career-chat

[void gust]

You could even get into an entirely different industry and make better money. Then make your games on the side and, who knows, you might hit it big someday!

[wraith mortar]

Lot of other industries are struggling too atm tho

That said, they have a better chance of recovering than games, now that VCs have gone

[oblique ice]

yes, most the other are struggling

[low crystal]

Is that the point though?

[winged dragon]

like what?

I'm really struggling on what to do. It's been a few months of unemployment. Even if I manage to land a job somehow (which could take many months more) , I'm still always at a risk at being laid off sooner or later. And get a low pay

[uncut seal]

Probably he's thinking about graphics programming

I'm switching to that from a couple years of experience with unreal and cpp

[uncut seal]

Or really any other

[spice dagger]

No, im talking more about business/finance applications, things that arent related to games at all.

I can only speak to the programming side.

No idea how the Arts are affected in other industries

If you are not already a seasoned professional, you are going to have to accept low paying jobs anyway. Regardless of where you choose to be employed.

The first rungs of the ladder are not high paying for a reason.

[round radish]

I'd rather be making less than an Amazon Warehouse employee, but sitting in a cushy office / working from home. I think most people would. Obviously that's not tennable in some areas, but still.

It's somewhere to get experience.

[winged dragon]

the stupid thing is that in 3D you need to learn and spent years of practising just to get paid the same as a job that requieres 0 skill

[round radish]

Go be an Amazon employee then.

[void gust]

You know, Amazon hires programmers, too. They will pay for your schooling and training but you need to start at the bottom for that benefit. It's not all that bad.

Aside from that, $2500/month would put you out on the streets where I live (Florida). That's why I laughed at the pay earlier. McDonald's employees earn slightly less than that, so I'm not sure why someone would invest 4 years of college+ debt just for that. No offense.

[round radish]

The average rent is florida is $2350 a month. And that's average. You could live on that if you had to.

[void gust]

Yeah, if you had roommates. $2500-2350 leaves you with a mere $150, so you definitely can't go solo with that wage.

[round radish]

Average! That means there are places with less rent. If you haven't got a job, or you're starting out, don't expect to be renting that $10k a month townhouse.

[void gust]

But my point is, is that sometimes you just need to be patient and do something else in the meantime. I know a guy, when I used to live at Disney World, who worked for Disney for 5 years before he finally landed a 3D art job with them. He now makes amazing money, but he had to start at the bottom.

[round radish]

Absolutely!

[void gust]

Yes, I know... I LIVE here.

[round radish]

I was refuting your point about $2500 a month being unliveable. You just have to adjust your expectations.

[void gust]

Normally you'd be correct, but Florida is a unique market. For the past four years, you couldn't find a small apartment for less than $1900/month and that was true EVERYWHERE in this state. From Tallahassee to Miami, it didn't matter. And you needed to earn triple the rent before anybody would qualify to live there, so $2500 would put you on the streets if you didn't have roommates. But at least, rents are dropping now. 🤷‍♂️

Now back to the actual topic: I also know a waitress at Disney World who earns over $120,000/year. She has a Masters Degree in Psychiatry but won't quit to chase her dream job because it just isn't viable to do so. I'm not saying to quit chasing your dreams, I'm just saying that it might need to be put on hold for now.

[round radish]

That's definitely odd. Rent/mortgage is usually at least half of what you earn, usually more, forcing you to earn 3x is a bit silly.

Of course that changes as you earn more money.

[void gust]

Oh yeah, we agree with that there. But that's how the market is run in Florida.

[winged dragon]

In my country, my first job was a junior 3D Environment artist and they paid me around $1.4k per month

after that I spent more than 3 years working as a 3D generalist helping a start-up company succeed

and now I'm back on the market and cant land a job for 6 months ... lol

[visual thicket]

hi buddy

[neon holly]

yeah 💀. That's how it usually is

[ashen lynx]

It is going to get even tougher. Quality bar is pretty high, if you go through general recruitment procedure.

[winged dragon]

I love working with UE, but at this point i'm wondering if it's even worth it trying to get back into this. Knowing that the future is not certain with all the lay offs and AI

[ashen lynx]

But everyone who reaches quality bar and does not have red flags showing on interview gets decent position eventually. Expect up to 13-14 months of job hunt, in worst case

[ashen lynx]

How is your portfolio looking at this point ?

[winged dragon]

my artstation portfolio mostly consists of 3D Props and a few environments.
But the main issue is that after that I spent 3 years as a generalist, which spilled me everywhere. I did a little bit of everything.
I used to be a 3D Env Artist and then I started doing everything.
This played me a bad role, because now I'm not really specialised and it's very hard to find such job

https://www.artstation.com/kristian_rabakov

this is my Artstation profile

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z7CSxOOkWA

And this is a demo reel with mostly Work In Progress projects I did as a freelancer

mainly as an UE Artist/Generalist

[woeful iron]

not everyone lives in the US

[ashen lynx]

Yeah. Everything in the reel does not contribute to actually getting decent job as 3d artist. Some short term generalist work. And few props you have are actually fine but they are all over the place. It does not speak to what specialisation you align. You have to pick, either being gun artist, automotive modeller, or dark fantasy props. Can't be good at all 3. @winged dragon

[woeful iron]

there's generalist roles too though, especially in smaller companies

[winged dragon]

I don't even feel very confident in modeling atm. Most of my work I the last 3 years was in-engine

[winged dragon]

true, but if I specialise in just gun artist for example, then this puts me in an even smaller niche, so I think this is the too opposite of a generalist

for example, the local studios that I know in my country, they look for either Environment Artist or Character artist. They do not specialise into vehicle, gun etc

maybe some abroad studios do

but as I mentioned, I have not done detailed modeling in nearly 3 years. I worked as a generalist / UE artist in-engine mostly

some environments, some lighting, some shaders, some animations, some characters etc.

Before I started working as a Junior 3D Environment Artist, I spent like 1 year of practising and trying to get a job, just to get a junior job.
Now if I have to do all that again just to potentially get a junior job and then being at the risk of getting laid off at some point, it's really discouraging

[ashen lynx]

Gotta be prepared to move, within EU as minimum

Id push a few decent fantasy props in realistic setting. You are not that far behind.

[ashen lynx]

If you will be adapting yourself to whats available, rather than to what you are good at and what you like, it is not going to go well. You need to do what you like and what you are good at. Rest of it will come automatically.

[grave cove]

I'd say it has more to do with the size of the studio & game than location.
At a certain scale you'd definitely end up hiring for specializations like vehicles and guns. But I would agree that it's not common.
We had artists on the Saints Row franchise that just did vehicles for example and that was 15 years ago.

