Development cost for (AAA game) Gears of War 2 revealed...

[Wild-Factor]

@n0mad

I don’t know, I found coding dayjob to be hard the first 6 monthes, but once you swallowed the procedure and framework, it’s just 50% of refactoring.
You can’t refactor art, on the other hand, it just pops on every watcher’s eyes if some graphics are being re-used, and people are 10 times less forgiving about refactored graphics than with refactored code.
Also, graphics requires sensitivity, which is so different from graphist to graphist that when you want a precise style, you can’t just hire the average joe. While on coding, you rarely need a “precise style of coding”, and any “just good enough” coder would fit the job, aside from the purely technical aspect of the 2 disciplines

But I feel it’s a sensible subject that can turn to a Windows/Macintosh level flamewar, so I will shut up now

You only code the first 6 month, well your game should be very static
And good luck with you average joe coder. Don’t be afraid to have a buggy Game, with a lot of instatisfied customer, and double your developpement times

After each game the techno evolve and you need to do better than the previous one.

It need longer studies (studies are not free) to become a good programmer than an artist.
Game coder are a lot less pleasant job than graphist, and you have a lot more pressure.

More studies, less pleasant job, more stress → you are paid more. That’s totally fair.

A graphist with the same experience/study than a programmer are usually paid the same amount.
A technical artist are usually well paid.
A DA is usually paid as much and some times more than a DT.
I saw some graphiste that have 5 years diploma on a good formation being more paid than the average junior programmer with 5 years diploma.

If you think it’s easy to be a programmer and you are paid more, why don’t you do this ?
Surely because it’s not fun for you, and it’s probably not fun for most people.
→ paid more if you want to find people doing something less fun

Sorry but all this non sens about coder that don’t deserve their salaries are just stupid (And insulting…).

Back to the topic:
Like every project, you have a core team, but in the last months of the project, you can easily double or triple the amount of people involved.

Assassin creed: Between the 1 and the 2, they went from 100 developpers to more than 200, and that increased the total budget of only 25%…
Marketing budget are usually bigger than developpement cost on a AAA title.

On our last title we went from 30 to 55 during the last 6 months.

[anon_31190448]

@Dreamora

Art requires a lot of knowledge yeah but not as much as coding, as low level, per hardware component based knowledge is a major pain. That would be as if you were forced to learn XSI, Houdini, Max and Maya to do your work, which definitely isn’t gonna happen.

Also its easier to learn art than programming cause being creative and creating good art can be trained, but if you are too stupid for complex math and logical thinking you will just not stand a chance to get there, no matter how long you hammer your head …

Also don’t forget that subpar graphics can be accepted to ship the game, but subpar code won’t pass Q&A which means the requirement and dedication for over hours is expected to be higher on the engineering side than the artist side (some companies have unrealistic hopes on the art side too and found enough stupid staff to push through with 6 months of 7 days of 12h crunch work from artists without paying for it, but thats a decision of the artist, if he has that little self esteme that he assumes to get no job outside of it at all)

and last but not least: artists have multiple fields and thus just exist in much larger numbers than programmers for the field in question (business programmers don’t do game programming as their background is widely different enough to make them bad choices, aside of the fact that they have no interest normally to get worse contracts and payments at longer hours and more slave contracts ;)) aka its just a demand vs availability question here on who is payed more.

I’m guessing you’ve never worked on a big game with a big team. You’d find yourself very much alone with your views in any studio where people respected one another, and you’d have a very different view on what constitutes shippable product. I know many technical artists who’d laugh you out of the pub on a Friday night.

I was going to say more, but n0mad has put it succinctly enough in his posts. Some of the finest programmers I know are artists who learned to program exclusively, because of the shit artists take, and because their job is WAY more complicated than coding. There’s no framework, reference wiki or sample code for creativity, and this is reflected in the number of artists required to put together blockbuster titles. They’re not there because they’re a dime-a-dozen, they’re there because it’s a lot of work, and it has to be done by hand, not via macros, cut pasting code, and existing framework calls.

