Pay and Conditions in the Gaming Industry

A piece written for Gold Arts Award by Aaron inspired by the story on poor pay and working conditions for staff working on the game Elden Ring. 

Pay and Conditions in the Gaming Industry

I have chosen this because of an article i have read about this on games artists working under fromsoft who are being underpaid on their work in elden ring.

https://www.thegamer.com/fromsoftware-employees-report-poor-pay-and-working-conditions/?fbclid=IwAR30HSkkWDUMEA1Lu4eCS5So0kRlOPnMfOxj8SuaCFc_NjOKyn8SHxnQuDw

https://www.ign.com/articles/bandai-namco-salary-increase-japan-elden-ring

https://www.gamebyte.com/fromsoftware-employees-report-low-pay-and-bad-working-conditions/

When I spoke to some other people in my class about the issue it was interesting to hear their thoughts about it. 

Most people agreed with me that the pay and conditions are very poor. Some asked if it was the same in the UK as this is a Japanese company. 

There was this blog posted in 2020 which talks about the issue more widely https://medium.com/illumination/video-game-developers-overworked-underpaid-in-trouble-c66a80ff584a

In this piece it is not just about the pay but also the working long hours which is not good for the health of the workers. 

Some people in my class thought that the low pay and long hours were what you should expect when you start out in a new job, especially because games is competitive and lots of people want to do it. They said that it need to be there because you have to show that you are dedicated to the job and really want to do it.

Underpay in the gaming industry is quite bad with some workers not being paid for work they did months ago with very low salary.

It says a lot that for amendments to be made too salary the workers have to report it too the news for any sort of action is taken too justify or make it better.

Other people think that there are lots of financial issues in the gaming industry although they thought that the gaming industry was well paid, even for people just fresh out of the gate into the industry. Although as a general basis many people think that people who work in the gaming industry are well paid.

I think that it is blasphemous the quality of life in the gaming industry and the problems that arise are large with tight deadlines and low pay for the work produced and Tough working conditions. This is blasphemous as the working rating i FromSoftware is 2.2 at an all time low and the wage pay is abysmal for the high cost of living in tokyo.

After I did most of this work, this article was published https://www.gamedeveloper.com/culture/over-half-of-game-developers-report-being-underpaid

It talks about how the issue of underpay is all over the industry and also shows some of the other issues that are being faced by workers such as discrimination, inequality and lack of training. 

It is already hard for people to get work in games and people do it because they are interested and want to create games for people usually as they have enjoyed them through their own lives. If the conditions are bad then it just means that less people will be able to have jobs in this area and we won’t have high quality games.

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Peshkar Arts Award

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