[winged dragon]

The problem is that even if I want and try to specialise now, it might take me many months to create quality work. Only to compete with laid-off seniors and 300 applicants for a mid-level job for example

and even if I somehow get that job, I don't know if 3 months later I might not get laid off or if AI might not replace 99% of the artists in the next 10 years for example

If I have to be honest, what mostly attracts me right now is not 3D modeling and games, but work in Virtual Production, Automotive Visualisation etc. But then again it is very hard to even find such vacancy

[oblique ice]

i think alot people feel same way also about that

[smoky beacon]

I personally think you are in a great position. Just keep networking with people and selling yourself to people looking for a 3d generalist. That reel alone looks great.

[lucid dagger]

You either do that and you will have a specialised portfolio in many months, or do nothing and you may wait many months to land a gig.

[winged dragon]

almost nobody looks for a 3D generalist

I watched the video. I think your situation is even more complicated considering that you have a family. I hope your landscaping business goes well

Tbh I don't even really feel motivated to go through specialising in modeling and props and environments considering that it took me more than 1 year just to land my entry junior job.
If I have to do the same all over again just to get a junior job, I honestly prefer to start working something else.
The only thing that might keep me working in 3D is to do what I did in the last 3 years - working as an in-engine Artist/Generalist. I enjoyed that, but it's very limited.
Can almost never find such vacancy and even then it will be very competitive

[void gust]

You're right, I should have asked where this pay scale was being offered.

[low crystal]

Damn Florida must have high minimum wage

It’s 7 bucks where I’m at lol

[oblique ice]

yes sometime can take almost year to get job or even the interview, it's really not surprise
the only person that ask for 3d generalist are those people don't even have any understanding for art or any knowledge of 3d pipeline and ask "can you do , this, this and this?"

[leaden inlet]

damn thats pretty good, paying for training
exactly on your last point though, the effort should be worth more

[leaden inlet]

whats up career chat

I was interested in just a general talk, I'm just getting into UE5 and video game development (have done smaller systems for discord rpg / ttrpg) due to a GAD class I'm taking, and I'm wondering how people feel about a future with this

might be more suitable for industry chat instead maybe, but people's experiences matter quite a bit

I don't expect to really make it big or anything, but if the opportunity to do this came up, what do y'all think?

[winged dragon]

I honestly think that I might leave the industry soon. The instability in this industry is just not worth it

[livid coyote]

Wouldn’t worry if ur an environment artist quite yet. The workflows and pipelines are very unique and the work is meticulous and as of recently environment artists are asked to work depending on the studio in more areas be that props shader setup materials etc. Even if ai replaces a part of ur workflow companies will still need them as tasks are simply too complex and too many areas env artists work on to be completely replaced

[round radish]

The gaming industry is certainly collapsing. A lot of the AAA paying/permanent jobs are disappearing, so a lot of the talent in the industry will be going somewhere else to get the pay they are used to. Not sure what GAD is, but I'm 100% sure this is affecting every single area of the gaming industry.

[winged dragon]

I just read a post from an ex Lead Ubisoft 3D Environment Artist that is struggling to find work for multiple months

if he can't find work, how can I lol?

[smoky beacon]

Don't compare yourself to others, just focus on what puts food on the table and a roof over your head.

You have a job for a long while yet if that youtube video you posted is anything to go by.

[winged dragon]

I'm actually starting to think more and more about moving into AI. Wether if we like it or not, AI is advancing and is the future.
So it might be better to move into that industry. Vibe Coding for example. You can build and launch apps without coding, just using AI tools
and in the past you neede a team of people for that

[chilly sundial]

And you still do, when that app inevitably crashes and burns, or the codebase becomes to big that the AI loses track of what's happening

[winged dragon]

for very complex apps maybe. But for simple ones I don't think so

[spark rock]

Not sure what you mean by simple.
I developed a couple, both solo and in a team.
AI can hallucinate the same way as it does for UE

Also cs graduates are struggling to land a job at the moment, let alone vibe coders

[winged dragon]

you do not land a job, you develop your own app and launch it, market it etc

[wintry jetty]

This was probably talked through many times here but would love to get an insight from someone more experienced or that has more knowledge in that regard, since we're on the topic that landing a job is harder and harder in game dev, isn't going indie an obvious solution? Or grass isn't that greener on the other side? Like it's never been easier to be able to produce a game from start to finish as a solo dev (did a smaller-scope game project from start to finish once in the past), I put aside the aspects of increased difficulty in staying motivated and managing a huge project etc. but on paper in theory it should allow for an exponential income that could exceed a full time salary if a project succeeds financially. Is there something I'm missing here? I personally feel like that's the way to go. Naturally in such case there's much more to it than just pure development, stuff like marketing, legal aspects and accounting get into the equation but still feels like a better option than so called "rat race" in the industry 🤔

[chilly sundial]

The thing you're missing is "if it succeeds financially"

Those are extremely low odds

Without a sizeable marketing budget you're relying on virality which is predominantly luck based

[severe sundial]

BUY shittenfarten coin today and it'll go to the moon

[wary idol]

Even simple barely work
Anyone shilling vibe coding is one of 3 things

1. employee of some shitty start-up that directly benefits from shilling
2. beginner without any real software engineering experience so they don't know any better
3. naive

[round radish]

You forget a very common one! 4) troll 😛

[winged dragon]

well I can't find a job in 3D ... at least AI will be more demanded in the near future

at this point I'm even starting to lose my passion and joy for 3D. It feels like I need to "force" it so I can get a job

[smoky beacon]

I played the low effort apps in the 2010s, it was great back then because people actually searched for apps back then. Nowadays you have to shovel them down peoples throats. So yes you can "vibe" your way into making whatever but actually getting people to install/pay/use your app you need a strong marketing angle.

Stick with 3d for now.

[winged dragon]

how can I stick with 3D if I cannot land a job for months

and I don't know if I might not get laid off a few months later even if I get one

[smoky beacon]

Doordash/Uber/Mcdonalds/whatever you have thats available in the mean time and if anybody asks about your employment gap just say "I can't discuss that I was under an NDA".

[winged dragon]

you have to put an insane amount of skills, effort and time in 3D , just to get a low paying, unstable job that another 300 people are fighting for

I really do not see any balance here

[spice dagger]

You do have the option to take a more stable job in another industry and work on your 3D in your spare time until you have the experience to be more attractive for jobs.

[leaden inlet]

GAD is Game Art and Design, classes for this stuff that isn't just programming or art

[ivory echo]

Well if his resume says he was on the Skull and Bones team for example, that might make him less desirable 😀

[ivory echo]

I doubt NDAs in gaming industry prevent you from disclosing who you worked for. It’s usually what you worked on that you can’t discuss

And if you start lying about this stuff in your interview, you might have a hard time finding employment. Prly better to just be honest and say you weren’t able to find something so you kept yourself afloat as best you could.

[winged dragon]

what are good websites to look for unreal engine work?

[low crystal]

Hmm I kinda get the feeling you’re ignoring what some people advised here a couple of times

There’s a channel here where people are looking for others to work for them, maybe try that?

