Slashdot Mirror
Developers Want Fatter Paychecks
CodeBuster writes "The programmers, artists, and other creative professions that work in the games industry have taken a rather dim view on paying royalties to Hollywood voice-over actors, according to the article 'Coders Want Fatter Paychecks Too' written by Wired News. From the article: 'The video-game industry's geek workforce has something to say to Hollywood actors: Get in line for your share of the industry's profits.'"
You think that's amazing? I'm in no way associated with the gaming industry, and I want more money too!
I don't see a story here.
"Yeah -- $275 an hour would be a huge amount if actors did that kind of work several times a week," said [Wil] Wheaton, "but the average, working-class actor is lucky to get four of those jobs a year."
Dude, if you're unsatisfied with getting $2200 a year for doing eight hours of voice-over work in a year, maybe you need another job. Take some other acting gigs, drive a truck for UPS, learn a trade. Hell, flip burgers if you're that hard up for cash.
Or, better yet, learn to program, learn to work on sound effects, learn to do 3-D art, learn to do game level design. Then get a real 60-hour-a-week job in the games industry and see how the other half lives. Maybe then you'll realize you should be asking the programmers, artists, etc. to go on strike.
I hate to tell you this, but the vast majority of coders in the gaming industry are not replacable. The management would like to think they are though, and that's why we get so many poorly coded titles on the shelf.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Are they asking for simply a larger paycheck? Or are they asking for a royalty-like system in which the extra checks they get depend on the game sales? The article was somewhat light on that point.
If it were the second one, I think it would be a great idea. If a game is fun and sells well, the coders get an extra bit of green to take home.
If it's the first one, well then that's OK too. I hope to break into the game industry once I'm done with college, and the more game programmers earn once I reach that point, the better (for me, anyway..)
I took a game development class last semester. I learned that programming games is HARD work. Say you're just doing the AI part of the game. Not only do you have to make enemies act semi-intelligently, and naturally, but you have to do it using only so much CPU and memory. In fact, this is true for just about any aspect of the game. To do be able to do this you have know your programming language like the back of your hand, and be effecient as hell. Killing bugs was a total pain in the ass too. Especially when some of the other coder's on my team created some shitty-ass code.
That's another thing: people skills. If you can't work well in a team, then forget game development. You have to be in constant communication with the artists and other programmers if you want the game to come together at all.
I really enjoyed programming for games. But when we had to turn in our game...the game wasn't working the way I wanted it too, and I really stressed out. I got sick the next day...don't know if it's entirely due to the stress but I'm sure it had to do something with it.
After taking that class, I realized that alot of these developers are incredibly smart and creative. It's easy to judge games when you're just playing them. But after taking that cass, I learned to appreciate what these guys can do.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
And that would be true... if the actors were PERFORMING and carrying the story which, for the most part, they're not.
The REAL performers in games are the ones built by the Programmers and the game designers... not the actors.
Sadly, as others have posted already, most coders can be easily replaced by local or, increasingly, overseas workers. The creative jobs are a bit more secure. But for the ultimate in security (and reward and risk!), start your own company! People in the games industry who really want a piece of the profits are best served by getting their buddies together and forming their own companies. This has been done before, and I think remains one of the best options for those wanting a bigger piece of the profits that come from their hard work. Granted, noncompete clauses and nda issues may need to be resolved, but an entrepreneural path is the surest way to sink or swim based on your own hard work.
Outside of starting a company, forming a union is the only other alternative. But even with massive overseas outsourcing and a general erosion of wages in the IT industry (at least at the coding level), unionization simply has not been embraced in the tech fields.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
I'm not being hard nosed against the actors here. I don't know why you're being so hard nosed against the programmers, the artists and the game designers.
Don't believe me?
Monkey Island had no voice actors.
Super Mario Brothers had no voice actors.
ICO had no voice actors.
