Being sold a job working for a specific salary at 40 hours a week, and then being told to work 80+ hours a week without overtime in order to keep your job, and having all trace of your work removed from the credits if you leave. That's how the games industry works.
If you don't like it, refuse to do it, and maybe they'll fire you. Or, if you're OK with it, then do it. I don't really see where the exploitation comes in.
Except everyone who going for a job in games industry knows about it. It's not like people going for those 40 hours and unknowingly getting into modern slavery in a basement with their documents taken away.
There just too many people who want to make games and budgets are limited while competition is high. There is very few companies that are highly profitable, but majority of people wouldn't want to work for them.
Is it still shitty offer? Yes, but it's people's choice to work there.
Why can't they also want to make conditions better? Why do people have to accept that conditions are bad, tough tits, deal with it? We would probably have not half the safety regulations we have today and people would be dying a lot more on the job.
Because game development is what's called "successful product industry" which means sometimes you have to make 10 failed games to finally release 1 successful. Majority of game studios don't make it and competition is very high which means game budgets is race to the bottom.
Also platforms like consoles and Steam take their 30% cut, then publisher / investor take their 30-60% cut and you also have to pay taxes on every step. Usual game studio that working using publisher or investor money only get 20-30% of gross sales.
Large companies are able to make conditions better and they actually have higher salaries and better work life balance whithin the market, but since for everyone else it's run to the bottom they have countless number of potential new employees.
PS: I am CTO of small game development company and to make games I have to be okay that I'll earn 3x less than I would as middle software engineer in fintech. Game dev is tough industry to work in, but it's always by choice.
Literally everyone who works in game dev are able to find better paid job elsewhere: gambling, marketing, fintech, etc. People just love making games and dont want to move elsewhere.
Not really - if you are salaried worker - you get paid even if the project that you are working on fails. You trade potential profit for stability.
But if you are a founder/investor who works on your own stuff then you will lose your own money if the project fails.
No, if you don’t generate surplus value. You get fired. One project sure, maybe your ROI window for your employer is higher than that. But it still holds true.
Having people produce something and not paying them what it is worth so someone else can profit - is exploitation.
Remove the prejudice from the word. Just like if you “exploit a coal seam” or “exploit sunlight to generate electricity”. You are deriving value from something where the benefit is more than the cost. When the exploitation crosses a human, it (rightly) takes on a negative connotation.
Exploiting the egg farmer, I suppose. Just seems nonsensical. Every trade benefits both parties more than the trade value. Otherwise the trade wouldn't happen.