There’s probably more avenues too but it sounds like you’re slowly talking yourself into what you want to do

[grave cove]

NDA’s in the games industry are almost exclusively there for information about projects that haven’t been announced.
They don’t prevent you from discussing that you worked there or even some details of what you’ve worked on.
If anyone tried that in an interview with me it’d be a big red flag.

[spice dagger]

Take a look at our Job Board

[winged dragon]

Besides the job board, I am checking it all the time

[smoky beacon]

Upwork - though It'll be a grind to get the reviews needed to charge your real rates.

[oblique ice]

do you got attend game developer events?

[winged dragon]

not really

[void gust]

Upwork, more like Upyours. Sorry, I just had to make that joke.

[severe sundial]

that ;s interesting

how do u know upwork?

[misty sedge]

Hey guys, I wonder if it's okay to send a looking-for-people type of messages on this channel - for an open source project which got an Epic MegaGrant!

[misty sedge]

or is there any specific place I can post such things?

[chilly sundial]

The job board

[grave cove]

#instructions for the job boards

[misty sedge]

Thank you so much!

It turned out I wasn't following the Job Board category and that's why I could find it on the channel list 😂

[void gust]

I don't use Upwork. What I wrote was a joke.

It's like calling Door Dash as Door Trash.

[bleak dagger]

Upwork is the biggest scam i have ever seen

They want me to pay so i can apply to work

F that crap

[void gust]

I heard Fiver is even worse. You ask someone to make art for $5 and the freelancer just generates it with AI anyway. But I've never used it, so I can't say for sure.

[bleak dagger]

Thats why you hire someone with good reviews

But upwork wants the freelancers to pay

[void gust]

It might be to gate keep the scammers.

[bleak dagger]

who in their right mind is willing to spend money to work ?

If i work i want to earn money

gosh these demands on the revshare projects in the revshare channel here lmfao

Atleast a Shipped title, 4 years experience, semi - pro studio XD

As if someone with a strong portfolio and or several shipped titles would join a revshare

Whatever the creators of these posts are smoking i want some ....

[grave cove]

I might do something like that while unemployed ... might.
It would definitely have to be something extraordinary to be better than just working on my own stuff.
And I'd probably drop it once employed.

[bleak dagger]

I dont know.... the teamlead would need to have some insane skills or already put in some funding to even consider something like that

[digital gate]

If the rest of the team INCLUDING the people running it are similarly qualified then I’d feel better about it, rather than working for a total noob, but paid work is definitely the safer bet

[bleak dagger]

but i feel like the demands are totally out of proportion

[bleak dagger]

ye ok if the entire team has that much experience and i get compensated fairly and i like the idea

but somehow i doubt thats the case for most of these ^^

I once joined this revshare team
They wanted me as their only programmer and offered me 5 %

[digital gate]

If I was on a team of peers that all left jobs to go rev share I would be frustrated with allowing people who are just beginners, if that wasn’t some kind of apprenticeship we agreed on

[digital gate]

😬

[bleak dagger]

50% for the studio just for the idea

XD

[round radish]

Just ask a <@&213101288538374145>

[bleak dagger]

Hahaha i just have to share this, gpt roasting a low budget client

[round radish]

Lol

[low crystal]

Who is William lol

[spice dagger]

@tribal viper Naming and shaming is inappropriate on this Server. If you have an issue with another user, please contact a Moderator in private. Thank you.

Sharing their personal information here is not the way to go.

[wraith mortar]

I really hate the current iteration of chatgpt, the way it talks is like an immature child, how it keeps writing long ass essays repeating itself, the way it tries to keep you engaging with it feels needy and desperate, and the way it panders to you even when it shouldn't. Not sure what the point of sharing that is

[bleak dagger]

Because its funny seing the bot roasting a client

[wraith mortar]

It isn't professional at all. It also isn't a bot

[bleak dagger]

What are you talkin about what isnt professional laughing about a gpt response ?

[digital gate]

I guess if any of your current or recent clients think this is about them it might affect word of mouth recommendations, or if a prospective client sees this you might lose some work.

It’s not really about the quality of the GPT roast

[bleak dagger]

Tbh i couldnt care less, this "client" asked me about 1 hour countless questions to then wanting me to set up 3 inputs for 10$, he then made me wait 2 hours to then come back ask another 30 minutes weird questions and started rambling on about random stuff to then demanding i should download and start working on his project before he accepts the order to ultimateley ghost me afterwards

I fed our chat history into gpt and asked him if i did anything wrong and this was its response

Also while you might be right with that i dont really care if i lose any work because of that, im not in this discord to gain clients sometimes i just like to have a good laugh 😄

[wraith mortar]

Maybe you don't realize it but by making the prompt then sharing it here you're indirectly insulting a client

If he asked chatgpt the same and fed the same info the response would be completely different fwiw

[bleak dagger]

WHy do you care ? It seems like all you want is an argument lmfao

[wraith mortar]

I'm just telling you that if a potential client other than this one sees this they will probably avoid you

[bleak dagger]

I dont care

[wraith mortar]

If you find work here on this server then you should

[bleak dagger]

I dont

[wraith mortar]

Ok. But still don't expect people to see any value in posting that kind of stuff in a channel called #career-chat , it isn't funny and quite immature

[bleak dagger]

I found it funny, a friend of mine found it funny

Are you german by any chance ?

[wraith mortar]

It isn't a place for insulting your clients

[bleak dagger]

I didnt insult anyone

[wraith mortar]

You did

[bleak dagger]

are you hallucinating

wanting the argument that badly ?

[wraith mortar]

You insulted your client

[bleak dagger]

I didnt insult anyone at all lmfao

You know what i find immature
TRying to have a argument about nothing 🙂

[wraith mortar]

The fact you can't see how that constitutes an insult says a lot about your professionalism

[bleak dagger]

And since there is nothing to gain discussing with you but annoyance i say bay bay

[wraith mortar]

There actually is if you thought about it but feel free to die on that hill

Why are you in this channel, insulting a client isn't on topic and you clearly don't want any career advice because you tried to turn it into an argument instead. Taking things personally will not help your career either for that matter

[digital gate]

ya asked what was unprofessional and I explained

[bleak dagger]

Nah your good

[wraith mortar]

If you want to share details of how you got scammed maybe we can give advice on how to avoid it in the future but shouldn't break server rules

[bleak dagger]

Calm down mate

There is a reason why its not allowed

People will just accuse others randomly even without proof or fake proof and start witchhunts, he could have said it in a better way but you have to see his side too he deals with something like this on a daily basis

it wasnt personally against you

[chilly sundial]

reporting a scammer is absolutely a good thing, and the user will be dealt with!
The problem was just about publicly reporting and sharing dm's, which while you have a noble goal of protecting others, often times doing such things just incites arguments and fighting between the involved parties and acquaintances of them, which is why I'm assuming it's disallowed here 🙂

Unfortunately even with all the protections, when doing business people need to know how to protect themselves ultimately, too, and victims of a scammer aren't necessarily going to see these messages. The best thing that can be done is to quickly and immediately stop the user from scamming on the place they currently are doing so, and that's all we can do 🙂

[spice dagger]

🤦‍♂️

[wraith mortar]

#instructions

@spice dagger we really need a sticky bot for this, to save you guys some work

[chilly sundial]

Perhaps even taking key phrases from common scripts and making the bot auto respond, for the scammer ones at least

i would say include something that tags "looking for work", but that sounds like a scunthorpe problem waiting to happen

[spice dagger]

Ill bring it up internally. But its not a huge deal if you guys just keep reporting them to us.

