Monday, July 05, 2010

Video Games and the "Less Fortunate"

Today's WSJ has a profile of game designer Jon Shafer. It's short and worth reading. At the end is this nugget.
Q: What's it like to play games for a living?

A: People think it's all fun playing games all day. A lot of it is really hard work and long hours, with very little vacation. But when you do put in the effort, people will see that and recognize it. That's been a big part how I got the job. It wasn't just that I had experience. But the fact that I was there late every day and had interesting ideas.
Emphasis mine. I worked at a video game company for a while and what he says is true - the hours are long and vacations rare because the industry is so very competitive.

In any case, Jon's got a good position at a successful company. I'll bet his pay is well above the national average for his age. Sounds to me like Jon's been "fortunate" and is probably being paid too much. We need a pay czar to weigh in on his salary and then we need to tax Jon more.

1 comment:

Jeff Burton said...

It's only going to get harder for poor Jon, with all these video game design programs cropping up. They will churn out increasing numbers of foolish and indebted young men who whose education will actually harm their chances for other remunerative work. I know what I'd do with a resume that came across my desk with that kind of credential.

I expect many will simply erase that part of their resume, a lot like the phd's in french lit do when applying at Walmart.