UnemployedVillain
Member
I'm going to guess you don't live in the US
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$12 per hour the norm for entry-level video game industry positions (@GungHo Online)?
- Thread starter kyoya
- Start date
I'm going to guess you don't live in the US
MysteryQuesadilla
Member
And hey, those scrumptious snacks!
Someone already corrected the math, but I don't see software dev anywhere in the job descriptions.
Wage is pretty common for non-development related positions. Development tends to start much higher (but still lower than what you get paid at equivalent non-gaming companies).
Captain Tuttle
Member
Man, I run an operation that's Union and new, unskilled laborer positions start at $18.11 and that includes benefits paid 100%. Ends up being about $28/hr. You don't even need a high school diploma.
For what it's worth this is in the Philadelphia suburbs
For what it's worth this is in the Philadelphia suburbs
SuperSonic1305
Member
Damn Europeans with their month long vacations and 3 hour lunch breaks.
Reading those requirements really pisses me off when I see the pay. There's no way you could survive in California on $12 an hour. That pay wouldn't even cover the cost of paying back your student loans for the bachelors degree they require. I feel sorry for anyone that has to take one of those positions.
Lord of Ostia
Member
Yeesh, I make more than that in a non-librarian position at a public library...and I haven't even graduated yet. And they want someone who is bilingual? All the Japanese-speaking friends I have would never accept pay that low, especially in California. It's nice that they give insurance and a 401k, but that doesn't help much if you can't afford rent or food...
InfiniteUnrest
Member
Even in areas with a much lower cost of living than California, $12/hr is very low for any job requiring or preferring a Bachelor's degree (though I suppose with the latter, if you don't have a Bachelor's degree, 12/hr is a bit more justifiable in areas with lower cost of living, but not in California). You didn't go to school for 4 hours to earn $12/hr, nor would you even need to.
As for PTO, 20 days is close to standard for the US from what I've experience, even a tad higher than most of what I've seen offered. Usually you start out with around 15-18 days, with varying breakdowns of whether there is a distinction between vacation/sick/personal or not, and how much of each type can be taken, and this does not include holidays which would be separate and usually account for 5-6 more PTO days (Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Memorial, Labor).
As for PTO, 20 days is close to standard for the US from what I've experience, even a tad higher than most of what I've seen offered. Usually you start out with around 15-18 days, with varying breakdowns of whether there is a distinction between vacation/sick/personal or not, and how much of each type can be taken, and this does not include holidays which would be separate and usually account for 5-6 more PTO days (Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, Memorial, Labor).
Aces&Eights
Member
12 an hour for a person with student loans, rent, food bills, transportaton costs, etc is abysmal. Also, how decent is the medical insurance. Sure, you might have coverage....with a 5k deductible for everything.
AcademicSaucer
Member
Yeah , that sound crazy, if you are sick you are sick, what are you supposed to do?
schwabdizzle
Banned
Thats what I started out at doing IT helpdesk while in college to be fair.
Mechanized
Member
What would be the day to day actual work for one of those positions? I find recruiting documents to be pretty hilarious with all the requirements and things they ask for when your job could just be telling angry people you'll send a message to the team and hopefully we'll have a fix soon.
Take the day off and not get paid.
Okay so $12/hr entry level is actually okay. Its ~$480 a week, ~$25k a year before taxes etc.
However, 100% paid health insurance is not to be dismissed. For me that equates to roughly $300 month back in pocket. Let that sink in. Depending on your health plan thats great.
Free Gym acces is worth about $30 a month. My employer asks you to pay for that even though we own the gym.
10 vacation days and 5 personal days?
Awesome. My first year in an entry level job I got 0 vacation and 2 personal. Now we offer new hires roughly 7 days of vacation to start.
So just to give you a point of reference, my company will hire new college grads for our retail store training program at roughly $43K a year to start. Mandatory 44 hours worked a week, more OT is available but rare. Its sales and there are bonuses but the demands are higher. You have to make sales calls, you are customer facing and deal with the public, you may have to work later retail hours and or weekends. We dont have as generous of an insurance program but our 401k ranks in the tops in almost all companies.
So yeah we pay you more upfront but you dont get nearly as many perks and you have a lot more responsibility and you will be doing a lot more hard work. Seriously, Management trainees become assistants at first and those are the backbone of our stores and they get grinded on hard. If you stand out you get rewarded but it definitely grinds a lot of folks down.
So reading this job description it sounds like a pretty cushy job relativley speaking. It sucks because cost of living is so high in CA, but get some roommates, share a place, save, prove yourself and work up. Realize too the value in that insurance plan and put as much as you can afford to in 401k- just put it in an index fund.
Its not amazing starting pay but honestly it doesnt sound like too much is being asked of you either. It allows the company to bring people with less risk to the company and weed out the bad ones and promote the good ones.
