[sulam]

At the risk of repeating a comment I made further down in a thread, the average QA Engineer salary in Mexico is literally 10X more than one of these devs was making. Anyone trying to justify this in terms of the Mexican minimum wage is trying to sell you ocean front property in Arizona.

[Zyst]

Aye, copy pasting a comment I posted below:

I live in Mexico, I've never seen anyone in Mexico make minimum wage, ever. And I do know people from all walks of life.

As to what they earn, again, I live in Mexico, I am employed by a Mexican company, and work for Mexican clients. I make their yearly salary in 15 days or so. It really is disgusting that they would treat employees this way, specially when they were such a big success.

[lazaroclapp]

I am probably one of those comments below "justifying it in terms of the minimum wage". Quite honestly, a big part is that I read it as $2,400 USD a month originally (not yearly!). Even if that had been the case, I wouldn't have faulted developers for feeling underpaid in the particular case of KSP (given how big of a success the game ended up being).

As yearly salary it is indeed atrocious. Still, worth saying, not an illegal salary. But yeah, I don't see many people enticed to work for that amount for a for-profit company they don't have significant ownership of. The point is not on whether or not it is advisable to resign in those conditions (of course it is), but on whether it is viable to sue (I doubt it is).

And... many people in Mexico do make minimum wage (around 13% of the country does), but usually not anyone in a specialized profession in a city.

[eropple]

> Still, worth saying, not an illegal salary.

"This is so shitty that the nicest thing that can be said is it's not actually illegal" doesn't merit the exculpatory nature of this sentence. And the sentiment behind it isn't really worth much in the first place.

[lazaroclapp]

I did never meant to say that made it a good/reasonable thing (although, if we are going down that path, why is it right to pay someone $200 a month to clean toilets and not to write code? If anything, it is a shittier thing - pun intended - to offer that deal to people who don't have the means and options to refuse or get other jobs... but I suspect we would both end up agreeing that the Mexican minimum wage should be higher). My point is that there is likely no legal recourse here, which is an important detail.

[drdeca]

How does that compare to the similar argument when people bring up free speech (and a person responds that if the best defense is that the government can't make it illegal, etc.)

[eropple]

That's pretty much exactly my argument in those cases, too. The government not finding a piece of speech so objectionable as to be criminal is a far cry from a positive moral defense of its existence.

[MawNicker]

"The sentiment behind it" is yours.

[ido]

Iirc people ran with that figure...but it was actually given by just one of the employees, who was a 16 year old they got to do "community support".

We dont know how much the coders were making.

[lazaroclapp]

Interestingly, Mexican law does put a series of restrictions on employing 16 year olds, so that part might be actually illegal (specially if it's full time work, or anything above 6 hours per day).

[sandworm101]

>> Still, worth saying, not an illegal salary.

Much of that depends on specifics. Some of these devs traveled. Any work done while in other jurisdictions must have been done at local minimum wages. It doesn't take many days spent on the road promoting KSP in the US before you are legally entitled to more.

There are prosecuted cases of offshore firms sending below-minimum workers into the US. It is a crime.

[lazaroclapp]

That's interesting to know. Guess my mental model was "this is work that can be done anywhere on earth, for a Mexican company under Mexican laws, so where the employee is should not matter legally", but if the location of the employee had anything to do with the work they were asked to perform... e.g. go to this event and promote our game, then it should indeed be illegal.

[sandworm101]

There are a few jurisdictions that take it to another level. Some governments will sue on behalf of the aggrieved employee. There it is a government taking action to recoup funds and any assigned penalties, not an employee. Third parties (is Valve/steam) can also be sued if they hold funds/property.

(From British Columbia, a typical such jurisdiction.)

"If a third party is or will be indebted to a person who is required to pay money under a determination, the Branch may demand that the third party pay all or part of their indebtedness directly to the Branch."

"The Branch may seize personal or business assets of a person required to pay under a determination, settlement agreement or order to satisfy the amount owing and the costs of the seizure. The Branch may direct the Court Bailiff to seize assets to recover the amount owing. "

http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employ...

