Here's the deal. Voice actors are worth whatever their employer says they're worth. Not what YOU say they're worth. And coders are worth what their employer says they're worth. Not what they say they're work. Anything else is just a bunch of spoiled brats whining and crying because someone else got the shiny red ball. Oh, boo hoo.
Um... I'm pretty sure the reason, say, Elijah Wood is hired for his voice acting is that he's voice acting the the character that looks and sounds like him in the game that is from the movie he starred in where he looked like and sounded like himself. So, yes, if you want an authentic LOTR (movie-based) game experience, he's more or less irreplaceable.
The fact of the matter is this - people need to stop bitching about what the make. I work in the tech industry and I'm so fucking tired of hearing a bunch of god damned coders who thought they were going to be millionnaires playing videogames all day found out life isn't quite like that. Guess what?! There are a lot of other people in the tech industry who thought the world was always going to be high-pay, constant demand for talent, countless perks and fame and fortune. You know what? Shit changed and now they realize they're just bit-flippers and that they're not going to be uber-rich. That's just life.
Just because your button-mashing contributes to a game doesn't make you any more of a rock star or a movie star or anything than the guy whos button-mashing contributes to a boring desktop application.
You're both doing the same job but only one of you has the shitty attitude.
Yes, but that's what I was pointing out. Most people involved with Game Development are not John Carmack or Cliffy B. MOST are just John-Doe-Code-Monkey. They're just implementing and testing what they've been told based on someone else's guidelines, rules and dreams.
Are Will Right and Peter Moulineaux the ones doing most of the coding in their games? I seriously doubt it. They're leading it. They're designing it. They're watching it hawkishly every step of the way. But some code-monkey is putting code-to-paper to make shit happen. And guess what - they're not making Peter or Will's salary. Not at all.
Your logic soliifies the logic I already described. It's all about supply and demand. Joe-Coder isn't worth shit and is typically replaceable. But the cream of the crop is obviously not as replacable and demand better treatment and more money. Guess what? THEY GET IT. If Will or Peter are working in a cube,it's because they _want_ to. Most of whatever they do is because they _want_ to. They are not joe-coder.
You don't deserve more money just because something is harder than something else. You also don't deserve money just because you think what you do has a greater moral or societal value.
Your job is part of the capitalist system and in that system you are not paid on a scale of ethics, morality, decency or difficulty. You are paid on a scale of supply and demand. Just like your company earns more money if they provide a better product that is in high demand - you are paid more if you're a great employee who provides a service that is high in demand.
Are people in the techindustry being somewhat screwed over in general and being treated more like burger flippers than skilled knowledge-based professionals? Certainly. But saying that we're underpaid for what we do as an industry is a lot different than saying "because I make videogames, instead of making mailservers or umbrellas - I deserve to be treated more like a movie star or rock star".
And the fact is that Britney Spears is more valuable than you or I. Every super-model you can name is more valuable than you or I. There is a greater demand for hot women in advertisements and on magazines than there is for guys who can use Maya or POVRay. Period.
No, they don't deserve it. You deserve what people think you are worth. Is having big tits and smooth skin more complex and intellectually involved than designing a new car engine, writing AI for a game or performing neurosurgery?
OF COURSE NOT
However, some 16 year old with a nice rack singing in an overdubbed song (to hide her crappy voice) is going to make more money in a couple years than any of the previously mentioned people will in their lifetime.
It doesn't matter how difficult your job is. All that matters is how in demand you are. Everyone wants to design games. Game designers are everywhere. How "hard" it is has no meaning in the equation.
Yes, but the gamer doesn't know if JIM wrote the game or BOB wrote the game. But they know if Christopher Walken is doing the voice of a character or some off-the-street nobody is trying to do the voice of a Christopher Walken character.
That's just not true. Most people in any software project - including games - are just code monkeys. Most of them are not the guys making the creative decisions. Most of the people involved in producing a videogame are NOT a Cliffy B or a Carmack or a Will Wright. Most of them have as much to do with the design and success of a game as the cashier at the local McDonald's has with the success of that food chain.
Are skilled people important? Yes. But skilled and creative are not the same thing. And to suggest that there aren't other people who can write netcode just s well as you or make a menuing system for the game just as well as you is just silly.
Anyone who thinks that they're so irreplacable in the industry should just demand more money and quit if they don't get it. If they're so irreplacable, they'll be wooed back with whatever their demand was. Otherwise, they'll be let go and replaced with someone who has as much skill and less ego who'll be glad to be involvd.
