[potatolicious]

People continue to join the games industry - attrition rates are sky high and the vast majority do not last.

Perhaps the argument should be reframed as - why is it that despite high-profile and commonly known, and completely batshit insane working conditions, do people still sign up (and then quit the industry entirely)?

Are we doing a poor job publicizing these conditions, or are the stories just so horrifying that they become almost outlandishly unbelievable?

[andrewfong]

I'm armchair psychoanalyzing, but I think it's largely because the people entering the games industry are young and it's exceptionally difficult to grasp how terrible something like 80 hour work weeks are until you've been through a few. I mean, it's fairly common for university students to forgo sleep crunching for finals or spend ungodly amounts of time playing their favorite game. Add in "it's not work if you love what you do" and "I'm a special and unique," and you can see how someone might be persuaded to join the games industry in spite of the overwhelming evidence that this is a terrible idea.

For what it's worth, this also seems to be true of the legal and medical professions as well. And, more relevantly, startup founders.

[andyjdavis]

Its probably relevant that games, the law, medicine and start ups are all perceived as being quite glamorous by many.

The games industry seems quite similar to the music and fashion industries in some ways. They are all glamour industries that attract a lot of young people with stars in their eyes who will put up with poor conditions and pay that can be as low as zero. All for the chance to "make it".

[yoklov]

This isn't really a good comparison at all. Game developers make around 10-20k less than a typical software engineers salary. That's still far more than a lot of lines of work.

Maybe what you're saying is true if you're talking about self-employed indie devs, but that's not who the article, or your parent post is talking about. Also, very few of the tons of potential game developers go this route. Most just apply to every gamedev shop in their area.

There's also really not a concept of making it big. Without looking any up, can you name 5 game developers?

[jiggy2011]

Everyone I knew who went into games knew what the conditions were before they joined. It's only bad if you don't have a backup plan.