I am drunk and I'm going to the pub (again) soon. But until I do. Ask a UK gamedev who spent over a decade in this shittty industry anything.
No dirt too dirty. Entry salaries start from 18-21 depending on region. A normal programming job in a sane industry for a graduate is 30-35K. Why do we do it?
>>53903229
I used to interview you shits regularly and it baffles me what hoops you will jump through to get hired to then work for peanuts. Why do you keep coming?!
>>53903229
ure a fagget
>>53903254
Hahaha..
>>53903229
Have you worked in a non-gamedev field?
>>53903229
How the fuck are games so expensive to make if they pay you guys shit. Where the fuck does the money go.
>>53903229
Why the fuck would you work as a gamedev, everyone in tech knows those jobs are romaticized as fuck and basically slavery.
There are so many interesting, challenging, good paying jobs in tech and you chose game dev. Why? Dont say because you like games.
>>53903229
I wish I graduated. I'm doing £18k for webdev. Considering it's webdev, it's a goddamn joke. I'd drink with you buddy, but I gotta get to work early tomorrow
>>53903528
>Where the fuck does the money go.
Not OP, but probably marketing.
>>53903515
Yes. Every other field pays better and has sane working hours.
>>53903528
Marketing and DRM.
>>53903528
Money goes to marketing, licensing tech and tools and outsourcing all the shit art to China and Russia.
>>53903595
I left gamedev. The problem is people keep flocking there despite being warned. I had been warned and it didn't stop me. I feel like I ought to at least try and warn you.
On the bright side, shouldn't it be easy to get a regular dev job now, OP?
>>53903625
webdev is probably the only worse place than gamedev but not because of salary but because of even worse job security than games (hard to believe). Run like hell, even java on the desktop would be an improvement at that point.
>>53903685
That is an unexpected boon. You can actually switch to other industries surprisingly easily. I don't know why - development is gamedev IS NOT as cutting edge as people imagine.
>>53903229
are you a programmer?
if so tell me whats shit about this industry and why others shouldnt bother to go work there
If I'm not completely shitfaced at half 11 I'll be back trying to warn you off again because no one deserves this kind of treatment you get working in a modern games studio.
>>53903528
50% of the budget goes into pure marketing, easily
the rest is spent on licensing their shitty bloated frameworks + tools, and if there's some money left, paying the 3D artists
>>53903229
why did you ignore the warnings?
>>53903766
Yes. The pay sucks. You will earn more ANYWHERE in ANY other industry. The biggest lie is that coding games is somehow different. It IS NOT. You do not have any agency working for even a medium sized studio. If you like programming you will enjoy it just as much when working some crappy desktop app or obscure backend system. If you HAVE to code games do it in your spare time as a hobby - you will enjoy all the freedom you imagine you would have at a studio.
>>53903827
That is a good question. I have no fucking clue. Brain tumour? Gotta run
>>53903854
what if I don't care about the pay and I can't work on something if it's not something i'm passionate about
What about working as an indie dev
>>53903949
>he believes passion meme
Ask anyone, there's no passion, only discipline.
>>53904821
i dont even know whats real anymore in that case
is it true that they demand "crunch time" in the 3-6 months leading up to release, and you have to work 80+ hour weeks?
>>53905457
>>53903949
I'm back.
My advice: work a day job that pays and work on a hobby project that you love that will never make money - no compromises necessary then.
>>53905581
Hello! Yes. Crunchtime is real. I can only speak about UK but even in Rockstar you will do 10am-11pm days (including Saturday and Sunday). Most companies will not compensate you for this. At least rockstar will pay you a bonus every year but you are still wasting away your youth for peanuts.
In short. If you go into games:
- pay lower than ANY and ALL other industries
- the work is the same (no company will allow you any meaningful agency - you have to go indie for that)
- stupid overtime (working 10 hours and over weekends is pretty normal for most companies during crunch and a lot of companies crunch for literally years)
- you will be making games you will hate - if you are a gamer you will be disgusted by the things you make because YOU are NOT the target demographic (and have not been since forever)
I have worked for 4 different companies and I have friends working for dozens other companies (because every project you have to move jobs and cities, isn't that fun?) if there is anything you're curious about I'm happy to tell you.
>>53905667
To be fair to Rockstar they do offer those days as days off in lieu but they don't really add up (they only count the weekends and not the overtime you put in on regular days) and you're still ruining your health.
And they don't even have a cafeteria. Smaller companies I worked for outside of games had one.
ah crap, has this already migrated to the archive?
>>53905748
what's the basic experience these jobs require?
everywhere I look it's min 2 years of C++ and currently I'm doing translation/localization stuff but want to switch to programming
I'm comp. eng. student from eu and always wanted to be in the game industry although everything i hear from it is bad
>>53905950
also is the vidya industry full of hipsters and sjw warriors or am I being brainwashed by /v/?
