the power. I would love to see the concept of "salary exempt" be made illegal and only have hourly or "salary non-exempt" (salary but you get compensated if you have to put in more than 45-50 hrs/wk). Too easy for bad actors to fuck people over under "salary exempt" and I see this happen a lot in practice, not just in theory... my previous team had large groups of devs (easily 150+ for the larger group but 20-30 people supporting a single enterprise project) where it is not uncommon to have multiple 18 hour days during your full workweek, PLUS having unscheduled weekend support and not getting any "comp days" off or any overtime/etc. The team I'm on now has better hours but the company is still shit.
Not trying to start a flame or anything but I also feel that partially it is the way that foreign work visa program has been structured in the US... I don't have anything against foreigners and I am friends with many of them but I have also heard of contractors being pressured to not report extra hours (unofficially so that there is no record) and have seen higher ups lean on folks to work crazy hours for no good reason. I would love to see those visa laws also get revamped to protect both the foreign workers and make native workers able to compete better. In particular, I would like it if there were a cap on the number of hours/week somewhere in the 35-45hrs/week range. Haven't been keeping up with the news but last I heard, it sounded like the wage gap was being fixed which was my other major gripe with the laws as written. Really hard to compete against a guy that some asshat company is screwing over paying next to nothing and forcing to work crazy hours.
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That's a great point you make about the exploitation of workers with the 'salary exempt' designation (especially given how low the compensation threshold can be, as well as the use of artificial titles to reclassify employees with that designation to be able to force them to work uncompensated overtime).
Sadly, the problems with the American workplace run pretty deep, as you mention. This interview outlines some of the worst aspects of it, and the way in which employers have vast and unaccountable authority over employees:
In the workplace, workers can be surveilled by their employer, compelled to work long hours, and even denied bathroom breaks (a stricture that in one recent instance forced employees to wear diapers at work). In most parts of the US, employers can legally terminate employees for being “too attractive,” for having the wrong political affiliations, and for choosing a particular sexual partner. When American workers go to work, they enter a world marked more by unaccountable hierarchy than democracy and freedom.
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/06/private-government-interview-elizabeth-anderson
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"While many jobs are demanding, the conditions in this industry are uniquely unforgiving. Most game developers in the United States do not receive extra compensation for extra hours. They may gaze with envy at their colleagues in the film industry, where unions help regulate hours and ensure overtime pay. Their income pales in comparison to what’s offered in other fields with reputations for brutal hours, like banking and law." ...
"Those of us who cover the video game industry can see that the current conditions are unsustainable. Too many of the people who make games have left for more lucrative, less stressful industries. Too many who have stayed have suffered the physical and mental consequences. Game developers need to insist — to their bosses and, most important, to themselves — that health comes first."
Source: Jason Schreier
Day of the Devs giveaway featuring the best adventure game ever created!
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