[wraith mortar]

Yeah that's why I propose sticky bot, it just maintains the last message in a channel once its become inactive for a while
"Do not post jobs/LFW here, see #instructions " (except y'know, with some thought put into it...)

[chilly sundial]

That's a decent idea

Shame discord has no way to make a certain message always the one visible at the top. With a name and a profile picture, it might be a bit more obvious than the little blurb in the channel description

[wraith mortar]

It would also be nice if discord allowed you to set some rules for a channel, if it detects certain phrases it asks you to confirm you want to send it and reminds you that you might be breaking a rule, but w/e

[spice dagger]

There are a lot of features that we would like Discord to support natively. They just wont ever happen unfortunately.

[chilly sundial]

you see on one hand we could have features like the cdn not running at dialup speeds and also channel specific rules with tools to enforce them... or we could have orbs

we all know what the best option is there... orbs obviously

[spice dagger]

If you have further suggestions. Shove them in a #969360633386655744 topic.

Thanks guys

[void gust]

This was funny. I personally don't see a problem with this kind of comment. You didn't name anyone and didn't share DM's in public, so this doesn't really count as gossip or anything. And if you didn't accept a payment then I'm not sure how you could consider this person a "client." In order to be legally considered a "client" then there needs to be contract/agreement and an arrangement for payment.

[untold crystal]

I recently completed a software engineering bootcamp, gaining experience primarily in web development. I also have a background as a 3D prop and environment artist, having worked on several indie projects. I’m now looking to transition into game programming and engineering and would love guidance on where to start.

[spice dagger]

Get some real experience in engine. Do some tutorial projects. Put together something of your own.

If you are trying to gain employment, focus on putting together a portfolio that showcases the skills applicable to the position you wish to pursue

[untold crystal]

Makes sense make something show the skill

[lime cove]

Hey, I'm trying to do freelance in game dev and ik unreal engine and C++. I don't know where I can find clients? I don't have much money, I tried upwork but it asks for money to buy connects

[wraith mortar]

You can try on this discord by reading #instructions , otherwise I think Indeed is where people go for jobs
It is easier once you have connections

[lime cove]

I've never been in this freelance of working style so I don't understand certain things like writing, mails and all that stuff. I do like to develop, improve and build but never been in bed with clients before. Gonna be my first time
Would you please give any advice or suggestions for future heads up

Did I write the description well enough to attract a client?
#hire-a-freelancer message

[wraith mortar]

It does an adequate job of selling you at the level you're at
But the industry is dead in the water and not showing any signs of recovery
So you're unlikely to find a decent client regardless unfortunately
I would do another example project, make a ~7-14 day game-jam tier game, something actually completed that can be downloaded and played (e.g. from itch.io) with a youtube video (<1 minute long)
Also remove the word stunning from the description of your existing one

[lime cove]

Actually I'm working on my own commercial project but to find that, I thought a second freelance project could help me. A short term

I have a team. 1 3D Artist and 1 marketing guy

[elfin axle]

Hey guys! Any Chance to get Hired as „tech Artist for unreal“ as Long Term Houdini Artist with ~12 years of vfx experience in Films(Generalist and later on fx guy) + Python and Pipeline coding. I got Laid off just recently and would like to start to Transition into the Game industry. I know where the buttons are in ue5 and a Bit of c++ / blueprint coding but just Never had the Chance to do something portfolio worthy 😮

[bleak dagger]

0.0% chance if your not atleast somewhat experienced with bp's

[elfin axle]

thx for the reply, would you consider basic knowledge with blueprint interfaces create/implement, create/subscribe/unsubscribe to events in blueprints, functions, variables,object references , raycasting, loops, variable handling and vector calculations, checking gamplay tags as enough ? was just lacking time because of crunch at work, family, house and therefore never got time to prepare anything useful to show but I guess I will have to find some time to do that sooner or later.....

[spice dagger]

Are you also familiar with the Material editor and how to deliver custom Materials?

It sounds like you have entry level skills. You might need to focus on developing your own portfolio piece to showcase what you can accomplish.

[elfin axle]

I have some knowledge about some shader creations in terms of what a dot/cross product is, how to manipulate uv's to either distort/offset textures, blend them with different masks, sin-waves + combination of ramps to animate stuff from my days as fx/cg artist in houdini and maya. So i dont know every and each corresponding node in the material editor that would do the same thing, but I know what the general approach is to build a custom material and how to expose parameters and build material functions

[spice dagger]

Yeah, I just think you need to log some serious time in the Editor.

If you are convinced that Unreal is the platform you want to try and launch a new career on.

You have to just get in and start making stuff.

[elfin axle]

Sounds good, thanks for the reply, will try to find some time 🙂

[oblique ice]

yes if can do the blueprint and can also do the C++, then any of the studio will want hire

[severe sundial]

I have worked as an engineer overseas for a long time, but I have always liked the politeness and sincerity of Japan. I have also delved quite deeply into technology for the past nine years.
My Japanese is not yet perfect, but I will speak thoughtfully and respectfully.
I would be happy to slowly cultivate friendships with Japanese people.
Would you like to chat for a while?

[lapis trout]

Literally?

[winged dragon]

I want to give you all an example of the absurdity of the industry today

Key Responsibilities

• Modeling game assets, foliage, and characters. Creating high-poly and low-poly game-ready assets.
• Working cooperatively with other team members.
• UV mapping and texturing.
• Translating concept art and design ideas into optimized, efficient, and polished true to the details/form 3D models.
• Collaborating with other team members and applying requested revisions or a direction change.

Skill sets/qualifications required of the most ideal candidate

• Game asset creation experience.
• Committed and focused.
• Experience with Blender or other 3D tool of choice.
• Knows the general abstract workflow of game development.
• Knows the general game development pipeline.
• Experience with game asset pipelines.
• Able to communicate in English or Bulgarian.
• Experienced with blender or 3D tool of choice.
• Experience with UV workflow.
• Having an overall optimal workflow.
• Ability to work within deadlines.
• Experience building and modeling environments, characters, creatures, and props across a wide range of styles.
• Great communication and collaboration skills, with the ability to collaborate between teams, and work closely with Designers, Technical Artists, and Animators.
• A portfolio that demonstrates strong conceptual ideas and visual creativity.
• Passion for video games and art.
• Self-motivated and solution-oriented.