>>53903229
Why do people pursue a career in game dev?
Is it because regular programming is too hard? Or is it because they're still children inside?
>>53905950
They will hire graduates from any eng degree. In fact bonus points if you're not CS because of reasons too complicated to explain here at the moment.
Just apply, the bar is pretty low (don't believe the ad requiring 10 years of prior experience!). You WILL have to know how to program. Unlike jobs outside of games they we will actually test you and make sure you know how to program (this is weird but true).
Best way is to program a demo of sorts. Any project you can bring in (using a ready made engine works too) will make it 10x more probable to get the job (assuming you pass the interview).
C++ is pretty much king but lots of places now are happy with c# (yes, unity) and many places still work with C (thank you Sony).
3dsmax and maya for artists (some hipster studios use their own or blender) + zbrush, mudbox, photoshop.
If you're doing sound you will use whatever the engine mandates. Sound guys have got it the worst. Your memory budget always comes last. I'm so sorry for you guys. You are the unsung (!) heroes.
>>53905987
Vidya (outside of indie) is full of people like us (it really is) as developers. Game designers have always been the weird ones and some of them do have coloured hair and problematic glasses but that is beside the point.
The thing you need to understand is: you will not be making the game of your dreams. You will be pushing out a polished turd that you will hate. Trust me, gamedevs are just as "happy" about the hollywood takeover as you are.
>>53906267
>>53906185
What about QA/testers/translators? I know several languages and already have experience but I've read that at the end of the day you just hate yourself and video games.
Thanks for the answers tho
>>53906185
>and many places still work with C
most surprising thing I've learned this thread
>>53906043
People go into games (ok, maybe it's just me and my friends) because they think they will be able to code up cool systems, work with bleeding edge tech, make fun games or whatever. It takes literally YEARS for people to realise it's just a sausage factory. At this point 90% leave. The average age of a gamedev is probably 25. Average developer outside of games is 40. I wonder why.
>>53903229
How is this not self-inflicted damage?
>>53906366
Why are their eyes so big, are they ayylmaos?
>>53906321
That's because sony has always lagged behind with tools. It's OK now and other than supporting old libs you won't have to deal with C any more so don't worry.
>>53906366
why was his mother a cockroach?
>>53906366
>>53906390
Ayy lmaos have infiltrated our shitty webcomics.
>>53906315
QA is death. People keep saying how it's the easiest way to put get your foot in the door it's sickening. Who keeps repeating this bullshit? QA are minimum wage (12k-18k) jobs that are so boring you will start drinking on the job just to kill the tedium, If you're not into drugs already you better develop a habit because my friend this is the most soul crushing job in the industry. Working in a factory is probably more fun.
People leaving QA and moving internally into another position is pretty rare. Personally I only saw one girl do it but she did it by fucking a producer (twice her age) so depends how motivated you are I guess.
>>53906505
I guess I will stay the fuck away from the gaming industry then.
>>53906553
If you want to do translations go right ahead. They get outsourced routinely (especially for languages outside big5) and companies will actually hire the cheapest contractor because they don't care. If the language is not voiced it's guaranteed to be translated by the lowest bidder and not a proper company. I'm actually bilingual and sometimes it made me snicker how bad the translations were. I swear to god some of them must've used google translate or something.
>>53906553
if you're one person I've saved today that makes me happy and I feel I paid off me debt to the kindly devs who tried to save me and whom I foolishly didn't listen to.
The world is so different when you're young - you believe things that are contrary to common sense and sure enough they turn out not to be true. Kill your dreams now so as you don't have to watch them suffer and die in slow agony.
Has there ever been a point where you said some feature was too hard to implement/made the game horrible and the manager just ignored you? Even if other people started backing you up they just told you to keep working?
Also speaking of how most game devs are disillisuioned, do the managers keep trying to feed these delusions so they don't burn out so fast, or do they just have so many people they don't give a shit
>>53906043
They think it's exciting.
Developing video games as a business model takes all the fun out of writing software.
You don't even write real software most of the time, you're just writing highly abstracted scripting glue code for the game engine that your studio paid big bucks to use.
The typical people who go into gamedev see "writing an engine" as an insurmountable, insanely difficult task that no mortal dev could undertake themselves.
It's a trash field unless you go indie.
>>53906907
Your line manager is likely to be just slightly older and more bitter than you. They are not paid well either (what a surprise!) and they mostly don't care.