Look, I'm sorry, but you are a programmer. Or a tech support guy. Or a project manager. Or a level designer. Whatever it is, you are producing a product. You are not a performer. In careers based on performing for people, the performer is typically the big earner above the director, manager, producer, etc.
In the rest of the business world, the guys who do the grunt work - writing code, creating levels, designing the game box, writing the game's dialogue - make peanuts and the guys who run the company and sit in conferences and board meetings and take porches to work and spend their weekends on yachts get the big bucks.
These primadonnas need to get it through their skull that they're code monkeys. They're just cubicle workers punching away on a keyboard like everyone else in the world - except the product they're creating is more fun than what most others create.
Why should some guy who writes netcode for a videogame be paid any more or differently than some guy who writes the IMAP module for a mailserver or QAs an application server or is the product manager for some sort of enterprise collaboration software? They're doing essentially the same game.
Remember, you ARE NOT A PERFORMER. You ARE NOT AN ARTIST. You ARE NOT PART OF HOLLYWOOD.
YOU are replaceable. There are a million code monkeys and always one willing to work for less than you who won't complain so much. However, there are NOT 10 Jim Careys. There are NOT 10 Vin Diesels. There are NOT 10 Elijah Woods. THEY can not be replaced, except by really poor voice actors.
I think if a person just wants a quick little 10 minute burst of entertainment, they should buy one of the countless games available that offer that kind of play. Especially on the various GameBoy platforms.
If a person wants a deep, involved game, then they should buy one of those. I mean, there's no real shortage of either style, so I don't know where he's getting this. Anyway, the average gamer probably plays at least a couple hours per sitting, so the point is moot.
As for the over all length of a game - it better be pretty fucking long or immensely replayable. I hate paying $50 to $80 for a game that I can beat in a day or a week.
As for GTA... It just proves that people are easily impressed. I'm tired of hearing people say "it's totally open-ended. You can do ANYTHING YOU WANT". No you can't. You have clear objectives, clear limitations and clear side games. Just because you can smack people around, work a taxi or an ambulance and shoot people doesn't make it "open ended". Life is open ended. Being able to pick form Sean John and Adidas clothing for my afro-haired avatar is NOT open-ended gameplay.
I can see the confusion in the way the article blurb is written, but no - we're not talking about a multi-CD Knoppix. We're talking about a split, leaving us with two CDs to choose from. One, the reduced "light" version. The other, the full shebang, on one DVD.
So far, 2005 really seems to be a major year for Debian. I've been using Debian for the last four or five years and it's great to see all of these successful debian-based distros - not to mention, a new stable version of Debian (finally!).
I've known people in the last year who have talked about switching to another distro, because they had the FreeBSD fright (it's dying!) and I'm hoping this turns their attitudes around.
Ignorant? Ignorant in what respect? And no, I wasn't brought up to be thankful to someone when they point out "ignorance" in a tongue-in-cheek or clearly snyde/silly remark. Ya stupid dick.
Yes, ninewands - I'm so very grateful to you for pointing out that the Christian Science Monitor is a respected periodical. Why, I would have never guessed that, what with having it delivered to the house I grew up in for a number of years and reading it in the public library that I volunteered at for several years as a kid.
Thanks for classifying yourself as one of those in the uneducated public.
Did I say all the entire public was uneducated? No. I said the "uneducated public". What this means is that, of the entire public, there is a significant group that is uneducated. You can't deny that. This is a lot like saying "the movie-going public". Does that statement mean that the entire public goes to movies? No. It indicates that the person is speaking about that segment of the public which is movie-going.
Now, as you can probably figure out by now, I was not talking about the entire public, but rather the significant percentage of this public which is not educated and will listen to the uneducated/sensational news reports and think the world is going to end. You know - the kind of people who believe in the "new jersey devil" and have faith in the talents of Sylvia Brown and think that Saddam Hussein flew airplanes into the towers.
Queue the quack television reporters preying on the uneducated public, scaring them to death with the suggested possibility that the planet's super-heated liquified insides might oooze out and destroy the world... OH NOES!
Well, what do you expect? Every story I findon Gizmodo is also on Engadget and 50 other big "tech" sites. The web is one big, gratuitous, incestuous, Caligulous orgy of informational fornication.
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Here's the deal. Voice actors are worth whatever their employer says they're worth. Not what YOU say they're worth. And coders are worth what their employer says they're worth. Not what they say they're work. Anything else is just a bunch of spoiled brats whining and crying because someone else got the shiny red ball. Oh, boo hoo.
Um... I'm pretty sure the reason, say, Elijah Wood is hired for his voice acting is that he's voice acting the the character that looks and sounds like him in the game that is from the movie he starred in where he looked like and sounded like himself. So, yes, if you want an authentic LOTR (movie-based) game experience, he's more or less irreplaceable.