Also, marketing budgets are usually much higher than development budgets; tens of millions is not at all uncommon. This is also a well-known fact in the games business.

[galent]

@Phil W

I’m guessing you’ve never worked on a big game with a big team. You’d find yourself very much alone with your views in any studio where people respected one another, and you’d have a very different view on what constitutes shippable product. I know many technical artists who’d laugh you out of the pub on a Friday night.

I was going to say more, but n0mad has put it succinctly enough in his posts. Some of the finest programmers I know are artists who learned to program exclusively, because of the shit artists take, and because their job is WAY more complicated than coding. There’s no framework, reference wiki or sample code for creativity, and this is reflected in the number of artists required to put together blockbuster titles. They’re not there because they’re a dime-a-dozen, they’re there because it’s a lot of work, and it has to be done by hand, not via macros, cut pasting code, and existing framework calls.

Also, marketing budgets are usually much higher than development budgets; tens of millions is not at all uncommon. This is also a well-known fact in the games business.

Hmm, well, both artists and developers are required in the current market. How skilled each has to be does vary some depending on target genre and platform. Photo-realism, common in FPS, places high demand on both artists and developers, i would argue angry birds places more emphasis on cross-platform development than artists (but don’t tell Rovio ) .

Interestingly I just talked with the owner of a major outsource company last week, and she told me they have a harder time with good coders. She and her producers claimed it took a full year for their new coders to be fully functional, whereas graphics folks could come to speed in a couple months.

Can’t say what the H*ll they’re doing that would cause such a learning curve. I told her the last time anyone quoted me 1 yr to learn was an internal IBM low level language used to create the OS to Machine layer in mid-range computers. Now, I know they’re an “old school” body shop, so they nab the kids right out of college most times (and I haven’t worked with young people in a LONG time), so perhaps they’re not really doing anything over the top, so much as it’s just new coders learning to work outside school in general.

Oh, and yes, the marketing budget often exceeds the cost of development (however, in a sustained online world, like MMO, post-go live operations costs run 76% annually over the dev costs (so if you spend 10MM on dev, expect 31.67MM operations costs annually (assuming your game is successful).)

Cheers,

Galen

[anon_31190448]

@galent

Hmm, well, both artists and developers are required in the current market. How skilled each has to be does vary some depending on target genre and platform. Photo-realism, common in FPS, places high demand on both artists and developers, i would argue angry birds places more emphasis on cross-platform development than artists (but don’t tell Rovio ) .

Interestingly I just talked with the owner of a major outsource company last week, and she told me they have a harder time with good coders. She and her producers claimed it took a full year for their new coders to be fully functional, whereas graphics folks could come to speed in a couple months.

Can’t say what the H*ll they’re doing that would cause such a learning curve. I told her the last time anyone quoted me 1 yr to learn was an internal IBM low level language used to create the OS to Machine layer in mid-range computers. Now, I know they’re an “old school” body shop, so they nab the kids right out of college most times (and I haven’t worked with young people in a LONG time), so perhaps they’re not really doing anything over the top, so much as it’s just new coders learning to work outside school in general.

Oh, and yes, the marketing budget often exceeds the cost of development (however, in a sustained online world, like MMO, post-go live operations costs run 76% annually over the dev costs (so if you spend 10MM on dev, expect 31.67MM operations costs annually (assuming your game is successful).)

Cheers,

Galen

Oh absolutely, I wouldn’t say either is more important than the other - I’d get into all sorts of arguments here if I did

The problem with finding good programmers is a combination of supply and quality level. There’s a huge surplus of artists, and the industry is partially to blame for that because big studios fostered a culture of art madness and improbable budgets - something they’re only recently starting to realise was a bit of a mistake. There’s very little respect for developers in general with big studios, so there’s a huge churn rate - and because there’s more artists than programmers… well, there it is, you always find more artists looking for work. Quality level, because bad programmers tend to get pushed out of the industry, whereas junior artists have better opportunities to improve (perhaps because there are more peers available). Also, there’s something to do with artists being easier to train with a whip than programmers…haven’t had a chance to try that theory myself; it may be an urban myth

Speaking of college… education levels are terrible these days, especially game-oriented courses. Much easier to get ahead if you study art than programming. I think there’s just “more people” out of school who are better with a pencil than calculus.

