Support NeoGAF

[Grimsen]

That 4 USD figure is daily, not hourly.

Dang, you're right. I mixed it up with the way we calculate minimum wage here in Canada (hourly)

 

[AcademicSaucer]

$2400 a year is crazy low for a programmer, I was making more than that working half time while studying in a university, and thats in South America.

 

[Mivey]

$2400 a year is crazy low for a programmer, I was making more than that working half time while studying in a university, and thats in South America.

I got paid about that much for helping a company upgrade their network and install a NAS, which bascially took me three or four weeks, was a small summer job.
Life in Mexico must be incredibly cheap if people can actually sustain themselves on that much.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

I got paid about that much for helping a company upgrade their network and install a NAS, which bascially took me three or four weeks, was a small summer job.
Life in Mexico must be incredibly cheap if people can actually sustain themselves on that much.

I'm sure you can't live well in a big Mexican city with that money, Mexico is more expensive than my country.

 

[Marche90]

^Depends. Rent costs are cheap if you know where to find them. Of course, if you go to the lowest you can go, you're going to live in terrible neighborhoods. Food and the like is cheap (you can eat with $3 usd per meal). Average cost of public transportation is less than a dollar. Everything else is expensive, at least in the eyes of the average worker.

Anyway. wow, wtf at that salary? It's abysmally low, even for our standards. Also, why did he stuck with it? If they were to pay me that low, I wouldn't touch that job with a 10-foot pole.

I'm from Mexico and my monthly salary its $35,000 pesos (around $2,100 dollars). This puts me in the medium class level and it lets me live a comfortable life with some luxuries here and there.

But, being paid $2,400 its very low even for mexican people. The lowest paid people at my work are around $2800- $4000 pesos ($100 - $200 dollars) monthly. If I am not mistaken the minimun wage its $73 pesos which its around $4 dollars.

Wow, you actually have a pretty good salary. It's pretty sad that most incomes don't even reach a 10% of that... (for the record, mine is $10,000, or USD $~550 a month. It allows me to live "well" but I don't have to pay for rent or buy food.)

 

[MikeE21286]

$2400 is absurd.

But man it's not like he didn't know the rules of engagement

 

[hollomat]

And while it's gone from Steam spy I'm pretty sure it's done very well. Like enough to support some devs at US salaries, never mind stuffing them at $2400 a year.

They probably removed it from steam spy so the people they're paying sub poverty wages to wouldn't be able to see just how rich they were getting.

 

[Xone9]

I hit mexico every year (cancun, playa del carmen)..

Its a shit show getting to your resort, but once you are on it, its awesome

I sit by the pooll with my bubba mug and I pay $20 a day to my waitress to bring me daquari refills all day (all inclusive baby).

They basically work on tips, she said the hourly salary is less than a dollar.

 

[ReBurn]

Was this person a developer? I'm not sure what s media director does.

 

[s_mirage]

Woah. Is there any timeline of events for how this game even came to be? This is NOT the type of game you expect to come out of this situation.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/4i1qzu/the_indie_game_developer_behind_kerbal_space/d2uidc6

According to that, the guy who started Kerbal was going to leave Squad to make it, but doing so would have badly hurt the company. Instead, they persuaded him to finish the work he was doing for them in exchange for six months to work on the game.

I agree with some of the above posts; it's all very well saying that the wages in Mexico are low, but this has been sold worldwide. Based on the steamspy data from prior to Squad having it removed, it had sold over a million copies on Steam alone. The owners of Squad are making bank while they're short changing, and treating poorly, the people who are actually making the game.

 

[Aureon]

Reminder that KSP sold over a million copies at $20+, even if they asked to be taken off steamspy.

 

[AcademicSaucer]

I wonder if NASA and the European space agency care about this , they have a partnership with them after all.

 

[GodofWine]

I agree with some of the above posts; it's all very well saying that the wages in Mexico are low, but this has been sold worldwide.