Good to have

• Unity or other game engine experience. all unity/game engine experience.
• Any animation and/or rigging experience.
• Are located in Bulgaria.
• Experience in 3D environment art.
• sculpting.
• Experience PBR texturing in Substance Painter and substance designer.
• FX workflow experience.
• Experience troubleshooting software issues and experience learning on the fly.
• Proficiency with 2D tools (Illustrator, photoshop, etc.)
• Great English communication skills.
• Experience with working in a cooperative team environment.
• Experience working with and implementing 3D work into Unity or other game engines. Overall good working knowledge of unity.
• Knowledge of human anatomy, clothing tools, and re-meshing techniques.
• Eagerness to continue to learn new skills and expand knowledge.
• 2+ years of professional game development experience.

---

Those above a the requierments for a SENIOR 3D GAME ARTIST job (listed in a job website in my country)

the pay rate is 1100 - 1600 usd per month

don't you think that is crazy? a senior position with all that requierments and so little pay

and this is an european country btw

[round radish]

I think they're the basic skills you need to work collaboratively as a 3d artist on a UE project. I'm not commenting on the pay, but I don't see anything outrageous there.

And, well, in Unity, not UE.

[winged dragon]

for me, they are asking for way too much things for a very little pay

[round radish]

You're going to need those skills in any 3d job, surely? It's basically saying "you need to be able to make game ready assets and work as part of a team."

It's just being very verbose about it.

[winged dragon]

sure, but the pay range is not fitting those skills

the minimal wage (not average) in my country is 640 usd per month. So a senior 3d artist will be getting around 500 usd above the minimal wage. lol

[chilly sundial]

It's no secret that the games industry isn't somewhere you want to go for a competitive salary lol

[winged dragon]

there are some studios that pay well depending on their location

but then it's super competitive

[round radish]

Get experience at the shittier paying ones and then you'll be able to compete.

[ivory geode]

The minimum entry to gamedev rn is: release a product

Rememeber that

Nobody is going to.hire 3d artist which cant go through entire production chain

[chilly sundial]

that's just not true at all

[karmic furnace]

hello im new here ^^

[woeful iron]

hello new here

[oblique ice]

hi new here

[lean ermine]

i am almost the same except i also have 3-4 years of ue experience and i have not found anything for about 3 years now

[low crystal]

Not even any freelance stuff?

[lean ermine]

not Unreal related, i do have regular vfx freelance stuff going on every now and the en

i have quite a wide array of knowledge, i usually fit all the criteria im applying to yet usually I dont even get an answer

i guess there are just waay to many applicants atm

[bleak dagger]

Huh thats really odd, i was surprised at how fast i got gigs on fiverr - as blueprint programmer tho

[lean ermine]

actually I had one for vrtual production that was quite fun

oh i might try that, never did anything similar

[bleak dagger]

especially live coaching brought a lot of gigs and pretty low hourly rate

25$ in the beginning

[lean ermine]

what is live coaching? you teach people live?:D

[bleak dagger]

Ye basically mentoring beginners, i hop on a live call and explain them how to do stuff

What is a cast, what is a interface, how to code this specific feature

[lean ermine]

hmm, i'll try to setup a profile for myself as well

[low crystal]

There’s definitely a market for it if you can explain well. I recently looked into it (as a buyer not a provider) mostly to learn more things beyond tutorials

Haven’t purchased yet but thinking about it

[elfin axle]

Sry to hear that mate. Yeah it seems pretty tough. I‘ve sent a couple of application but no answer so far, not even a „not good enough“ . Either way I’m spending an hour a day just to dig my way through pcg, Niagara, blueprints and so on….
Let’s just hope that 2026 will hold a couple more options for us 🤞

[cloud python]

hi Everbody

[round radish]

You'll get the odd sale and if they leave reviews, you get started. It's gonna be a desert before you get that first review, though.

[bleak dagger]

Ye first gig was rough took almost a month, after the first review everything went pretty fast.
There is also a hidden trust score in fiverr if you have repeating gigs with the same buyers you get ranked higher and you get WAY more impressions

Might be worth to ask a friend to book you for your first few gigs tho

In the very beginning it is worth it to work super underpriced

it fluctuates hardcore

Yes you 100% can make a living off of it

this month alone i got booked for 600+ $ already

But in the beginning i was at like 100$+

Oh its part of a way bigger gig, just the first milestone, my very first large gig
5 digit payment so i cant complain ^^

But you need patience, some clients are .... well very demanding even tho they only pay 20 bucks 😄

[analog fable]

heyya

[carmine quest]

Just today i had a guy on here block me the moment i told him my rates only to reappear looking for a full AI for like 100 bucks

[carmine quest]

Oh i do that stuff too. I dont recommend fiverr tho its shit

Race to the bottom, honestly

I spent years trying to build up to seller level 3 by doing quality work. Highly disencouraged, as doing longer big ticket items is highly disincentivized. Not long after they just decided to double down on AI crap and destroy all that, reset everyone's seller ratings.

They tried to force me to buy their premium subscription crap to even reach clients. As a fucking seller. Fuck that.

I wasn't even making chump change off it. 20 bucks a lesson on fiverr and they took 25% of it. Can barely eat for that. And my other platform i was already making 55 an hour tutoring so i just gave up on them and you should to

No seller will ever be able to survive doing quality work on there. And consquently, no buyer will ever be able to find quality work on there.

[bleak dagger]

Once in a while you will get the odd buyer that hires you for a bigger project, no?

[carmine quest]

If you can manage to find clients other ways, bill on stripe and save so much fkn money. Or even hire an actual escrow service if your clients are that concerned, its literally cheaper.

[carmine quest]

Not anymore. Not since they ruined it.

[bleak dagger]

I mean thats what happened to me so i guess i was very lucky then 😄

[carmine quest]

Once upon a time i was making 1000+ for some odd gigs. But that was still not what the work was worth

[carmine quest]

You're making 700 a month yeah? I'd hardly call that livable

[bleak dagger]

i made that in half a week

[carmine quest]

You said this month

The month is half over

You off for the holiday?

[bleak dagger]

Ye and when i wrote the og message we had the 8th i think

[carmine quest]

How much you made since then

[bleak dagger]

another 500

[carmine quest]

Not bad

But is it consistent

[bleak dagger]

oh god no generally speaking it fluctuates hardcore, sometimes i get 0 orders a month then other times i get like 5 at once

With this client- he hired more for a longer running project ofc i dont know yet guess i can tell you more on the end of the month

[carmine quest]

This is why seasoned pros will tell you double your rates for freelance. Because the job isn't just you doing the job. Half of it is everything else; marketing, admin, client consultations, doing your own finances, your own accounting. No company is paying your health insurance, your vacation time, your sick days. Half the time you're spending just as much time desperately looking for work and the other time you're drowning in it and overwhelmed.

What you're talking about, about 500 a week. That's barely scraping by in some cities. And you seriously need to rethink things if thats you on a GOOD month.