[Wild-Factor]

@Phil W

I’m guessing you’ve never worked on a big game with a big team. You’d find yourself very much alone with your views in any studio where people respected one another, and you’d have a very different view on what constitutes shippable product. I know many technical artists who’d laugh you out of the pub on a Friday night.

I was going to say more, but n0mad has put it succinctly enough in his posts. Some of the finest programmers I know are artists who learned to program exclusively, because of the shit artists take, and because their job is WAY more complicated than coding. There’s no framework, reference wiki or sample code for creativity, and this is reflected in the number of artists required to put together blockbuster titles. They’re not there because they’re a dime-a-dozen, they’re there because it’s a lot of work, and it has to be done by hand, not via macros, cut pasting code, and existing framework calls.

Also, marketing budgets are usually much higher than development budgets; tens of millions is not at all uncommon. This is also a well-known fact in the games business.

Sorry I was just anwsering to artist that was starting to flame programmer… I don’t like this kind of spirit.

I never said it’s easier to be an artist. I’m just saying that the average artist have usually less diplomas, are doing a more fun job with less stress → the average salary is lower. Don’t you think that’s fair ?
But maybe in you company, programmers are lazy and artist are doing all the work. I only speak about the average case, base on my experience (7 years).

I’ve never saw one coder that was previously an artist. I’ve never heard of even one (I’ve been in 5 different game compagny). But I’ve heard of coders that became technical artists (or game Designer).

Honestly, I don’t think anyone that don’t have programming in their blood can be a good programmer (they can be average at most).
I don’t think someone that don’t have artistic skill in their blood can be a good artist too ( maybe after 10 years of hard work ?).

By “in their blood” I mean they have started to draw or to program at least when they were 17 old, because they love to do it.

Programmer is not just learning like you seams to believe. At a certain level, when you developp new technic that was not done by anyone before you, you need creativity. But maybe you only have experience on project that heavily use other SDK/framework/engine, and don’t try to push technical limits.

ironic:
Don’t forget that Unity programmer program for you. But their work are easy, and they are surely overpaid, right ?
They should replace all of them with artist that will learn how to program. I’m sure we will have a better engine
Artist do a so more complicate work every day, programming is a piece of cake, right ?
And programming is so much fun that it will be easy to find artist that will do this, right ?

Sorry that was funny

[galent]

@Phil W

Oh absolutely, I wouldn’t say either is more important than the other - I’d get into all sorts of arguments here if I did

The problem with finding good programmers is a combination of supply and quality level. There’s a huge surplus of artists, and the industry is partially to blame for that because big studios fostered a culture of art madness and improbable budgets - something they’re only recently starting to realise was a bit of a mistake. There’s very little respect for developers in general with big studios, so there’s a huge churn rate - and because there’s more artists than programmers… well, there it is, you always find more artists looking for work. Quality level, because bad programmers tend to get pushed out of the industry, whereas junior artists have better opportunities to improve (perhaps because there are more peers available). Also, there’s something to do with artists being easier to train with a whip than programmers…haven’t had a chance to try that theory myself; it may be an urban myth

Well, not to start a flaming side bar, but I’ve seen several odd trends/directions of the video game companies, namely:

1. a video game is a custom software development project. period. OH, it’s heavily reliant on art and tied “body and soul” to User Experience, but it’s a custom software dev project none the less. Strange few game dev companies use proven models for custom software development. What’s really odd, is net new custom software development for the retail market is one of the hardest things to do well in the computer industry… many of the largest computer companies in the world avoid it like the plague… (So, naturally young people like to up that ante with all the love MMOG brings to the table )

2. They take a animation industry approach to staff… cheapest possible, young idealists, salaried (so as to avoid hourly wages… (nice they think to avoid the states with minimum wage limitations on salary positions). A company, any company, is going to make or break on their staff… treat staff poorly… well… All this under the guise of “living the dream”… there are more broken dreams in the entertainment industry than pennies it’s earned since it’s inception.