CosmicQueso
Member
2014 Gamasutra Salary Survey (latest I could find)
More at link.
Not sure how one shit $12/hr job being posted has somehow transitioned into all jobs in gaming and in America being shit, but hey, that's the internet for you.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
you don't make a billion dollars by paying expensive salaries
Glass Shark
Banned
That's low for a full-time position in any industry. That's pretty much what you'd pay a temp or an intern.
Gunmonkey36
Member
Pretty sure my place of employment pays our interns $12/hr. This is basically full time intern level(intern pay + benefits.)
shaowebb
Member
If its better in other countries then I'd go back into the field and leave America behind. Sadly with the economics of game development and pricing I dont think it could be too much different could it?
LOL...assuming game development interns get PAID most times. I know of a couple of places that used unpaid interns and that was it. They just rotated them out every season and paid everyone in experience and pocketed the profits for the core team. About 80% of their shit was developed for free. Quality was a crapshoot but the output was high and overhead were low so they are still in business. No I am not allowed due to NDA to disclose who.
Robert at Zeboyd Games
Banned
It's an entry level community manager position who might help proofread translated scripts in their downtime. Yeah, the pay is low (especially for California), but it's going to be much more enjoyable work than your typical minimal wage job and there's better chances of advancement (if not in this company, then in another since community managers are always needed).
The requirements are basically "Graduate college, like anime & video games, and be Internet-savvy."
The requirements are basically "Graduate college, like anime & video games, and be Internet-savvy."
Golgo 13
The Man With The Golden Dong
This. Studies have shown that you need to make about $50,000/year to scrape by (70-100k in above average communities), where I live in California (San Diego). Some fast food establishments pay more than this.
No one can live on $12 hour here, that's just table scraps.
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
I wanted the entry level averages from the survey more than anything. The low end of the scale for certain positions can definitely be pretty bad.
And yeah, overall on the mid to senior levels gaming pay isn't shit, but it isn't necessarily competitive either. Some companies pay below market value for even senior positions.
PepsimanVsJoe
Member
Yeesh. If Gungho isn't paying well for these positions, I can't imagine how little some of the guys I talk to are making.
CosmicQueso
Member
Well all that is in the PDF at the link.
As in any industry, some places pay well, some pay horribly, and a bunch are in the middle.
QA with a High School/GED degree is $54k average in the US, but they didn't get enough respondents to show average with <3 years experience. However, the average for a QA job in Canada is $37k, and in EUR $28k.
So.
XiaNaphryz
LATIN, MATRIPEDICABUS, DO YOU SPEAK IT
Yeah, the US number for QA is definitely skewed to the more senior positions which would include leads and supervisors. I think it also includes overtime and bonuses in the averages? I'll check the PDF when I get in the office. On a "good" year when I was a QA lead 11-12 years ago I would be near that 54k average if you included OT and a bonus.
schaft0620
Member
$12 an hour sounds like a great deal compared to making $30,000/year and working 80 hours a week. Can you imagine crunching to reach a deadline on a software launch on $30k/year?
radioactivez0r
Member
I think most of the problem is the big gap between the job description and the job qualifications.
Also, it seems to be needed in every thread about differences between states, but California is bigger than just LA and SF. Cost of living varies wildly, but it's true that in LA that's really not feasible at all.
Also, it seems to be needed in every thread about differences between states, but California is bigger than just LA and SF. Cost of living varies wildly, but it's true that in LA that's really not feasible at all.
Working 40h/week, it's 1920$ pre-tax. While not earth shattering, it's not very low either. There's a catch though: jobs paying by the hour are likely not going to give a full time work week.
Always go for jobs which pay a normal salary based on a work month, so you have a solid base of income and know what you're dealing with. Besides that, the rest is pretty crap, if you consider EU standards.
Always go for jobs which pay a normal salary based on a work month, so you have a solid base of income and know what you're dealing with. Besides that, the rest is pretty crap, if you consider EU standards.
ScatheZombie
Member
Yes. They are both low-level community manager positions - those are usually < $15/hour. QA generally gets paid the same or even less. Entry level developers are usually $35-$40k a year - in California.
When I started, I made $15/hr as QA and $45k as a developer - in the Bay Area. And that was slightly higher than the starting pay of a notable AAA developer/publisher in the building across the street.
Game industry pay is definitely fucked. There's usually threshold within the company where people start making buckets of money (for example; I worked at a company where Associate Designers were paid between $30-$45k, Staff Designers were paid between $45k-$65k, Senior Designers were paid between $55k-$80k, Lead Designers made between $80k-$120k, and then Directors were paid $250k+; those are job titles in direct report order). This was in Orange County.