How much did your school cost? You spread the cost of your education out over 10 years, you even gonna pay that off at this rate?

[bleak dagger]

even 500 a week would be enough to pay all my bills tbf lol

including socials

[carmine quest]

Then you're lucky. You live in a place where the cost of living is lower.

I had to straight up move to a different country

I was homeless in LA, at the amount i make 10+ years of job experience later i still would be

If i still lived there

Still can't afford health insurance tho. No one wants to cover a pre-existing condition internationally

[bleak dagger]

Man Usa sounds like a nightmare from what ive heard

[carmine quest]

I live in vietnam now

[bleak dagger]

Is life better there?

[carmine quest]

Rent is cheap, food is cheap and i got an endoscopy a while back for the price of what would have been just 2 months of international health insurance

I dont have to freak out as much when i hit a dry spell with clients

So yeah I'd say so

[bleak dagger]

My goal is to become a complete digital nomad haha

[carmine quest]

But the economy and industry has gotten worse overall

I got less jobs and less money than ever

And im more talented than ive ever been

Cant imagine being fresh out of art school these days

Cuz i was literally homeless back then

[carmine quest]

Its fun for a while but then you realize you're just moving around because you have nowhere to go. Eventually you settle down somewhere and become a proper expat

Whole world starts to look the same just with a different price tag when you been to enough places

[wraith mortar]

Yeah everyone is feeling that, it's actually absurd

If the industry ever recovers there will be a long period where they can no longer find people because no one is training anyone anymore

[bleak dagger]

Do you feel the experiences and people you met along the way were worth it?

[carmine quest]

Yeah maybe. I mean I found my current girlfriend along the way who I've lived with for 2 years now so. But when you're a nomad you make friends anywhere you gotta move on and the best you can do is just vow to be back eventually. And they'll just text for a while and eventually move on without you

I'm happy to have seen as much as i did but as a foodie most of my best travel memories revolve around food lol

Its not the same as being a tourist so you learn to live and eat cheaply as the locals do... The food is the best part usually

[plucky hatch]

how is any of this relevant to the buyer? I mean, ideally, yes, you should define your rates based on all these factors, but in reality you are worth only as much as someone is willing to pay.

in the economy of at least last 10 years, whos gonna pay you your ideal logically calculated rate, when they can hire someone just as capable for 2 times cheaper.

[carmine quest]

Its relevant to the buyer because it affects the quality of the product they inevitably receive. Everyone thinks they CAN hire someone cheaper, and that will always be true, but if they're not paying them livable wages either then its an unsustainable model. What that means is the entire economy of fiverr runs on cheap indian or pakistani labor who are both unskilled and unmotivated to spend any real amount of time on it. This is why people more and more get scammed with stolen asset flips or AI slop passed off as bespoke assets, because it means the market is straight up hostile to anything else. Literally the number one thing clients said to me every time they hired me when i was still on fiverr was how thankful they were that I wasn't an indian, and that they'd already wasted their money hiring several people before be who wasted their time and botched the job.

The industry being predatory to desperate art students who are ready to work for unlivable wages is nothing new. Even big studios have been running on a revolving door of unpaid interns looking for a big break for decades. Its just harder and harder to find people who want to walk through that door and end up in destitution. The situation requires people to have faith that if they live beyond their means for long enough one day they could maybe scrape together a career out of this, and it also requires that faith be a lie.

The buyer WILL pay more. Or they will get crap. Because at the end of the day, the desperate ones who will accept lower wages are the ones who lack the experience of self respect, who will underestimate the amount of time needed to finish a project, and thus underestimate the amount they need to survive, and those are also the people who lack the experience to deliver a result with any amount of quality. And as they say, don't want to pay to have it done right, you'll end up paying twice.

So to answer your question, they're NOT going to hire someone just as capable for half the price. They're getting someone half as talented who spends a quarter of the time or less on the same thing. Its actually LESS worth it for the money. There is a sweet spot where someone can learn enough to start to be really talented and still not have learned the value of self respect, still not have driven themselves into destitution and early retirement, and perhaps the buyer can get lucky. But most often, the unsavvy buyers will waste their money, maybe multiple times and eventually have to shutter the unprofitable project and it only breeds mistrust. The booking platforms like fiverr are not designed to reduce these occurences, quite the opposite. And the artists, like so many i know from college, eventually give up on their dreams and find "normal" jobs. The lucky ones, like my friend who 3d prints jewelry, end up paid well enough in adjacent industries.

[bleak dagger]

Ye it really is a race to the bottom, and no matter how cheap you are there will be a pakistani that undercuts even that by 50%.
That is very true but good clients will hire you for higher rates when they want Quality
What the super low grade 10 - 15$ / hour workers do is they only deliver the most unscalable garbage hardcode crap - there is no other way how they could survive otherwise

My personal goal is this, i want to be able to pay all my bills and i dont want to work 40/h a week for that

I will still take a cheap 1 hour session of coaching dont get me wrong but for bigger clients my own codex is - i dont work for any less, i rather eat out of a trashbin than to work for less than minimum wage.
Maybe thats stupid i dont know but i value myself that high 😄

[plucky hatch]

I guess you need to define then what the original price is, if you are saying they are not going to hire someone just as capable for twice cheaper.

Liveable wage, and what you said before, are completely different numbers. You were talking about asking 2 times more price in freelance, and taking into account your education costs. Thats not a liveable wage, thats pink glasses ideal world wage.

Liveable wage is what allows you to pay for rent, food, some clothing, for you and your family. That is a much lower number, than what your original implies prices where.

And people who accept these lower rates, arent people who lack self respect of experience. They are people who have a rent to pay, in an industry with tens of thousands of layoffs, and as a result an unreasonable competition.

[carmine quest]

Twice the price in freelance is not fantasy, it is fact. Those who don't do it literally don't pay their bills.

You are not occupying a 40 hour work week with your trade. You are occupying your 40 hour work week with your trade and everything that surrounds it that you wouldn't have to worry about if you worked full time for a company.

If half of that time is spent on everything but doing the job, you think those hours should remain unbilled? When the opportunity cost is the other 20 hours of the week you can't get back?

[plucky hatch]

Didnt you say you moved to Vietnam to not be homeless?
And to be clear I am not shaming in any way, Im lucky to already live in a relatively cheap country, and if I was in US, I would be homeless too.

But you are heavily contradicting yourself. If those heavenly prices you talk about are a fact and not a fantasy, why were you not able to charge them and pay your bills?

[carmine quest]

I do charge less now. I charge less than I know am worth. But i charge enough for a liveable wage. I don't live or work beyond my means. And the price of that is still more than you would think, and more than you would suggest charging.

[plucky hatch]

I literally 1 message above said I suggest charging liveable wage, instead of the fantasy wage you suggested 3 messages ago

[carmine quest]

I charge twice my usual hourly price for freelance.

[plucky hatch]

Is your usual hourly price 10$?