The fact of the matter is this - people need to stop bitching about what the make. I work in the tech industry and I'm so fucking tired of hearing a bunch of god damned coders who thought they were going to be millionnaires playing videogames all day found out life isn't quite like that. Guess what?! There are a lot of other people in the tech industry who thought the world was always going to be high-pay, constant demand for talent, countless perks and fame and fortune. You know what? Shit changed and now they realize they're just bit-flippers and that they're not going to be uber-rich. That's just life.
Just because your button-mashing contributes to a game doesn't make you any more of a rock star or a movie star or anything than the guy whos button-mashing contributes to a boring desktop application.
You're both doing the same job but only one of you has the shitty attitude.
Yes, but that's what I was pointing out. Most people involved with Game Development are not John Carmack or Cliffy B. MOST are just John-Doe-Code-Monkey. They're just implementing and testing what they've been told based on someone else's guidelines, rules and dreams.
Are Will Right and Peter Moulineaux the ones doing most of the coding in their games? I seriously doubt it. They're leading it. They're designing it. They're watching it hawkishly every step of the way. But some code-monkey is putting code-to-paper to make shit happen. And guess what - they're not making Peter or Will's salary. Not at all.
Your logic soliifies the logic I already described. It's all about supply and demand. Joe-Coder isn't worth shit and is typically replaceable. But the cream of the crop is obviously not as replacable and demand better treatment and more money. Guess what? THEY GET IT. If Will or Peter are working in a cube,it's because they _want_ to. Most of whatever they do is because they _want_ to. They are not joe-coder.
Don't make me deck you.
But is he a really poor voice actor?
Most games don't hire talented voice actors. They hire crappy, uninspired voice actors and you end up with cardboard-quality videogames.
You're confusing DESERVE with DESIRE.
You don't deserve more money just because something is harder than something else. You also don't deserve money just because you think what you do has a greater moral or societal value.
Your job is part of the capitalist system and in that system you are not paid on a scale of ethics, morality, decency or difficulty. You are paid on a scale of supply and demand. Just like your company earns more money if they provide a better product that is in high demand - you are paid more if you're a great employee who provides a service that is high in demand.
Are people in the techindustry being somewhat screwed over in general and being treated more like burger flippers than skilled knowledge-based professionals? Certainly. But saying that we're underpaid for what we do as an industry is a lot different than saying "because I make videogames, instead of making mailservers or umbrellas - I deserve to be treated more like a movie star or rock star".
And the fact is that Britney Spears is more valuable than you or I. Every super-model you can name is more valuable than you or I. There is a greater demand for hot women in advertisements and on magazines than there is for guys who can use Maya or POVRay. Period.
No, they don't deserve it. You deserve what people think you are worth. Is having big tits and smooth skin more complex and intellectually involved than designing a new car engine, writing AI for a game or performing neurosurgery?
OF COURSE NOT
However, some 16 year old with a nice rack singing in an overdubbed song (to hide her crappy voice) is going to make more money in a couple years than any of the previously mentioned people will in their lifetime.
It doesn't matter how difficult your job is. All that matters is how in demand you are. Everyone wants to design games. Game designers are everywhere. How "hard" it is has no meaning in the equation.
Yes, but the gamer doesn't know if JIM wrote the game or BOB wrote the game. But they know if Christopher Walken is doing the voice of a character or some off-the-street nobody is trying to do the voice of a Christopher Walken character.
Dont make me PACIFY you.
Or hired into management at EA.
If I were their employers, I'd just have ADP (or whoever my payroll company is) issue checks that are physically larger by about 200%. :)
That's just not true. Most people in any software project - including games - are just code monkeys. Most of them are not the guys making the creative decisions. Most of the people involved in producing a videogame are NOT a Cliffy B or a Carmack or a Will Wright. Most of them have as much to do with the design and success of a game as the cashier at the local McDonald's has with the success of that food chain.
Are skilled people important? Yes. But skilled and creative are not the same thing. And to suggest that there aren't other people who can write netcode just s well as you or make a menuing system for the game just as well as you is just silly.
Anyone who thinks that they're so irreplacable in the industry should just demand more money and quit if they don't get it. If they're so irreplacable, they'll be wooed back with whatever their demand was. Otherwise, they'll be let go and replaced with someone who has as much skill and less ego who'll be glad to be involvd.
Look, I'm sorry, but you are a programmer. Or a tech support guy. Or a project manager. Or a level designer. Whatever it is, you are producing a product. You are not a performer. In careers based on performing for people, the performer is typically the big earner above the director, manager, producer, etc.