You pay wages based on where workers are located, not where the product is sold, in all industries, everywhere.. This is why we buy Iphones and Fords made by cheap foreign labor for no less than what we would have paid had they been made by 'expensive' US labor. There is a price people are willing to pay for goods, be it $30K for a car, or $30 for a game, the company that makes them wants to increase the variance between cost to make it, and the cost to sell it.

Only the people at the top benefit, no savings are passed onto consumers. Squad did nothing different.

 

[Keihart]

And to think that i wanted to buy the game soon with the PS4 release and all.
Not buying it any time soon now.

 

[MANUELF]

I'm from Mexico and my monthly salary its $35,000 pesos (around $2,100 dollars). This puts me in the medium class level and it lets me live a comfortable life with some luxuries here and there.

But, being paid $2,400 its very low even for mexican people. The lowest paid people at my work are around $2800- $4000 pesos ($100 - $200 dollars) monthly. If I am not mistaken the minimun wage its $73 pesos which its around $4 dollars.

Are you a politic or the CEO of a big company? That salary definitely put you on the high class

OT: salaries in mexico are very low but even so for a programming job those are wayyy too little

 

[s_mirage]

Only the people at the top benefit, no savings are passed onto consumers. Squad did nothing different.

They were paying non-Mexican staff a pittance too it seems.

They obviously aren't too comfortable about something, seeing as they didn't want the sales numbers to be public. Most developers are happy to shout from the rooftops when their products sell well, but Squad have been quite the opposite.

Even factoring in the lower wages in Mexico, they appear to be paying their staff a below average salary. AFAIK, developers are usually paid significantly above average wages, which raises the distinct possibility that the owners of Squad may be exploiting their workers in order to line their own pockets/fund their own pet projects. Yes, the situation's not unique, but it's still pretty gross whenever it happens.

 

[MCN]

Person who got fired is pissed off at company who fired him.

I'm going to need to hear the other side of the story.

 

[Valkyr1983]

Excited for the upcoming PS4 port!

Giant bomb guys always made this game look so fun

 

[OnionPowder]

Person who got fired is pissed off at company who fired him.

I'm going to need to hear the other side of the story.

Being very very fair with how much money is made post tax and steam cut at $8.40 per sale, this persons yearly salary was the equivalent to 285 sales out of a million plus selling game

There really is no excuse for that.

 

[pixelpatch]

why is it always the disgruntled ones that left? Maybe they're just bitter? I dont know... maybe they are right/maybe they're not

 

[Neospartan]

Are you a politic or the CEO of a big company? That salary definitely put you on the high class

OT: salaries in mexico are very low but even so for a programming job those are wayyy too little

Uuhh, no. Politicians make upwards of 100,000 MXN monthly, and I have no idea how much CEOs make, but a CEO of a big company surely makes way more than 35,000 MXN a month.

 

[OnionPowder]

why is it always the disgruntled ones that left? Maybe they're just bitter? I dont know... maybe they are right/maybe they're not

If you werent disgruntled about being treated like shit why would you have to come out and talk about being treated like shit?

Nobody is happy after leaving a company and being treated like shit

 

[Acinixys]

Its not just Mexico... many countries round the world minimum wage is that or less.

And when people say well, living costs are lower... hell no... the cost of many things are the same all over the world.

Average minimum wage in my country is R16 an hour

Thats $1,12 per hour

So if you work 8 hours a day 5 days a week you are getting $45 a week

Welcome to the 3rd world boys and girls

 

[DrBo42]

Average minimum wage in my country is R16 an hour

Thats $1,12 per hour

So if you work 8 hours a day 5 days a week you are getting $45 a week

Welcome to the 3rd world boys and girls

What's the cost of living in comparison?

 

[Glix]

I think that's just the way the industry works, for better or worse.

You get canned when you're done, and wages were probably commensurate with cost of living. Shame about the OT, but it's the nature of the beast.

Sure but it all depends on what they were told and how they were hired. If you are hiring someone just for the building of a game, the morally correct thing to do is let them know that up front.

In fact, is it illegal to hire someone for contract work like that under the guise of full time employment if you know up front that you have no actual plans to keep them employed for more than the duration of the project?