This is PMG's very first time working with a freelancer, so please be extra kind to Sam in the comments! More info about that at the end of the video, but in short, we've wanted to do a video about class and the games industry for bloody ages... but Quinns and I weren't the right people to tell it. We're delighted to have been able to find someone who is. -Chris
Chris! You guys are awesome, and I'm glad I can trust your guys' judgement! You're awesome! As a queer person living in the states I'm glad you're letting on people like Sam! Awesome work from her holy shit! I'm so glad that there's people who are willing to talk frankly about the issues people face! I'm an anarchist and I really like learning about how things may be similar (if slightly different in social identity or terminology?) in the UK.
Odd question, but at the end of the video, you mention Sam was paid fairly, and though I am sure thats completely true, are you willing to disclose how much Sam was paid for her time? Thats mostly because I'd like to know what the difference is between your pay and.. For lack of better terms, the "Industry Standard Rate"
Years ago, I was teaching at a university, teaching game industry related skills. I had a student who was really talented, I wanted to see him go far. He was also at an economic disadvantage from many of his classmates. Though my country afforded him the ability to go to university, and the government would take on the debt at a fairly reasonable rate - he still needed to pay for rent and food. That meant working. This student would often come to class straight off a nightshift. Hadn't even been home to change. It did negatively affect his performance, his capacity to study, and ultimately his employment outcomes. I tried to do what I could, but that was ultimately not much. I didn't come from a family with a load of money. But I was lucky enough to be able to move in with my parents, and live rent-free while I was a fulltime student. Being able to study full time, and not need to burn hours per week keeping a roof above my head was enormously beneficial. It meant I could get more out of my education than someone who had to work. Anyone who says we live in a true meritocracy is delusional.
Latching on to your rent and parental support point, never forget that society went through two years of working and studying from home with no major impact on productivity. People need to fight to avoid these things being taken away from us.
Just wanted to chime in that you're unfortunately not alone in your story - I experienced the same as an instructor in games / VR dev - and also tried to support them however I could but rarely did it make the difference over the life related struggles holding them down. That being said, I think it's so important that you did try, as I also worked with other instructors who just chalked their struggles up to 'laziness' or a 'lack of passion' which can be so demoralizing to a student that they start to internalize it. One instructor putting in the extra work to see them and give them a leg up can make a difference, even if it's just in reminding them that they're more than their grades or attendance.
@@nathandts3401 @Nathan DTS Keep in mind that the capacity to work and study from home is itself locked behind a paywall. The computers required to develop games aren't cheap. Not everyone lives in a house that's condusive to study. Not everyone lives in a house at all. The ability to come into the school and use its hardware is essential for some students. I'm glad I wasn't working in education during the pandemic, as the quality of my teaching would have decreased. In person, I can read body language - when a student needs help, but isn't asking me for it. I can proactively go to them. In a virtual classroom, I lose that. While I agree that WFH arrangements have benefited some people, its not as clear cut as you portray it. "No major impact on productivity" ignores all the people who couldn't participate at all.
I was extremely lucky to go to Uni just as it was getting unafordable to live on loans. I could pay rent and bills and just about eat every day, but that was it. If I'd have started Uni a year later, I wouldn't have been able to go.
@@nathandts3401 That's not what yesterday's A-level results would suggest. I'm referring to the relative drop in performance of Northern students compared to Southern students.
The Brazilian gaming industry only exists today because of piracy. Everyone I know who had a PS2 had it chipped. The most affordable console here is the Mega Drive (Genesis), which is still being produced by Brazilian manufacturer TecToy, and it sells like crazy because it costs, converted to dollars, $5. Nintendo _hates_ us, because generally we can't afford their stuff full price. It's also why Brazilian gaming youtube channels blow up so often and so quickly: parents can't afford to buy consoles or even decent PCs for their kids, so the only way they can consume video games is through someone else playing them.
Russia was basically the same. And then people were like "We have C (sometimes Pascal) compiler, some programming-related books is in local library, so we can make games too!".
I don't know what the "Nintendo hates us" comment is for, since no company likes to have a market where people don't pay for their product. I doubt Sony was happy about chipped consoles.
@@NuiYabuko Nintendo hates pirates and modders living in North America but you didn't see them leaving out of that continent due to those transgressions. His point is that Nintendo punishes an entire country for the acts of a few yet doesn't do the same about those same acts in other places like North America...
So glad Sam talked about piracy briefly. It's an incredibly important point to recognize that the shared culture that comes from consumption of media (games, film, music, etc.) is effectively gated off from poorer kids, and piracy has always been the great equalizer of that since the Internet became commonplace in homes. I grew up dirt poor, and I wouldn't have played half the games I was able to if I hadn't been able to pirate them. That scene is also how I got into understanding custom firmware for consoles, mod-making, understanding how cheat software works, and a slew of other things that all helped me develop skills that gave me a chance at getting an education in computer science. I grew up in a trailer with holes in the floor and where the lights and water weren't always on. I wouldn't have made it out without piracy. Ⓐ
It was one of the first things that came up when Sam and I were originally talking about this video. I remember being immediately embarrassed that I'd barely thought about piracy in these terms, despite the number of articles I've read about it over the years and the takes I've probably had about it myself in the past. -Chris
And over here in the third world, piracy isn't seen as a crime, but the standard. If you pay for something you can pirate for no good reason, you're seen as wasting money! It's also, IMO, the big reason PC gaming is a fair bit more popular than console gaming here. It was certainly the dealbreaker for me growing up.
I'd argue piracy is also just a net good for the industry as a whole. It sets a bar publishers have to pass for their products to actually sell, cause if they go too hard on the shitty consumer practices, or put too insane of a price on their games, people will just pirate them instead. Especially now that some games are being carved up to the point youd have to buy them like 5 times from 5 different places, or pay 3 times the base price to actually get the full game and/or its dlc. You COULD pay 500+ for the latest Sims game with all its dlc, or you could just pirate it and get it plus tons of mods entirely for free. On top of that, with the industry's lack of interest in keeping old games available, piracy may often be the only viable way to prevent older games from fading into obscurity entirely. Discs and cartridges, as well as the consoles theyre designed for, can break and go out of production, digital downloads can get delisted, servers can close, were it not for the pirates who knows how many hundreds and thousands of games would already be lost to history? As much as some parts of the industry like to rail against it, piracy is good for it, and for us.
While everyone deserves access to games. And while I think piracy laws need to change drastically. Your argument is the same as "I grew up poor so I stole from the marketplace, if there weren't delinquents around me to teach me, I wouldn't made it. Now in adulthood I use my charm to work in an office" ??? See the problem there? Still very much a bad thing, even if in your case example it worked out "well" (in the sense that it worked for you, while taking away from companies) it might not (probably won't) work for everyone. I grew up hella poor too, I pirated too, but I definitely still strongly believe I shouldn't've
The poster sign saying "Cut Profits, Not Pay" really hit home for this year, esspically the video game industry where company's are making 'record profits' while cutting staff. It also just seems to be the general theme of those who seem to have all of the money in world not wanting to give a penny to people who don't.
Why do you say "record profits" and " cutting staff" as if there is any contradiction between these events? Has it ever occurred to you that companies are making 'record profit's precisely because they are 'cutting stuff'? Wealth is a finite quantity in a closed system, for there to be 1 rich person there must be a million poor people. You can't become rich out of thin air, you have to "eat" someone by sending them below the poverty line. This is how capitalism works.
@@anonimanonimov3251 I wish there weren't as many "wealth out of thin air" examples as there are, but you're right all the same that it's absolutely about extracting as much wealth out of the labor force as possible while giving out as little in wages as possible.
The issue here is: a company does not just have to be profitable, it has to be more profitable than its competitors. If company A gives you a 10% return in your investment and company B gives you a 12%, what company are you putting your savings into? Publicly traded companies are pressured to achieve maximum profitability and nothing else.
While it is true, at least where I live there’s a notable difference in the games industry compared to others. And I think that sort of is the point of this video
@@juanga.lindez The games industry is a microcosm of the world's economy in many ways, reflective of some of the worst excesses of capitalism in extremely focused relief. Industry practices like lootboxes, artificial scarcity in game economies, and so on - it's all a little snapshot of the broader issues with capitalism.
Kinda makes you think about how things were hundreds of years ago, back when books were prohibitively expensive. They were the most effective method of consistently distributing information. And for the vast majority of people, they may have well not even *existed.* Even the ability to *read* one was a luxury that they would never have the opportunity to learn.
and it was all based on open source software, specifically linux and freebsd, freebsd literally funded by the public university "university of california at berekeley", and linux came from Torvalds who literally said if he didn't grow up in a socialist country (Finland) he never would have created it. "But windows... " windows would not be on the internet without Sockets, it basically had to transform itself to match the open source protocols . "But Macintosh..." is based on FreeBSD. OSX and iOS both have bsd at the base and still do.... but consoles? Sony Playstation based on open source software. Every last one of them has open source at the base of it.
In my country, before 2021, a MSc of Chemistry would make 900 euros before taxes. After taxes, they had 600 left. From that six hundred, most of it goes to rent and cost of living. A fucking MSc of chemistry working in Pharma can scarcely afford a single 60 euro game. Imagine the average person who only makes 600 euros before taxes. I am a student myself. My household of 2 lives off of my scholarships and small bonuses for publications and conferences. We live off of (after-taxes) 200-300 euros (depending on time of year) a month.
I've uh, really noticed this in my game design degree. I'm 19 years old and I'm not poverty line poor, but I have had to help with rent in the past. Which I think is a pretty significant indicator for a 19 year old. I still consider myself lucky, but all my classmates are so much wealthier. It's kind of astounding really. I have friends who live in inner city apartments who are only now getting their first part time job. I can only dream of one day moving out, my family of 4 aren't even stable in our rental, the thought that I could support myself is just insane to me. Needless to say I am putting in the *hard fucking miles* at uni. I really do *need* to get into the industry very soon after I graduate. PMG really gives me hope for games journalism, I love y'all so much. Keep fighting for our industry!
It depends on where you're going to school. I spent a year at the Art Institute, a stupidly expensive institution, and most people there were fairly well-off (I went entirely on student loans). I transferred to a smaller school, one that actually doesn't exist anymore, and suddenly, my classmates were all on my financial level or lower (except for the one Arab guy, who always wore nice clothes and drove a nice car).
@@Cha4k "I did a shit house course cus I didn't do any research and just thought 'hurr durr guess I'll do this one!' so that must mean your uni course is awful too!". That's you that's what you sound like. I did two years of self taught and I learned more in my first 2 months at uni than I did in that whole year. It ALSO gave me the opportunity to work in groups which is VITAL to work in the games industry (even solo devs are rarely actually solo). I've come a long way and I'm only half way through the course. RMIT university is the best in the country for game dev. Plenty of well known games have been made by graduates of RMIT. Like I'm sorry to tell you this but you are *just plain wrong*. Your experience of a games course DECADES ago (DECADES I REMIND YOU) just doesn't mean shit in today's landscape. It's not applicable. Also uni is way cheaper in Australia and we have HECS which means interest doesn't start accumulating on our loans until we reach a certain income threshold. So basically we are debt free until we are actually able to start affording it which is a massive help. Also man I also work. Most of my friends at uni work. Kids these days aren't all rich and supported fully by their parents. You've been lied to by the media. We got it tough too! The entire global economy just crashed we are super hard off and we have to work through that just like everyone else had to work through their generations hardships.
A chipped PS1 and an abundance of child friendly platformers are the reasons I spend as much as I do on games in adulthood. There were no lost sales because my parents wouldn't have been buying the games legitimately. It was either a happy kid discovering gaming or no gaming at all.
Same! I'd considered this sort of perspective in other industries - like theatre for example - but not gaming. I wonder where further discussion of this might go - like with theatre I'm generally currently sitting somewhere around improving accessibility being the answer.
@@rhettorical Much like with physical stealing I feel like for me the morality of the situation is very variable, since I am, broadly, a socialist rather than full communist or anarchist. Someone is struggling with meeting basic needs of themselves or their family and shoplifts some food from a large chain shop - I have no real moral qualms with them doing that. Those chains profiting from the working class in a way which means they can't feed themselves is what lead to the situation. But if I, a person with many privileges and some disposable income, were to go into my local independent board game shop and steal a game just because I liked it, an act which, if others also do it, could feasibly contribute to the shop going out of business, I would take moral issue with that. Similarly with games - I wouldn't shed tears over a kid who had no money, no prospects of ever being bought a game, playing a pirated version of some triple A blockbuster which is realistically already going to make well enough profit to fairly compensate it's workers if the company actually wanted to (and ultimately as this video touched on, potentially help the game or studio Vs hinder). I'd look more carefully though at something like a small solo or indie dev project being pirated by a person who spends loads of money on other hobbies and has plenty because "video games aren't worth spending real money on".
"When you're scraping by, you take what you can get". Exactly, and then the existence of a class of workers willing to do the same job for less contributes to downwards pressure on salaries for people of all class backgrounds. We need to help reduce inequality, because it hurts us all (with the exception of those individuals and companies who benefit from lower wages for increased hours of work).
As a follow up, in Canada (where I live) there is a distinct lack of class consciousness which makes this an even harder discussion to have. This is despite there being very visibly different economic classes across the country.
This is one thing that many people fail to grasp. Great welfare, better living standards and humane wages will prop us all, and the opposite of those is dooming us all. I am a third world citizen, and in my observation the allure of getting rich and the rise of charismatic or at least convincing billionaires has made this struggle so much harder. So many times, when you ask someone who’s doing well but isn’t rich to help, support, or even just put themselves in the shoes of the less privileged, they balk or align with the shallow lifehacks hawked by billionaires. Meritocracy, capitalism, and all other illusions of this equal playing field and the right to earn as much as you can, regardless of its consequences for others. It saddens me to think that even a handful of these brainwashed idiots will indeed make it to the top. I grew up poor through no fault of my mom. But even now that we are in a much better situation, my heart still breaks for people who are stressed daily about money and material needs, and have to put so much effort into surviving that their other goals and potential are left to wither. And I still am afraid as well that I will end up like that in my old age, simply because I won’t be able to keep up with the rising cost of living.
@@PhantomPhoton im afraid of the revolution because even if the world is shit right now, we might make it worse by a few individuals think of the USSR, they wanted a revolution and better workers' rights but ended up with authoritarianism and harsh censorship
The first step is of course to ensure that all workers are properly educated about the salary that they should expect and be unafraid to fight for a better salary if they need it.
@@DanaiHamit The USSR failed because the people weren't educated enough to help prevent the wrong people taking up important positions and fucking everything up. Ol' Joey restored the alcohol plants to get the disadvantaged drunk and depressed again just so he could retain power.
Im from a working class background and I was able to negotiate a raise for the first time recently precisely because I had managed to squirrel away enough money from previous jobs to negotiate from a point of strength and not desperately needing my job for the first time in my career. I tell friends and family and their idk impressed by my moxie or something but that confidence entirely came from having a small safety net I did not have before. The cruel irony ofc being that id have a lot more money by now if I didn't have to enter in so low. My first job, which required a university education btw, paid minimum wage. And my second job in games I got "let go" for discussing wages with colleagues. In between my game jobs I've had to work as an English tutor and secretary completely unrelated to games just so I could get money to pay rent leaving years-long gaps in my resume where I appear to have left the industry caus I couldn't hold out for anything in my field. Game design is literally the only thing I've ever wanted to do and class (alongside gender, tho tbh - not as much) has consistently gotten in the way. And I have so many friends who've had it way rougher than me or even burnt out of the industry altogether.
I love it when people say advice like "why are you afraid, you should just X, it would be illegal for your employer to retaliate". Like, "it would be illegal for your employer to retaliate" only protects you if you have the ability to bring legal pressure down on said employer (and weather the retaliation). Do they go up to undocumented workers who are being exploited by shady-ass bosses and advise them to just lodge an HR complaint?
Getting fired for discussing wages sounds like unlawful termination to me, nowhere in the law does it state you can't talk about your salary with coworkers.
@@gralmakaren9919 It's more illegal than that. The law (in ontario) explicitly says you cant prevent workers from discussing wages. But remember that things are only illegal if done to someone who can afford lawyers. Also like most unlawful terminations they didn't tell me in a written document "were doing this because you discussed wages" it just happened to occur shortly after I discussed wages openly.
