Video Game Developers Are Leaving The Industry And Doing Something, Anything Else - Aftermath
Video Game Developers Are Leaving The Industry And Doing Something, Anything Else - Aftermath
From line cooks to bike repairs, people who used to be video game developers are being forced to try something new
Remember, every time you read about 10, or 100, or 1000 layoffs in the video game industry, they're not cold statistics. Every one of those figures is a person. A life that has been upended, with enormous consequences for not just the individuals directly involved but their family and friends. Every single person affected by layoffs and departures has their own story to tell, their own history in the business and their own motivations for pursuing whatever comes next.
At AAA studios you can pour your heart and craft into creating something beautiful along with hundreds of other wonderful colleagues, for years, only to have it ruined by management who literally doesn't give af. Not only do they not play games, or even like games, they are proud of this fact in a sort of, "sell me this pen" type of way. These people always existed but the "financialization" of the industry means they are everywhere now. Even one of these people in the wrong place can be poison, and they are everywhere. This mutated organelle has made the entire studio system too neoplastic to perform its primary function.
It's like training for years as a chef, slaving away in a hot kitchen for the big opening, then having the owner (who hasn't cooked in decades) insist you serve your food in the toilet because "hey it's porcelain, it's the same as fine china". Then when the restaurant bombs you get fired and he gets a huge bonus because he's a genius cost cutter and you couldn't sell his vision. Nobody cares that you made the best bisque of your life when its served in a toilet. How many times can that happen before you say, "fuck it"?
Well for me it was ten years. Not laid off, but just couldn't take it anymore. I could probably get another job with my resume, but I just can't bring myself to apply again. Through a little planning and extremely good luck I'm not really under any pressure. Makes me feel like a fool because a lot of people work worse jobs, but then I remember how sad and angry I was all the time. When I look at job postings those feelings return. The problem is I still like it and want to do it. I feel forced out because I care about making good stuff instead of just "line go up". I would take a huge pay cut to work on a team that had the "magic" again.
Maybe it’s time you made your own project (if you’re up to it) :) time to serve that quality bisque in a bowl deserving of it lol besides, things will never change if we stay the route with Jack Welch-esque CEOs running the show; we need more indie devs, more small businesses, people who want to make something great because they’re passionate, or even just folks who want a sustainable future without strangling ourselves with the noose of “line must go up” mentality.
But also that’s a metric ton of work, and owning a project like that is certainly a risk to take!
And there are millions of people lining up for jobs that suck that LITTLE to work at. That is how our world functions. It chews people up and spits them out.
Funny how much we hear about it in the video game industry, but every school closure loses teachers. Every hospital lay off looses nurses. Every time capitalism grinds people into dust, those people are dust now.
This article could've been written any decade since the 1990s. It's nothing new: The big game companies haven't changed a bit and continue to exploit workers.
The only way to change things is via stronger worker protections/regulations.
The hopes, dreams, and aspirations of generations of creative people getting exploited, overworked, and underpaid because they were willing to put up with that all to chase those hopes, dreams, and aspirations, all eventually got crushed in the corpo mill, only to be replaced by the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of the next successive wave of creative people, was always working as intended.
Honestly I'd sooner starve than go back to service. Consumer crackers are not housebroken; I'm not going back to almost-literally slaving for COVID-spewing petri dishes at any fast food hellhole in my city; layoffs or no I'm staying my ass in tech as long as I can.
People are fucking assholes, I worked fast food as a kid and people would scream at me. I was 16 a literal child smh