[carmine quest]

Fuck no.

I said I stopped doing fiverr because fiverr is ridiculous and literally not worth the time..

[plucky hatch]

Then Im sorry, I have no idea what the hell are you talking about anymore.

In one message you are charging less, a liveable wage, only enough to not be homeless in Vietnam. In another message you are charging twice your usual hourly rate.

[carmine quest]

I charge 25$ an hour for full time work. This is less than what an artist of my caliber is worth in US markets--less than what an artist lower than my level is worth. I charge 50 an hour for freelance work. I charge a bit more depending on the booking platform, many places want a steep commission, I don't eat those costs. I will commit to a months worth of work for no less than 2000$ a month, more if they want it done ASAP when I have to pull all nighters.

I am very clear here. I have moved across the world to remain competitive, but I refuse to charge or accept anything less than a livable wage.

And I am advocating for others to do the same. Never live beyond your means. And if that means you don't get clients because thats not what they're willing to pay, then you're just not ready to make this a career.

And avoid predatory platforms like fiverr that don't respect you and make things worse.

[plucky hatch]

2000$ a month is very reasonable, is not a fantasy number, and is roughly the livable wage I was suggesting.

The problem we have here is that there is some wild math going on here.
2000$ a month with 50 an hour, is only 40 hours of work. That's only 1 week of full time work, not 1 month.

I guess it should have been a red flag from the beginning talking about charging by an hour in freelance. In freelance if it is not full-time work, you charge based on the scope of the project, usually divided into milestones.

[carmine quest]

As i mentioned, full time work is different from freelance. The 2000 a month is a bare minimum for me. If i drop below that, I have lost my self respect.

I also try not to work 40 hours a week on client work. I have my own projects and pursuits to invest my time in.

The scope of the project is quoted based on hourly time commitment.

Not knowing how much time something costs is how you end up shooting yourself in the foot and making less than minimum wage as an amateur.

[plucky hatch]

Never said you should drop below that.

Based on the prices you have given, you are not charging 2 times more. You are charging 2 times more, only if you do mental gymnastics.

You are charging 50 an hour, which amounts to 2000 a month. Which amounts to 40 hours of work. That's 1 week of full time work.

What you are charging, you are charging for 1/4 of the full time work.

How else do I explain the confusion caused here?
Ben, you have 4 apples...

[carmine quest]

I'm not doing mental gymnastics. I haven't budged.

[plucky hatch]

Ok, good for you, you win

[carmine quest]

You're quite hostile and aggressive.

I'm not here to argue with you.

You want to pick apart what I'm saying but is there any part of my general premise you actually disagree with?

Or are you just being a dick.

1.) Do you think fiverr is not a platform that aggressively promotes low quality work?
2.) Do you think artists should respect themselves and not live beyond their means
3.) Do you think it is a bad thing that artists should charge more even if clients can find someone who will pay less
4.) Do you think that people should aspire to and actively push to charge rates that allow them to afford basic health insurance, rent, and a regular work schedule that doesn't negatively impact their health?

State your own opinions, if you have any. Feel free to share your own rates with the rest of the class. I won't pick them apart, because i don't engage in petty argument for sport.

To provide a last bit of clarity you are not searching for, I have my ideal rates which I know I am worth, I have my non-negotiables to which a livable wage is no longer tenable, and there is room for negotiations. The true price of each job depends on the time, scope, the nature of the work. I said 2000 a month was my minimum and it is. I said my hourly rate for freelance is 50, it is. I don't always work on monthly projects, and i don't always bill hourly. These 2 concepts can coexist. But you're not looking to make sense of it, you're looking to pick it apart and be a dick.

[fossil dune]

Hey everyone where I can post a volunteer role ?

Can you please help

I m looking for volunteer for our upcoming project

[carmine quest]

#volunteer-projects

[carmine quest]

@fossil dune

[fossil dune]

Thanks but Something I need to follow and the it’s redirect my server again . Where should I post ?

[carmine quest]

look in the sidebar for a category called Job Board and the channel is called freelance jobs

follow the pinned instructions on how to post

[fossil dune]

Thanks @carmine quest

[plucky hatch]

Your general premise that I disagree with, is that you said, that in freelance you should charge 2 times more, and that You Yourself actually do so.

But based on the numbers you have given, and using 3rd grade math, it is clear you are not charging 2 times more, you are actually charging 2 times less.

I have no intention to be a dick, or be hostile, I just dont want someone new to the industry, to see your message of charging 2 times more, and be bewildered when they get no work doing so. When actually, you were never charging 2 times more, and that 2 times more premise was entirely mental gymnastics.

Also this isn't politics bro, you dont have to box me into options that have nothing to do with the problem discussed.

[carmine quest]

I'm going to block you. In the meantime, I'll ask you to consider whether anything of what you've done or said here is productive for anyone on the server.

I don't care whether you think my numbers make sense or not. They don't exist for you, they exist for me. I also don't really need to explain myself any further. Even if I've been a bit vague as to how I come up with my numbers, casual observers can use basic reasoning skills to deduce what points I might be trying to make. I do have an exact formula, written down in my notes. I have pages of market research into rates based on experience level and geolocation. I'm not going to share any of them with you because it would be a waste of breath. You can tell immediately when someone is trying to understand you because they meet you halfway, you go out of your way to not understand me because you're trying to be aggressive, because you obviously don't like me and find some satisfaction in humiliating me. But, none of that can detract from my actual experience level, my actual talent, or the years I have spent doing this, or the reasons I do what I do. All of that exists independent of you or anything you could do or say.

I want to keep this chat civil and productive. I was not posting for your benefit, i was doing it in response to Al. Please refrain from involving yourself in any further conversations I am a part of, as I will no longer acknowledge your existence for my own peace of mind.

[bleak dagger]

Lads take it easy, from what ive seen in my limited time as freelancer it is never just
I create system x for your in 20 hours
You work 20 hours hand the project in and done
You have so much overhead with the clients that is not clocked - consult them on what package is best for them - chat - do a revision - give mental support etc

But i also dont think that demanding 100 bucks / hour especially as a newcommer would be a wise choice even if the work is worth it - maybe even more

[oblique ice]

ouh fighting? 😆

[digital gate]

I remember when I first started trying to attract clients, my rate was less than $15/hr. It would currently be a seriously steep discount to offer my services at/below $30/hr.

I think anyone who is open to working on videogames for money should take an earnest look at what they need to make to cover the famine periods, their own benefits, and their own time learning the craft. Working on videogames can be mentally taxing, and even physically injurious, so one should at the very least understand the minimum they’re worth.

If clients aren’t interested at the minimum you’re worth, it’s time to consider either working for yourself or doing a job that’s easier, for whatever your definition of easier is.

Not to say that a lot of clients exist that would pay me $400/hr either, but if I earnestly needed that kind of return for my work, then I better pivot to another field or bust ass at efficiently producing games for myself and be lucky.

