Skills shortage hits games firms

Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by xirium on Wednesday June 18, 2008 @01:26PM (#220915)

Two weeks ago, the BBC had an article about the shortage of mathematicians and physicists who persue teaching ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7433339.stm ). Would you want the best mathematicians and physicists writing games or teaching the next generation of students? Currently, there's a shortfall in both cases and the reason is quite simple: the pay and conditions are atrocious.

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by gaius on Thursday June 19, 2008 @01:20AM (#221565)

If there is a genuine shortage in any industry it's easy to tell: it's reflected in salary, signing/retention bonuses, people getting away with acting like rockstars, etc.

If there is a lot of whining about a shortage but that isn't showing up in cold hard cash then all we have is a management class trying to drive down the wages of the workers.

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by narag on Thursday June 19, 2008 @09:03AM (#221741)

One of the ways to do that is asking the government to ease the inmigration policies for programmers.

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by gaius on Thursday June 19, 2008 @09:42AM (#221760)

I'm not sure that will help at all, since the only mechanism the government has to evaluate a programmer is whether or not they already have a job with a local company, and if they do then the company will sort their visa anyway.

To be truly meritocratic, we'd need a means to not only allow but attract engineers (of all sorts) based on talent. At the moment a mediocre engineer from a country that has historical ties with us will find it easier to immigrate than an excellent engineer from a country that doesn't. Which seems a bit counterproductive to me.

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by oqtol on Wednesday June 18, 2008 @01:53PM (#220946)

Had to up xirium, he’s dead on. In this day those skill sets lend themselves too many opportunities, particularly those that offer great (current/future) payouts + benefits.

The sheer cost of game development now lends to larger teams, less individualism... (note: I’m not a game developer, if I’m dead wrong on this matter please call me out)

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by xirium on Wednesday June 18, 2008 @02:32PM (#220990)

> those skill sets lend themselves too many opportunities

If you're in the UK and you've got fair qualifications in maths, computing and physics then your choices are as follows:

- Finance - 60,000 pounds per year. Insane hours. Very little job satisfaction.

- Consulting - 50,000 pounds per year. Long hours. Moderate job satisfication.

- Film post processing - 40,000 pounds per year. Long hours. See your own work at the cinema.

- Application programmer - 30,000 pounds per year.

- Teacher - One year training course, possibility of 40,000 pounds in five years if you can handle unruly kids. (Many don't make it.)

- Games programmer - Insane hours. Project may require porting code or using a legacy engine. Awful third party libraries licensed to shorten development cycle. Pay depends on previous success. May require beginning as a game tester at minimum wage.

- Startup Programmer - Theorectical average salary of 100,000 pounds per year. Large control of project specification. Good chance of recognition and job satisfaction.

> game development now lends to larger teams, less individualism...

In the summer of 1996, I got some work experience testing a game at Bullfrog. In 1996, Bullfrog games were taking between 20-22 man years to develop. As a lead programmer, the latter phase of the project would consist of 12-15 hour days of bug fixes and build failures. In the subsequent 12 years, I haven't had the inclination to apply for a job in the games industry.

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by Tichy on Wednesday June 18, 2008 @04:27PM (#221131)

Startup programmers really make that much? I thought only the established "big" industries can afford the really high wages (like banks, telco, insurance...).

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by xirium on Wednesday June 18, 2008 @07:10PM (#221310)

Its a theorectical average salary. You've got a very large chance of earning nothing or almost nothing and a very small change of being a zillionaire. You get one or more attempts at getting a good outcome. The average outcome would be approximately 100,000 pounds.

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by Tichy on Thursday June 19, 2008 @04:53AM (#221657)

Any foundation for that statistic, or is it a wild guess?

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by ovi256 on Wednesday June 18, 2008 @05:59PM (#221234)

Yeah, that seems fishy to me too. Altough i can see an argument about how the high salary is needed to compensate for the lack of job stability.

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Re:Skills shortage hits games firms by gaius on Thursday June 19, 2008 @08:28AM (#221723)

Your numbers for finance, consulting and application programming are far too low (in London at least). With C++ and experience of derivatives you could clear 6 figures + bonus on top of that. As a consultant/contractor, you could certainly get close to 6 figures (tho' with no benefits/bonus).

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