I'm in the exact same boat. When I found out last week about how astronauts are basically just ground-based scientists most of the time, I was devastated and furious on behalf of my 5 year old self. How dare they.
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Anyone else feel very bitter about gaming industry?
- Thread starter Hawkster
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wtf's your deal? You come off as incredibly jaded. People are sharing legitimate advice - to be fair, not advice that's applicable to everyone, but still useful, and you're just rudely dismissing it. Not only that, you're calling out other threads that no one even referenced? Did you just want people in here to blindly agree with you or what?
I have worked in the games industry and still know tons of people there.
I know there are bad stories but first and foremost: lots and lots and lots of game devs LOVE what they do. And they would -not- agree that they are suffering. There are many, many worse industries to worry about. Waiters, nurses, teachers. Sure, there's crunch here and there but it's also a super creative job with good pay and many, many outs into other IT jobs will much more relaxed work enviroment but less fun.
people -choos- to stay in games.
Stop worrying.
I know there are bad stories but first and foremost: lots and lots and lots of game devs LOVE what they do. And they would -not- agree that they are suffering. There are many, many worse industries to worry about. Waiters, nurses, teachers. Sure, there's crunch here and there but it's also a super creative job with good pay and many, many outs into other IT jobs will much more relaxed work enviroment but less fun.
people -choos- to stay in games.
Stop worrying.
Can you break this down further? You think publishers were somehow more noble back in the day or something?
An easy way to make yourself sad is by concerning yourself over things you have little to no control over. Ya, it sucks that the game industry has a crunch problem but it isn't something you can change. Unless you are working in the game industry, it's not something you can affect in the slightest. So don't waste your time worrying about it because it will only make you feel worse. If you are still very concerned about it just stop playing games. Go discover something new. There is a lot of things you could e doing with your free time and games doesn't have to be one of them.
but at least that is self-imposed.
You seriously think Japanese devs don't crunch just as hard as all the other devs? Indie devs also crunch like crazy
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Somewhat. I used to want to work at R* or ND, crunch and all, but after some life events I decided life was too short for that.
nvm, having read the rest of the read, there's clearly something deeper to this. I'm not qualified to give advice on that front, but I'm pretty sure the way you're dealing with it here is not healthy.
Frankly, unless you're at the top of the chain at a gaming company, you probably wouldn't have the kind of control over the creative vision that it sounds like you're seeking anyway. Most people are cogs, working on small parts of a greater whole. If you're truly passionate about it, you're better off working on a small game as a side project. You'll have all the influence on direction, and won't be letting others exploit your passion.
Frankly, unless you're at the top of the chain at a gaming company, you probably wouldn't have the kind of control over the creative vision that it sounds like you're seeking anyway. Most people are cogs, working on small parts of a greater whole. If you're truly passionate about it, you're better off working on a small game as a side project. You'll have all the influence on direction, and won't be letting others exploit your passion.
Yes I did. I will say this and maybe it had always been this way. I know for certain there were attempts by publishers to look at how they could extract more money out of gamers. I don't feel it way always that way. who doesn't want to make a profit off of their products? But there was a time I felt that it wasn't at the detriment of the gamers for publishers to make this profit. There was more of a organic relationship between the publisher, the developer, and the consumer (gamer).
I'm not bitter at the industry but it does need to treat its employees with respect and dignity. Jason Schrier is doing gods work and I've come to respect him so much as a journalist.
hmmm let's see...
- game hardware that's built on the backs of slave labor in the Congo and at inhumane factories in China
- mass energy consumption and pollution by the materials in games hardware
- tons of e-waste every 6-8 years because of manufactured desire by marketing for console generations and mobile upgrades
- young software developers compromising their health and well-being to crunch on some mindless entertainment
- games that mainly feature white guys because publishers would rather play it safe with racist and sexist consumer demographics
- mass profits that primarily goes to a bunch of suits with millions if not billions of dollars
Not bitter, but like you I wanted to get into the gaming industry when I was young. When I was in college, the realities of working for a game developer started to sink in and I gradually started leaning away from that direction. Still majored in software development, but never sought work in the gaming industry.
I can tell you firsthand that this is absolutely not true. What you're talking about never existed. The scale is bigger today but this has always been a cutthroat for-profit-at-all-costs industry, going back to the Atari 2600 era, minimum. You perceived it differently then, probably because you didn't know as much as you know now. That's all.
This is the right attitude to have. Don't make yourself miserable over something you have no control over.
Not every publisher/studio/department is created equal, and there can be general downsides to the gaming industry as a whole, but speaking for myself I love working in gaming. It's always been a dream come true, and I dont see myself in any other industry.
AAA is a hellscape, but from those experiences come small developers who want to so something better
Yes. Yes it does.
I and others would genuinely like to know what your dream game is.
It might make you feel better to share it.
Yeah... the above is probably one of the most frustrating misconceptions in indie dev. Though there's definitely some degree of self-imposed crunch (...I do it myself!😅), a huge chunk of the crunch comes from tiny budgets, tight milestones, overbearing publishers, and a lack of previous dev experience. Though the indie space can be incredibly rewarding, it can also come with a heck of a lot of existential worry, as for a lot indie devs, missing a key payment can mean the difference being paying rent... and, well... not -- and that feeling can push some indies to crunch just as hard, if not harder, then some of the more notorious AAA studios.
Personally, I'd never want to be a game developer.
If I could be an "advisor" where I get to to choose mechanics, location themes, story beats and art styles and so on, that would be awesome. Leave the real work to others, but have your ideas realised through others.
I'd love that, but most devs wouldn't think that is ideal. Publishers too. I think it just means that young fantasy of making games is one thing, being an actual programmer or whatever is meant to be a completely different reality.
