Can't this be said of any art form, really? If you look at people who tried to make indie comics in the '90's or 'zines I guess... whatever the title you wanted to give them. Painters, failed and prominent, from the 1200's to the present who had to trudge along and get jobs in coffee shops. Art is hard and people line up to take advantage of them (I say this as an art school graduate who now sits at a computer desk because, quite frankly, it's easier to make a living with code than art and I have a family who I love more than art). To be quite blunt, the gaming industry is a multiBILLION (with a B) dollar industry built on passion and artistry (and yes, coders can be artists, as well) which is being fed upon like any art industry gets fed upon.

Edit: of course that doesn't justify the terrible conditions or the way people leverage the situation because they know these people would do this kind of work for free if they had to. I think the answer, as musicians always bring up, is friends don't let friends work for free. It's not okay to work for less than your talent is worth just because you love it.

Most art forms don't require skills that could be commanding 6-figure salaries in an easy 9-5 job. (I am, of course, speaking for the programmers here.)

Tell me, why should companies pay top dollar for that talent when people are so happy to work their asses off for less? It doesn't make any business sense.

And no, we shouldn't have any sympathy for these developers (not the ones who have easily transferable skills). They're choosing this career path out of their own free will, at a time when there's tons of very boring software jobs out there practically begging them to come to work there, and offering huge salaries and good work hours too. These people just don't want those jobs because they aren't "fun", and don't involve games.

It's really simple: you have highly-sought-after software development skills, so you can either be abused and work in a game sweatshop, or you can go to work making boring CRUD apps in a nice company where the pay is high and the stress is low. If you choose the former, I have zero sympathy for you.

You don't need a conspiracy to explain this effect.

I wish people didn't think like this

Every video game dev who's unsatisfied with being a game dev is welcome to explore other opportunities.

> Artists who work on gory cinematics integral to games like Mortal Kombat suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.

Is it really someone else's fault if someone chooses to work on a game like Mortal Kombat and then complains about having to create graphics like this?

Can we please introduce some agency into people's lives and stop constantly blaming society for issues?

Correction, Art is a lifelong dream, and people line up to be taken advantage of.

The video game industry CAN go on like this. Easily. For every 100 that burn out of an abusive industry, there will be 200 more waiting in line.

But hey, chin up, Microsoft just threw $1B at OpenAI to make "I am Mother" into a documentary because "we can't discount the possibility of a near-term AGI." And that's some serious #DukeNukemForever optimism IMO.

Yes, probably because it's a very competitive market (why many smaller studios have such a hard time surviving) and there are lots of people out there who are passionate about making games (why so many individuals choose to tolerate crappy work environments). Given that, I have no idea what a "solution" would even look like.