3. Most video game companies have little to no business structure (ok, loaded gun… wait for it). IT companies, in the business world, can evaluate various aspects of their business to ensure sustained operation, using standard processes. One of these tools are IT Maturity Models, like CMMI, which tells companies of any type how their IT department is working, if it’s sustainable over time, why an IT department excels at RnD but falls apart on support, or vise versa, and so on…

Most video game companies I’ve encountered operate at a CMMI level of 1, meaning it succeeds almost solely based on the herculean efforts and raw talents of the existing staff. Now, when enough of the staff leave, get promoted, etc… these companies really struggle (ok, usually they ride their existing money right into the ground, then fail… I was being kind )… and can’t seem to explain why. Well… that’s why folks. With no formal or god forbid, repeatable, processes… you’ll be successful for the most part under 2 conditions: 1) the original team remains mostly in place doing similar jobs, or 2) you manage to survive long enough to identify and mentor (adequately - perhaps equally- talented) junior people to replace key team members. (ok, flame away ).

There’s more, but these 3 stand out over and over in postmortems, company owners I talk to, etc…

@Phil W

Speaking of college… education levels are terrible these days, especially game-oriented courses. Much easier to get ahead if you study art than programming. I think there’s just “more people” out of school who are better with a pencil than calculus.

it’s not game-oriented education that’s suffering… I just gave the head of the local university’s computer science dept hll for the quality of education coming from the North American institutions in general… Oh, some schools are getting it done, but usually through partnership with industry and exceptional investment (ivy league places have an edge with that). But, technology is changing too fast for “professors” to keep pace, researchers often are too deep in one area (both have no/little practical experiences to pass on I might add), … then the dmned schools go one of two ways, either they throw all the actual theory and base understanding out the bloody window, and try and teach what they think business wants (being university professors they can naturally divine this need without any actual experience)… OR… they remain steadfastly in the fortran world, on old equipment (often because no one at the U is willing to pay for newer), until their program is soo far gone, their grads can’t find work… then the U is out of the comp sci business.

sigh ok, rant off… the school thing is a hot button for me the last couple of years

Cheers,

Galen

[anon_31190448]

@galent

Well, not to start a flaming side bar, but I’ve seen several odd trends/directions of the video game companies, namely: [ i’ll snip here for bandwidth sake ]

That’s quite a lot to cover, but there’s no real flame war material as I think your mileage (of experiences) will vary from company to company, and even in different territories.

I suspect that one of the problems with game studios, certainly those that aren’t publishers anyway, is that many studios are set up by ex industry vets, and their backgrounds aren’t in business, so they bring no experience of a ‘normal’ corporate structure to the table. The same applies to every company I’ve worked for in the past 20+ years, and I have to admit, even my own company is the same. It’s not that big a deal when you’re under a certain size, where the holistic approach to doing business is kind of seen as the old school - a bunch of hippies mixed in with some keen young talent, just having a blast and making money out of it. Sounds great, but it’s not the best place for new talent really - they should be setting up their own companies and doing well, but here at least (the UK) there’s no easy way for them to do that. So they end up working with us old farts.

I don’t come across the “cheapest possible talent” issue very often - most of the companies we mix with tend to hire either experienced (i.e. senior) staff or very promising junior/mid-level coders/artists, and the pay is by and large pretty good. Yes there is a tendency to pay salaries rather than per-hour, and that’s something I’ve never liked, but find it increasingly difficult to resolve for the better - publishers, schedules, budgets, ever more complex licensing and contractual small-print, increasing legal fees (to translate said small-print!) and high risk make it very difficult to be flexible with costing. I think this is a curse that the games industry in particular has brought upon itself, and it really does need to change.

