@packrat said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:
@auspice On the plus side, from everything I hear actually working in the video game industry is absolutely horrible. It is an aspirational job, lots of people want to work for Bioware as an example. As a result? Those companies then take horrific advantage of people because they know they can get away with relatively poor wages combined with horrific working conditions and unreasonably long hours.
Hi, former professional video game developer here.
The industry is pretty awful in a lot of ways, but I will note a few things:
- It is reportedly getting better; friends who still work in the games industry say that mandatory crunch time is decreasing and horrible wages aren't quite so horrible these days.
- Unfortunately, the 'hire and dump' cycle is seemingly well and truly alive, where people get hired on to staff up a game's development, and then dropped at the end of the game as the studio downsizes back to the previous size. Of all my friends still in the industry, I think one is still at the same company they were five years ago; at least three of them have gone through three companies in that time.
- Even with all that said, there's something special about seeing people playing the game you made and enjoying it. For all that I got super burned out on the grind and decided to do other things, there was a special sort of inner glow you got watching someone play something you helped write, and watching them enjoy it. I've not encountered that many other places.
I mean, all that said, a lot of my friends are still in the industry because they love it too much to do anything else, despite the grind. So if you think it's something you'd really like, @Auspice, then go for it and give it a try!