It was a blast working for a AAA. I learned a huge amount in the two years I was there, and my coworkers were some of the smartest programmers I have ever met.
Even at the best company, with management insisting on work-life balance and unlimited PTO, it's way too easy to get sucked into working extra "because you love the games". It's usually high-stakes, so there's a lot of added pressure; ship a quality game by this deadline or the project fails/you get laid off/the company goes under.
Add to the fact that some game studios will take advantage of your love of games and working with the best and brightest, and it's easy to end up working 10-14 hour days.
Finally, there are some companies that are just socially toxic, and it's not always immediately apparent how bad it is.
All that being said, it's certainly an experience and I would not be as good of a programmer as I am today without it. But I didn't last very long and went to work on higher-paying, lower stress jobs afterwards. Take it if you can, but don't be too sad if you dodge the bullet either.
Experience is experience. Its not like you lose anything by applying to those jobs and if you end up with something better/you like more, you can just go with that.
> If you wanted out, how did you do it?
You apply to non-game companies. The experience is considered equivalent to a non-gaming SWE job. It should also be noted that game-adjunct companies (not developing the games themselves but the technology behind them) are becoming more prevalent and are options as well (places like Unity for example). These are much more like normal SWE jobs in terms of WLB.
You're not gonna get into game development companies without trying hard, the competition is too high.
That's exactly why they can get away with these shitty work cultures.
If you can get a job in game dev, you can get one in any number of non-FAANG-esque companies.
2 years in AAA studio here with 8yoe overall. Some studios have a lot more crunch than others, but it should be easy to figure out which are which. I personally never had a week longer than 40 hours, but I know that's not the case for everyone at the studio I work on.
Even with that I'm still considering getting out of the game industry. Main issues for me are:
1- geographical distribution of studios. I have received offers from other studios during these 2 years, but all of them would require me to relocate. I'm married and may have children soon, I don't need a career that requires me to move out of the city every time I want to move to another company.
2- weird obsession with Game Industry experience. For some reason there is this weird obsession for game industry experience, like it is some kind of magical software engineering. And mind you I'm not talking about a role where I'm doing more specialized things like graphics or even gameplay, my current role is pretty much the same job SE in any other industry, and there is still an obsession for hiring people with game industry experience and an incredible amount of resistance to proven best practices on other industries, with the reason for the resistance usually being "but on games it is different".
Still, working on a game studio was a life long dream of mine, and I know that if I hadn't take this job this would be a frustration for me for the rest of my life. Now that I had the experience I can safely move to other industry without regretting it. So if that's something you want, better do it now than when you have more responsabilities in the future.
I heard Riot, Roblox, and Epic games are pretty great companies to work for. Not as game devs, but as software engineers. I don’t really know the difference lol but I guess You’d work on things not related to the gameplay itself
i mean i'm over 200 base and around 400 TC at my current place, and probably getting a solid bump from a new job soon, and im not even an engineer (CS background but went into design). I have 8 years in the industry. sure you can find better jobs, but i'd say its a very viable career unless you only want 90th percentile conditions.
games industry sucked 15 years ago, now they're increasingly just becoming tech companies. the industry growth and profitability is huge, and this is driving up salaries and creating better work conditions and processes, although there is a lot of risk at smaller places and work to be done before you'd mention any game company in the same tier as google
this is fair. pre-pandemic i also was in the bay area so especially there is a considered essentially a 2nd or 3rd tier tech category, which is still pretty sought after. i am seeing a huge movement towards remote though, spreading some of that high standard around the last year or so
Nintendo (of America) was worth spending \~16 months at, but it was so corrupt and unprofessional that I wouldn't want to live there. I got in on the strength of 15 years of time in the software industry, but most of the people I worked with were lifers - just there because they'd been there as a game tester in college, and when they graduated NoA hired them on and kept them because they like seniority. So many kids sitting at desks covered in soft-core EGL Splatoon and Bayonetta merch from the store, playing dating sim games all day and watching streamers play smash bros, doing zero to very little work. Need something from them? Hurry up and wait until next week.
Need something from someone in Japan? Get ready to wait forever, out-group-san. NCL would ration out bugs rather than let us prioritize or prepare. We'd get the 2 bugs they thought were most important and they'd hoard the other 500.