Computers studies courses, heh - my neighbour is a computer science professor, and all he talks about is java java java, and has no interest in how computers work below what you can do in java. The mind boggles. Meanwhile, we regularly interview graduates who know loads about java (and strangely they all seem to know exactly the same things :)) but struggle as soon as they’re taken outside their comfort zone, and they also tend to be extremely slow for some reason – our tech director here thinks it’s because they’re having to think for the first time in 3 years. We do get exceptional programmers in straight from university, but they tend to be those rare clever buggers anyway, and they have very little good to say about their uni experiences beyond freshers week.

Well, looks like we both had something to get off our chests. Time for my tea I think

[n0mad]

@Hercule : I never said coders deserve less, I just said graphist deserve as much as coders. And how on earth can you know better than me if my game is “very static” or not ?
Beware of your assumptions, they really feel uninformed about what it takes to be a graphist, especially those two lines :

@""

It need longer studies (studies are not free) to become a good programmer than an artist.

Some irony : I had 8 years of artistic study, but learned coding all by myself. But look at my graphics … I’m really, really not considering myself an even good graphist (neither a good coder, but that’s not the point here).
Even better : I started drawing countless hours at 7, coding at 14. And I’m still not even as good in graphism than the worst featured artist on www.cfsl.net …

@""

Game coder are a lot less pleasant job than graphist, and you have a lot more pressure.

I really don’t want to look like a “mister know-it-all”, but unfortunately what I lived is completely verifying my opinion :

I’m alone on making my game for 3 years (stuff in sig), so I did absolutely every, everything in it, from concept, to code, to modelling, to animation and to graphism. Even the website. This experience let me be absolutely single-minded about my opinion : as soon as you want to be on par with market’s top games, graphism (animation, texturing, modelling etc) takes far more time than coding in production.
Actually I spent more than 2 years of 3 in graphism, and less than one in coding (and there’s no bug). Why ? Because coding is an absolute goal. Graphism is not. When you’ve achieved what you wanted to code, there’s nothing more to do. If it works flawlessly, it’s over. But with graphism, there are so many more details (litterally, an infinity) that the first thing you learn with art is to fix yourself a time limit.

Want an living example ? I coded my fight engine in 3 monthes overall. It’s done, no crash, no bug, and mechanics do work exactly like what I wanted to. Animations, textures, 2D HUD, and modelling took me 2 years and counting (700 different animations, 500 textures, and the .rar of the whole project weights 3.3 Go).

Wanna really know what Artist’s hell looks like ? There :

“Done that legs. Damn, Took me so much time from conception to production, I hope that at least my friends will like it.
Well I’m not sure … Aw, what if I just refine the inside curve here, oh and this texture there could be added some fake reflection, ARGH the helmet, I finally don’t like the shape I made 6 monthes ago anymore !!”
One month later, you’re fully satisfied with you char, but a friend comes at you and innocently says :

• “I don’t like this hat.”
  you : “lolwut ? Why ? can you explain ?”
• “I don’t like it, I don’t know pal. Well never mind.”
  3rd friend coming : “Hey this hat reminds me of Dragon Ball Z ! I really hate Dragon Ball Z you know …”
  And there you go ending in the infinite well of doubt and uncertainty. If you like risk, you stay with the other half of people who loved your char. If you really don’t want to fail (because, for example, this is what pays the bills), you just return to the “Hell of Refining”.
  That is the life of a graphist.

Meanwhile, when I was coding, I just had to go from A to B. Period, job’s done, nobody’s ever gonna discuss if you used MVC or Singletons in your fight engine. No gamer will come at you saying : “omg this game SUCKS it’s re-using JAVA-FUCKING-SCRIPT Asset Stores routines !!11!”.

I’m sorry but I’ll stay firm on this one, not because I want to argue, but because I experienced both sides at the same intensity at the same time.

Once again : I’m not saying that graphism is harder than coding. I’m just ranting at how graphist average wages are far lower for the same level of pressure/responsibility. Any graphist can confirm that (and that’s what matters, in the end).

P.S :

[JRavey]

Graphics are important to games, but the reason wages are lower is there are more people to replace ones currently doing the graphics than there are people to replace the programmers. It’s a more common skill with a lower barrier to entry, which depresses wages.

[galent]

@Phil W

That’s quite a lot to cover, but there’s no real flame war material as I think your mileage (of experiences) will vary from company to company, and even in different territories.