It might sound like a lot of money if you live in somewhere like Iowa. But in the Bay Area/Orange County, even Leads can't afford to buy a house on their own income. Pretty much everyone rents tiny-ass apartments or a house with like 4+ roommates. It's one of the big reasons, along with the hours, that game development isn't conducive with an active family life.
There's also a distinction between QA testing and QA engineering. Business software development usually opts for hiring QA Engineers - individuals with Software Engineering degrees that understand code, automation, scripting, etc. They get paid slightly less than a programmer would ($50k-$80k a year). Game development companies hire QA Testers - individuals whose only requirement is to have a pulse and not spew obscenities during the interview. They get paid anything from minimum wage to maybe $15/hr at the higher levels.
And that's usually a distinction at lot of salary tracking websites/reports fail to make.
Official community manager positions are never unpaid. What you are thinking of is a "Community Volunteer" - who is basically just a forum moderator. They get 'paid' in free accounts/game currency/swag - but they aren't employees of the company. They don't have an employment contract, they just sign an NDA.
Blizzard is notorious for low pay for non-Lead development positions and lower. AAA studios don't really pay any better than anyone else.
Schattendorfer
Neo Member
If you're actually sick and don't have anymore sick time then depending on the company, it'd get pulled from either your personal days or vacation time.[/QUOTE]
Just a little follow-up question for me and my european friend from above.
When all your days are used and you still get sick, does this mean you get fired or just not paid. So let´s say Dark Souls comes out and I have the money could I take 5 "sick days" and just don´t get paid or will I get fired.
In my country I get a doctors note just by calling in his office and say that i am sick and I can pick up my note after my "recovery". How is this handled in the U.S.
Is it hard to get a doctors note for the sick days.
Just a little follow-up question for me and my european friend from above.
When all your days are used and you still get sick, does this mean you get fired or just not paid. So let´s say Dark Souls comes out and I have the money could I take 5 "sick days" and just don´t get paid or will I get fired.
In my country I get a doctors note just by calling in his office and say that i am sick and I can pick up my note after my "recovery". How is this handled in the U.S.
Is it hard to get a doctors note for the sick days.
potatohead
Member
That's not just the games industry lol.
The whole of USA has wage problems. With and without bachelor's.
Sheriff_Battlesnake
Banned
i got 0 my first year. it was poops.
CosmicQueso
Member
Depending on your insurance (or lack thereof) the cost for the doctor visit to get a note for sick days could make the idea of getting a doctor's note for being sick for Dark Souls unappealing.
ScatheZombie
Member
You start getting unpaid time off or negative PTO, depending on the company. Negative PTO must be earned back before you start getting PTO days again and if you leave the company for any reason with a negative PTO balance; you literally owe them money.
Unpaid time off and negative PTO balance won't get you fired outright (usually), but people who get that far are usually at the top of the firing/layoff list.
Some companies require you have doctor's notes for all sick time, including your actual sick days. Some only require it for unpaid sick days. Some don't require it at all.
Dr. Black Jack
Member
Costco starts at $13 and has PART-TIME benefits way, way better than those. You could be an eighteen-year-old HS graduate and start out making more money/having better benefits than someone starting at GungHo with their BA who is bilingual. Yeah, no.
witchedwiz
Member
3 hours?
1 hour ok.. more? meh :X
koji kabuto
Member
How much you make is related to your responsibilities.
Don't expect much from entry jobs.
Don't expect much from entry jobs.
PdotMichael
Banned
High risk, low profit industry which can only live because of all the naive people.
Already Torn
Banned
That's at worst pretty decent for an entry level job, especially one that you don't need a lot of schooling for.
Im guessing this has both better hours and is more fulfilling that the Costo job, with more opportunities for advancement. Toll both operators get paid a lot because it's a fucking miserable job.
Costco starts at $13 and has PART-TIME benefits way, way better than those. You could be an eighteen-year-old HS graduate and start out making more money/having better benefits than someone starting at GungHo with their BA who is bilingual. Yeah, no.
Question for people that work in the industry, is it worth the low pay/ extra hours and other bullshit typically associated with working in games?
Done software development and currently doing integration consulting stuff, not the funnest jobs around but the pay is great and I rarely work over 40 hours a week. I just play games after work, or on the weekend, don't feel like I'm 'missing out' not working in games.
Done software development and currently doing integration consulting stuff, not the funnest jobs around but the pay is great and I rarely work over 40 hours a week. I just play games after work, or on the weekend, don't feel like I'm 'missing out' not working in games.
As far as I can tell, the word "passion" when used in a recruiting context just means "willingness to be horribly abused by your employer and thank them for it."
Messofanego
Banned
Didn't you used to work at ILM? What was the salary there?
My girlfriend works for Costco. If you stick it out and put in your time, you can get into management and make $80K+ per year. More for the top-level store managers and into corporate. As far as in-store management, a degree isn't necessary.