Working: Games industry x Movie industry

The games industry certainly brings in a lot more money than the movie industry when I last decided to look it up.

Quote from dux

The games industry certainly brings in a lot more money than the movie industry when I last decided to look it up.

For big shots maybe. When it comes to the pity cogs like us, we don't make more than programmers or artists in any other industry, we prolly get less.

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The thing is, knowing a lot of people that work on movies, the sentiment is the contrary, and they perceive the games industry as much bigger and more friendly than theirs!

Of course they do, isn't the grass always greener in the other side of the fence?

I dunno how the Movies Industry is, but it sure is a lot more mature than ours, which brings good and bad things attached to it. Our industry is not for everybody though, not a lot of people are willing to work long hours for this kind of pay, only the very passionate do. But passion will only get you as far, and I wonder how is it gonna be when we kids decide to grow up, settle down and have a family. Mmm...

The games industry is extremely successful and there's a hell of a lot of money changing hands. However, the same applies to the drugs trade.

From what I heard from someone who made the jump from movies/FX to games here in Quebec, he says games are much more stable since you can be permanent whereas in FX/movies here it's all contract-based. So if your company doesn't manage to get enough contracts or what not, people will be let go. He said he did like working in movies a bit better since he could just purely animate, but in games it's a bit more technical.

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":2sdk72h9]

For big shots maybe. When it comes to the pity cogs like us, we don't make more than programmers or artists in any other industry, we prolly get less.

I said industry, not individually. As a whole.

Quote from dux

For big shots maybe. When it comes to the pity cogs like us, we don't make more than programmers or artists in any other industry, we prolly get less.

I said industry, not individually. As a whole.

Yes, as a industry, from 2007 onward the Games Industry had more revenue than the Movies Industry for the very first time. (Don't have a link to back that up tho, I remember I've read it somewhere)

Well, from my experience, I can say that the salaries are considerably higher on the film industy. I know a lot of people who work in both, and the salary range is about 30 % higher for those who work in the film industry.

That doesn't come as any kind of surprise. Game making can be considered slave labour at times.

In my humble and personal opinion, when you place the negatives and positives side by side, working in the games industry is probably better. (Bear in mind though, and I gonna repeat this, I don't know much about how's it like, and how the pay is in the movies industry)

Games industry is still growing, so if your working on it, it's also up to you to help it shape up into a better industry, whereas I doubt you'd have that chance in the movies industry where everything is so set on stone.

Don't worry about this, both industries will merge into one in 10 years or so.

I seriously hope not. I don't want to be making shit movie tie in games for the rest of my life.

Transforms 12: War of the cybertron part 8 HD 3d remastered

Quote from deceiver

From what I heard from someone who made the jump from movies/FX to games here in Quebec, he says games are much more stable since you can be permanent whereas in FX/movies here it's all contract-based. So if your company doesn't manage to get enough contracts or what not, people will be let go.

I heard the same from somebody who worked in both areas as an audio designer. The fact that people earn more in movies could be attributed to the fact that they are hired on a project-basis but that also means that they need the money to bridge gaps between jobs. Unless your skills are so high in demand that you can seamlessly transition from one project to the other/the company you work at is so busy that they need everybody all the time.

Quote from deceiver

So if your company doesn't manage to get enough contracts or what not, people will be let go. He said he did like working in movies a bit better since he could just purely animate, but in games it's a bit more technical.

This is probably the same at 99% of the game companies aswell thou.

I think the chances of doing a big indie hit wonder movie is pretty slim, while with games i see more opportunities for going indie and really getting the huge audience (and get the earnings out of it, instead of selling it to something like Warner Brothers Indie Label).

Can't find the article but up to 3 years ago the UK games industry overtook films & music combined profits.

Quote from FrieChamp

I heard the same from somebody who worked in both areas as an audio designer. The fact that people earn more in movies could be attributed to the fact that they are hired on a project-basis but that also means that they need the money to bridge gaps between jobs. Unless your skills are so high in demand that you can seamlessly transition from one project to the other/the company you work at is so busy that they need everybody all the time.

I concur. From what I have been told the grass in the film industry really isn't as green as it looks. It is unstable, a lot of it as is just as much slave work as making games, and they often use horribly inefficient and outdated methods and tools because it is often only used for a few seconds anyhow, maybe even only in the distance. No one really appears to spend a lot of time on things like workflow and solid tools. There is a lot of wheel reinventing and such it appears.

That topic has always been a personal favorite, and the opinions, or info, I get from both parties is that both industries share a lot of similarities and only have very few points of divergence, although these ones can easily be seen as the most important ones.

The games industry is currently still growing, and becoming more and more mainstream. With this, and contrary to popular belief, only the smoke and mirrors change with it. The benefits only trickle down to a few fortunate (and skilled and savvy) individuals much like they did in all other entertainment industries when they became mainstream themselves.

That's one of the main similarity we now share with the movies industry. 1% is in the spotlight and retains the benefits (and drawbacks) this entails, while 99% stay behind the scenes and continue to work as if nothing changed. Worse, the conditions can get worse over time as more is demanded of them. After all, with mainstream comes more readily available skills and the job market then gets flooded with people who can all seemingly do the same job. This makes your work less valuable to your employer, unless you have set yourself above the rest of the crowd and he's ready to pay for such skills.

This is what happened to the movies industry when it boomed in the 30s first then progressively with the rise of the first movie stars in the 50s and 60s. And you could draw a parallel between Charlie Chaplin's United Artists venture and the current indie trend. In order to remain competitive and also to earn the respect of their industry, individuals became forced to set their own shop.

Where this comparison stops however is in the details. From a business perspective, the games industry has radically changed its business model in ways the movie industry hasn't in decades. The 90s for the games industry was the era of third party developers working independantly for publishers, then the 00s saw a radical change towards in house developments, only to see the late 00s and early 10s compensate with over the top contraction of all dev forces either by studios closures or projects cancellations.

This is due to the nature of the work. The digital nature of the games industry also makes the work very much less location dependant, unlike the movies industry. The movies industry can only outsource the digital work it needs to studios that then work very much so like the games industry ones, but consolidated around a single location all major studios that couldn't be closed down. Their only other choice to lower costs is to choose a cheap location to shoot the movie in, but that work is only very limited in time.

In comparison the games industry can only become big in places where labor is constantly cheap (Canada has been that place for the past 10 years or so, but for how long?), and all other once huge powerhouses of the industry saw their numbers dwindle recently with a lot more competition from places looking to attract this new industry.

On top of this, and whereas the movies industry is heavily dependant on faces and while one's talent is unmistakably visible to the end consumer, our media does not translate this freely to our customers, no matter how knowledgeable they are. You do not create stars in the games industry with as much ease as you do in movies. Our faces are not out there, and neither are our names. Mainstream barely knows Miyamoto. And it stops there. We don't have our Tom Cruise and George Clooney, and our work is not conducive to ever getting them.

This all isn't helping salaries in the games industry VS the movies one. And until we get our stars that commend such paychecks, in all departments, the overall level of the pay will remain lower.