Considering joining a gaming company that’s growing. However I don’t see any gaming companies making it big (hundreds of billions) and staying there for a long period of time. Games eventually lose luster and out of favor, example Blizzard. Given this, what are your thoughts on joining a private gaming company and getting stock options, vs working at non-gaming startups? Is the upside really there? What are the pros and cons?
Gaming ETFs were up 70%+ YoY so the sector must be doing well...
Any source for this?
Just go check yourself. $TTWO $ATVI $EA
I co-founded gaming startup but it didn’t pan out. This is very competetive market now and I would rather stay away unless it has great VC behind it. UA cost is nightmare, doing sth innovative is very hard (lots of different games in every theme one can imagine) in particular on mobile.
Go look at Electronic Arts, finding ways to monetize gaming franchises across various systems and also mobile leads to sustained revenue with micro transactions since I can’t imagine something that would cause NBA, NFL, MLB, FIFA all to decline at the same time. Hell one of the execs at EA is paid 48M/year...
Worked in gaming - look at it as a high risk scenario. Unlike other tech startups, gamin company's success is harder to predict. So, join if they offer good equity.
Started my career in gaming. TC at joining was 68K. Gaming underpays by quite a bit and the work is equally if not more stressful as any typical high paying tech job. But there are so many folks who love games and want to work in gaming so they are fueling a passion, it allows these companies to suppress wages. Work life balance is non existent especially during crunch times but that being said most gaming companies offer the last 2 weeks off at the end of the year. This is not the place you go to be rich unless you are really lucky. I have 10 YOE and had I stayed in gaming I would probably be making around 150K thinking that I was doing really well.
What kind of position? If you’re in corporate you have more job security. If you work in a studio, especially as an engineer expect to get laid off if your game doesn’t do well or once the main game is released unless you work on DLC. Joining a gaming startup is really not worth it IMO, aside from crazy high risk of failure, the product takes years to develop usually unlike normal tech products, and even if it does make it big it’s rare to make a lot of money from its success since gaming usually doesn’t give much if any equity unless you are the cofounder or something. Just realize even big companies like EA are worried about risk associated with having most of their revenue coming from a few games, so imagine the risk for a studio working on only one game. And unlike other tech products you usually can’t just switch what your game does very quickly with notable exception of fortnite that happened accidentally. But even there the actual mechanics and gameplay were already built out.
As much as I love the idea of building an indie studio and making revolutionary games too, https://kotaku.com/clever-indie-game-donut-county-isnt-even-out-yet-and-al-1827117824
I think EA stock is up 40% y/y. But monetary rewards are not spread equally here.
I used to work at one. They tend to have poor WLB and underpay you. They also tend to have severe layoffs. I don't recommend it unless 1) you're super passionate about gaming 2) you don't mind long hours and sudden layoffs.
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