[dmichulke]

At the risk oft stating the obvious:

The devs agreed voluntarily to accept this salary for a number of years. It is not ours to judge whether this it was too small, because for them it was not (until now)

Likewise, if you insist on "this salary is too small for them", you're saying that you know better what's good for them than they themselves. I would find that offensive.

[thomasz]

We don't have to judge for them. They left. In a very public way.

[adventured]

"One in seven Mexican workers earn the average minimum wage of 65.58 pesos ($5.10) a day or less, national statistics office INEGI says."

Also worth noting that at least half of Mexico's population lives below their own poverty line.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-economy-analysis-id...

[whack]

I'm probably missing some back story here. Why did the developers agree to work for such low salaries? If they accepted the job knowing how much they will be paid, why are they upset about it now?

[CydeWeys]

Because things change over time? There's a big difference between accepting a job at a low salary, and then staying on after awhile at that low salary with no raises, when you realize just how hard the working conditions are, and that you aren't saving any money while your friends are making steps in their financial lives and careers. This is basic at-will employment; you're free to decide you on longer want to do it at any point. I don't understand why you think that just because they initially accepted it, they should be OK with it indefinitely.

[whack]

I never said they should be OK with it indefinitely. If I was in their shoes, I would have just quit immediately. But I wouldn't accuse my employer of bad behavior either.

Many of the other comments seem to be accusing the employer of acting in bad faith, or of immoral behavior. If the employees knew exactly what they were getting into, these accusations seem baseless.

[CydeWeys]

It sounds like Squad was taking advantage of employees by forcing them to work very long hours. That's definitely bad behavior. Maybe you or I would quit immediately, but a lot of people don't. They still have a right to complain about it when they finally do get around to quitting. I just don't understand why you are going after the employees. What point does it serve? We know that burnout, being overworked, and being taken advantage of is a huge problem in this industry, so why go after the victims?

[eric_cc]

The guy you're replying to isn't going after anybody. You seem like you're just looking for a fight to make some point.

[tropo]

because games

It's no different from people choosing a career in early childhood education. Some people insist on doing what they love, ignoring ugly financial issues caused by supply and demand.

[owlieowl]

+1

[doozy]

Knowing Latin America: Lack of credentials and opportunities.

People take very stupid decisions when they are desperate.

[amyjess]

I can't speak for the devs, but there are a few possible reasons:

- Working on games is their dream job. They want to do it so much they'd do it for free.

- Long-term unemployment makes one desperate. I have personal experience with this: I once took a job that offered no benefits and low pay because I had been unemployed for two years and was desperate for a job.

- For the same reasons people don't get out of abusive relationships ASAP. They come to believe they deserve the abuse. Again, personal experience: working at a company with low pay and abusive management convinced me I wasn't cut out for anything better, and it was a long time before I broke free of that mental trap and eventually sought employment elsewhere.

- They think that the low pay is temporary and that it'll go up when the product takes off. And then the employer keeps delaying the salary increases by moving the goalposts. Hey, another trap I've fallen into... (and yes, all of my personal experience comes from the same company)

[ralonso]

>I live in Mexico, I've never seen anyone in Mexico make minimum wage, ever. And I do know people from all walks of life.

Sorry, but have you really met actual working class people that work in "maquilas"? It is not uncommon to see people earning around 600 MXN pesos a week which is barely enough to count as minimum wage.

[geezerjay]

> Sorry, but have you really met actual working class people that work in "maquilas"?

I'm sure they aren't paid to work on international software projects.

[Kurtz79]

The (grand)parent claim was about people "from all walks of life".

[coldtea]

>I live in Mexico, I've never seen anyone in Mexico make minimum wage, ever. And I do know people from all walks of life.

Hmm, there are dead poor people in Mexico and even the US, including people that make less than minimum wage (from part time gigs they can manage to find, etc).

[quickly]

I don't know the backstory. Where were these guys based out of? How could Mexican wages be 10x higher than theirs?

[dandelany]

Mexico City.

[realworldview]

Arizona sea-view condo? Sign me up!