The real question is: are they changing the deadlines? Studio already suffer from crunch and all the meetings you had on Friday are now spread throughout the week
Exactly. I don't work in the video-game industry, but the local (Québec) programmer scene is pretty small and information travels fast.
I've been told by people that work there that the employer already pays the equivalent of a 4 day week and that many employees are quitting now that WFH has opened up the market.
My personal understanding is that instead of increasing the pay, they are betting that by cutting a day, people will stay and keep the same level of crunch time.
How's the option package?
A credible company will have most employees in the core business getting the majority of their revenue from the stock performance. Switching to 4 days a week should lower the number of release they can have per year...
In my time in that industry the only bonus/non-salary compensation I ever saw was a $20 Starbucks gift card for pulling a 90hr week before a major demo deadline.
On an annual basis some internships are better paid. Where do these folks hire?
People do it out of passion, I guess. It’s funny too because the work is usually significantly harder than the much better paid start-up/SaaS jobs.
Everyone has college degrees, there’s no C++ bootcamp grads
I went to a school which was well-known for its game dev degree so I know dozens of people in the industry (mostly everyone works at Ubisoft) but opted out myself because the pay was way too low
Tons of fun problems and passionate people but the industry is an absolute meat grinder. Last I looked at the statistics median industry career length was ~3 years.
I could look into remote work but I am quite confortable where I am. I love the 35 hours workweek, the 21 days of paid time off, the week and a half around Christmas, my private office with a marble window sills (that I will use only 2 days a week when the telework plan is finally officialized) , the 7 minutes commute, the low cost of life and my beer aficionado colleagues.