In the rest of the business world, the guys who do the grunt work - writing code, creating levels, designing the game box, writing the game's dialogue - make peanuts and the guys who run the company and sit in conferences and board meetings and take porches to work and spend their weekends on yachts get the big bucks.
These primadonnas need to get it through their skull that they're code monkeys. They're just cubicle workers punching away on a keyboard like everyone else in the world - except the product they're creating is more fun than what most others create.
Why should some guy who writes netcode for a videogame be paid any more or differently than some guy who writes the IMAP module for a mailserver or QAs an application server or is the product manager for some sort of enterprise collaboration software? They're doing essentially the same game.
Remember, you ARE NOT A PERFORMER. You ARE NOT AN ARTIST. You ARE NOT PART OF HOLLYWOOD.
YOU are replaceable. There are a million code monkeys and always one willing to work for less than you who won't complain so much. However, there are NOT 10 Jim Careys. There are NOT 10 Vin Diesels. There are NOT 10 Elijah Woods. THEY can not be replaced, except by really poor voice actors.
I think if a person just wants a quick little 10 minute burst of entertainment, they should buy one of the countless games available that offer that kind of play. Especially on the various GameBoy platforms.
If a person wants a deep, involved game, then they should buy one of those. I mean, there's no real shortage of either style, so I don't know where he's getting this. Anyway, the average gamer probably plays at least a couple hours per sitting, so the point is moot.
As for the over all length of a game - it better be pretty fucking long or immensely replayable. I hate paying $50 to $80 for a game that I can beat in a day or a week.
As for GTA... It just proves that people are easily impressed. I'm tired of hearing people say "it's totally open-ended. You can do ANYTHING YOU WANT". No you can't. You have clear objectives, clear limitations and clear side games. Just because you can smack people around, work a taxi or an ambulance and shoot people doesn't make it "open ended". Life is open ended. Being able to pick form Sean John and Adidas clothing for my afro-haired avatar is NOT open-ended gameplay.
They shouldn't have let a woman drive in the first place. /Covers nuts.
I can see the confusion in the way the article blurb is written, but no - we're not talking about a multi-CD Knoppix. We're talking about a split, leaving us with two CDs to choose from. One, the reduced "light" version. The other, the full shebang, on one DVD.
So far, 2005 really seems to be a major year for Debian. I've been using Debian for the last four or five years and it's great to see all of these successful debian-based distros - not to mention, a new stable version of Debian (finally!).
I've known people in the last year who have talked about switching to another distro, because they had the FreeBSD fright (it's dying!) and I'm hoping this turns their attitudes around.
Ignorant? Ignorant in what respect? And no, I wasn't brought up to be thankful to someone when they point out "ignorance" in a tongue-in-cheek or clearly snyde/silly remark. Ya stupid dick.
Yes, ninewands - I'm so very grateful to you for pointing out that the Christian Science Monitor is a respected periodical. Why, I would have never guessed that, what with having it delivered to the house I grew up in for a number of years and reading it in the public library that I volunteered at for several years as a kid.
Thanks for classifying yourself as one of those in the uneducated public.
Did I say all the entire public was uneducated? No. I said the "uneducated public". What this means is that, of the entire public, there is a significant group that is uneducated. You can't deny that. This is a lot like saying "the movie-going public". Does that statement mean that the entire public goes to movies? No. It indicates that the person is speaking about that segment of the public which is movie-going.
Now, as you can probably figure out by now, I was not talking about the entire public, but rather the significant percentage of this public which is not educated and will listen to the uneducated/sensational news reports and think the world is going to end. You know - the kind of people who believe in the "new jersey devil" and have faith in the talents of Sylvia Brown and think that Saddam Hussein flew airplanes into the towers.
Have you ever actually watched a modern newscast?
Queue the quack television reporters preying on the uneducated public, scaring them to death with the suggested possibility that the planet's super-heated liquified insides might oooze out and destroy the world... OH NOES!
Then I would like to imagine mine as a giant Rosario Dawson T-Rex of Love.
I've often wondered how big a T-Rex penis would have been. Bigger than an elephant's?
I mean, I haven't often wondered about it. But I've wondered about it at least twice now.
Some frogs and fish can do this (even today), but I don't think we know of any dinosaurs that can do it. Well, maybe the Boy Georgeosaurus...
Well, what do you expect? Every story I findon Gizmodo is also on Engadget and 50 other big "tech" sites. The web is one big, gratuitous, incestuous, Caligulous orgy of informational fornication.