Working in the Games Industry

The lunch theme this week has been "so what was it like working in the games industry?"

Good and bad. Unstable. Underpaid.

Good and Bad

It's easy to guess the good parts: at the end of a day, you can point to a sprite, or a combat screen, or some AI, or a really cool-looking model and say "I did that!" It's great. But there's a lot of other great benefits, too. The office graffiti is professionally done. There's a Robotron machine in the breakroom. Your boss won't yell at you for having an action figure on your monitor. Or, heck, an army of action figures around your desk. In fact, he's got that 5000-piece Lego Star Destroyer taking up his.

Every job is a job. Some jobs have fun bits, but if it's all fun, they're probably not paying you. Sometimes you just don't feel like going to work, or working on something annoying, or having to do something embarrassing. There's going to be bad parts to any job. Some bosses suck, some coworkers are crazy, sometimes the deadlines will eat your soul.

Unstable

In Hollywood, everyone knows that they're out of a job when the project wraps. In the games industry, sometimes you know and sometimes you don't. Game development is very clearly project-based, but yet employment is mostly full-time. Sometimes your boss tells you that they'll keep things going but then he changes his mind and you're off looking for a new work when the publisher decides not to renew a contract. It's tough to predict that stuff, even on the inside.

Underpaid

There's a ton of people that want in the games industry. A good number of them are willing to put in the effort to get hired, too. And then, once in the industry, they get paid slave wages. Profit structures are generally set up that unless a game wildly exceeds expectations, there's no royalties to hand out. You're not going to get a bonus. At Microsoft, the secretaries became millionaires when the company went big. Maybe I'm wrong, but I have a feeling that most of the grunts at Blizzard got nice bonuses and a salary bump when WoW shipped, but I don't think they're all millionaires.

Game companies want young, single people that are willing to work 80 hours a week. You'll be on salary, of course, and exempt from overtime.

The Good, Part II

Making games is hella fun. It's full of intriguing puzzles. As long as you're not stuck churning out shovelware for some marketing tie-in, chances are you're developing a brand-new game from scratch. The "real world" pays a lot better, but money can't buy happiness. I have a much easier time getting out of bed on the weekends because I know I'll be working on my game project. Plus, I know that I will keep the profits if it does well. I'm working for myself and happy as a pre-colony-collapse-disorder bee.