I suspect that one of the problems with game studios, certainly those that aren’t publishers anyway, is that many studios are set up by ex industry vets, and their backgrounds aren’t in business, so they bring no experience of a ‘normal’ corporate structure to the table.

[remainder accepted ]

I think this is a curse that the games industry in particular has brought upon itself, and it really does need to change.

Agreed! Strange as it seems to me… I come from the “other side” of computers, business computing (IBM) and well… large corporation. I’ve held both technical and senior management roles (which means I don’t often talk to normal people ). What makes me frustrated is the deplorable game project/company fail rates, epic scr*w jobs (usually at the hands of some publisher or another), and well… some of the most disgustingly blatant employee neglect/abuse this side of slavery, all in the name of the industry “rock star” dream. I’ll happily take what time I have to help those that don’t know, understand business, revenue models that apply to this industry, industrial organizational psychology as it applies to determining your hiring and retention practices (and even what kinds of employees you want to hire), etc…

My toolbox product is one attempt at helping others, simply put structure to what they do, and in just reading I think there’s some value in the “what goes here” text. Convolution would be in a better place if I applied all I know, but I’m afraid after some soul searching, that I may be guilty of creating a “sacred cow” out of my vision. See, Convolution is kind of a soul cleansing “I want to do something to genuinely help” business dream, and games are a fun distraction bonus. Let’s say the top of corporate America isn’t inhabited by hippies… I’m trying to move on

@Phil W

Computers studies courses, heh - my neighbour is a computer science professor, and all he talks about is java java java, and has no interest in how computers work below what you can do in java. The mind boggles. Meanwhile, we regularly interview graduates who know loads about java (and strangely they all seem to know exactly the same things :)) but struggle as soon as they’re taken outside their comfort zone, and they also tend to be extremely slow for some reason – our tech director here thinks it’s because they’re having to think for the first time in 3 years. We do get exceptional programmers in straight from university, but they tend to be those rare clever buggers anyway, and they have very little good to say about their uni experiences beyond freshers week.

Well, looks like we both had something to get off our chests. Time for my tea I think

Hehe… well, I don’t have a problem with teaching using Java per se ( I probably know that language the best), but I find professors teaching the programming language without exploring any of the other aspects, like … oh, the virtual machine theory, platform implementation, os vs. hardware, realtime vs non-realtime (yes it is possible in Java ), etc… the theory works the same as Assembler, c++, whatever. sigh sadly my mother is a PHd, in education (she teaches the PHd candidates). We have … interesting discussions about the state of higher education.

And I agree… sometimes a good chat is cleansing. If you don’t mind, I’ll forgo the tea, and have a coffee

Cheers,

Galen

[Wild-Factor]

@n0mad

@Hercule : I never said coders deserve less, I just said graphist deserve as much as coders. And how on earth can you know better than me if my game is “very static” or not ?
Beware of your assumptions, they really feel uninformed about what it takes to be a graphist, especially those two lines :

Some irony : I had 8 years of artistic study, but learned coding all by myself. But look at my graphics … I’m really, really not considering myself an even good graphist (neither a good coder, but that’s not the point here).
Even better : I started drawing countless hours at 7, coding at 14. And I’m still not even as good in graphism than the worst featured artist on www.cfsl.net …

I’m sorry but I’ll stay firm on this one, not because I want to argue, but because I experienced both sides at the same intensity at the same time.

Once again : I’m not saying that graphism is harder than coding. I’m just ranting at how graphist average wages are far lower for the same level of pressure/responsibility. Any graphist can confirm that (and that’s what matters, in the end).

Beware of your assumptions:

Pleasant != time consuming
Pleasant != harder

Something can be hard and pleasant.
If your problem is between MVC and singleton, no you didn’t have experienced both side at the same intensity
Gamer don’t really care if you draw every thing with your graphics tablet or if you ink it on paper before that either.

