If the gaming industry is so profitable, then why do gaming companies pay less compared to the rest of the software industry? FYI: I’m not complaining about my pay. Roblox pay is pretty good, but it’s not a gaming company either. I’m just curious to know on what basis do gaming companies justify low TCs and why do ppl take thoss jobs? TC: $220K base + plenty of paper money that I’m very optimistic about turning into real money soon YOE: 12
I always assumed it was the supply. Lots of people really WANT to make games, so they have a huge supply of people interested for the positions. Demand is less than supply, so salaries fall.
TC or GTFO
Because the CEOs like Bobby kotick need to buy more yachts and game developers are more likely to put up with lower pay and bad conditions
Is being a game developer less challenging than being a regular software engineer? I understand that the actual game is mostly about designing and scripting, but it’s also an application, and those are software engineers that make it happen, let alone the rendering engine, if it’s custom. It’s not just programming, it’s also math. So why do those folks put up with that low pay?
Because pay is not their priority
Compensating differential. The same reason why people who pick up your garbage make really good pay. If employers know people work for passion, then they can and will exploit it by lowering wages l.
Is this a sarcastic comment? Do garbage pickup folks really make a lot?
Not sarcastic. In large municipalities they earn far more than minimum wage for what is a lower barrier to entry, but with OT and union perks their TC can be close or just above 100k after a few years.
The margins aren’t that good, and it’s incredibly volatile. It’s comparable to Hollywood on risk, but our structure is totally different... Devs aren’t in unions like in Hollywood and you aren’t on location for a “gig,” you’re a perma employee. The industry used to hire a huge team, ship a game then lay everyone off. But it’s transitioning to a games as a service model, allowing studios to retain talent. You’re going to see a shift in compensation for key talent in the industry soon, many people are leaving these monoliths and doing startups. Me included.
Software companies starting paying significantly more when Google came into the picture. Before Google it was just meh. It looks like the game industry is eventually gonna see its own Google that will come in, hire away the best talent and double their pays.
ayo when are you going to fix warcraft 3?
Do you mind if i DM you for referral? 4 YOE
Traditional game companies are usually based on the old salary and bonus’ structure. You can get a “going rate” 180kish in salary a modest 2-4% raise every year and maybe if you’re lucky, a 5-10% bonus every year, and if the game is a hit, you’ll get an additional bonus. So all in all, your TC is going to be about 1/2 what a web/tech company can do (which is match your salary in RSUs and give out heftier bonus’ and additional stock grants). If you care about making money, go work where you can get stonks.
Mobile and F2P games make a lot of money and, probably, pay much better but traditional console AAA had not been very profitable in the past decade or so. Let's look at the numbers. A game selling 5M is considered a smash hit. 5M units at $60 retail is, probably, 5M * $40 after appstore/retail + licensing + manufacturing take their cuts. So $200M of pure revenue. But you had also spent money on marketing to make 5M sales. Mobile user acquisition used to be in range of $20 per but, let's be generous and say you only had spent $5 in marketing to get a AAA game consumer. So you are left with $175M after marketing expenses. You've also spent at least two years on a 5M seller AAA game so you have $87.5M a year revenue. With the staff in range of ~1000 (including contractors and outsourcing) you are looking at $87,500 revenue per person per year. This is before paying rent, buying equipment and software etc. These are just ballpark numbers, of course, but it still shows that we cannot really compete with FAANG, which has hundreds of thousands revenue per employee.
1000 people won't work on 1 game though
Go to mobygames, pick a recent 5M+ seller and check out the credits.
Idk I thought I was paid pretty average at blizzard. While it wasn’t faang level comp it was still decent. 4 yoe 160k TC (base + bonus). I got to live in one of the best cities in the world and had a really chill work environment where it wasn’t uncommon to play a game with my manager for a couple hours in a work day.
Which city was that?
Irvine, CA
Why is roblox not a gaming company?
1) Because we don’t make games, we create a platform which allows creators to make them. 2) Roblox is an engine like Unity and a social platform combined. 3) We pay more.
How do you expect a private company to pay the same money as FANG?