It is a little upsetting, but I can see OP's perspective given that some people actually pay for early alpha access ( I am still annoyed at myself for purchasing BG3 demo that will come.. who knows when ).
This weird disregard for someone else's time is oddly widespread.
It is not an honor. It is a job. If you want it to be done well, one should be compensated for it.
It's asinine to think they are just playing the games - QA has complex skills necessary to succeed, from technical writing to careful test planning to cross organizational planning. QA is some of the least rewarding and most difficult work in a games studio.
It's like asking why camera operators in film sets "get paid to watch movies". We've decided we like games, so we better pay people for the labor in making them.
Fuck off with this "it's an honor" bullshit. It's work. It deserves good working conditions.
"When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
It's difficult to become a software engineer, but the job is relatively easy. It's not hard to become QA, or a fruit picker, or meat packer, but those jobs are fucking hard.
An equally soul draining job that requires you to service customers. And equally draining job that puts in physical danger. And equally draining job that takes out on long distance travel, like crewing a vessel.
I really doubt that a company is going to struggle to find people to load up a build of the game and try to clip through walls all day.
I was an engineer, and I don't think I ever saw anyone work harder for less reward than QA.
Modern QA IS engineering.
I would pay money to see you voice this kind of opinion in your workplace where you cannot hide behind the veil of anonymity.
Maybe because the life of a QA person was difficult? Long hours, contact labor, no benefits, low pay, repetitive work, limited opportunities for creative output, getting fired easily, getting blamed for buggy releases, putting up with prima Donna devs, working late into the night, being treated like garbage from the rest of the studio, etc, etc.
Like, I had more training and a specific set of in demand skills, but my job paid me will and gave me benefits and creative output.
I'd also find construction work, janitorial work, slaughterhouse work, fruit picking work, etc all much more difficult than being an engineer.
Don't confuse "difficult training" with "difficult job". It was hard to climb our ivory tower, absolutely, but we've got it easy after that.
QA, and to a much greater extend the other jobs you listed, are difficult because they are unpleasant to do. That is, because people are unwilling to do them. (QA still has skill demands that limit the people who are able to do it, just much less so. I dont mean to equate it with the other jobs you listed that are largely just physically demanding and otherwise limited by tolerance for misery).
Both are accurate uses of the word, but are very different. I agree with you that QA is more difficult.im the latter sense.
This is a sincere question but do you apply that standard to your interactions with others?
Who hurt you?
There are bad parts of every job. The fun part of SWE is coding, but that doesn't mean I don't have to write design docs, coordinat between different teams, etc.
>It deserves good working conditions.
I agree, but that doesn't mean you should make a union to do that.
If someone else is capable of doing my job for half the pay, then hats off to them, and they deserve it.
So no, it's not hyperbole to suggest the poster is undervaluing their peers.
Personally I cannot wait for these “engineers” to be treated like normal technicians.
The odd sense of superiority that people like OP seem to have is nauseating.
> that doesn't mean you should make a union to do that.
Usually folks don't unionize until their work consistently fails to deliver good working conditions, so, yeah, in this case you do need to unionize to get that.
these people have stopped licking the boots of capitalism and started to demand change. there’s nothing wrong with that, and there’s no inherent moral value that people should adhere to in their work relationship that precludes them from forming a union.
QA is a valuable skill set that is regularly underpaid and overworked. A good QA team makes or breaks a project, and there are plenty of examples of this in modern gaming.
Fuck “honor”, whatever the hell that means, and pay people what they are worth.
The game industry needs to be reorganized around the people who make the games instead of finance them.
>The game industry needs to be reorganized around the people who make the games instead of finance them.
I don't see how this would work. Somebody has to pay all the salaries, legal expenses, expensive equipment and software etc. Expecting people that want to work on video games to pull that kind of money out of pocket to fund a project that may or may not make any money is unreasonable. Nobody that wants to invest their money is going to give it to people who won't give them a return.
Most of the horror stories you are hearing from the gaming industry are coming from large multinational studios, many of which are struggling financially.
Just look at the most recent battlefield release or cyberpunk for examples of what happens when you don’t value QA.