Gamer will go back to you saing “this game SUCKS it’s buggy it crash every 10 minutes” of “it’s 10fps on my computer” or “it’s not directx 11”, or “this game look likes a 1990 game” or “2 Go of patch for gran turismo, that’s crazy!”. You get one star on the applestore, when the game crash You get 2 stars when the game look bad
Or your game will be reject before that by sony/microsoft/apple, and your game won’t be out!
Sony/microsoft/apple don’t reject your game if it looks bad or average → most of the stress come from that.

And don’t say that coder don’t influence the look of the game (shader, SSAO, aliasing etc…), every graphic programmer will scream at you hearing that. If you can put more texture/polygon, that’s because a programmer work hard behind you in the shadow. And his work won’t be seen, like yours… You will get most of the credits.
When a programmer fix 10 bugs, he can show it to his friend:
“Look, I’ve fixed 10 bugs,”
“Hey whatever, pfff…”

Like you said, you have always half of your friends that like your work. You just want to increase quality !
You have a 6/10, but you want a 9/10.

In programming there is not half done program. It’s 0/10 or 10/10. You have to go from point A to point B. But if you don’t find the solution to get to point B, what do you do ? Of course I’m talking about heavy coding, with a commercial deadline, not gamplay scripting, with an engine where other programmers worked for you (and you have paid them) to overcome for you all this kind of problem, without a publisher behind you…

And me too, I know both sides It’s frustrating, but it’s 10 times more pleasant to spend 2 days redoing some design because it don’t look good, than spending X days finding a memory corruption, or fixing a thread problem… ( I put an X, because you don’t know when you will find it, and that’s stressfull )

It’s not hard to be a dustman, but it’s not pleasant → we paid them more and they deserve to be paid more!

Why is there more people wanting to do Graphics in the game instead of programming ?
Without a doubt, because it’s more pleasant.
More people → more competition between candidats → lower wages.

[n0mad]

I’m not sure about graphics (I mean real graphics, just like you mentionned real coding) being more pleasant. Really

Anyway,once again I never said that coders don’t influence the graphisms :o
It’s like you feel underestimated every time I try to ramp graphism up at the difficulty of coding… it’s weird lol. Weird and, in fact, offensive for graphists.

p.s : I understand that Unity is easing 100 times the job of putting a game engine together, but that’s not the point, the point is that coders should really stop to believe that graphism is like drawing classes in elementary school. It’s hard, requires a lot of knowledge, constant self-renewal, and a ton of refining. It’s less brain intense than coding, yeah, but it requires more refining time. So in the end, it’s on par when you’re under deadline pressures.

[Wild-Factor]

@n0mad

I’m not sure about graphics (I mean real graphics, just like you mentionned real coding) being more pleasant. Really

Anyway,once again I never said that coders don’t influence the graphisms :o
It’s like you feel underestimated every time I try to ramp graphism up at the difficulty of coding… it’s weird lol. Weird and, in fact, offensive for graphists.

p.s : I understand that Unity is easing 100 times the job of putting a game engine together, but that’s not the point, the point is that coders should really stop to believe that graphism is like drawing classes in elementary school. It’s hard, requires a lot of knowledge, constant self-renewal, and a ton of refining. It’s less brain intense than coding, yeah, but it requires more refining time. So in the end, it’s on par when you’re under deadline pressures.

I seams to me that I’ve never said that graphism is less difficult than coding. But feel free to put this in my mouth

[n0mad]

@Wild-Factor

I seams to me that I’ve never said that graphism is less difficult than coding. But feel free to put this in my mouth

Here, litterally :

@""

It need longer studies (studies are not free) to become a good programmer than an artist.

Anyway, let’s end this arguing contest together.

[kablammyman_1]

art is very imporartnt, and no doubt very tough. I’m always amazed at what the artist do, and how much work goes into modeiling, rigging, skinning, etc etc etc.

However, as others have said, there are many MANY more artist than programmers. It may be because its more alluring since the art you do will be on screen…or seeing pixar movies inspired people…or maybe its just plain easy to get into. I dont know, I’m just speculating why there are more artists than programmers.