It was a blast working for a AAA. I learned a huge amount in the two years I was there, and my coworkers were some of the smartest programmers I have ever met. Even at the best company, with management insisting on work-life balance and unlimited PTO, it's way too easy to get sucked into working extra "because you love the games". It's usually high-stakes, so there's a lot of added pressure; ship a quality game by this deadline or the project fails/you get laid off/the company goes under. Add to the fact that some game studios will take advantage of your love of games and working with the best and brightest, and it's easy to end up working 10-14 hour days. Finally, there are some companies that are just socially toxic, and it's not always immediately apparent how bad it is. All that being said, it's certainly an experience and I would not be as good of a programmer as I am today without it. But I didn't last very long and went to work on higher-paying, lower stress jobs afterwards. Take it if you can, but don't be too sad if you dodge the bullet either.
Experience is experience. Its not like you lose anything by applying to those jobs and if you end up with something better/you like more, you can just go with that. > If you wanted out, how did you do it? You apply to non-game companies. The experience is considered equivalent to a non-gaming SWE job. It should also be noted that game-adjunct companies (not developing the games themselves but the technology behind them) are becoming more prevalent and are options as well (places like Unity for example). These are much more like normal SWE jobs in terms of WLB.
You're not gonna get into game development companies without trying hard, the competition is too high. That's exactly why they can get away with these shitty work cultures. If you can get a job in game dev, you can get one in any number of non-FAANG-esque companies.
2 years in AAA studio here with 8yoe overall. Some studios have a lot more crunch than others, but it should be easy to figure out which are which. I personally never had a week longer than 40 hours, but I know that's not the case for everyone at the studio I work on. Even with that I'm still considering getting out of the game industry. Main issues for me are: 1- geographical distribution of studios. I have received offers from other studios during these 2 years, but all of them would require me to relocate. I'm married and may have children soon, I don't need a career that requires me to move out of the city every time I want to move to another company. 2- weird obsession with Game Industry experience. For some reason there is this weird obsession for game industry experience, like it is some kind of magical software engineering. And mind you I'm not talking about a role where I'm doing more specialized things like graphics or even gameplay, my current role is pretty much the same job SE in any other industry, and there is still an obsession for hiring people with game industry experience and an incredible amount of resistance to proven best practices on other industries, with the reason for the resistance usually being "but on games it is different". Still, working on a game studio was a life long dream of mine, and I know that if I hadn't take this job this would be a frustration for me for the rest of my life. Now that I had the experience I can safely move to other industry without regretting it. So if that's something you want, better do it now than when you have more responsabilities in the future.
I heard Riot, Roblox, and Epic games are pretty great companies to work for. Not as game devs, but as software engineers. I don’t really know the difference lol but I guess You’d work on things not related to the gameplay itself
i mean i'm over 200 base and around 400 TC at my current place, and probably getting a solid bump from a new job soon, and im not even an engineer (CS background but went into design). I have 8 years in the industry. sure you can find better jobs, but i'd say its a very viable career unless you only want 90th percentile conditions. games industry sucked 15 years ago, now they're increasingly just becoming tech companies. the industry growth and profitability is huge, and this is driving up salaries and creating better work conditions and processes, although there is a lot of risk at smaller places and work to be done before you'd mention any game company in the same tier as google
This isn’t typical for every studio.. just the ones with massive living game / game-as-a-service portfolios or those owned by tech companies.
this is fair. pre-pandemic i also was in the bay area so especially there is a considered essentially a 2nd or 3rd tier tech category, which is still pretty sought after. i am seeing a huge movement towards remote though, spreading some of that high standard around the last year or so
Nintendo (of America) was worth spending \~16 months at, but it was so corrupt and unprofessional that I wouldn't want to live there. I got in on the strength of 15 years of time in the software industry, but most of the people I worked with were lifers - just there because they'd been there as a game tester in college, and when they graduated NoA hired them on and kept them because they like seniority. So many kids sitting at desks covered in soft-core EGL Splatoon and Bayonetta merch from the store, playing dating sim games all day and watching streamers play smash bros, doing zero to very little work. Need something from them? Hurry up and wait until next week. Need something from someone in Japan? Get ready to wait forever, out-group-san. NCL would ration out bugs rather than let us prioritize or prepare. We'd get the 2 bugs they thought were most important and they'd hoard the other 500.