Thank you so much for bringing up this subject. We might not like it, or even remember, but the games industry and its audience played a pivotal role in shaping the current western political landscape; Gamergate. This was a turning point in online culture, and developers/critics/players/games were at the center of it all. This is no longer an isolated segment of our culture, what values we express and how we do so will have a direct impact on our future as a society. I wouldn't be surprised that a broader class movement could have its beginnings here, in our industry, and I believe we have a responsibility to fight for intersectional solidarity NOW.
How did Gamergate shape the current western political landscape? If that's at all possible to summarise! I'm genuinely interested, but never really understood Gamergate beyond people making allusions to it.
@@electricmonk4487 it didn't really shape it, it revealed a lot of hidden aspects, primarily bribing review websites to give your game great reviews and people being able to turn movements against said bribery into a message that all gamers are bigots otherwise it was just fighting between people who like games, sexists who like games, sexists who hate people that like games and mainstream american news
@@electricmonk4487 It's a bit hard to summarize, but simply put it marked the shift in online libertarian communities becoming overtly conservative/right wing, and led to the popularization/memefication of Trump and creation of QAnon, which in turn had an impact of politics the world over. I'd recommend watching Q: Into The Storm on HBO, it's the best coverage of the phenomenon from someone who had their eyes on the ball fairly early on, although I think it only briefly touches on the GamerGate era The Serfs on UA-cam has a highly praised documentary on it called "Gamergate: The Untold Story", I haven't watched it yet myself so I can't 100% vouch for it, but there is a lot of coverage out there. For many of us, seeing QAnon exploding in popularity and treated as if it "came out of nowhere" was an absurd experience. We watched it unfold for years and I think it's important for people to see where it all started.
You also need to consider the competition for jobs in the gaming industry (unless you go the dubious route of indie dev), that already acts as a barrier for many, requiring a lot of additional learning outside lessons. People who have to work to make a living from an early age and don't have a comfortable buffer, would find the expected time sink on top of education to be unfeasible. I do think that games have become way more egalitarian though, considering how hardware costs are way down and there are more free games than not at this point, which, as a kid, I would've loved, so I didn't have to always play the little handful of games I had for my old consoles. The game dev industry isn't a good investment for your future, considering the work conditions, the hiring rate, and the time-sink. The lower class work menial jobs more often than other classes because there's a high employment rate and short education time, as well as often offering paying internships during the education.
@Spin Lock that's not the point. It's not about experience, it's about the competition being so high due to the insufficient amount of jobs on offer. Stonemason don't need to build up a massive portfolio of their expertise to show a prospective employer. I'm not saying there should be more jobs, it's just a statement of how the industry is. A lot of people also have a very warped belief about video gaming development, believing it to be an easy job, when it really requires quite a lot of expertise in several different fields like programming, 3d modelling, animation, level design, etc. It's a booming industry, but already suffers from outsourcing to countries like India, the Philippines, etc., so people also have to compete with that, and the way they do so is by accepting subpar terms of employment, crunch to the extreme, and few benefits. For an industry with so much wealth behind it, frightfully little goes to the people making the actual games
@@DemMedHornene Exactly this. I'm a game designer working for a mobile game studio and it's so disheartening seeing the industry take the route of NFTs and still layoff employees due to cheap outsourcing from India and the Philippines. It's taking away the accessibility of the industry for people who want a livable existence and abusing the lower income nations in awful ways (do to supporting outsourcing studios in countries with even worst workplace condition laws). It's freaking awful. This also doesn't help if we try to unionize because our development contracts with publishers are so complex, some even stipulate a route to terminate publishing contracts if employees organize (which is illegal, but nothing can be enforced because people don't want to make the effort because we are all exhausted working). It sucks so much because we didn't choose our passion, we didn't choose to want to work in games more than anything, and the industry abuses that passion. But we just take it because the tech industry in general is so fucking libertarian that it's going to ruin everything the worst this keeps getting if there is no education around unionization and fighting back. The whole thing is fucked right now
@@TheDeadb3ar "Passion" is basically code for "prime for exploitation". Game-related fields are all specialized labor, and practical experience is prized - more folks working in the business need to learn their value, and most importantly, work in concert to organize. The outsourcing/offshoring threat is held overhead like a Sword of Damocles, but if India, Indonesia, Phillippines, etc were truly great at doing top-shelf game-dev, then companies there would be killing it in their own regional markets, not working for consulting-pennies.
@@mandisaw well the issue is we do get payed well (Not well enough in proportion to the income brought in though). Well enough to worry about the risk of organizing. But I think it's also just the libertarian mindset prevalent through the tech industry. "Why would I want to unionize if I get treated well and payed great" is a common sentiment. And CEOs know that paying some people really well will combat the idea of unionizing
@@TheDeadb3ar it's quite insane to see, honestly. In my country, the laws around the job market would've made that stuff illegal, but Denmark is also a very pro-union country. And I really feel for you, cause I share that passion, but realise that I don't want to be abused by a corporation for it. Though it's not as bad, the animation/film industry is pretty rough too, with lots of job competition and not amazing workplace standards nor wages. Hearing people talk about how they spent 7 months in a sweaty apartment with six other dudes to make two massive 3d models for a movie, only for that movie to flop and them not really being paid that much for the whole ordeal. Similar to the game's industry, the animation/film industry is fraught with freelance jobs too, which makes it all the harder to actually do anything about job conditions, when most of your workforce isn't even tied to your company. I think it's a great example of an industry that developed too quickly for its own good, because while top execs, who never studied a minute of game design, earn millions upon millions, the people actually making stuff get shafted while being told loyalty to their company is paramount..
This isn't just specific for the Games industry, but all creative industries. I have been trying to get into TV for about a decade now and I have gotten absolutely nowhere, because I'm working class. I can't afford to network, I can't afford to shadow someone, becoming freelance is absolutely terrifying for me and I have to have a regular job working in a shop just so I can pay the bills.
There is something happening in Brazil that worth paying attention. A substantial amount of big companies are looking for brazilian devs to develop their games. Which is fenomenal, but the reason that this is happening is because it's cheaper to hire a brazilian dev nowadays than some devs from another countries. The BIG (Best International Games) Festival this year had a bunch of important people from big game companies looking for devs to hire, for example. The US Dollar is costing more than 5x of what Br Real costs making it possible to the companies to pay less or the same without getting any complaints from the devs.
this video is excellently done and brings up a lot of good points. i think it's significantly understated just how crushing being below the poverty line can be. there was a long time where i had nearly every passion and social relationship i had ever cared about taken away from me just because i lacked the energy to focus on anything other than my job when i worked at a warehouse. 60 hours of dull repetitive labor a week ABSOLUTELY crushes dreams, and it feels so relieving to see people articulating and covering just what's going on. keep up with the stellar content :)
I'm from a working class background working in tech, honestly I'd love to go into the video games industry but after hearing about working environments I'm avoiding... Great video on class in general, applies to so many industries, speak to your employer about Social mobility, a lot of the time people from higher classes are simply unaware of difficulties from working class folk.
Most people who come from more humble backgrounds aren't interested in eating crap and living like a drone for years, ie paying your dues, like some industries demand. For wealthier people, this entry level drudgery is an adventure, something they can tell anecdotes about when they get older.
@@StephenYuanIve never met a born into wealth person who went on these entry level adventures, though i have seen this archetype in movies so maybe its an american thing. The people I know and have met either follow their parents and work themselves to an early grave or become deadbeats
I have mixed feelings on this one, because on one hand the games industry has been absolutely life changing for me as someone from a working class background, but on the other hand it took me well over a decade and a half to get to that point, plus moving to Canada and I'm still making less than I would if I went to one of the big tech companies like Google or Facebook. Personally it's been worth it for me thus far, because part of my thought process is that because you spend so much of your life at work, you should try to optimise for something that feels like fun. But for obvious reasons, many people would just choose the ridiculous firehose of money that comes with working for one of the big tech companies, and who could blame them.
This hit a little close to home. I wouldn't normally consider myself working class in my home country (I'm Eastern European) but the moment I try looking into opportunities to get into the games industry, I immediately run into obstacles that all come down to money. The same money that has me living fairly comfortably here does not allow me to move to the UK (or somewhere with a more developed games industry) without already having a job lined up. And while the pandemic supposedly helped with this issue by allowing for more online interviews and even remote work, Brexit kind of undid all that. Doing games work here could also be an option, but it's mostly QA and other technical stuff getting outsourced here with very limited options for doing the "creative" side of things as I wish to do. I got a pitiful job offer to do QA for Ubisoft for a monthly salary of 400 (!) euros in the capital. That would mean struggling to make ends meet even here. It's very clearly a job intended for people who already can afford to live in the capital and potentially don't even have to pay rent at all. It's great supplemental income, but nothing someone can live off of. And it is the only games industry job I got offered after years of searching (despite having earned two media-related university diplomas).
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Hey Nándor! As someone who couldn't have made it into the games industry alone I can definitely symphathize. I'm sure there are many talented and skilled people who are in the same boat. At the moment the company I work for in Budapest, Zen Studios is looking for pinball designers and 3D animators, so if you are interested and we are not one of the companies you already considered, feel free to send your CV our way. We are primarily looking for hungarian speaking colleagues, but based on your name I'm guessing that may not be a problem. :) As home office is the norm at our company, with very little chance of this changing, I think it may be possible to work something out even if you are not based in Hungary. To be clear, I cannot make any guarantees and I'm not working in our HR department, so I don't know for sure what factors would be important for our hiring process, but I wanted to help as much as I could.
Thank you so much for talking about this much-underdiscussed topic. It feels like there is very little awareness of this problem across a lot of middle-class desk jobs. I will often hear people waxing about how well-informed they are on all matters relating to equality, citing all the columns and books they have read, before proceeding to be incredibly disparaging about someone across the street for how they are dressed.
I love that you featured Sam's amazing commentary and insight. The argument of "same hours is the day" is such BS, especially if you're not solidly middle class or above. It ignores all the time that goes into accessing games, playing them, or learning the skills to make or analyse them; things that take from that game leisure time like being a carer or having to do your own repairs because you ARE working class and can't afford to pay someone to do it. Excellent video!
I too come from a working class background, and have recently moved into the games industry. I managed to get to university with a large grant and loan, because my parents didnt make much money at all. This grant allowed me to live through uni without the need to get a job at the same time as studying. I honestly dont think i would have finished my degree if I had to have worked at the same time. After uni I landed a random programming job, moved to england for it, and worked there for 6 years. Now in the past year I got a job in the gaming industry, and it is purely because I had a connection to the company (and the fact that I can now work from home and dont need to travel to the company) I have been extremely lucky and am constantly scared that I'm going to lose my job. I have a lot of imposter syndrome, and no self confidence. There is no part of me that believes I got where I am because of my own skill or abilities. But I work in games now... even if it was all luck
So glad to see someone talk about this. Even though my friends and I had access to free higher education (Scottish) and are very grateful for it. Institutions don't seem to realise that a lot of students can't attend industry events/gamejams/hackathons etc. becasue they need to work evenings and weekends just to continue attending their classes.
i have read - and did a handy Ctrl-F - through a bunch of the comments and no one seems to have brought up what could be a big answer to this problem: TRADE UNIONS
I've worked at ubisoft and they only hire people coming from expensive business schools and video game schools. we have free universities here in France (with the same teaching quality than private ones) and we were VERY few coming from those in the company. this issue was often raised internally by employees coming from modest families but always ignored. same goes for interns and referrals.
That's the networking effect - I kind of wish they'd prodded at it further in the OP. The games business seems to run on "who you know", and it gets compounded by a focus on previously-shipped titles/prestigious companies on your resume. That creates a positive-feedback loop where folks with connections to existing devs/communities make up the recruitment pools, raising the barrier to entry for people outside those communities.
I don't want to be too negative about this video, but I feel like it's missing a second half that discusses solutions to the problem. I don't think anyone is surprised that the games industry is risky and filled with people who can mitigate that risk with their privilege. That's kind of just a problem with the entire economy. And I don't think a solution will come from inside the industry, but I was excited to hear about possibilities...and then the video ended.
Same, I was looking for a kind of conclusion myself. My gut feeling is that through enough connections and with sufficient population out there that working-class folks and those of underrepresented communities pool together to found their own game studios. Resources-wise we can find examples of indie gems and novel concepts that didn’t need a AAA budget to catch on like wildfire (Among Us, maybe?). I think unifying these groups into a house of diverse ideas and backgrounds can launch something substantial.
Same feeling on this vid here. The 'cost of living' issue many of us are in is not unique to this industry. Would certainly like to hear a followup chapter 2 to this vid.
The only answer to this is the same for every industry: mass protests & radical unionisation -> strikes -> general strikes -> workplace takeovers -> replacement workers' democracy (e.g. soviets/shoras/cordones) -> total replacement of the capitalist government institutions by that workers' democracy. This is the process of working-class revolution, and it unfortunately needs to happen globally & more or less simultaneously in order to totally kill capitalism worldwide in order to permanently take purchase.
@@gloverelaxis While you're busy being unproductive and railing against the system there will be 100 other game devs hungry to take your job and salary. If you want to own the fruits of your labor, get some people together and try to make an indie game. You'll very quickly see the result of a worker's democracy then, for better or for worse.
You lot really are impressive in terms of everything I hold in high regard in journalism of any sort. Thankyou again for an insightful informative and enjoyable piece of work.
Coming from a working class background this video really hit home, I was privileged to be able to get a foot in at a QA outsourcer where travel was free (because I could walk there) and thanks to it I now have a fantastic job testing at a studio, I spent my whole career at the outsourcer always afraid to ask for a payrise, never feeling I could say no, afraid to switch jobs and take that risk, because the chance of having no money was always at the back of my mind and funnily I never even associated this with my background, recent years of people sharing salaries and asking for more pay and it has never been something I have ever felt comfortable with due to that fear even when at a more welcoming studio. QA is an area full of amazing people that often come from working class backgrounds and they're some of the best people I have worked with, but often those taken the most advantage of in terms of pay, I can only hope that improvements are made to try and help them out more!
Thank you for this, PMG. It was mature, important, and informative. Most middle and even upper class people are, in the end, good decent folk with a lack of perspective. It is through journalism like this that the less fortunate might gain some understanding and compassion for their situations. Cheers lads.
As someone in the USA, this described how it works over here in nearly all careers. Something most don't know is about half of America is living paycheck to paycheck. About 30% is living debt to debt or has to use assistance to get by. And this is with 2.5 jobs on average per person. To be blunt, IDK if it's capitalism or what that caused this. Most likely corruption. But I hope it ends extremely soon.
One sobering fact is looking at wealth by race, since that's where you see the biggest disparities. If you look at nondurable wealth (wealth that isn't in the form of a car or house) then the average black family only has 5% the nondurable wealth of the average white family. Nondurable wealth is assets like stocks, bonds, your net-egg and bank accounts. The disparity isn't as bad if you include durable assets like cars and houses but is still obscene (I don't have the number on hand unfortunately). For me, I'm an anarchist, so I feel the whole rotten structure is one of artificial scarcity, in 2021 you saw a third of police calls be to evict people, and now you see a moral panic about shoplifting when wage theft is 4 times as big as all burglary, robbery, and theft combined.
@@tibbygaycat Nondurable wealth you need to look at age vs race. Like if you look at race it doesn't paint a good picture of what is going on. Most of that wealth is in the older groups (boomers) and most of them are.... not black. But when you look at it from this, you can find across the board almost no one has anything when you compare it to prior generations and there is more people living in poverty today than there ever has been. BTW The problem with things like looking at cars = wealth is not all areas use cars. Like in a city where you pretty much walk to everything you need (rich or not) cars can be an unneeded cost. To the point is actually is common in some major many citizens don't even have a drivers license at any point in their life. Or you have someone in their 50s or even 70s going for their driver license since they are moving away from the city. So when you look at it like this, you then need to look at geographic location of groups. Most black people live in cities. Where as most people who live out in the country poverty or not isn't (it tends to be a mix of Hispanic,Native American, and white).
that's capitalism, pay employees as little as possible and demand as much as possible for products and services. nothing's gonna change if this system is not abolished. when the idea behind most companies is to constantly expand and earn more and more, instead of earning just enough to maintain the business and providing nothing more than a sufficiently comfortable standard of living for everyone involved, people will always be exploited. you can't make enough profit to buy a fucking yacht if you don't rob and neglect your employees. we need to learn how to become independent from these fucks and work together for OUR benefit. WE make what they sell, they ain't shit without us.
