Greentext

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This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.

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Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works

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Anon expects more (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 day ago by Early_To_Risa@sh.itjust.works to c/greentext@sh.itjust.works

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[–] JDPoZ@lemmy.world 22 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 16 hours ago)

Former game studio guy who got out and into general software dev and doubled his pay back in like 2012 and haven't looked back...

This is correct... that plus a couple other things :

Western game studios have ZERO qualms burning through people because they believe an endless fresh crop of 20-somethings can be brought in to burn out by forcing 96-hr work weeks for garbage pay
Even many of the "once-great-studios" got rid of / severely reduced the bonuses / profit-sharing you used to get when a game was successful and just lay people off or close studios right after the games ship (even when they're "successful...") which means if you ever want to be a home owner, or have time to set aside for a family, or just not be terrified you're going to be financially ruined... you're kinda screwed.

So what this means you've got a bunch of people who largely have ZERO experience on each project, and are in survival mode, learning from mistakes that otherwise experienced devs would help avoid as they grew, usually making sequels to popular games that are worse than their previous entries - at least as far as tech goes (see Far Cry series where they show the tech used in FC2 vs newer entries), and when it's done, they are laid off or have their studio shut down and then have to struggle amongst a now even more competitive job market to find another position somewhere else... or they bounce... like I did.

The only outliers (besides tiny indie devs hoping to make a hit) among the major game companies are based outside the U.S. along with only a handful of studios in the U.S. (whose games I guarantee you love) and - surprise surprise - when you look at their teams... they're a bunch of guys in their 50s and up who've been making games since the 90s and aren't being let go after each project ships or being asked to stay at the office and work over the weekend until Sunday at 3am for the entire 4th quarter of the year.