Origin did voice work in house with the regular staff. When Wing Commander 4 was done with union work (because the union came in and shut production down until it became a union job) All the inhouse staff that did voicework received cease and desist notices that they were forbidden from doing future voice work until they joined the union.
But I suppose all those games were designed and built by off the shelf coders that do kewl and elite IMAP modules and artists who learned photoshop in their mom's basement.
I'm not denying voice actors fair compensation for game work.. BUT GET IN FRIGGIN' LINE!
If it weren't for this 'we're better than workers who have to form a union' attitude amongst programmers and other technical workers, there'd already be a union for people in the game industry, and this sort of problem would have already been resolved.
Right now programmers and artists are being exploited in industry. They are working severe overtime without compensation. It is structual, in the sense that those responsible for managing and renumerating these employees know and plan for this unpaid overtime. Any copyright on created art or code is transfered without any particular compensation, for use of the company in perpetuity. People are literally being worked sick, and most receive a relative pittance in return, when compared with the profits of publishers.
Very occasionally there may be a royalty component offered to employees, but this is often not paid, or comes after the publisher skims off the top and is horribly meagre.
These people can be abused so easily because there is pride involved. People take pride in their work: they want to be associated with something with quality, that people will enjoy. There is also the belief that working for in the industry is an intrinsically cool thing to do. Employers and publishers then turn around and exploit that pride and belief.
What is the shame in forming a union? Do you think people started unions because it might be a fun lark on weekends? The current situation will remain until there is a force present to reverse it. And that force isn't about to come from the Tooth Fairy.
I make games for a living, and sure - I'd like more money for what I do. I knew when I got into the industry, however, what the hours were like and what the pay was like. The only thing that I had an honest misconception about was the royalty issue. I had thought that tons of hard work would result in good royalty checks but after 4 1/2 years in the industry I think I've recieved a grand total of $500 in royalties. Not the end of the world, but I don't think that you're getting the issue here. I've seen alot of arguments from the voice actors who are seeking the extra money that "...the average, working-class actor is lucky to get four of those ($275/hr) jobs a year." Um... so because you decided to go into a field that pays either poorly or erratically, I'm supposed to give up a portion of whatever money I _might_ recieve from the project I worked on for two years so that you can be "compensated" for your day's worth of work? I'm sorry - if you don't like what you do for a living pays GET A NEW JOB. I agree - there aren't 10 Jim Careys or Vin Diesels, etc. But I know for a fact that top notch stars like that DON'T make the $275/hr minimum that the Voice Actors Guild is worked up about. I worked on Men of Valor for 2015, and one of the voice actors on the project was Sean Astin. He made around $50k for about eight hours of work. That's a HELL of a lot more than the minimum - and it's just me but I'd say that $6250/hr is fairly adequate compensation for that kind of work. What bothers me - and all of the coders, etc. that have been making noise about wanting more money - is that not only do the voice actors get paid anywhere from 5-10 times as much per hour as the developers do, but now they want royalties (residuals) from the game for the four or eight hours they put in on it when the developers who typically put years of 50-60+ hour weeks into the project won't see a dime in royalties. Of course the developers aren't (usually) stars. But your close comparison between game development and Hollywood isn't very accurate. Set developers, grips, etc. - the support staff in a film - create the atmosphere that the actors and director use to tell their story. They're an essential part of the process, but without the actors and director you have no movie. That's why actors are stars and fameous and all of that. Without the coders, designers, and artists that physically make the game - create it from the code that drives the game engine to the textures and models that make it look good to actually designing and implementing the gameplay that is the heart of the game: game developers _are_ what makes a game. I've certainly never purchased a game because so-and-so actor did a voice on it, but I _have_ purchased many games because specific developers created them. Like actors in Hollywood, game developers are what bring a game to life and give it character. And that's not a quality you can merely export. ADDENDUM: Hrm. Never posted before - didn't know you needed an account to get this to show up. There's a duplicate under anyonmyous coward, but I wanted my comments to show up.