@@PlomiennyJacus i come from a country where workers unions run industry and politics, the state provides for everyone, education is free... and its still the same bs. The same struggle from paycheck to paycheck, mass unemployment, corruption, taxes that hit below median income the hardest etc. Pretty sure inequality is hardcoded into humanity regardless of the windowdressing the power structure chooses to adopt. Smaller improvements are very much achievable though, e.g. I never had to fear police officers there, even though the rest of the justice system above them was a complete farce.
It's capitalism. Companies profit by either ripping off suppliers, employees or the customer. Less noticeable when companies are underpaying for labour in poorer countries, but capitalism always has the money trickling to the top.
Class is about your relations to the means of production, not how poor or wealthy you are. If you sell your labor to a capitalist for a wage, you're working class.
Great video. Meritocracy is an idea that sounds good in theory, but becomes an easy and incorrect way for people to classify other people incorrectly. It has always felt like a terrible idea to bank everything on when you look at it as a whole. Most of the time, luck and circumstances affect success, but a society that "values only meritocracy" seems to suggest that luck doesn't play a big part in success. Which lands us in a society where toxic successful people discriminate and increase the gap between successful and unsuccessful individuals, and conveniently blaming their lack of success to a lack of talent or hard work rather than attribute their own to sheer luck. Just think about how many times you have heard of a family member telling their children to study hard if not they will end up doing crappy jobs like that janitor. Directly implying that the person is stuck in the janitorial job because they don't have talent and failed to work hard, while the real truth often lie elsewhere, they have no other choices based on the circumstance.
Agreed that meritocracy myth. This life unfair af. My parents poor and they decided to have me and now i suffer cause of their mistakes and mistakes of past generations i guess cause i live in Russia and here you can't live good you live here like slave i hate that. Plus i got bullied in school. And after that society except from me to become good member of society its such sucks system
I don't think it's high standards, but the fact that depending on where you studied, you might get to know certain contacts that let you jumpstart your career. That's the thing that has stopped me, I wanted to become a graphics designer, but the few places close to me that teach that AND have the contacts, are way too expensive.
This is a highly specialized field, seriously some of the stuff artists do are on the level of mother f'ing Davinci or Michael Angelo in modern day, even better because of the tools we have now. Who the hell cares about class when hiring somebody?, or race for that matter? If im hiring a person i'm doing it based on their portfolio, which shows your TECHNICAL expertize and creativity, seriously this video is an F for me. The only gatekeepy (if that's a word) part of games development is how fast it shaves off years of your life in the pursuit of study, because of the ammount of knowledge and practice required. It's taken me 4 years and 8000 hours to be able to get the confidence to say that I intimately understand Zbrush in and out. Sure, not everybody has that time commitment, drive, or money for schooling. But you don't hire a heart surgeon that doesnt know how to do surgery, you don't hire a 3d artist or an animator who doesnt know how to sculpt or animate.
Raised in a low income one parent household in the UK, now entering the games industry as a graduate, I never would have had the chance to even play videogames if not for my uncle handing me down his N64 in 2005, going round middle or upper class friends houses I’d see PS3s and The Wii was like stepping into the future, pure insanity, now that I’ve graduated and even during my course it was evident many of my peers had essentially been ‘groomed’ for their careers, super weird experience over all, kids coming in to write C# with Dior bags and posting on social media about buying houses, it was jarring, but you focus on getting through, trying to get my first job now but balancing full time employment with job seeking AND building a portfolio is a big ask, I’ll make it work though, haven’t come this far not to.
I mean it’s insane! Tickets for most of that Brighton expo a few months back were like 600 just to see people talk, that’s a month of rent BEFORE bills LMAO
thank you for this video! i'm from a working class background (rural american south) and I had enormous culture shock when I moved to Seattle to work at a games studio. i'm also a sound designer & composer, both fields are still VERY male dominated, so as a non-male working-class background person, it feels wild that I'm making a living at this.
Oh god I can't imagine what that'd be like! I have heard about the bullshit that happens in computer science with sexism but I didnt know sound design was in the same boat.
@@tibbygaycat There's a Full Frontal segment on the music industry, not gaming but I recommend it nonetheless. It basically said that even behind popular female singers there're a whole bunch of male writers and producers etc.
The "getting on" bit is what I've struggled with while trying to further my career in games media. Let's not even talk about how certain publications either didn't pay me or paid me so little that it didn't matter. I've never felt like I belonged at any publication I've written for. I've had a miserable time trying to connect with my colleagues and even when at events, I'm not sure how to network. No one teaches you this stuff and by the time you're back home, it's too late to really reverse anything. I'm not specifically from a working-class background as my family was middle-class, but we've never been flush with cash. My parents had money issues and debt, so I had very few chances to make mistakes. I bombed out of college and now just coast from job to job while still trying to write on the side. It sucks.
Networking is the worst. There's so much classism and ableism entailed in it. "Oh, sorry, your neurology means you have intense anxiety spikes during high-stakes, unstructured social interactions with multiple strangers? We'll, get the fuck out of this discipline, weirdo!"
Sam is delightful, one of the absolute best critics around in the games industry, let alone one of the best people in it period. So glad that she’s the first freelance journalist you’re working with, and hope to see her again in the near future. Thank you for covering a topic so near and dear to so many of our hearts, that we normally aren’t given the space to share and must carve ourselves to almost no one listening. Fantastic to see how PMG expands on covering the topics that are the most important to talk about in this industry.
I wholeheartedly agree that risk-taking is a privilege exclusive to people with a good financial safety net. Since a lot of the games industry involves directly selling to consumers, either by developing games or working on game media, to get big one has to take the risk that there will actually be people willing to pay for your content.
I'm glad you were able to briefly touch on the topic of piracy as well. It's one of those things that seem obvious to those living in poorer countries yet it's rarely brought up. I would also say that the way Steam indirectly fought against piracy - in part by hosting sales of affordable indie games - is perhaps changing what less wealthy to-be game developers play now.
Not in the gaming industry but this problem is a lot bigger than just video games. It can be said about lot of the software industry, engineering, and sciences. They often require years of expensive study and it doesn’t help that many of these industries are highly competitive.
100% I got into the games industry via Uni from a working class background. I only finished Uni a few years ago, but the cost of living of student halls and such has skyrocketed so much that, I don't think I'd have gone if given the choice today. I was living on pasta and bread, and nowadays I don't even think the loan would have covered rent + bills
Something stings me when watching this piece. I think If I have to put it somewhere, it is the following Could the "Games Industry" aspect exchanged for any other industry? Yes. It would work just as well with Marketing, any other software development and other white collar/academic industry. In the end, the work industry has a problem with the working class and the game industry is part of it.
Honestly the difference between having a financial safety net and not is such a huge factor in so many “dream job industries“. Really glad you guys made this video and props to Chris for openly admitting his own privilege in making this entire channel. There is a lack of perspective in the arts from the lower half of society that’s very troubling, a lot of voices never being heard because they didn’t have the option of moving back in with their parents. It’s something that should always be kept in mind just as much as race and gender.
Being a game developer from Scandinavia, working in the UK and pushing my way up towards a leadership position. I have seen most of the things gone over in this video from the inside. Most of my peers who are in their 20's and 30's are laden with debt, while I dont have any, because education was free where I came from; I even got paid to study, and at my education the people were far more diverse. The games industry as a whole is becoming so money focused its loosing sight of making a good product over profit, and the profit is not being shared. It is a fight to get Juniors and Midlevels paid a living wage, many still seem to think its a taboo to talk about salary...Really good video, keep up the good reporting!
It's a similar story in the animation world. Despite some real efforts to push remote work etc it's all just so London-centric with everything that comes with it.
So I have a masters in Game theory and design but cannot and have not been able to get a job in the video game industry. I barely even get interviews. Ones I have had, looking back I cannot help but feel my northern accent and working class behaviour patterns/mannerisms were discriminated against. Very subtly of course. What is more, the choices I made at interview were couched within a certain Working class "desperation" that this video touches upon. I never had any financial privleges to fall back on and comparatively if so, I feel like you can conduct yourself with a calm air of composure and easy humour that these companies feel comfortable with. Many of my partners friends are supremely financially privileged and there has always been a sense that the middle class are always a safe pair of hands...
really loved this video, like i have all of these! just a note from something i noticed-- i'd like to say that, in regards to captions, if you have an audible swear word but censor it in captions, that's placing the people who most need the captions at a disadvantage. this may sound a bit silly, but it gatekeeps Deaf and HOH people from things that hearing people are getting. if a curse is audibly there, then it should be transcribed in captions. it's a very real problem for those of us who rely on captions. for myself, today this was a day i could hear well enough, but other days my tinnitus makes captions a necessity, and the contrast between what is accessible to me when i'm able to hear and when i'm not is something i'm very aware of. all that said, i loved this video! especially as someone whose relationship with games has been so influenced by my own background in poverty. thanks for sharing it with us!
Thank you for making this video, Sam. This video is so important. I'm a working class person who's been through numerous jobs, including being a janitor, and I don't have a college degree. I've attempted to blog and podcast about games and movies. Haven't found much success in that regard. Some, but not much. Anyway, I relate strongly to this video, and just wanted to add my kudos to you and the People Make Games team for putting this together!
Great video! And I loved Sam in this video. Honestly, it's easy to forget how being middle class is a privilege in its own right. I'm an adult on disability and I still benefit tremendously from having parents and siblings that are middle class. And it's not even in direct financial support, it's stuff like me being able to buy a big closet secondhand because my parents have a car and trailer to help haul it to my place. It's in so many things you wouldn't even consider normally.
This resonates with my experiences as a young poverty stricken youth bent on being a maker of games. I had non-financial privilege on my side and had to ultimately ally with other privileged entities to further my agendas and goals. But the pure charity of others when I was young kept igniting me desired to contribute to this space. Letting me use their kit when they weren't and a 4th grade teacher who gave me time on his commodore 64 to practice math and explore basic. Mr Hand, thank you! You don't know how much trajectory and velocity you gave me (it was a tiny nudge early in life sending an asteroid stuck in it's space out of it's orbit and into a new one), but it was one solid start of a spark that passionately burns on to this day... over four decades later... Breaking into this games space with our poverty/working class rooted stories and perspectives is worth having happen. Work with youth and disadvantaged. Encourage them. Show them what is possible. Send out sparks into the world! There are more of us than them. 🔥🔥 🔥
As a Venezuelan, it is quite an understatement that had it not been for piracy, there's simply too many things that I wouldn't have ever been able to play at all. While I was lucky to have a lot of console stuff before 2013 as a kid, when that year came around (and people in my country should know what happened since), that luck of my parents having expendable money vanished and putting aside all what I went through from then to now, as a 20 year old now I can see that getting to buy games is a huge gamble. My low-mid end PC (for today's standards) can run emulators up to PS2 and Wii and handle some few modern games though, but I got it only because I swapped a N64 Pikachu edition for it. I've got some games off Steam through giveaways, as gifts or if they have a huge price cut and I really want a game, but getting to scramble around 20-40$ weekly AT BEST from writing on a website, looking for triple A releases with their 60$ price tags and ANYTHING related to consoles (not only same price tags but also 400-500$ consoles) is out of question. And playing retro stuff as well as arcade games and such (F-Zero GX my beloved) is only possible for me like that because, as many are aware now, retro gaming collection is getting insanely pricey now (let alone arcade games without rereleases, which means you would have to shell a console price tag for a SINGLE game cabinet legally) It sure sounds like a big tangent trying to justify certain stuff, but legal retro gaming is impossible with the nonexistent pockets I have, and any Steam picks are far and between due to how what I save up often goes to something else (food, self care, or even maybe wanting to get an upgrade or peripheral instead of gambling it on a game). And as I'm not even sure for how long will it be until I have to move out of my house for unfortunate reasons, internet connection for online games is also going to become a luxury I won't have anymore. TL;DR: Whoever reads this that is enjoying Elden Ring, Fortnite, the Steam Deck, VR headsets, the newest consoles and all that stuff; you better have a damn good time with those, because there's a parallel universe where you live somewhere where you wouldn't afford to get that much :)
This is a great place to start the discussion of class in gaming, and how it effects the content that comes out and skews the reflection of who plays games and who is allowed to speak about them or work in them. I hope this takes of and leads to more growth in gaming as a culture and the gaming industry.
Thank you for covering the class struggle in the videogame industry, which has its unique issues in relation to this. Videogames is one of the most expensive artistic mediums to get into, and I'm agreed with Sam about the privilege of being against piracy when a lot of working class people got into this hobby though that. I'm glad more working class people who do get into the industry also get to make games about the working class experience such as Cel Davison's NO LONGER HOME or If Found, to name more UK games. I hope there are more class targeted initiatives to get people into this industry. There are far more interesting stories told from such inclusivity.
I've been working as a programmer in the games industry for 7 years now and am having a very hard time understanding how to understand/deal the messages in this video. For programmers specifically, if I review applications for internships or junior positions anything that isn't at least at a university college level almost instantly goes into the bin. The only exception would be if said person would have previous related work experience, or can show his/her capabilities through a portfolio. The main reason for this is that its just a difficult job to do. Even people that have had 4 (or more) years of higher education dedicated to programming often still have no idea how to work on anything more complex than a simple prototype, or to work together in a team. I've seen code from people that are college / high-school educated and those have been... not good. You need to learn programming... for YEARS to really be any good, plus not everyone is cut out for it. Because of this, I am not at all suprised that there is a major "working class divide", but I don't see how you could account that to the gaming industry? Are they somehow not "stepping up"? (Video title here is very clickbaity/misleading IMO) The gaming industry is a highly specialized field, and on top of that it is extremely volatile. Making a game is generally much more expensive than writing books, making movies, and other forms of art or entertainment. It takes years to understand how to make games, it takes year to try and develop a good game and than you still need to be "lucky" for it to be a success. This is why a lot of game companies instead focus on doing outsourcing work, or doing work for hire. Getting a stable economic situation going whilst saving up & gaining experience to then push for a game your team wants to make. Solo indie devs have it even worse, though occassionally someone is talented, hard working AND lucky enough to be able to find a way through and get their game out. I don't know too much about how the other fields within the gaming industry are, I always hear that there are sooo many aspiring game artists that companies can just churn through them. QA / Game testing / Localizatoin would probably be suitable for people without higher education, but those are pretty much always outsourced to a country where salaries are much lower... so good luck competing with that. It all sounds very grim, sorry about that... I just don't see how you would solve this problem? (NOTE: I have only worked for 5-25 sized indie developer studios, not AAA's or anything)
Oh and a dig at "game programmer educations": If you really want to be a game programmer, make sure to really educate yourself on the school that offers it. Pretty much always it is better to just go for a real IT/programmer education instead. All applications I receive from game programmer schools are miles away in terms of technical understanding. I can teach you how unreal/unity works very quickly. Teaching actual programming is much harder!
Being someone that was homeless at 19 and am now 4 weeks away from finishing my degree in gaming, I'm incredibly happy to have watched this. Thank you for making this video and sharing this information. One of my weird fears of getting into the gaming industry is that I might develop imposter syndrome because I have so low self worth from being raised poor.
Really appreciate this video. Working in media and media education, it was always really uncomfortable to me how many unpaid roles my peers and myself were unofficially expected to take to fluff up their qualifications before getting into actual work. That sort of system so efficiently filters out the working class that the diversity 'standards' the industry here in Australia has implemented are an absolute joke. I really hope over the course of my own career I can make a positive change on this front, but since the problem largely comes down to money and access, it's a very challenging change to make from anywhere but the top, and we've all seen what 'the top' likes to do with money.
The solution is solidarity. People with the means to take unpaid positions need to stand with those who don't. Those tactics are exploitative for all - just because you can live rent-free with your parents/spouse/friends, doesn't mean that you ought not to be paid for your labor.