As for your first question you clearly fail to grasp the most important fact: YOU DO NOT MAKE ANY DECISIONS. You are making a game that your (or your publisher's) marketing dept. / focus group / planning committee has told you to make. Any decisions are so far removed from you that complaining about them would be like complaining about the weather. You can do it, and most people do, but it doesn't really help. It's not some hippy collaboration between freewheelin' artitsts - it's a money making machine. Welcome to hell.
>>53906718
So what's your plan now? Get a new job? Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
>>53906948
>It's a trash field unless you go indie.
It's no coincidence that all games are trash except for the india ones.
>>53907046
I already left. I'm well into my 30s now, on my 3rd regular job. Leaving the industry I got an immediate 10k payrise and that was enough to never look back (+no crunch time just regular hours). I honestly wish I haven't wasted my time working in gamedev. I could've been making real games in my spare time. Out of all my friends whom I met along the way, maybe 5% are still working in games and only 1 (literally one) has earned ANY money out of it. And then I'm not sure even he thinks it was worth the price.
>>53907060
>india ones
Well fuck, you know what I meant.
>>53907237
POO
>>53907252
JEW
>>53906948
Pretty much that. When I was at a studio using UE I was writing unreal script half the time. It's as much fun as writing c#. At least I missed out on the age of Unity. It's scary how many games use it. It is single-handedly responsible for Unreal going free to use.
>>53907198
How the hell did you keep it up until your 30s?
I did a gamedev study and got my degree, I'm 25 and I'll never work in a company as a developer and be a mind dead, cock forced down my throat by a manager kind of developer.. But the game industry in general isn't what it seems anyway. I live in the Netherlands and the dutch game industry (aside from Guerrila, becauss Sony branch) sucks dick. I'll keep game dev as a hobby, since I have the necessary knowledge anyway, I plan on starting a company, make apps, build websites and what not.
This is so fucking sad.
>>53903229
Did working in game dev ruin gaming for you? Apperently it's not uncommon for game devs to rage quit and hate games for the rest of their lives. Also, I have two mates who are trying to get into the game industry, do you have any advice for them?
>>53912237
I still enjoy playing games so I guess it didn't for me but it's not uncommon but how can you tell it's because of gamedev and not something else. People change hobbies for various reasons. My advice to them is: don't. If they really enjoy doing it maybe keep it as a hobby and work a normal day job instead - best of both worlds. And now I have to go to work (with a slight hangover).
>tfw you work for an indie dev with the most dysfunctional management imaginable
>tfw you realize the game dev market is basically a game of flinging around shit until it sticks and you'll probably never make back any money if you went solo yourself
>>53905667
Fuck it, I knew its bad, but this bad...
People working in gamedev are literal KEKs. That's why I make a living off easy webdev and make games as a hobby.
>>53906448
I think the author made him have alopecia totalis.
>>53903229
Is it true even for mobile games developer that can develop for ios and android at the same time?
>>53914252
Unity man. Unity.
>>53914828
>Unity
Stay as far away from it as you possibly can. It's literally the worst of the worst when it comes to shitty engines developed by idiots who don't understand the technology they're dealing with.
t. somebody who spent a few hours today working around various unity bugs by reverse engineering their shitty code and making patched executables
>>53903229
As a software engineer for a large hardware builder, is game Dev a step down?
My current salary is £30k
Keep this thread alive, man. This actually is the most interesting thread in /g/ right now. I'll take OPs advice and not waste my life on working as a game dev, I'll just work webdev and do game dev in my weekends.
I'm surprised this is still alive. I'm still here if there is any other question you ever had and don't know anyone in gamedev I'm happy to oblige.
People who complain about unity being basic miss the point. Yes, it is very limiting but it also comes with a lot of out of the box functionality that's simple enough for a small team to handle. My mate works for a small studio using unity and says that as long as you're not trying to write around unity and just go with what's possible it's OK. The dev environemnt and tools are OK and he doesn't mind c# (some people love .Net, who am I to judge except of course I judge).
>>53914252
Sorry, I never developed for mobile. Well, only as a hobby project and that was using android NDK so it was actually written in C++ using and SDL port for Android and a simple java shim so you could hardly tell you were developing for mobile.
There are frameworks that let you deploy for both iOS and Android. Mobile devs are usually separate companies so I had little exposure.
>>53918616
Any advice, for newer programmers/gamedevs that are about to enter the market? How do you do high-level programming, I get the basic level of it, basically engines and writing actual huge fucking pieces of code to make a game I guess
>>53915918
Are you kidding? Take a sabbatical from your job and try it for a month - you'll be back within a week. People keep imagining it's somehow more exciting. If you don't enjoy writing firmware or whatever it is you do at your company you will not enjoy programming games for the same reason. If you don't like driving, painting your car red will not make it more enjoyable. I apologise for this terrible analogy.
