I was curious if anyone has any experience or knowledge of how things are right now at Sony Santa Monica or Naughty Dog? Particularly interested in salary/comp and bonuses, remote work options, and general culture right now? Particularly for Artists but any insight would be appreciated.
King Jim is coming after all Sony studios. I believe they have hired him as the hatchet man to get rid of the first party gaming all together. I am not optimistic (I have left Sony when this BS started, didn't want to see it through).
That new Bloomberg article is a little cause for concern, but do you really think naughty Dog could be severely affected in a negative way? I mean they are the crown jewel for Sony it seems.
ND is only valuable as a first party. If Sony switched to PC then ND is too expensive to keep. It might last through this gen, but if there is not going to be a PS6 there is not going to be Naughty Dog.
Whatever you do, stay away from Naughty dog, personally not a big fan...but I guess there aren't that many studios to work for in LA area
What’s wrong with Naughty Dog?
For entry-level progs (don't know about artists for sure), you'll get around 100-110k base, annual bonus of around 40% base and shipping bonus of 20% base with each ship. All cash no rsu. So far working from home with no set date of returning to studio. If i were to guess, artist starting pay would be in the 80-100k range with same bonus structure but just a wild guess. No clue about SMS. General culture is a pretty big question heh. In short, work is fun and I've never worked more than 40 hours. Your experience as an artist may be different though.
Wow, 40% annual bonus seems quite good. Then 20% on top of that on ship? I’m over 15 yoe so whatever salary would be it’s probably better than I am at now.
Yeah shipping bonus is on top of the annual bonus. Other than cash, you also get 10 comp days on ship on top of the 24 day annual pto. Keep in mind though you only get bonuses if you're full time. Contractors get more or less only base and very little pto.