Ask South American gamers and workers, you'll find crazy stories, especially about piracy. I remember when I was a teenager and someone told me they had an original game I was like "what do you mean by original?" and they told me it was an original game from the developers and that the others were pirated copies, then I said "but it's software, all versions are copies of the same thing, there is no such thing as an original version of a software, all downloads and DVDs are copies" and they couldn't respond. I asked more people about it and what it meant to pirate a game and at no point anyone even told me games are made by people that need salaries and that when I burn an .ISO on a bunch of virgin DVDs to give to my friends at school I don't pay them and the companies can go bankrupt and never make a game again. Even my dad, who was a programmer before, never told me this and he himself got me into gaming by getting me a bunch of emulators and ROMs. Only after 17 or 18 when steam got a little big in Brazil I finally pieced it together.
The whole gaming culture in Brazil was born from piracy, bootleg systems, lan houses. Economic situation got better and more people can afford consoles and games, and just because of that the pearl clutching about piracy began coming from younger folks. People who pirate usually won't buy your product anyway. I'd even say that it helps with visibility, to be honest. We should stop thinking it's about being "criminal" and "dishonest".
I relate to pretty much everything that was mentioned in this video; I've encountered pretty much everything here (except having to move to a small town to avoid rent costs; thank god Pittsburgh has v low rent). I'd also add to this (1) classism in hiring practices. Before I was at my current company, I'd sometimes apply to companies that only made console games, and I never had a console growing up because we didn't have the money, so I never played those games, and despite being open about the reason for having not played those games, I'd never move on to further stages of the hiring process in those cases. (2) lack of role models. The video said that 13% of the UK game industry grew up in the lower/working class, but the vast majority of people who did keep it a secret for fear of being a target of discrimination. This is a pattern I saw over and over again when I was in college where the vast majority were middle or upper class. Before I saw this video, I could probably only name one person in the game industry who I know grew up in the lower or working class, which really communicates that the game industry is not for us. thank you so much for making this video. I've been waiting for someone with a platform to call attention to the impact that being born into the working class has on aspiring game creators, and it's so nice to see it finally happening.
Beautiful video, really captured a lot of problems. I really feel there's a lot of overlap here with any creative field - games, music, art, etc. People from working class backgrounds just have less resources overall to figure out how to succeed in these fields. Degrees in these fields are risky, equipment is expensive, self-teaching takes time, and there are a ton of exploitative programs and people looking to take advantage of those who are just trying to get their foot in the door. And the point of how the lack of working class backgrounds naturally has a ripple effect that results in a very distinct change in how stories are told (I just about spat my coffee out at 8:09) is very well done.
Brilliant video, the subject of class definitely feels like it needs more conversation in the industry. I'm from a working class background and currently work in mobile dev, although I think my circumstances have been extremely lucky. Firstly, during university I managed to get a grant of over £3000 per year since my parents' earnings were in the lowest bracket for the grant scheme. However, it's since been stopped and it would've been so much harder without that money. It allowed me to dedicate more time to my studies and help with any expenses. It's easy to point to university prices stopping people from enrolling and whilst I agree I think the funding once you're actually studying is a much bigger problem, especially for working class people. I was also helped massively by my dad having enough of an interest in tech to know how to pirate games. It allowed me to get into games much more easily. I always got consoles way later than other kids at school once they'd dropped in price but I never had no games to play. Without these I don't think I'd be where I am today. I still have constant anxiety about losing my job due to the volatile nature of the industry and continued anxiety from my dad losing many jobs after the 2008 financial crisis, but I consider myself lucky to have received the support that many people can't get. The company I work at was founded by brothers in their parents' garage and although they've done a great job of turning that into a successful company I can't help but think of myself and everyone else who can go through all the same steps, work just as hard but end up with less due to their financial background.
I work for a AAA company as a level designer. I come from a poor rust belt city in Appalachia. My dad is a mechanic, my mom is a bus monitor for special needs students. My job is a dream come true, it is the result of a $100k state university degree that I am drowning in debt from, but it is everything I've worked for. And yet, I feel incredibly isolated at my company. Everyone else is on the West Coast and from the west coast with generational wealth, savings, etc. No one else I know was on food stamps, or had their utilities shut off as a child. I'm making more than my parents combined, but I still worry about money all the time.
Prohibitive adoption costs, greater barriers to piracy, horrible working conditions at the entry level. I can list these before even watching the video - which I recommend you do!
For Americans: generally we say lower class instead of working class, as working class is usually a broader term for anyone who makes the majority of their income based on their labor as opposed to what is accrued by their assets (as opposed to the owning class).
Getting a degree is a requirement and still not enough. You need to do more to not get thrown out. After 8 years and 2 degrees in games design I still have a 100% rejection rate. So now I’m just working on a portfolio and god knows how long that sh1t gon take. No money, grew up poor, parents never even finished high school. I gotta do everything from scratch and my own parents who go from dead end job from dead end job getting mad I’m not getting hired. “Did you follow up” “did you update your resume” 1. There’s no phone call to make you apply online and wait. 2. Yes but a resume isn’t enough 3. This isn’t goddamn retail. “Following up” isn’t a thing anymore. 4. Your a boomer who incredibly out of touch. They really just harassing me because all they think is “hurr durr resume degree = millionaire where is it?!” I don’t visit my parents very much because they’re so ignorant and toxic, brainwashed with retail corporate rhetoric. I don’t have connections, I don’t have anyone. My parents didn’t go to college. They know nothing while everyone else is just doing drugs using their lawyers mom and doctors dads money. Here I am on financial assistance. I can’t afford to not gaf I got 1 shot or it’s over. I have to pass, I don’t take classes for “fun”, I cannot “chill”. This is survival. I’m don’t and graduated with a high GPA. But I still can’t get hired. Now I need to make a million assets, a bunch of animations, rigging, modeling, weighting, texturing, rendering, then make my own website from scratch somehow even though I’m not a coder. Have a detailed CV somehow and a resume with experience in AAA development and internships (where I’ve applied numerous times and get denied) and on then MAYBE they’ll consider me. I can’t get an internship anywhere because in college I couldn’t afford do do it during studies, I can’t risk setting my coursework aside to do unpaid work, I don’t have a car, I don’t have a means of transport. I have nothing and I’m being punished because of this. I can’t get an internship because I didn’t have one in college. I can’t get hired because I didn’t have an internship. I can’t get hired because I don’t have a specifically crafted custom website with my work (coursework is out of the question), nor do I have connections, recommendations, or experience in the games industry because they won’t let me in the industry because I don’t have experience in the industry. I had zero assistance in college. I’ve signed up for all the college spammy ass websites for recruiters n such, passed LinkedIn skills checks, have my degrees present. Nope, liquor store cashier for you.
Honestly it's an idea that is everywhere in the world, it's unfortunate really but both the people at the top and those hopeful bunch climbing the ladder isn't comfortable with the truth being that hard work isn't all that is needed to succeed. In a way it's nice to be ignorant of this when you're at the bottom trying to climb your way in life, it motivates you that maybe if you just try harder you might make it. Which you might, considering hard work still plays a decent part in success. But it also gives a very disillusioned view of the world and an unrealistic expectations of yourself, it's a problem suffered by most society in my opinion, as social classes and privilege differences is something so inherent in our civilization.
Im glad to see people talking about this. I went to school for games and while my family was able to afford to help me with it, it was a huge burden on them and I felt hugely guilty when it didn't work. I was surrounded by people who did not have the same hardships as myself. The places that I had to live to even have a chance of getting into the industry are among the most expensive in the country.
Barring the talk of piracy, it's hard to see how this piece brings up reasons why it's hard for the working class to do well in games industry in particular. Many of these points are seen across STEM industries broadly and the economy at large. I didn't find any unique insight here that pertains to games industry in particular.
fair enough, but this is kinda just what this channel is for. i still think its an important discussion whether its made about the games industry or something else entirely
Such an interesting topic, thank you Sam for sharing this! I clearly underestimated class discrimination in our industry, thank you so much. Riches come from diversity, thank you PMG to let other people tell their own story instead of telling it yourself with your own biases. I'm happy to support your work!
Great collab, y'all. Looking forward to more "specialist reporting" in the future. One additional way class allows opportunities is when companies have "unpaid internships". Yes, it's abusive to everyone, but people of greater means can float on savings (or the support of family) while they "get their foot in the door". Even in areas where this is illegal, the example of consciously taking under-paying jobs, as mentioned, applies as well. I'm sure AAA companies don't mind paying their QA/Test staff horribly, because so many people are willing it use it as a way into the company or to get industry experience. It probably pays better to be a cleaner, in many cases, but workers from well-off families have a better chance of lasting long enough to get a step up into another position. Of course, they have an even better chance of being let go after the title ships. That's why game dev unions need to become commonplace!
I wonder too whether there's a different level of willingness across people of different class to do unpaid overtime during crunch periods: with working class people being less willing to tolerate that and not quit. Also I wonder whether game studios afraid of unionization or other worker actions see working class employees as being more likely to organize unions or worker actions.
@@shayneweyker Yes, but the other-way 'round. It's the fact that middle-class devs have a "cushion", whether from savings or family, that makes them more willing to attempt to organize. Lower-class devs are more likely to struggle with scarcity mindset and high risk-aversion.
I really appreciate this video, but I was a bit disappointed when there wasn't more time dedicated to asking what we can do now to fix this. Yes, there's a problem, but what can we do? Are there groups out there trying to do something about this? Are charity organizations helping low income families get access to games? Are there unions striving to get working class workers into the industry? Shining a light without much talk of solutions didn't feel quite like what I have come to expect from PMG. Maybe do a followup with Sam?
I don't think anyone knows what to do (at least, not in an individualist, feel-good kind of way that would fit in a video of this scope.) A charity that gives video games to working class people isn't going to make a meaningful impact. People who can't afford games are already getting games they want to play. They pirate them and have been for decades. Games companies are fiercely anti-union--and while a few unions are just starting to take form, I'm not sure how they would solve the economic problems at work here. I realize you weren't trying to suggest your off-the-cuff suggestions were The Solution, but idk. It's a bit frustrating hearing this from so many people when issues of class and race come up. The individualist answers have been the same for decades: Become aware of the Problem and your place in it, and then Use any privilege you have to change whatever part of the system you have direct control or influence over. If you're a hiring manager for a company of middle-class employees, stop hiring people that your people know. If you own a successful company, stop taking so much money for yourself. Fire any hiring manager who lowballs a person on a job offer. Start a fund to help people relocate for your company's jobs. If you aren't in the industry and just happen to have a lot of money, find a real human person who is poor and wants financial stability to take a risky job offer and give them money. If you have a lot of connections in the industry, use those connections to get people good jobs. The problem is, almost nobody in a position to do these things actually wants to do them, and the people who *want* to do these things don't have the opportunity to.
Awareness is step one of changing the wider culture. The comments I've seen on this video are encouraging in this aspect. Better tools to lower the cost of indie development. Microsoft allowing the Series X consoles to be run in dev mode for example. Beyond that you're looking at national and global politics to tackle the class war as a whole. Free tuition, publicly owned investment banks, welfare safety nets and other socialist policies to try to reverse centuries of capitalism's growing wealth inequality and lessen the risk of taking a chance on your dreams. All in all, the class war is beyond this industry, significantly more complex and I wouldn't know where to insert the solutions into a video that focuses specifically on games.
@@hassandurant6861 True, "personal responsibility" can only go so far; it is not a killer drug but is a failing band-aid solution. I remember a comment about Ben Shapiro's views on personal responsibility by using the example of a dam threatening to wash away a town where you live. In Shapiro's view of the situation, "personal responsibility" means selling the house you live in before it bursts; many people pointed out as to who would buy such h a house?
Some people's argument for not having working class people in certain jobs is that "you need to have this xyz education to do that job" and then they ignore that education already has an financial barrier that should be addressed. Plus, not unimportant, you can learn so much on the job. I mean, before I got my job in cybersec, I didn't know anything about computers. Now, a year later, I'm 'the tech guy' at my work place.
This is such a refreshing video. Growing up working class I couldn't afford any video games. But I wanted to.I really did, but it was a world completely closed off to me. But now that I'm more financially stable I've finally got to play some great games
This video has really resonated. Often, trying to get oppotunities for getting into the games industry feels kinda pay-to-win. Like, mentorships cost money, moving to an area where the industry is centred costs money, and networking events cost money. You’ve hit on a topic ive noticed but not really had the words to express, so thanks for that
I would hate to hate to admit anything, and promptly change so I wouldn’t “hate” things because hate is a resolvable social emotion which isn’t useful chronically unless someone somehow is expressing a “wrong” thought.
I wonder how it’s appealing to have a number go up when others are required to be “wronged”. I would likely always remind myself of others based on the incredibly picky depression I have.
Thank God my school has a digital tech program. It has these old has computers and teaches 3d modeling via blender. It's not a private school, it's public most schools in NZ are built pretty well when it comes to their tech programs.
Great video. I'm new to the game industry and, having grown up with working class parents, a lot of what you've said is spot-on, especially the stuff like salary negotiation.
I wanted to be a graphics designer, unfortunatelly I cannot risk so much money studying that, so I'm transporting and installing home appliances instead, life sucks, but you gotta take what you can get...
You can still study it. You really don't need to pay for some fancy qualification to learn things these days; if you have internet access and an hour or two per day, you can teach yourself to do what you want to do, for free. Once you're doing it, you can build up a portfolio. Once you have a portfolio, it may lead to some actual income some day (maybe). Do the things you want to do, & take money out of the equation; the formal education & interviews path isn't the only one anymore when you can promote yourself. It may not lead to a career but it's the only way to stay sane in this hellish capitalist world.
I don't know if this is the same document mentioned at 13:55, but there if you want to look up one there is the salty animators salary document that you can look up. Best of luck to everyone and fight for what you're worth.
So like idk if this is at all relevant but ... when I was a kid, I was enamored with the idea of being able to make games, specifically designing worlds. I played games, I understood that there were people making games, I wanted that more than I wanted to play games. I was a fan. But for me to be able to work in games, I would have to move to another country bc where I was from, nobody was making games. There is no games industry where I was from. And my parents couldn't support me moving where the games industry is. So I chose another career.
This is PMG's very first time working with a freelancer, so please be extra kind to Sam in the comments! More info about that at the end of the video, but in short, we've wanted to do a video about class and the games industry for bloody ages... but Quinns and I weren't the right people to tell it. We're delighted to have been able to find someone who is. -Chris
Excellent voice and camera presence. Would watch again!
Ouh, fun! I know of sams other work, and I'm happy to see her again.
She’s got a really good presence on camera and a great voice. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of her on the channel.
Chris! You guys are awesome, and I'm glad I can trust your guys' judgement! You're awesome! As a queer person living in the states I'm glad you're letting on people like Sam! Awesome work from her holy shit! I'm so glad that there's people who are willing to talk frankly about the issues people face! I'm an anarchist and I really like learning about how things may be similar (if slightly different in social identity or terminology?) in the UK.
Odd question, but at the end of the video, you mention Sam was paid fairly, and though I am sure thats completely true, are you willing to disclose how much Sam was paid for her time?
Thats mostly because I'd like to know what the difference is between your pay and.. For lack of better terms, the "Industry Standard Rate"
Years ago, I was teaching at a university, teaching game industry related skills. I had a student who was really talented, I wanted to see him go far. He was also at an economic disadvantage from many of his classmates. Though my country afforded him the ability to go to university, and the government would take on the debt at a fairly reasonable rate - he still needed to pay for rent and food. That meant working.
This student would often come to class straight off a nightshift. Hadn't even been home to change. It did negatively affect his performance, his capacity to study, and ultimately his employment outcomes.
I tried to do what I could, but that was ultimately not much.
I didn't come from a family with a load of money. But I was lucky enough to be able to move in with my parents, and live rent-free while I was a fulltime student. Being able to study full time, and not need to burn hours per week keeping a roof above my head was enormously beneficial. It meant I could get more out of my education than someone who had to work. Anyone who says we live in a true meritocracy is delusional.
Latching on to your rent and parental support point, never forget that society went through two years of working and studying from home with no major impact on productivity.
People need to fight to avoid these things being taken away from us.
Just wanted to chime in that you're unfortunately not alone in your story - I experienced the same as an instructor in games / VR dev - and also tried to support them however I could but rarely did it make the difference over the life related struggles holding them down. That being said, I think it's so important that you did try, as I also worked with other instructors who just chalked their struggles up to 'laziness' or a 'lack of passion' which can be so demoralizing to a student that they start to internalize it. One instructor putting in the extra work to see them and give them a leg up can make a difference, even if it's just in reminding them that they're more than their grades or attendance.