Whether or not it would be a step down salary wise it depends on your years of experience. If you're a recent graduate <1 then yes it's gonna be a massive stepdown. Also forget about thing that come with normal jobs like: bupa, gyms, pension matching, bonuses, job security etc. etc. You will get a salary and that's it. If you're an experienced dev with a few years in games on your CV than you can probably keep your salary. If you get hired by a top studio like rockstar or codemasters you can earn more after a couple of years if you have a specialisation like networks, physics or graphics (GPU programming) - if you're a generalist you will suffer. Keep in mind that translated to PER HOUR pay that will still be a massive paycut.
And if you're not as lucky and end up in smaller of less successful studio then yeah, paycut.
You don't have to take my word for it. Check out glassdoor and compare devs in gamedev and devs anywhere else (except webdev).
>>53918616
have you seen any move towards increased Linux support in the industry, now that SteamOS and such is a thing?
>>53918791
don't understand your question - if you're curious about how engines work then check out some open source one (the simpler the better) and read the code.
https://github.com/spring/spring
don't worry it's for RTS, for your purpose it will serve perfectly - it's got all the subsystems most engines have and it's small.
Serious question:
Why is Yui best keion?
>>53919118
That's not Azunyan.
>>53919118
I prefer AzuNyan tbhfamilia but Yui is fine too.
>>53919159
>>53919058
Yes! Just as I was leaving people started thinking about developing corssplatform (or at least keeping the path open by not tying themselves to some crappy lib) just to hedge their bets. All major engines offer Linux as a deployment platform now. Most used to have it for a while because of Playstation anyway but now it's got first class support. Not releasing on Linux is now mostly a publisher decision since technically it's easier than ever. A lot of companies don't want to bother with support and you still need to devote some manhours into it so penny pinching devs will not bother. And there's always the issue of some shitty middleware that the game studio is tied to that doesn't ship with source or a linux lib.
I'm hopeful though, if titles like that lord of the rings game bother with a linux release then it's a good omen.
>>53919118
I don't even watch the show but the parody by just5guys was kinda funny.
I think the show epitomises all that is wrong with Japan and America at the same time...
and that is of course racism. j/k
>>53918616
Gotta ask one thing
Why do kids keep falling for 'Game Development' courses at school and university? Makes me laugh and feel bad that they're throwing their life out by taking it because you learn fuckall in it.
I didn't take it, but I was lumped in the classes near to them and jesus christ some of the people there are really autistic. The game dev industry is awful for the actual workers.
>>53903229
Why to brits like k-on?
Is it just because they went to the UK in the movie?
Also are there any games released that you were involved in? which games?
>>53919368
You answered your own question: Autism
How many of them like sanic btw?
>>53919435
About half. They'd just throw them into Unreal and let them fuck about making some mediocre FPS
This was a while ago, mind
>>53919368
AHaha, we all always had a laugh about those. Honestly, you are wasting your time. A games course will have zero impact on your application. It will not be detrimental mind you but you will be treated the exact same way as someone who just applied fresh from highschool. You will have to prove your worth the same way as them.
So if your parents are rich and you don't mind faffing about for a couple of years and enjoy the coursework then yeah, I don't see why not. Just don't expect the "degree" will help you. A degree in chemistry will take precedence (true story).
As for what degree is valued: any degree with maths. Not that you will be doing linear algebra on a daily basis but it's a good indicator of a good dev. Loads of people come with physics degrees for some reason. And of course a lot of devs are just self taught and that works fine too. This might genuinely be the only good thing about gamedev - you don't need a degree. But neither does waiting at tables and it pays more.
>>53919547
Yeah, I always figured that portfolio comes first and is key, and of course any past experience you have in the field.
Otherwise you're pretty much demoted all the way to playtester / tea runner
>>53919369
I'm on 4chan, so I'm sure you'll forgive me for using cute anime girls as eyecatchers. I think I'm pretty sane compared to what was the norm in games studios. Desks full of figurines, plushies posters and I tried not to stare too much but honestly: live and let live. Whatever people enjoy I'm cool with. People who react to things like that as if they saw someone fucking a goat are the ones who should reevaluate their world view.
And yes, I worked on probably about two dozen games in my career and half of them got canned before release (this is the norm). I'm not going to tell you which because I want to remain semi-anonymous. You would not be impressed, my career metacrtic score is probably well into yellow.
>>53919682
Did you work for Codemasters?
:^)
>>53919343
the Castanet Hero joke is genuine genius
>>53919682
>I'm sure you'll forgive me for using cute anime girls as eyecatchers
>Implying i dont like cute anime girls
>>53920732
Now, now nigel, back to your containment board
