Working in gaming as SWE
Is there a significant difference or something that makes being a SWE at a gaming company uniquely different? I'm thinking of switching industries because I think it could be a really fun change, but wondering what some key differences between a company like blizzard or nintendo and Amazon might be in terms of work, culture, etc.
I’ve heard that comp and work hours are worse than industry standards but I’d be interested in learning more about this too
Gaming industry is pretty brutal. You have to love what you do to last more than a few years.
You get overworked, are underpaid, have to deal with primadonnas, and a successful launch might still be followed by layoffs.
For me it's been pretty similar to working at a startup, very agile team, shifting focus, changing priorities, but really good alignment
Pay tends to be worse unless you're at a big company (supply vs demand). The skill set is quite different too.
do a Google search for “EA spouse”
I play a lot of games myself, so I feel a much deeper connection with my work even if Pokemon Go isn't my kind of game. Niantic is a bit of an outlier in that we still get paid well and have reasonable hours. The other thing is that you need thick skin to take heat from the ungrateful vocal minority. I like my job and my coworkers, but there's nothing intrinsic to the game industry that really influences our culture.
So I used to work at Blizzard ya we had the big layoffs but if your a game Dev your good. And I worked with a lot of game teams there every Game team there had so many swords and shields(indicating there 5 and 10 year anniversary) in there offices it was insanely cool to see how long those guys have been there and loved what they did.