> They’re likely earning ~40-70k so the shift isn’t very significant

Exactly. I don't work in the video-game industry, but the local (Québec) programmer scene is pretty small and information travels fast.

I've been told by people that work there that the employer already pays the equivalent of a 4 day week and that many employees are quitting now that WFH has opened up the market.

My personal understanding is that instead of increasing the pay, they are betting that by cutting a day, people will stay and keep the same level of crunch time.

"Crunch, and also crunch on Friday, which you now 'have off' but since you are (by design, perpetually) behind, we're going to need you to come in."

> My personal understanding is that instead of increasing the pay, they are betting that by cutting a day, people will stay and keep the same level of crunch time.

How's the option package?

A credible company will have most employees in the core business getting the majority of their revenue from the stock performance. Switching to 4 days a week should lower the number of release they can have per year...

Stock, I the game industry? That's a riot.

In my time in that industry the only bonus/non-salary compensation I ever saw was a $20 Starbucks gift card for pulling a 90hr week before a major demo deadline.

Stock options aren’t a thing in the game industry

That's not true. They are available if you work for the bigger publishers.

That's a red flag.

The whole video game industry is a red flag. It’s notorious for underpaying, demanding insanely long hours, and treating people like subhumans.

I'd say that happens for 2 reasons.

    1. Video games are really hard and costly to make and unless you're a big known company, nothing assures you'll get your money back

    2. It's a dream job for a lot of young programmers, so they'll accept anything.

I’m sure they have very good reasons for exploiting people, whatever these reasons may be it doesn’t change the fact that video game companies are not good places to work at for the most part.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending them. I'm just giving the reasons I think there's so much crap in that industry.

> They’re likely earning ~40-70k so the shift isn’t very significant

On an annual basis some internships are better paid. Where do these folks hire?

There’s a huge gap between the game industry and the rest

People do it out of passion, I guess. It’s funny too because the work is usually significantly harder than the much better paid start-up/SaaS jobs.

Everyone has college degrees, there’s no C++ bootcamp grads

I went to a school which was well-known for its game dev degree so I know dozens of people in the industry (mostly everyone works at Ubisoft) but opted out myself because the pay was way too low

Yup, pretty much. When I left industry it was almost a 100% salary bump. I tossed 2 months of PTO(because the company wouldn't pay it out, per state law and I could never take it) and I made up the difference in the first few paychecks.

Tons of fun problems and passionate people but the industry is an absolute meat grinder. Last I looked at the statistics median industry career length was ~3 years.

In Montreal I have no idea but in Sherbrooke the salaries are generally low, I make ~90k (plus a solid, well managed, pension plan) and work for one of the best employer in the city.

I could look into remote work but I am quite confortable where I am. I love the 35 hours workweek, the 21 days of paid time off, the week and a half around Christmas, my private office with a marble window sills (that I will use only 2 days a week when the telework plan is finally officialized) , the 7 minutes commute, the low cost of life and my beer aficionado colleagues.

Just out of curiosity, is that ~90k CAD or did you convert to USD for the majority of the audience here?

CAD, the boss of my boss is making 90k in USD !