@@nathandts3401 @Nathan DTS Keep in mind that the capacity to work and study from home is itself locked behind a paywall.
The computers required to develop games aren't cheap. Not everyone lives in a house that's condusive to study. Not everyone lives in a house at all.
The ability to come into the school and use its hardware is essential for some students. I'm glad I wasn't working in education during the pandemic, as the quality of my teaching would have decreased. In person, I can read body language - when a student needs help, but isn't asking me for it. I can proactively go to them. In a virtual classroom, I lose that.
While I agree that WFH arrangements have benefited some people, its not as clear cut as you portray it. "No major impact on productivity" ignores all the people who couldn't participate at all.
I was extremely lucky to go to Uni just as it was getting unafordable to live on loans. I could pay rent and bills and just about eat every day, but that was it. If I'd have started Uni a year later, I wouldn't have been able to go.
@@nathandts3401 That's not what yesterday's A-level results would suggest.
I'm referring to the relative drop in performance of Northern students compared to Southern students.
The Brazilian gaming industry only exists today because of piracy. Everyone I know who had a PS2 had it chipped. The most affordable console here is the Mega Drive (Genesis), which is still being produced by Brazilian manufacturer TecToy, and it sells like crazy because it costs, converted to dollars, $5. Nintendo _hates_ us, because generally we can't afford their stuff full price. It's also why Brazilian gaming youtube channels blow up so often and so quickly: parents can't afford to buy consoles or even decent PCs for their kids, so the only way they can consume video games is through someone else playing them.
Yes! (Brazilian dev here!)
My childhood was based on pirated games and free demos. I didn't even know it was illegal.
Russia was basically the same. And then people were like "We have C (sometimes Pascal) compiler, some programming-related books is in local library, so we can make games too!".
I don't know what the "Nintendo hates us" comment is for, since no company likes to have a market where people don't pay for their product. I doubt Sony was happy about chipped consoles.
@@NuiYabuko Nintendo hates pirates and modders living in North America but you didn't see them leaving out of that continent due to those transgressions. His point is that Nintendo punishes an entire country for the acts of a few yet doesn't do the same about those same acts in other places like North America...
So glad Sam talked about piracy briefly. It's an incredibly important point to recognize that the shared culture that comes from consumption of media (games, film, music, etc.) is effectively gated off from poorer kids, and piracy has always been the great equalizer of that since the Internet became commonplace in homes. I grew up dirt poor, and I wouldn't have played half the games I was able to if I hadn't been able to pirate them. That scene is also how I got into understanding custom firmware for consoles, mod-making, understanding how cheat software works, and a slew of other things that all helped me develop skills that gave me a chance at getting an education in computer science. I grew up in a trailer with holes in the floor and where the lights and water weren't always on. I wouldn't have made it out without piracy. Ⓐ
It was one of the first things that came up when Sam and I were originally talking about this video. I remember being immediately embarrassed that I'd barely thought about piracy in these terms, despite the number of articles I've read about it over the years and the takes I've probably had about it myself in the past. -Chris
And over here in the third world, piracy isn't seen as a crime, but the standard. If you pay for something you can pirate for no good reason, you're seen as wasting money!
It's also, IMO, the big reason PC gaming is a fair bit more popular than console gaming here. It was certainly the dealbreaker for me growing up.
@@PeopleMakeGames I'm glad you all are letting on people like Sam, other perspectives help us all catch blindspots we might miss like that!
I'd argue piracy is also just a net good for the industry as a whole.
It sets a bar publishers have to pass for their products to actually sell, cause if they go too hard on the shitty consumer practices, or put too insane of a price on their games, people will just pirate them instead.
Especially now that some games are being carved up to the point youd have to buy them like 5 times from 5 different places, or pay 3 times the base price to actually get the full game and/or its dlc.
You COULD pay 500+ for the latest Sims game with all its dlc, or you could just pirate it and get it plus tons of mods entirely for free.
On top of that, with the industry's lack of interest in keeping old games available, piracy may often be the only viable way to prevent older games from fading into obscurity entirely. Discs and cartridges, as well as the consoles theyre designed for, can break and go out of production, digital downloads can get delisted, servers can close, were it not for the pirates who knows how many hundreds and thousands of games would already be lost to history?
As much as some parts of the industry like to rail against it, piracy is good for it, and for us.
While everyone deserves access to games. And while I think piracy laws need to change drastically. Your argument is the same as "I grew up poor so I stole from the marketplace, if there weren't delinquents around me to teach me, I wouldn't made it. Now in adulthood I use my charm to work in an office" ??? See the problem there? Still very much a bad thing, even if in your case example it worked out "well" (in the sense that it worked for you, while taking away from companies) it might not (probably won't) work for everyone. I grew up hella poor too, I pirated too, but I definitely still strongly believe I shouldn't've
The poster sign saying "Cut Profits, Not Pay" really hit home for this year, esspically the video game industry where company's are making 'record profits' while cutting staff.
It also just seems to be the general theme of those who seem to have all of the money in world not wanting to give a penny to people who don't.
Why do you say "record profits" and " cutting staff" as if there is any contradiction between these events? Has it ever occurred to you that companies are making 'record profit's precisely because they are 'cutting stuff'? Wealth is a finite quantity in a closed system, for there to be 1 rich person there must be a million poor people. You can't become rich out of thin air, you have to "eat" someone by sending them below the poverty line. This is how capitalism works.
@Anonim Anonimov Bro you literally said the exact same thing I said but with communist bravado as though your some Vendetta looken head ass
@@anonimanonimov3251 I wish there weren't as many "wealth out of thin air" examples as there are, but you're right all the same that it's absolutely about extracting as much wealth out of the labor force as possible while giving out as little in wages as possible.
@@anonimanonimov3251 I get where you're coming from, but I'm pretty sure that's exactly the point op was making
The issue here is: a company does not just have to be profitable, it has to be more profitable than its competitors. If company A gives you a 10% return in your investment and company B gives you a 12%, what company are you putting your savings into? Publicly traded companies are pressured to achieve maximum profitability and nothing else.
Well, I'd say, the whole world is failing the Working Class...
Capitalism is failing the working class.
Feels easier to name an industry that isn't failing them
Would give you a second thumbs up if I could
While it is true, at least where I live there’s a notable difference in the games industry compared to others. And I think that sort of is the point of this video
@@juanga.lindez The games industry is a microcosm of the world's economy in many ways, reflective of some of the worst excesses of capitalism in extremely focused relief. Industry practices like lootboxes, artificial scarcity in game economies, and so on - it's all a little snapshot of the broader issues with capitalism.
The invention of peer-to-peer internet piracy was the greatest redistribution of cultural capital in history.
Kinda makes you think about how things were hundreds of years ago, back when books were prohibitively expensive. They were the most effective method of consistently distributing information. And for the vast majority of people, they may have well not even *existed.* Even the ability to *read* one was a luxury that they would never have the opportunity to learn.
and it was all based on open source software, specifically linux and freebsd, freebsd literally funded by the public university "university of california at berekeley", and linux came from Torvalds who literally said if he didn't grow up in a socialist country (Finland) he never would have created it. "But windows... " windows would not be on the internet without Sockets, it basically had to transform itself to match the open source protocols . "But Macintosh..." is based on FreeBSD. OSX and iOS both have bsd at the base and still do.... but consoles? Sony Playstation based on open source software. Every last one of them has open source at the base of it.
@@CheshireCad aye, the only thing that could rival my original claim is the printing press, with broadcast radio (and television) a close third
In my country, before 2021, a MSc of Chemistry would make 900 euros before taxes. After taxes, they had 600 left. From that six hundred, most of it goes to rent and cost of living.
A fucking MSc of chemistry working in Pharma can scarcely afford a single 60 euro game. Imagine the average person who only makes 600 euros before taxes.
I am a student myself. My household of 2 lives off of my scholarships and small bonuses for publications and conferences. We live off of (after-taxes) 200-300 euros (depending on time of year) a month.
socialism can do work if resources are not limited lmao
I've uh, really noticed this in my game design degree. I'm 19 years old and I'm not poverty line poor, but I have had to help with rent in the past. Which I think is a pretty significant indicator for a 19 year old. I still consider myself lucky, but all my classmates are so much wealthier. It's kind of astounding really. I have friends who live in inner city apartments who are only now getting their first part time job. I can only dream of one day moving out, my family of 4 aren't even stable in our rental, the thought that I could support myself is just insane to me.
Needless to say I am putting in the *hard fucking miles* at uni. I really do *need* to get into the industry very soon after I graduate.
PMG really gives me hope for games journalism, I love y'all so much. Keep fighting for our industry!
It depends on where you're going to school. I spent a year at the Art Institute, a stupidly expensive institution, and most people there were fairly well-off (I went entirely on student loans). I transferred to a smaller school, one that actually doesn't exist anymore, and suddenly, my classmates were all on my financial level or lower (except for the one Arab guy, who always wore nice clothes and drove a nice car).
@@Cha4k "I did a shit house course cus I didn't do any research and just thought 'hurr durr guess I'll do this one!' so that must mean your uni course is awful too!". That's you that's what you sound like. I did two years of self taught and I learned more in my first 2 months at uni than I did in that whole year. It ALSO gave me the opportunity to work in groups which is VITAL to work in the games industry (even solo devs are rarely actually solo). I've come a long way and I'm only half way through the course. RMIT university is the best in the country for game dev. Plenty of well known games have been made by graduates of RMIT.
Like I'm sorry to tell you this but you are *just plain wrong*. Your experience of a games course DECADES ago (DECADES I REMIND YOU) just doesn't mean shit in today's landscape. It's not applicable. Also uni is way cheaper in Australia and we have HECS which means interest doesn't start accumulating on our loans until we reach a certain income threshold. So basically we are debt free until we are actually able to start affording it which is a massive help.
Also man I also work. Most of my friends at uni work. Kids these days aren't all rich and supported fully by their parents. You've been lied to by the media. We got it tough too! The entire global economy just crashed we are super hard off and we have to work through that just like everyone else had to work through their generations hardships.
don't move out, it's too expensive in the long run
stay with your parents until they pass away
Oh man, the piracy section was really not something I was thinking about. Thank you for opening my eyes to a new perspective.
A chipped PS1 and an abundance of child friendly platformers are the reasons I spend as much as I do on games in adulthood.
There were no lost sales because my parents wouldn't have been buying the games legitimately. It was either a happy kid discovering gaming or no gaming at all.
Same! I'd considered this sort of perspective in other industries - like theatre for example - but not gaming. I wonder where further discussion of this might go - like with theatre I'm generally currently sitting somewhere around improving accessibility being the answer.
What opened your eyes exactly? I've rarely heard people talk down on piracy, unless it's corporate ads.
@@rhettorical Much like with physical stealing I feel like for me the morality of the situation is very variable, since I am, broadly, a socialist rather than full communist or anarchist. Someone is struggling with meeting basic needs of themselves or their family and shoplifts some food from a large chain shop - I have no real moral qualms with them doing that. Those chains profiting from the working class in a way which means they can't feed themselves is what lead to the situation. But if I, a person with many privileges and some disposable income, were to go into my local independent board game shop and steal a game just because I liked it, an act which, if others also do it, could feasibly contribute to the shop going out of business, I would take moral issue with that. Similarly with games - I wouldn't shed tears over a kid who had no money, no prospects of ever being bought a game, playing a pirated version of some triple A blockbuster which is realistically already going to make well enough profit to fairly compensate it's workers if the company actually wanted to (and ultimately as this video touched on, potentially help the game or studio Vs hinder). I'd look more carefully though at something like a small solo or indie dev project being pirated by a person who spends loads of money on other hobbies and has plenty because "video games aren't worth spending real money on".
"When you're scraping by, you take what you can get". Exactly, and then the existence of a class of workers willing to do the same job for less contributes to downwards pressure on salaries for people of all class backgrounds. We need to help reduce inequality, because it hurts us all (with the exception of those individuals and companies who benefit from lower wages for increased hours of work).
As a follow up, in Canada (where I live) there is a distinct lack of class consciousness which makes this an even harder discussion to have. This is despite there being very visibly different economic classes across the country.
This is one thing that many people fail to grasp. Great welfare, better living standards and humane wages will prop us all, and the opposite of those is dooming us all.
I am a third world citizen, and in my observation the allure of getting rich and the rise of charismatic or at least convincing billionaires has made this struggle so much harder.
So many times, when you ask someone who’s doing well but isn’t rich to help, support, or even just put themselves in the shoes of the less privileged, they balk or align with the shallow lifehacks hawked by billionaires.
Meritocracy, capitalism, and all other illusions of this equal playing field and the right to earn as much as you can, regardless of its consequences for others. It saddens me to think that even a handful of these brainwashed idiots will indeed make it to the top.
I grew up poor through no fault of my mom. But even now that we are in a much better situation, my heart still breaks for people who are stressed daily about money and material needs, and have to put so much effort into surviving that their other goals and potential are left to wither. And I still am afraid as well that I will end up like that in my old age, simply because I won’t be able to keep up with the rising cost of living.
@@PhantomPhoton
im afraid of the revolution because even if the world is shit right now, we might make it worse by a few individuals
think of the USSR, they wanted a revolution and better workers' rights but ended up with authoritarianism and harsh censorship
The first step is of course to ensure that all workers are properly educated about the salary that they should expect and be unafraid to fight for a better salary if they need it.
@@DanaiHamit The USSR failed because the people weren't educated enough to help prevent the wrong people taking up important positions and fucking everything up. Ol' Joey restored the alcohol plants to get the disadvantaged drunk and depressed again just so he could retain power.
Im from a working class background and I was able to negotiate a raise for the first time recently precisely because I had managed to squirrel away enough money from previous jobs to negotiate from a point of strength and not desperately needing my job for the first time in my career. I tell friends and family and their idk impressed by my moxie or something but that confidence entirely came from having a small safety net I did not have before. The cruel irony ofc being that id have a lot more money by now if I didn't have to enter in so low.
My first job, which required a university education btw, paid minimum wage. And my second job in games I got "let go" for discussing wages with colleagues. In between my game jobs I've had to work as an English tutor and secretary completely unrelated to games just so I could get money to pay rent leaving years-long gaps in my resume where I appear to have left the industry caus I couldn't hold out for anything in my field.
Game design is literally the only thing I've ever wanted to do and class (alongside gender, tho tbh - not as much) has consistently gotten in the way. And I have so many friends who've had it way rougher than me or even burnt out of the industry altogether.
I love it when people say advice like "why are you afraid, you should just X, it would be illegal for your employer to retaliate". Like, "it would be illegal for your employer to retaliate" only protects you if you have the ability to bring legal pressure down on said employer (and weather the retaliation). Do they go up to undocumented workers who are being exploited by shady-ass bosses and advise them to just lodge an HR complaint?
Getting fired for discussing wages sounds like unlawful termination to me, nowhere in the law does it state you can't talk about your salary with coworkers.
@@gralmakaren9919 It's more illegal than that. The law (in ontario) explicitly says you cant prevent workers from discussing wages. But remember that things are only illegal if done to someone who can afford lawyers. Also like most unlawful terminations they didn't tell me in a written document "were doing this because you discussed wages" it just happened to occur shortly after I discussed wages openly.
Thank you so much for bringing up this subject. We might not like it, or even remember, but the games industry and its audience played a pivotal role in shaping the current western political landscape; Gamergate. This was a turning point in online culture, and developers/critics/players/games were at the center of it all. This is no longer an isolated segment of our culture, what values we express and how we do so will have a direct impact on our future as a society. I wouldn't be surprised that a broader class movement could have its beginnings here, in our industry, and I believe we have a responsibility to fight for intersectional solidarity NOW.
what currency is "NOK"
@@bloopahVIII norse koins. it's what former vikings use.
How did Gamergate shape the current western political landscape?
If that's at all possible to summarise!
I'm genuinely interested, but never really understood Gamergate beyond people making allusions to it.
@@electricmonk4487 it didn't really shape it, it revealed a lot of hidden aspects, primarily bribing review websites to give your game great reviews and people being able to turn movements against said bribery into a message that all gamers are bigots
otherwise it was just fighting between people who like games, sexists who like games, sexists who hate people that like games and mainstream american news
@@electricmonk4487 It's a bit hard to summarize, but simply put it marked the shift in online libertarian communities becoming overtly conservative/right wing, and led to the popularization/memefication of Trump and creation of QAnon, which in turn had an impact of politics the world over.