I will say this…without programmers, there is no game. period. You cant make a game without programming. The art will be just that…art not game assets. The designer’s “vision” stays a just vision without programmers. Theres no physics, simulations to make the art behave realistically in all situations. No networking code to allow many people to play the game at once from all over the globe. Theres no AI to give the computer players life. There’s no sounds to play at different pitches/speeds without programmers. Hell, there are no COMPUTERS (well, there are, but no software to make the computer do anything) to make the game OR the art on. Theres definitely no Unity without the expertise of programmers, to make it accessible for non-programmers.

However, there are games that use NO art…like MUDs, and the games that are like the “choose your adventure” books. Also, many games (even in the current gaming age) dont have good/real art, but the game is so fun to play, that it doesn’t matter.

Also, I will add that most people in the know wont just hire a “programmer” but a computer scientist…well, should try to anyway These are the guys who dont just “know java” but understand that you dont even need a computer to be a computer scientist. You know, the guys who studied discrete math, Automata theory, operating systems, and algorithms to name a few. These are the guys who dont rely on just a languages power to get the job done, but understand how things work, and can recreate different algorithms and methods when need be (like in a language that isn’t that well supported for example)

These reasons and more is why programmers (read: computer scientists) get paid more. That doesn’t mean that being an artist is easy, or not challenging, or anything negative, but, the technical/engineering skills of a computer scientist is much more in demand than an artist.

oh, I wanted to add that outside the game industry, programmers get paid much more money than they do making games. So to get and keep programmers, game companies have to up the salary if they want to keep their talent.

[anon_1014682]

Art is generally more accessible and has always got the shitty end of the stick in an extremely labour intensive industry going all the way back to Walt Disney sweat shops. It gets less accessible and requires more training as you add dimensions 2D (drawing, painting, textures) 3D (sculpture, modelling) 4D (animation) Fortunately Artist friendly software has helped lower the technical knowledge required to make Art.

Coders in my opinion learn more in their first week in a game company than the whole of their degree - they basically have to forget everything they learnt and start again. That’s if they learnt anything useful anyway, considering what is taught now. (coincidently if you do an Art degree that is exactly what they do in the 1st year) The problem comes because it usually only attracts the most socially inept arrogant smug f*ck who think they’re the next John Carmack. It’s a lot of fun to watch them squeeze their massive heads through a doorway so they can reinvent the wheel again, and think they’re worth every penny.

The most fun I’ve had in the industry is to point out how their new engine is utter crap, physics is totally inaccurate and maybe that we should get some proper tools from a 3d party. Of course it’s always the Artists fault in those situations.

With the way nearly everything for a game can be bought off the shelf now, we’ll be employing scripting monkeys to actually make the games. Then “coders” will know what it’s like to just be keeping the seat warm till the next batch of Uni graduates arrive, and hoping they made the cut.

This is a harsh opinion, but as a lead 3d artist/technical artist I’ve had to deal with a lot of trainwrecks

[anon_74970857]

@JRavey

Graphics are important to games, but the reason wages are lower is there are more people to replace ones currently doing the graphics than there are people to replace the programmers. It’s a more common skill with a lower barrier to entry, which depresses wages.

This pretty much sums it up.

Also, if artists go to competing industries, they don’t really command a much higher salary than they make in games for similar work. Also, sadly, there really aren’t that many other places for 3D artists to go. If VFX became so common place that loads of artists were needed in every corner you looked at, you’d see artist salaries increase.

Then there are positions like Animators, that seem to really get shafted. I suppose because in games, good animation really isn’t needed except for prerendered stuff. There are a ton of artists out there that say that they are also animators, but not too many really good animators. But for games, they are “good enough”. And there aren’t that many Animator positions out there anyway.

Programmers can make a lot more in other industries. Programmers are needed pretty much EVERYWHERE, in just about every industry imaginable. So even though their salaries in the game industry are higher than artists, they are often still working for less than real market value just so that they could work in games.

The salaries really don’t reflect which job is harder or more valuable. They’re just about the market.

It seems to me that on the art and animation side of things, the real demand seems to be shifting to Technical Artists and Technical Animators.