Fantasy just ain't reality
If I could be an "advisor" where I get to to choose mechanics, location themes, story beats and art styles and so on, that would be awesome. Leave the real work to others, but have your ideas realised through others.
I'd love that, but most devs wouldn't think that is ideal. Publishers too. I think it just means that young fantasy of making games is one thing, being an actual programmer or whatever is meant to be a completely different reality.
Fantasy just ain't reality
I am not bitter, but tired. It isn't the game industry in particular, but the western world seems to have sliding standards in the 21st century. Economic growth became sparser and the response was more greed, more individualism, more crooked capitalism.
The excesses in the games industry are mostly in that ilk. Squeeze every inch of effort out of employees. Divide and conquer so they don't rise against you.
The special toxicity is mostly that the big companies know there are 10 new entry level employees for every person 'not giving it his all' which makes the industry particularly resistant to change, and the millions of sexism stories that come from a male dominated industry catering to toxic consumer base, feeding each others worldview. The former seems to barely improve, the latter has some change but a long way to go.
Indie gaming is definitely where I spend most of my money. But it has become a sort of lottery, if you win you win big, but so many good products never recoup the thousands of hours of effort.
A special hell is the phone market, which feels completely stagnant 10 years in, a toxic pit of socially engineered maximized money extraction through nagging and timewasting.
The excesses in the games industry are mostly in that ilk. Squeeze every inch of effort out of employees. Divide and conquer so they don't rise against you.
The special toxicity is mostly that the big companies know there are 10 new entry level employees for every person 'not giving it his all' which makes the industry particularly resistant to change, and the millions of sexism stories that come from a male dominated industry catering to toxic consumer base, feeding each others worldview. The former seems to barely improve, the latter has some change but a long way to go.
Indie gaming is definitely where I spend most of my money. But it has become a sort of lottery, if you win you win big, but so many good products never recoup the thousands of hours of effort.
A special hell is the phone market, which feels completely stagnant 10 years in, a toxic pit of socially engineered maximized money extraction through nagging and timewasting.
I'm jaded as fuck but it kinda goes two ways:
1. My teen me thought it was sunshine and rainbows, but they say "never meet your heroes". The closer you get to the industry the more you also have to see how the machinery works and it always was a machinery. It's too easy to look at a product you love and extrapolate all its amazingness to "that must be how it felt to make it!" and it's just not the case. It's problem solving, hard work, crunch and workarounds.
2. The industry is machinery, granted, but is that a well run machinery? Can the industry be better both creatively and for workers under the current capitalistic systems that has to support it?
I think my biggest frustration is that I had to swallow the fact that you don't just go and "Make the game you love." As soon as you're working with even just 10 people on a project each member eventually has to sacrifice something, and there may be disagreements about what quality is, and on top of that you have to pitch it to someone who wants a guarantee for some kind of success, and that's when your game can go from being that ideal vision into being the logistic mess of fitting into some sort of box and throwing originality away to ensure a market will understand the selling point.
And even if there was no business side to it you're still ultimately talking to people. You may think you have that brilliant idea to the best game ever, where you're thinking of that awesome thing in Witcher 3 that you want to improve on, and that amazing gameplay from Bayonetta you want to include. I think there are a lot of "creative" trappings for early game developers they start growing out of as soon as they see what the reality of game making is.
1. My teen me thought it was sunshine and rainbows, but they say "never meet your heroes". The closer you get to the industry the more you also have to see how the machinery works and it always was a machinery. It's too easy to look at a product you love and extrapolate all its amazingness to "that must be how it felt to make it!" and it's just not the case. It's problem solving, hard work, crunch and workarounds.
2. The industry is machinery, granted, but is that a well run machinery? Can the industry be better both creatively and for workers under the current capitalistic systems that has to support it?
I think my biggest frustration is that I had to swallow the fact that you don't just go and "Make the game you love." As soon as you're working with even just 10 people on a project each member eventually has to sacrifice something, and there may be disagreements about what quality is, and on top of that you have to pitch it to someone who wants a guarantee for some kind of success, and that's when your game can go from being that ideal vision into being the logistic mess of fitting into some sort of box and throwing originality away to ensure a market will understand the selling point.
And even if there was no business side to it you're still ultimately talking to people. You may think you have that brilliant idea to the best game ever, where you're thinking of that awesome thing in Witcher 3 that you want to improve on, and that amazing gameplay from Bayonetta you want to include. I think there are a lot of "creative" trappings for early game developers they start growing out of as soon as they see what the reality of game making is.
There are very few (if any) things worth feeling "very bitter" about. Something from the videogame industry is not one of them. Like, at all.
This wasn't ever a thing, sorry to say. The publishers were just a lot better at hiding it (and you were younger and more susceptible to their tactics).
Yea, that is pretty much everything in life. Once you find out how the sausage is made, it starts to get depressing
It seems surprising that I had no game industry aspirations considering what I went to school for and what my interests were growing up but really I never did. There were even game development classes in the CS program at my school and I never entertained taking them for whatever reason. I've been kinda aimless in general my whole life so that is probably part of it. After chasing the first inkling of career interest I had (mobile phone RF/HW development) and having that end in catastrophe a few months out of college (partly due to the last recession, partly due to this being post-iPhone and I wasn't working at Apple) I'm kinda glad now that a similar thing didn't happen for me in gaming. Ultimately I've ended up in a much less volatile line of work that I didn't necessarily know of at the time but am appreciating now.
OP you ever worked in the game's industry? I spent over 2 decades in it and it was some of the best times of my life. Nothing is ever perfect but there are tons of good people, good jobs and amazing games that come from that.
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