I'd recommend watching Q: Into The Storm on HBO, it's the best coverage of the phenomenon from someone who had their eyes on the ball fairly early on, although I think it only briefly touches on the GamerGate era
The Serfs on UA-cam has a highly praised documentary on it called "Gamergate: The Untold Story", I haven't watched it yet myself so I can't 100% vouch for it, but there is a lot of coverage out there.
For many of us, seeing QAnon exploding in popularity and treated as if it "came out of nowhere" was an absurd experience. We watched it unfold for years and I think it's important for people to see where it all started.
You also need to consider the competition for jobs in the gaming industry (unless you go the dubious route of indie dev), that already acts as a barrier for many, requiring a lot of additional learning outside lessons. People who have to work to make a living from an early age and don't have a comfortable buffer, would find the expected time sink on top of education to be unfeasible.
I do think that games have become way more egalitarian though, considering how hardware costs are way down and there are more free games than not at this point, which, as a kid, I would've loved, so I didn't have to always play the little handful of games I had for my old consoles.
The game dev industry isn't a good investment for your future, considering the work conditions, the hiring rate, and the time-sink. The lower class work menial jobs more often than other classes because there's a high employment rate and short education time, as well as often offering paying internships during the education.
@Spin Lock that's not the point. It's not about experience, it's about the competition being so high due to the insufficient amount of jobs on offer. Stonemason don't need to build up a massive portfolio of their expertise to show a prospective employer.
I'm not saying there should be more jobs, it's just a statement of how the industry is. A lot of people also have a very warped belief about video gaming development, believing it to be an easy job, when it really requires quite a lot of expertise in several different fields like programming, 3d modelling, animation, level design, etc.
It's a booming industry, but already suffers from outsourcing to countries like India, the Philippines, etc., so people also have to compete with that, and the way they do so is by accepting subpar terms of employment, crunch to the extreme, and few benefits. For an industry with so much wealth behind it, frightfully little goes to the people making the actual games
@@DemMedHornene Exactly this. I'm a game designer working for a mobile game studio and it's so disheartening seeing the industry take the route of NFTs and still layoff employees due to cheap outsourcing from India and the Philippines. It's taking away the accessibility of the industry for people who want a livable existence and abusing the lower income nations in awful ways (do to supporting outsourcing studios in countries with even worst workplace condition laws). It's freaking awful. This also doesn't help if we try to unionize because our development contracts with publishers are so complex, some even stipulate a route to terminate publishing contracts if employees organize (which is illegal, but nothing can be enforced because people don't want to make the effort because we are all exhausted working). It sucks so much because we didn't choose our passion, we didn't choose to want to work in games more than anything, and the industry abuses that passion. But we just take it because the tech industry in general is so fucking libertarian that it's going to ruin everything the worst this keeps getting if there is no education around unionization and fighting back. The whole thing is fucked right now
@@TheDeadb3ar "Passion" is basically code for "prime for exploitation". Game-related fields are all specialized labor, and practical experience is prized - more folks working in the business need to learn their value, and most importantly, work in concert to organize. The outsourcing/offshoring threat is held overhead like a Sword of Damocles, but if India, Indonesia, Phillippines, etc were truly great at doing top-shelf game-dev, then companies there would be killing it in their own regional markets, not working for consulting-pennies.
@@mandisaw well the issue is we do get payed well (Not well enough in proportion to the income brought in though). Well enough to worry about the risk of organizing. But I think it's also just the libertarian mindset prevalent through the tech industry. "Why would I want to unionize if I get treated well and payed great" is a common sentiment. And CEOs know that paying some people really well will combat the idea of unionizing
@@TheDeadb3ar it's quite insane to see, honestly. In my country, the laws around the job market would've made that stuff illegal, but Denmark is also a very pro-union country.
And I really feel for you, cause I share that passion, but realise that I don't want to be abused by a corporation for it. Though it's not as bad, the animation/film industry is pretty rough too, with lots of job competition and not amazing workplace standards nor wages. Hearing people talk about how they spent 7 months in a sweaty apartment with six other dudes to make two massive 3d models for a movie, only for that movie to flop and them not really being paid that much for the whole ordeal.
Similar to the game's industry, the animation/film industry is fraught with freelance jobs too, which makes it all the harder to actually do anything about job conditions, when most of your workforce isn't even tied to your company.
I think it's a great example of an industry that developed too quickly for its own good, because while top execs, who never studied a minute of game design, earn millions upon millions, the people actually making stuff get shafted while being told loyalty to their company is paramount..
This isn't just specific for the Games industry, but all creative industries.
I have been trying to get into TV for about a decade now and I have gotten absolutely nowhere, because I'm working class.
I can't afford to network, I can't afford to shadow someone, becoming freelance is absolutely terrifying for me and I have to have a regular job working in a shop just so I can pay the bills.
There is something happening in Brazil that worth paying attention. A substantial amount of big companies are looking for brazilian devs to develop their games. Which is fenomenal, but the reason that this is happening is because it's cheaper to hire a brazilian dev nowadays than some devs from another countries. The BIG (Best International Games) Festival this year had a bunch of important people from big game companies looking for devs to hire, for example. The US Dollar is costing more than 5x of what Br Real costs making it possible to the companies to pay less or the same without getting any complaints from the devs.
Well good they got the socialist PM
this video is excellently done and brings up a lot of good points. i think it's significantly understated just how crushing being below the poverty line can be. there was a long time where i had nearly every passion and social relationship i had ever cared about taken away from me just because i lacked the energy to focus on anything other than my job when i worked at a warehouse. 60 hours of dull repetitive labor a week ABSOLUTELY crushes dreams, and it feels so relieving to see people articulating and covering just what's going on. keep up with the stellar content :)
I'm from a working class background working in tech, honestly I'd love to go into the video games industry but after hearing about working environments I'm avoiding...
Great video on class in general, applies to so many industries, speak to your employer about Social mobility, a lot of the time people from higher classes are simply unaware of difficulties from working class folk.
Most people who come from more humble backgrounds aren't interested in eating crap and living like a drone for years, ie paying your dues, like some industries demand. For wealthier people, this entry level drudgery is an adventure, something they can tell anecdotes about when they get older.
Give it a little time; unionisation is inevitable.
@@StephenYuan Never knew this about wealthy people. Makes me think I need to reconsider some things 🤔
@@StephenYuanIve never met a born into wealth person who went on these entry level adventures, though i have seen this archetype in movies so maybe its an american thing. The people I know and have met either follow their parents and work themselves to an early grave or become deadbeats
I have mixed feelings on this one, because on one hand the games industry has been absolutely life changing for me as someone from a working class background, but on the other hand it took me well over a decade and a half to get to that point, plus moving to Canada and I'm still making less than I would if I went to one of the big tech companies like Google or Facebook.
Personally it's been worth it for me thus far, because part of my thought process is that because you spend so much of your life at work, you should try to optimise for something that feels like fun. But for obvious reasons, many people would just choose the ridiculous firehose of money that comes with working for one of the big tech companies, and who could blame them.
This hit a little close to home. I wouldn't normally consider myself working class in my home country (I'm Eastern European) but the moment I try looking into opportunities to get into the games industry, I immediately run into obstacles that all come down to money. The same money that has me living fairly comfortably here does not allow me to move to the UK (or somewhere with a more developed games industry) without already having a job lined up. And while the pandemic supposedly helped with this issue by allowing for more online interviews and even remote work, Brexit kind of undid all that.
Doing games work here could also be an option, but it's mostly QA and other technical stuff getting outsourced here with very limited options for doing the "creative" side of things as I wish to do. I got a pitiful job offer to do QA for Ubisoft for a monthly salary of 400 (!) euros in the capital. That would mean struggling to make ends meet even here. It's very clearly a job intended for people who already can afford to live in the capital and potentially don't even have to pay rent at all. It's great supplemental income, but nothing someone can live off of. And it is the only games industry job I got offered after years of searching (despite having earned two media-related university diplomas).
Hey Nándor! As someone who couldn't have made it into the games industry alone I can definitely symphathize. I'm sure there are many talented and skilled people who are in the same boat. At the moment the company I work for in Budapest, Zen Studios is looking for pinball designers and 3D animators, so if you are interested and we are not one of the companies you already considered, feel free to send your CV our way. We are primarily looking for hungarian speaking colleagues, but based on your name I'm guessing that may not be a problem. :)
As home office is the norm at our company, with very little chance of this changing, I think it may be possible to work something out even if you are not based in Hungary. To be clear, I cannot make any guarantees and I'm not working in our HR department, so I don't know for sure what factors would be important for our hiring process, but I wanted to help as much as I could.
Really loving the direction this channel is going. A lot more people need to look critically at the games industry itself!
Thank you so much for talking about this much-underdiscussed topic. It feels like there is very little awareness of this problem across a lot of middle-class desk jobs. I will often hear people waxing about how well-informed they are on all matters relating to equality, citing all the columns and books they have read, before proceeding to be incredibly disparaging about someone across the street for how they are dressed.
I love that you featured Sam's amazing commentary and insight. The argument of "same hours is the day" is such BS, especially if you're not solidly middle class or above. It ignores all the time that goes into accessing games, playing them, or learning the skills to make or analyse them; things that take from that game leisure time like being a carer or having to do your own repairs because you ARE working class and can't afford to pay someone to do it. Excellent video!
I too come from a working class background, and have recently moved into the games industry. I managed to get to university with a large grant and loan, because my parents didnt make much money at all. This grant allowed me to live through uni without the need to get a job at the same time as studying. I honestly dont think i would have finished my degree if I had to have worked at the same time. After uni I landed a random programming job, moved to england for it, and worked there for 6 years. Now in the past year I got a job in the gaming industry, and it is purely because I had a connection to the company (and the fact that I can now work from home and dont need to travel to the company) I have been extremely lucky and am constantly scared that I'm going to lose my job. I have a lot of imposter syndrome, and no self confidence. There is no part of me that believes I got where I am because of my own skill or abilities. But I work in games now... even if it was all luck
So glad to see someone talk about this. Even though my friends and I had access to free higher education (Scottish) and are very grateful for it. Institutions don't seem to realise that a lot of students can't attend industry events/gamejams/hackathons etc. becasue they need to work evenings and weekends just to continue attending their classes.
i have read - and did a handy Ctrl-F - through a bunch of the comments and no one seems to have brought up what could be a big answer to this problem: TRADE UNIONS
I've worked at ubisoft and they only hire people coming from expensive business schools and video game schools. we have free universities here in France (with the same teaching quality than private ones) and we were VERY few coming from those in the company. this issue was often raised internally by employees coming from modest families but always ignored. same goes for interns and referrals.
That's the networking effect - I kind of wish they'd prodded at it further in the OP. The games business seems to run on "who you know", and it gets compounded by a focus on previously-shipped titles/prestigious companies on your resume. That creates a positive-feedback loop where folks with connections to existing devs/communities make up the recruitment pools, raising the barrier to entry for people outside those communities.
I don't want to be too negative about this video, but I feel like it's missing a second half that discusses solutions to the problem. I don't think anyone is surprised that the games industry is risky and filled with people who can mitigate that risk with their privilege. That's kind of just a problem with the entire economy. And I don't think a solution will come from inside the industry, but I was excited to hear about possibilities...and then the video ended.
Same, I was looking for a kind of conclusion myself. My gut feeling is that through enough connections and with sufficient population out there that working-class folks and those of underrepresented communities pool together to found their own game studios. Resources-wise we can find examples of indie gems and novel concepts that didn’t need a AAA budget to catch on like wildfire (Among Us, maybe?). I think unifying these groups into a house of diverse ideas and backgrounds can launch something substantial.
They never discuss solutions… Because they know how laughable they are.
Same feeling on this vid here. The 'cost of living' issue many of us are in is not unique to this industry.
Would certainly like to hear a followup chapter 2 to this vid.
The only answer to this is the same for every industry: mass protests & radical unionisation -> strikes -> general strikes -> workplace takeovers -> replacement workers' democracy (e.g. soviets/shoras/cordones) -> total replacement of the capitalist government institutions by that workers' democracy. This is the process of working-class revolution, and it unfortunately needs to happen globally & more or less simultaneously in order to totally kill capitalism worldwide in order to permanently take purchase.
@@gloverelaxis While you're busy being unproductive and railing against the system there will be 100 other game devs hungry to take your job and salary. If you want to own the fruits of your labor, get some people together and try to make an indie game. You'll very quickly see the result of a worker's democracy then, for better or for worse.
As someone who struggles weekly with the concept that I could be out of a house with nowhere to go, this video hit different.
You lot really are impressive in terms of everything I hold in high regard in journalism of any sort. Thankyou again for an insightful informative and enjoyable piece of work.
This was a brilliant video and a great insight to the games industry delivered in a very nice simplistic manner. Lovely video!
Coming from a working class background this video really hit home, I was privileged to be able to get a foot in at a QA outsourcer where travel was free (because I could walk there) and thanks to it I now have a fantastic job testing at a studio, I spent my whole career at the outsourcer always afraid to ask for a payrise, never feeling I could say no, afraid to switch jobs and take that risk, because the chance of having no money was always at the back of my mind and funnily I never even associated this with my background, recent years of people sharing salaries and asking for more pay and it has never been something I have ever felt comfortable with due to that fear even when at a more welcoming studio.
QA is an area full of amazing people that often come from working class backgrounds and they're some of the best people I have worked with, but often those taken the most advantage of in terms of pay, I can only hope that improvements are made to try and help them out more!
Thank you for this, PMG. It was mature, important, and informative. Most middle and even upper class people are, in the end, good decent folk with a lack of perspective. It is through journalism like this that the less fortunate might gain some understanding and compassion for their situations. Cheers lads.
Thanks!
As someone in the USA, this described how it works over here in nearly all careers. Something most don't know is about half of America is living paycheck to paycheck. About 30% is living debt to debt or has to use assistance to get by. And this is with 2.5 jobs on average per person.
To be blunt, IDK if it's capitalism or what that caused this. Most likely corruption. But I hope it ends extremely soon.
One sobering fact is looking at wealth by race, since that's where you see the biggest disparities. If you look at nondurable wealth (wealth that isn't in the form of a car or house) then the average black family only has 5% the nondurable wealth of the average white family. Nondurable wealth is assets like stocks, bonds, your net-egg and bank accounts. The disparity isn't as bad if you include durable assets like cars and houses but is still obscene (I don't have the number on hand unfortunately).
For me, I'm an anarchist, so I feel the whole rotten structure is one of artificial scarcity, in 2021 you saw a third of police calls be to evict people, and now you see a moral panic about shoplifting when wage theft is 4 times as big as all burglary, robbery, and theft combined.
@@tibbygaycat Nondurable wealth you need to look at age vs race. Like if you look at race it doesn't paint a good picture of what is going on. Most of that wealth is in the older groups (boomers) and most of them are.... not black.
But when you look at it from this, you can find across the board almost no one has anything when you compare it to prior generations and there is more people living in poverty today than there ever has been.
BTW
The problem with things like looking at cars = wealth is not all areas use cars. Like in a city where you pretty much walk to everything you need (rich or not) cars can be an unneeded cost. To the point is actually is common in some major many citizens don't even have a drivers license at any point in their life. Or you have someone in their 50s or even 70s going for their driver license since they are moving away from the city.
So when you look at it like this, you then need to look at geographic location of groups. Most black people live in cities. Where as most people who live out in the country poverty or not isn't (it tends to be a mix of Hispanic,Native American, and white).
that's capitalism, pay employees as little as possible and demand as much as possible for products and services. nothing's gonna change if this system is not abolished. when the idea behind most companies is to constantly expand and earn more and more, instead of earning just enough to maintain the business and providing nothing more than a sufficiently comfortable standard of living for everyone involved, people will always be exploited. you can't make enough profit to buy a fucking yacht if you don't rob and neglect your employees. we need to learn how to become independent from these fucks and work together for OUR benefit. WE make what they sell, they ain't shit without us.
