Jul 4th 2014, 14:45:53
Originally posted by martian:
@Xin: A close friend of mine (no he doesn't play earth) has worked for bioware for the better part of 10 years in more or less the same location as a tools programmer (they moved to a larger space in the same city). So yes, jobs in the game industry can be stable :P I guess he technically works for EA now.
Jobs are stable mostly only for programmers. This isn't so for artists and level/content designers, where they are largely replaceable, one 3D artist isn't too different from another. Programmers on the other hand, the good ones are worth 10 times the average ones.
Also, you can't throw more programmers at a problem and hope to code the game faster, it doesn't work that way since a new programmer would need to learn all the existing code and game systems and constantly ask people questions. But need more artwork, or rigging done? That is so easily outsource-able, and many artists are hired on a contract or freelance basis.
Of course, there are good companies and studios that don't downsize between projects, and instead have better project planning to stagger multiple projects.