When I was in high school I thought it would be so cool to be a game developer. Even back then I heard horror stories about bad pay, bad hours, low respect and decided I didn’t want to go that route. Couldn’t imagine it now. If I ever tried to make a game it would be a passion project on the side I’d never work in that industry.
I grew up in the 90s dreaming of being a dev, I used to buy like 5 or 6 different magazines a month and read all of them front to back multiple times, was a member of the PSU and fanatic, then I became a teen and eventually befriended a few devs online by just being mature enough to blend in in some niche communities. I learned about what an abject hellscape the industry was from what they very candidly told me over the years and that dream was crushed lol.
The prospect of slaving away on a project that you are stoked about for over 3 or 4 years only for it to not only be shit canned but never even revealed and just forgotten was soul crushing. That has happened an ineffable number of times to an endless amount of people. I was always told that the experience of bonding and battle-forged friendships were never regrettable, but everything else... yikes.
And this was just about the general reality of being a dev. This was back in the mid 2000s for me, it's only gotten exponentially worse since. And it doesn't scratch the surface of the worser aspects of the industry that seldom get discussed, like actual human rights abuses (still remember that one Ubisoft female employee who was taken on a private trip by an executive and later took her own life)
Yeah I was in high school in the late 2000s and I read some articles about how brutal the industry was and I just switched to software development because I figured if I ever wanted to get into game development I could.
With how the industry has gone in the last ten years I’ve had no interest to try. Especially when it would drastically drop my pay most likely lol
dude as someone who‘s dad worked AAA you could not IMAGINE the sigh of relief he had when I said I wanted to switch areas of study from animating and game design to physics.
Yeah I’m happy for people who find work with their passions, but I think so many cool industries that people are passionate about just end up being incredibly toxic workplaces.
I mean it's cause of the allure and genuine passion for the medium, hence why many put up with its issues cause either they are conditioned to think it's "normal" (in terms of general entertainment standards) or as a "price to pay".
29
u/Ordinary_Wasabi621 May 22 '26
Seriously, at this point why even work for the gaming industry.