@@PlomiennyJacus i come from a country where workers unions run industry and politics, the state provides for everyone, education is free... and its still the same bs. The same struggle from paycheck to paycheck, mass unemployment, corruption, taxes that hit below median income the hardest etc. Pretty sure inequality is hardcoded into humanity regardless of the windowdressing the power structure chooses to adopt. Smaller improvements are very much achievable though, e.g. I never had to fear police officers there, even though the rest of the justice system above them was a complete farce.
It's capitalism. Companies profit by either ripping off suppliers, employees or the customer.
Less noticeable when companies are underpaying for labour in poorer countries, but capitalism always has the money trickling to the top.
Class is about your relations to the means of production, not how poor or wealthy you are.
If you sell your labor to a capitalist for a wage, you're working class.
Great video. Meritocracy is an idea that sounds good in theory, but becomes an easy and incorrect way for people to classify other people incorrectly. It has always felt like a terrible idea to bank everything on when you look at it as a whole. Most of the time, luck and circumstances affect success, but a society that "values only meritocracy" seems to suggest that luck doesn't play a big part in success. Which lands us in a society where toxic successful people discriminate and increase the gap between successful and unsuccessful individuals, and conveniently blaming their lack of success to a lack of talent or hard work rather than attribute their own to sheer luck.
Just think about how many times you have heard of a family member telling their children to study hard if not they will end up doing crappy jobs like that janitor. Directly implying that the person is stuck in the janitorial job because they don't have talent and failed to work hard, while the real truth often lie elsewhere, they have no other choices based on the circumstance.
Agreed that meritocracy myth. This life unfair af. My parents poor and they decided to have me and now i suffer cause of their mistakes and mistakes of past generations i guess cause i live in Russia and here you can't live good you live here like slave i hate that. Plus i got bullied in school. And after that society except from me to become good member of society its such sucks system
13:27 Boris Johnson is shocked to learn about basic statistical methods.
My immediate thought is the high standard of education/knowledge required to go into game development acts as a barrier.
It's so true. I hate that I'm too stupid to learn anything related to game development.
I don't think we should underestimate the importance of connections. How many companies were formed buy a bunch of close friends who met in school.
I don't think it's high standards, but the fact that depending on where you studied, you might get to know certain contacts that let you jumpstart your career.
That's the thing that has stopped me, I wanted to become a graphics designer, but the few places close to me that teach that AND have the contacts, are way too expensive.
This is why access to higher education should be free
This is a highly specialized field, seriously some of the stuff artists do are on the level of mother f'ing Davinci or Michael Angelo in modern day, even better because of the tools we have now. Who the hell cares about class when hiring somebody?, or race for that matter? If im hiring a person i'm doing it based on their portfolio, which shows your TECHNICAL expertize and creativity, seriously this video is an F for me. The only gatekeepy (if that's a word) part of games development is how fast it shaves off years of your life in the pursuit of study, because of the ammount of knowledge and practice required. It's taken me 4 years and 8000 hours to be able to get the confidence to say that I intimately understand Zbrush in and out. Sure, not everybody has that time commitment, drive, or money for schooling. But you don't hire a heart surgeon that doesnt know how to do surgery, you don't hire a 3d artist or an animator who doesnt know how to sculpt or animate.
Raised in a low income one parent household in the UK, now entering the games industry as a graduate, I never would have had the chance to even play videogames if not for my uncle handing me down his N64 in 2005, going round middle or upper class friends houses I’d see PS3s and The Wii was like stepping into the future, pure insanity, now that I’ve graduated and even during my course it was evident many of my peers had essentially been ‘groomed’ for their careers, super weird experience over all, kids coming in to write C# with Dior bags and posting on social media about buying houses, it was jarring, but you focus on getting through, trying to get my first job now but balancing full time employment with job seeking AND building a portfolio is a big ask, I’ll make it work though, haven’t come this far not to.
I mean it’s insane! Tickets for most of that Brighton expo a few months back were like 600 just to see people talk, that’s a month of rent BEFORE bills LMAO
thank you for this video! i'm from a working class background (rural american south) and I had enormous culture shock when I moved to Seattle to work at a games studio. i'm also a sound designer & composer, both fields are still VERY male dominated, so as a non-male working-class background person, it feels wild that I'm making a living at this.
Oh god I can't imagine what that'd be like! I have heard about the bullshit that happens in computer science with sexism but I didnt know sound design was in the same boat.
@@tibbygaycat There's a Full Frontal segment on the music industry, not gaming but I recommend it nonetheless. It basically said that even behind popular female singers there're a whole bunch of male writers and producers etc.
A lack of ability to code hasn't stopped people in the past. Go throw up a Kickstarter or Patreon! You could be the next Yanderedev!
The "getting on" bit is what I've struggled with while trying to further my career in games media. Let's not even talk about how certain publications either didn't pay me or paid me so little that it didn't matter. I've never felt like I belonged at any publication I've written for. I've had a miserable time trying to connect with my colleagues and even when at events, I'm not sure how to network. No one teaches you this stuff and by the time you're back home, it's too late to really reverse anything.
I'm not specifically from a working-class background as my family was middle-class, but we've never been flush with cash. My parents had money issues and debt, so I had very few chances to make mistakes. I bombed out of college and now just coast from job to job while still trying to write on the side. It sucks.
Networking is the worst. There's so much classism and ableism entailed in it. "Oh, sorry, your neurology means you have intense anxiety spikes during high-stakes, unstructured social interactions with multiple strangers? We'll, get the fuck out of this discipline, weirdo!"
Loved it. I would absolutely delight in more stories by Sam on the channel.
Nothing to add - just tossing a comment for the algorithm. Thank you for making this!
Sam is delightful, one of the absolute best critics around in the games industry, let alone one of the best people in it period. So glad that she’s the first freelance journalist you’re working with, and hope to see her again in the near future. Thank you for covering a topic so near and dear to so many of our hearts, that we normally aren’t given the space to share and must carve ourselves to almost no one listening. Fantastic to see how PMG expands on covering the topics that are the most important to talk about in this industry.
I wholeheartedly agree that risk-taking is a privilege exclusive to people with a good financial safety net.
Since a lot of the games industry involves directly selling to consumers, either by developing games or working on game media, to get big one has to take the risk that there will actually be people willing to pay for your content.
I'm glad you were able to briefly touch on the topic of piracy as well. It's one of those things that seem obvious to those living in poorer countries yet it's rarely brought up.
I would also say that the way Steam indirectly fought against piracy - in part by hosting sales of affordable indie games - is perhaps changing what less wealthy to-be game developers play now.
Not in the gaming industry but this problem is a lot bigger than just video games. It can be said about lot of the software industry, engineering, and sciences. They often require years of expensive study and it doesn’t help that many of these industries are highly competitive.
100% I got into the games industry via Uni from a working class background. I only finished Uni a few years ago, but the cost of living of student halls and such has skyrocketed so much that, I don't think I'd have gone if given the choice today. I was living on pasta and bread, and nowadays I don't even think the loan would have covered rent + bills
Exactly, this is a problem with all skilled/science work that needs an education.
Something stings me when watching this piece. I think If I have to put it somewhere, it is the following
Could the "Games Industry" aspect exchanged for any other industry? Yes. It would work just as well with Marketing, any other software development and other white collar/academic industry.
In the end, the work industry has a problem with the working class and the game industry is part of it.
Fantastic reporting, also kudos for the self-recognition and sincerity. I hope you don't lose those along the rest of the way.
Honestly the difference between having a financial safety net and not is such a huge factor in so many “dream job industries“. Really glad you guys made this video and props to Chris for openly admitting his own privilege in making this entire channel. There is a lack of perspective in the arts from the lower half of society that’s very troubling, a lot of voices never being heard because they didn’t have the option of moving back in with their parents. It’s something that should always be kept in mind just as much as race and gender.
Being a game developer from Scandinavia, working in the UK and pushing my way up towards a leadership position. I have seen most of the things gone over in this video from the inside. Most of my peers who are in their 20's and 30's are laden with debt, while I dont have any, because education was free where I came from; I even got paid to study, and at my education the people were far more diverse. The games industry as a whole is becoming so money focused its loosing sight of making a good product over profit, and the profit is not being shared. It is a fight to get Juniors and Midlevels paid a living wage, many still seem to think its a taboo to talk about salary...Really good video, keep up the good reporting!
It's a similar story in the animation world. Despite some real efforts to push remote work etc it's all just so London-centric with everything that comes with it.
So I have a masters in Game theory and design but cannot and have not been able to get a job in the video game industry. I barely even get interviews. Ones I have had, looking back I cannot help but feel my northern accent and working class behaviour patterns/mannerisms were discriminated against. Very subtly of course. What is more, the choices I made at interview were couched within a certain Working class "desperation" that this video touches upon. I never had any financial privleges to fall back on and comparatively if so, I feel like you can conduct yourself with a calm air of composure and easy humour that these companies feel comfortable with. Many of my partners friends are supremely financially privileged and there has always been a sense that the middle class are always a safe pair of hands...
really loved this video, like i have all of these! just a note from something i noticed-- i'd like to say that, in regards to captions, if you have an audible swear word but censor it in captions, that's placing the people who most need the captions at a disadvantage. this may sound a bit silly, but it gatekeeps Deaf and HOH people from things that hearing people are getting. if a curse is audibly there, then it should be transcribed in captions. it's a very real problem for those of us who rely on captions. for myself, today this was a day i could hear well enough, but other days my tinnitus makes captions a necessity, and the contrast between what is accessible to me when i'm able to hear and when i'm not is something i'm very aware of. all that said, i loved this video! especially as someone whose relationship with games has been so influenced by my own background in poverty. thanks for sharing it with us!
Oh that's really useful to know, thanks! An easy change for us to make. -Chris
Thank you for making this video, Sam. This video is so important. I'm a working class person who's been through numerous jobs, including being a janitor, and I don't have a college degree. I've attempted to blog and podcast about games and movies. Haven't found much success in that regard. Some, but not much. Anyway, I relate strongly to this video, and just wanted to add my kudos to you and the People Make Games team for putting this together!
Great video! And I loved Sam in this video.
Honestly, it's easy to forget how being middle class is a privilege in its own right. I'm an adult on disability and I still benefit tremendously from having parents and siblings that are middle class. And it's not even in direct financial support, it's stuff like me being able to buy a big closet secondhand because my parents have a car and trailer to help haul it to my place. It's in so many things you wouldn't even consider normally.
Always nice to see one of my favorite channels moving left.
This resonates with my experiences as a young poverty stricken youth bent on being a maker of games. I had non-financial privilege on my side and had to ultimately ally with other privileged entities to further my agendas and goals. But the pure charity of others when I was young kept igniting me desired to contribute to this space. Letting me use their kit when they weren't and a 4th grade teacher who gave me time on his commodore 64 to practice math and explore basic. Mr Hand, thank you! You don't know how much trajectory and velocity you gave me (it was a tiny nudge early in life sending an asteroid stuck in it's space out of it's orbit and into a new one), but it was one solid start of a spark that passionately burns on to this day... over four decades later... Breaking into this games space with our poverty/working class rooted stories and perspectives is worth having happen. Work with youth and disadvantaged. Encourage them. Show them what is possible. Send out sparks into the world! There are more of us than them.
🔥🔥 🔥
As a Venezuelan, it is quite an understatement that had it not been for piracy, there's simply too many things that I wouldn't have ever been able to play at all. While I was lucky to have a lot of console stuff before 2013 as a kid, when that year came around (and people in my country should know what happened since), that luck of my parents having expendable money vanished and putting aside all what I went through from then to now, as a 20 year old now I can see that getting to buy games is a huge gamble. My low-mid end PC (for today's standards) can run emulators up to PS2 and Wii and handle some few modern games though, but I got it only because I swapped a N64 Pikachu edition for it.
I've got some games off Steam through giveaways, as gifts or if they have a huge price cut and I really want a game, but getting to scramble around 20-40$ weekly AT BEST from writing on a website, looking for triple A releases with their 60$ price tags and ANYTHING related to consoles (not only same price tags but also 400-500$ consoles) is out of question. And playing retro stuff as well as arcade games and such (F-Zero GX my beloved) is only possible for me like that because, as many are aware now, retro gaming collection is getting insanely pricey now (let alone arcade games without rereleases, which means you would have to shell a console price tag for a SINGLE game cabinet legally)
It sure sounds like a big tangent trying to justify certain stuff, but legal retro gaming is impossible with the nonexistent pockets I have, and any Steam picks are far and between due to how what I save up often goes to something else (food, self care, or even maybe wanting to get an upgrade or peripheral instead of gambling it on a game). And as I'm not even sure for how long will it be until I have to move out of my house for unfortunate reasons, internet connection for online games is also going to become a luxury I won't have anymore.
TL;DR: Whoever reads this that is enjoying Elden Ring, Fortnite, the Steam Deck, VR headsets, the newest consoles and all that stuff; you better have a damn good time with those, because there's a parallel universe where you live somewhere where you wouldn't afford to get that much :)
This is a great place to start the discussion of class in gaming, and how it effects the content that comes out and skews the reflection of who plays games and who is allowed to speak about them or work in them. I hope this takes of and leads to more growth in gaming as a culture and the gaming industry.
Thank you for covering the class struggle in the videogame industry, which has its unique issues in relation to this. Videogames is one of the most expensive artistic mediums to get into, and I'm agreed with Sam about the privilege of being against piracy when a lot of working class people got into this hobby though that. I'm glad more working class people who do get into the industry also get to make games about the working class experience such as Cel Davison's NO LONGER HOME or If Found, to name more UK games. I hope there are more class targeted initiatives to get people into this industry. There are far more interesting stories told from such inclusivity.
I've been working as a programmer in the games industry for 7 years now and am having a very hard time understanding how to understand/deal the messages in this video.
For programmers specifically, if I review applications for internships or junior positions anything that isn't at least at a university college level almost instantly goes into the bin. The only exception would be if said person would have previous related work experience, or can show his/her capabilities through a portfolio. The main reason for this is that its just a difficult job to do. Even people that have had 4 (or more) years of higher education dedicated to programming often still have no idea how to work on anything more complex than a simple prototype, or to work together in a team. I've seen code from people that are college / high-school educated and those have been... not good. You need to learn programming... for YEARS to really be any good, plus not everyone is cut out for it.
Because of this, I am not at all suprised that there is a major "working class divide", but I don't see how you could account that to the gaming industry? Are they somehow not "stepping up"? (Video title here is very clickbaity/misleading IMO) The gaming industry is a highly specialized field, and on top of that it is extremely volatile. Making a game is generally much more expensive than writing books, making movies, and other forms of art or entertainment. It takes years to understand how to make games, it takes year to try and develop a good game and than you still need to be "lucky" for it to be a success. This is why a lot of game companies instead focus on doing outsourcing work, or doing work for hire. Getting a stable economic situation going whilst saving up & gaining experience to then push for a game your team wants to make. Solo indie devs have it even worse, though occassionally someone is talented, hard working AND lucky enough to be able to find a way through and get their game out.
I don't know too much about how the other fields within the gaming industry are, I always hear that there are sooo many aspiring game artists that companies can just churn through them. QA / Game testing / Localizatoin would probably be suitable for people without higher education, but those are pretty much always outsourced to a country where salaries are much lower... so good luck competing with that.
It all sounds very grim, sorry about that... I just don't see how you would solve this problem? (NOTE: I have only worked for 5-25 sized indie developer studios, not AAA's or anything)
Oh and a dig at "game programmer educations": If you really want to be a game programmer, make sure to really educate yourself on the school that offers it. Pretty much always it is better to just go for a real IT/programmer education instead. All applications I receive from game programmer schools are miles away in terms of technical understanding. I can teach you how unreal/unity works very quickly. Teaching actual programming is much harder!
Being someone that was homeless at 19 and am now 4 weeks away from finishing my degree in gaming, I'm incredibly happy to have watched this. Thank you for making this video and sharing this information. One of my weird fears of getting into the gaming industry is that I might develop imposter syndrome because I have so low self worth from being raised poor.
Really appreciate this video. Working in media and media education, it was always really uncomfortable to me how many unpaid roles my peers and myself were unofficially expected to take to fluff up their qualifications before getting into actual work. That sort of system so efficiently filters out the working class that the diversity 'standards' the industry here in Australia has implemented are an absolute joke. I really hope over the course of my own career I can make a positive change on this front, but since the problem largely comes down to money and access, it's a very challenging change to make from anywhere but the top, and we've all seen what 'the top' likes to do with money.
The solution is solidarity. People with the means to take unpaid positions need to stand with those who don't. Those tactics are exploitative for all - just because you can live rent-free with your parents/spouse/friends, doesn't mean that you ought not to be paid for your labor.
Ask South American gamers and workers, you'll find crazy stories, especially about piracy. I remember when I was a teenager and someone told me they had an original game I was like "what do you mean by original?" and they told me it was an original game from the developers and that the others were pirated copies, then I said "but it's software, all versions are copies of the same thing, there is no such thing as an original version of a software, all downloads and DVDs are copies" and they couldn't respond. I asked more people about it and what it meant to pirate a game and at no point anyone even told me games are made by people that need salaries and that when I burn an .ISO on a bunch of virgin DVDs to give to my friends at school I don't pay them and the companies can go bankrupt and never make a game again. Even my dad, who was a programmer before, never told me this and he himself got me into gaming by getting me a bunch of emulators and ROMs. Only after 17 or 18 when steam got a little big in Brazil I finally pieced it together.
Excellent points. I really like this type of content. Thanks for bringing in someone who's this eloquent and knowledgeable!
The whole gaming culture in Brazil was born from piracy, bootleg systems, lan houses. Economic situation got better and more people can afford consoles and games, and just because of that the pearl clutching about piracy began coming from younger folks.
People who pirate usually won't buy your product anyway. I'd even say that it helps with visibility, to be honest. We should stop thinking it's about being "criminal" and "dishonest".
I relate to pretty much everything that was mentioned in this video; I've encountered pretty much everything here (except having to move to a small town to avoid rent costs; thank god Pittsburgh has v low rent). I'd also add to this
(1) classism in hiring practices. Before I was at my current company, I'd sometimes apply to companies that only made console games, and I never had a console growing up because we didn't have the money, so I never played those games, and despite being open about the reason for having not played those games, I'd never move on to further stages of the hiring process in those cases.
(2) lack of role models. The video said that 13% of the UK game industry grew up in the lower/working class, but the vast majority of people who did keep it a secret for fear of being a target of discrimination. This is a pattern I saw over and over again when I was in college where the vast majority were middle or upper class. Before I saw this video, I could probably only name one person in the game industry who I know grew up in the lower or working class, which really communicates that the game industry is not for us.
thank you so much for making this video. I've been waiting for someone with a platform to call attention to the impact that being born into the working class has on aspiring game creators, and it's so nice to see it finally happening.
Beautiful video, really captured a lot of problems. I really feel there's a lot of overlap here with any creative field - games, music, art, etc. People from working class backgrounds just have less resources overall to figure out how to succeed in these fields. Degrees in these fields are risky, equipment is expensive, self-teaching takes time, and there are a ton of exploitative programs and people looking to take advantage of those who are just trying to get their foot in the door. And the point of how the lack of working class backgrounds naturally has a ripple effect that results in a very distinct change in how stories are told (I just about spat my coffee out at 8:09) is very well done.
Brilliant video, the subject of class definitely feels like it needs more conversation in the industry.
I'm from a working class background and currently work in mobile dev, although I think my circumstances have been extremely lucky. Firstly, during university I managed to get a grant of over £3000 per year since my parents' earnings were in the lowest bracket for the grant scheme. However, it's since been stopped and it would've been so much harder without that money. It allowed me to dedicate more time to my studies and help with any expenses. It's easy to point to university prices stopping people from enrolling and whilst I agree I think the funding once you're actually studying is a much bigger problem, especially for working class people.
I was also helped massively by my dad having enough of an interest in tech to know how to pirate games. It allowed me to get into games much more easily. I always got consoles way later than other kids at school once they'd dropped in price but I never had no games to play.
Without these I don't think I'd be where I am today. I still have constant anxiety about losing my job due to the volatile nature of the industry and continued anxiety from my dad losing many jobs after the 2008 financial crisis, but I consider myself lucky to have received the support that many people can't get. The company I work at was founded by brothers in their parents' garage and although they've done a great job of turning that into a successful company I can't help but think of myself and everyone else who can go through all the same steps, work just as hard but end up with less due to their financial background.
I work for a AAA company as a level designer. I come from a poor rust belt city in Appalachia. My dad is a mechanic, my mom is a bus monitor for special needs students. My job is a dream come true, it is the result of a $100k state university degree that I am drowning in debt from, but it is everything I've worked for. And yet, I feel incredibly isolated at my company. Everyone else is on the West Coast and from the west coast with generational wealth, savings, etc. No one else I know was on food stamps, or had their utilities shut off as a child. I'm making more than my parents combined, but I still worry about money all the time.
Great. You have a unique mindset you can use to contribute possible solutions.
I feel a little sad that absolutely no mention of the Marxist theory of class is mentioned here, even in passing.
Awesome video. This channel really is something else, very informational while being interesting to watch, keep up the good work!
The game industry is becoming more elitist for both employees and consumers, it's painful to see it
Fantastic video, well done Sam!
In what way?
Prohibitive adoption costs, greater barriers to piracy, horrible working conditions at the entry level. I can list these before even watching the video - which I recommend you do!
the crunch culture, and the memory of a fish of the consumers
For Americans: generally we say lower class instead of working class, as working class is usually a broader term for anyone who makes the majority of their income based on their labor as opposed to what is accrued by their assets (as opposed to the owning class).
thank you, too many people are talking about the semantics of words and not the actual importance of the topic
This is brilliant, please platform more writers like this, Sam is amazing and im on the hunt for some more good eggs in the games media industry
hear hear!
Getting a degree is a requirement and still not enough. You need to do more to not get thrown out. After 8 years and 2 degrees in games design I still have a 100% rejection rate. So now I’m just working on a portfolio and god knows how long that sh1t gon take. No money, grew up poor, parents never even finished high school. I gotta do everything from scratch and my own parents who go from dead end job from dead end job getting mad I’m not getting hired. “Did you follow up” “did you update your resume”
1. There’s no phone call to make you apply online and wait.
2. Yes but a resume isn’t enough
3. This isn’t goddamn retail. “Following up” isn’t a thing anymore.
4. Your a boomer who incredibly out of touch.
They really just harassing me because all they think is “hurr durr resume degree = millionaire where is it?!”
I don’t visit my parents very much because they’re so ignorant and toxic, brainwashed with retail corporate rhetoric.
I don’t have connections, I don’t have anyone. My parents didn’t go to college. They know nothing while everyone else is just doing drugs using their lawyers mom and doctors dads money. Here I am on financial assistance. I can’t afford to not gaf I got 1 shot or it’s over. I have to pass, I don’t take classes for “fun”, I cannot “chill”. This is survival. I’m don’t and graduated with a high GPA. But I still can’t get hired. Now I need to make a million assets, a bunch of animations, rigging, modeling, weighting, texturing, rendering, then make my own website from scratch somehow even though I’m not a coder. Have a detailed CV somehow and a resume with experience in AAA development and internships (where I’ve applied numerous times and get denied) and on then MAYBE they’ll consider me. I can’t get an internship anywhere because in college I couldn’t afford do do it during studies, I can’t risk setting my coursework aside to do unpaid work, I don’t have a car, I don’t have a means of transport. I have nothing and I’m being punished because of this. I can’t get an internship because I didn’t have one in college. I can’t get hired because I didn’t have an internship. I can’t get hired because I don’t have a specifically crafted custom website with my work (coursework is out of the question), nor do I have connections, recommendations, or experience in the games industry because they won’t let me in the industry because I don’t have experience in the industry. I had zero assistance in college. I’ve signed up for all the college spammy ass websites for recruiters n such, passed LinkedIn skills checks, have my degrees present. Nope, liquor store cashier for you.
It sounds like the U.K. has a similar problem to the U.S. The idea that hard work will make your successful, seemingly by itself.
Honestly it's an idea that is everywhere in the world, it's unfortunate really but both the people at the top and those hopeful bunch climbing the ladder isn't comfortable with the truth being that hard work isn't all that is needed to succeed.
In a way it's nice to be ignorant of this when you're at the bottom trying to climb your way in life, it motivates you that maybe if you just try harder you might make it. Which you might, considering hard work still plays a decent part in success. But it also gives a very disillusioned view of the world and an unrealistic expectations of yourself, it's a problem suffered by most society in my opinion, as social classes and privilege differences is something so inherent in our civilization.
Im glad to see people talking about this. I went to school for games and while my family was able to afford to help me with it, it was a huge burden on them and I felt hugely guilty when it didn't work. I was surrounded by people who did not have the same hardships as myself. The places that I had to live to even have a chance of getting into the industry are among the most expensive in the country.
Barring the talk of piracy, it's hard to see how this piece brings up reasons why it's hard for the working class to do well in games industry in particular. Many of these points are seen across STEM industries broadly and the economy at large. I didn't find any unique insight here that pertains to games industry in particular.
fair enough, but this is kinda just what this channel is for. i still think its an important discussion whether its made about the games industry or something else entirely
Such an interesting topic, thank you Sam for sharing this! I clearly underestimated class discrimination in our industry, thank you so much.
Riches come from diversity, thank you PMG to let other people tell their own story instead of telling it yourself with your own biases. I'm happy to support your work!
Great collab, y'all. Looking forward to more "specialist reporting" in the future.
One additional way class allows opportunities is when companies have "unpaid internships". Yes, it's abusive to everyone, but people of greater means can float on savings (or the support of family) while they "get their foot in the door". Even in areas where this is illegal, the example of consciously taking under-paying jobs, as mentioned, applies as well. I'm sure AAA companies don't mind paying their QA/Test staff horribly, because so many people are willing it use it as a way into the company or to get industry experience. It probably pays better to be a cleaner, in many cases, but workers from well-off families have a better chance of lasting long enough to get a step up into another position.
Of course, they have an even better chance of being let go after the title ships. That's why game dev unions need to become commonplace!
I wonder too whether there's a different level of willingness across people of different class to do unpaid overtime during crunch periods: with working class people being less willing to tolerate that and not quit. Also I wonder whether game studios afraid of unionization or other worker actions see working class employees as being more likely to organize unions or worker actions.
@@shayneweyker Yes, but the other-way 'round. It's the fact that middle-class devs have a "cushion", whether from savings or family, that makes them more willing to attempt to organize. Lower-class devs are more likely to struggle with scarcity mindset and high risk-aversion.
17:14 Thank you for putting Sam's name first. That means A LOT to us working class folk.
Yep - I'm trying to make games from below the poverty line. My motto is "Making games on a shoestring budget".
Loved this video, thank you PMG and Sam!
I really appreciate this video, but I was a bit disappointed when there wasn't more time dedicated to asking what we can do now to fix this. Yes, there's a problem, but what can we do? Are there groups out there trying to do something about this? Are charity organizations helping low income families get access to games? Are there unions striving to get working class workers into the industry? Shining a light without much talk of solutions didn't feel quite like what I have come to expect from PMG. Maybe do a followup with Sam?
I don't think anyone knows what to do (at least, not in an individualist, feel-good kind of way that would fit in a video of this scope.)
A charity that gives video games to working class people isn't going to make a meaningful impact. People who can't afford games are already getting games they want to play. They pirate them and have been for decades. Games companies are fiercely anti-union--and while a few unions are just starting to take form, I'm not sure how they would solve the economic problems at work here.
I realize you weren't trying to suggest your off-the-cuff suggestions were The Solution, but idk. It's a bit frustrating hearing this from so many people when issues of class and race come up. The individualist answers have been the same for decades: Become aware of the Problem and your place in it, and then Use any privilege you have to change whatever part of the system you have direct control or influence over.
If you're a hiring manager for a company of middle-class employees, stop hiring people that your people know. If you own a successful company, stop taking so much money for yourself. Fire any hiring manager who lowballs a person on a job offer. Start a fund to help people relocate for your company's jobs. If you aren't in the industry and just happen to have a lot of money, find a real human person who is poor and wants financial stability to take a risky job offer and give them money. If you have a lot of connections in the industry, use those connections to get people good jobs.
The problem is, almost nobody in a position to do these things actually wants to do them, and the people who *want* to do these things don't have the opportunity to.
Awareness is step one of changing the wider culture. The comments I've seen on this video are encouraging in this aspect.
Better tools to lower the cost of indie development. Microsoft allowing the Series X consoles to be run in dev mode for example.
Beyond that you're looking at national and global politics to tackle the class war as a whole. Free tuition, publicly owned investment banks, welfare safety nets and other socialist policies to try to reverse centuries of capitalism's growing wealth inequality and lessen the risk of taking a chance on your dreams.
All in all, the class war is beyond this industry, significantly more complex and I wouldn't know where to insert the solutions into a video that focuses specifically on games.
@@hassandurant6861 True, "personal responsibility" can only go so far; it is not a killer drug but is a failing band-aid solution. I remember a comment about Ben Shapiro's views on personal responsibility by using the example of a dam threatening to wash away a town where you live. In Shapiro's view of the situation, "personal responsibility" means selling the house you live in before it bursts; many people pointed out as to who would buy such h a house?
Some people's argument for not having working class people in certain jobs is that "you need to have this xyz education to do that job" and then they ignore that education already has an financial barrier that should be addressed. Plus, not unimportant, you can learn so much on the job. I mean, before I got my job in cybersec, I didn't know anything about computers. Now, a year later, I'm 'the tech guy' at my work place.
Now I know why big companies feel so emotionally distant from, well, everybody!
This is such a refreshing video. Growing up working class I couldn't afford any video games. But I wanted to.I really did, but it was a world completely closed off to me. But now that I'm more financially stable I've finally got to play some great games
really important stuff, look forward to more from Sam
This video has really resonated. Often, trying to get oppotunities for getting into the games industry feels kinda pay-to-win. Like, mentorships cost money, moving to an area where the industry is centred costs money, and networking events cost money. You’ve hit on a topic ive noticed but not really had the words to express, so thanks for that
i hate to say it. i hate to admit it. but god, piracy was one of the greatest blessings of this generation.
I would hate to hate to admit anything, and promptly change so I wouldn’t “hate” things because hate is a resolvable social emotion which isn’t useful chronically unless someone somehow is expressing a “wrong” thought.
@@robertsandlin366 What? That’s was a bit confusing?.
Kudos to you guys for making this video and working with Sam on it. Really appreciate this kind of content.
As always, the real problem is just hyper-capitalism. Normal people getting squeezed out like a damp sponge while the richest enjoy record profits.
I wonder how it’s appealing to have a number go up when others are required to be “wronged”. I would likely always remind myself of others based on the incredibly picky depression I have.
Thank God my school has a digital tech program. It has these old has computers and teaches 3d modeling via blender. It's not a private school, it's public most schools in NZ are built pretty well when it comes to their tech programs.
My uncle got me a chipped ps1and I got pirated games and music cds, thank god
I gave my uncle my old chipped PS1, 'cause I had won the newer better PS2 in a tombola.
My uncle used to have this printed off booklet he made of every PS1 game he could burn for us if we requested it. Dude was a legend.
Great video. I'm new to the game industry and, having grown up with working class parents, a lot of what you've said is spot-on, especially the stuff like salary negotiation.
I wanted to be a graphics designer, unfortunatelly I cannot risk so much money studying that, so I'm transporting and installing home appliances instead, life sucks, but you gotta take what you can get...
You can still study it. You really don't need to pay for some fancy qualification to learn things these days; if you have internet access and an hour or two per day, you can teach yourself to do what you want to do, for free. Once you're doing it, you can build up a portfolio. Once you have a portfolio, it may lead to some actual income some day (maybe). Do the things you want to do, & take money out of the equation; the formal education & interviews path isn't the only one anymore when you can promote yourself. It may not lead to a career but it's the only way to stay sane in this hellish capitalist world.
I don't know if this is the same document mentioned at 13:55, but there if you want to look up one there is the salty animators salary document that you can look up. Best of luck to everyone and fight for what you're worth.
Absolutely love the anti-capitalist, socialist analysis. Need much more of this!
So like idk if this is at all relevant but ... when I was a kid, I was enamored with the idea of being able to make games, specifically designing worlds. I played games, I understood that there were people making games, I wanted that more than I wanted to play games. I was a fan. But for me to be able to work in games, I would have to move to another country bc where I was from, nobody was making games. There is no games industry where I was from. And my parents couldn't support me moving where the games industry is. So I chose another career.