(also I haven’t given real numbers here for obvious reasons, my specific going rate isn’t all that important)

The alternative is throwing hundreds of hours a week away for a pittance

(Having undercharged for my services before, it does suck, and there’s no guarantee you even get better prospects from doing so)

[bleak dagger]

"(also I haven’t given real numbers here for obvious reasons, my specific going rate isn’t all that important)"
Hidden humble brag, bro is earning big $ 😄

[plucky hatch]

I did meet you more than halfway multiple times.

I completely agreed, multiple times, that the prices you mention are reasonable, that your living and career conditions are nothing to be shamed about, and that you definitely shouldn't charge less than the minimal price you mentioned.

The only thing I disagreed with, is that you said you were chargin 2 times more, when based on the numbers you have given, you clearly weren't.

In response, you called me a hostile, a dick, and publicly broke up with me.

I'm sorry if a simple argument makes you feel humiliated, that was never an intention.

[carmine quest]

Oh yeah no one is saying 100 bucks an hour. Those are like senior level AAA USA dev rates. And i do think your rates should scale relative to the time commitment. If someone is providing you job security through consistent income, especially in this industry, they deserve to be pro-rated. But if you're freelancing at even close to minumum wage you're doing something wrong. Just because you're not clocking the overhead doesn't mean you shouldn't be billing for it. The double your rates thing is just a common shorthand for freelancers, its just meant to help you come up with something that makes sense for such an unstable job. Minimum wage is for completely unskilled laborers, I'd say for every year of school, maybe every 2 years of work experience, add a dollar to that. In an expensive city like LA with a minimum wage of 16$ that means you're looking for 20$ an hour fresh out of art school, 40$ an hour for freelance. Thats pretty normal, but theres also plenty of places where the cost of living is much lower. That's also not accounting for additional business expenses like software, work computer, the cost of a wacom tablet spread over the lifetime of the device, etc. People don't teach you how to do accounting or budgeting for stuff like this, you gotta learn how to do it on your own. And then there's the overhead you mentioned... Just because you don't clock it doesn't mean you shouldn't bill for it, projects almost never go exactly as planned. Actually we we doing a budget estimate for a GDD and in our spreadsheet we added 20% to every item for "QA". Basically the amount of unexpected overhead for having to redo things, get stuck on bug fixes, etc averages out to about 20%... For a noob that constantly underestimates the scope of every project this figure could vary wildly.

Double is just a safe bet, a rule of thumb, a shorthand and nothing more. And it is common industry practice for freelancers across many industries, not just games or digital art.

If you guys want theres actually a really great table I came across that charts the salaries of different experience levels across different parts of the globe https://7cgi.com/blog/3d-modeler-salary-overview/

It can be really hard to find consistent market research on this subject since a lot of people are all over the map on this.

Rocketbrush did a similar breakdown and came up with slightly higher numbers. https://rocketbrush.com/blog/how-much-does-3d-modeling-cost-rates-and-budget-management-tips-in-2025

But i think a lot of that has to do with experience in dealing with western vs eastern markets. Seems like the guy at 7cgi has a lot more experience dealing with south asian and southeast asian freelancers.

[void gust]

I'm not sure if you're being serious or joking, because every industry on the planet will calculate their costs before deciding on setting a price. If the price doesn't generate a profit, and NOT just being able to barely get by, then that company goes belly up. Honestly, benflights rates are already pretty cheap.

By the way, $2000/month is less than what a full time McDonald's employee would make in Florida. Absolutely unreasonable, so I'm assuming that you don't live in the USA.

[grave cove]

This also isn't the right place for this. I don't think there's anyplace for a poll like this.
Just post on one of the job boards like normal (#instructions )

[tough remnant]

However I am still curious if someone had experience partnering up with Sales guy in gaming space

Like this IS career thing, no?

[grave cove]

Sure, discussing the experience of partnering with someone would be. But this channel is not for direct recruiting or self-promotion.

[carmine quest]

I also think my rates are quite cheap, especially for what i offer clients. Many people say they can't afford it, but no one who's actually hired me has regretted it. Of the dozens that have actually bothered to take the time to review me, i pride myself on a consistent 5 star rating. And yet, i still charge more living in vietnam than i did as a desperate art student in LA. Shows just how much of an idiot i was back then, if I hadn't learned to be better I wouldn't have been able to do this this consistently for over a decade. And yeah, I'm still guilty of underselling myself from time to time, i think we all do here. But i said no to 3 clients this month and I've learned not to sweat losing the clients who want unreasonable things for chump change... Theres no universe in which wasting my time for them will actually pay my bills, or I can convince them to pay more.

Imho learning to say no is one of the hardest and most important lessons to actually making this a job. You only have a certain amount of hours in the day, spend them well.

[bleak dagger]

50% fees? wtf

[carmine quest]

I'm also a little confused

[bleak dagger]

Even greedy fiver just takes 20%
50% is so out of place

[carmine quest]

So strange. I've done asset sales with Arghanions Puzzlebox and he only took a 12% commission

And that wasn't even really worth it

Not that I've had great luck selling on my own fab storefront either

[bleak dagger]

https://tenor.com/view/cryptoskulls-cryptoskull-skulls-skull-stay-away-gif-25656209

[tough remnant]

I mean, once person closes the deal, they get up to 50%

maybe my wording is bad

[bleak dagger]

if i work on fiverr i get 80%

[tough remnant]

Well, when you sell customized tech to gaming studios/businesses, you don't get 80% of the commission / revenue typically 😄

[bleak dagger]

Dont you get a 100% if you directly sell to studios?

[tough remnant]

Yes, I mean seller gets 100% (minus platform fees or smth like stripe), but then, if it is the team behind the tech, then those 100% can be split into X, Y, Z etc. right?

X - what your company gets

Y - expenses

Z - revenue split with team members involved into such deal

[tough remnant]

Now, if you bring Sales person, when usually take commision from each deal

like X% from 100%

as incentive to sell more

usually they are on a payroll (depends on the company)

but in my case, it is part-time, I can't offer payroll (or should I say, it won't be a full time job), only revenue split basically

[bleak dagger]

So i create assets for you and you pay me monthly a set amount ?

[tough remnant]

who said assets?

[bleak dagger]

Anything

assets were m first guess but coding work works too i guess

[tough remnant]

Sales person WON'T create anything, they have to sell existing stuff

not sure wherefrom this confusion comes

[bleak dagger]

Lmfao but for why would pay anonye 50% so just you sell their shit?
Epic Marketplace takes 12% XD

[tough remnant]

just you sell their shit?
Easier said than done, some solutions are hard to sell because they are SO out of FAB pricing models (read as EXPENSIVE)

[muted basalt]

Anyone recommend any good books on data orientated design and making good AI? Mildly exhausted the free available youtube videos on DoD and I want something with some more meat, and better examples.

[bleak dagger]

I see.... i guess if you are REALLY good at selling and you can sell something for a very high amount of money it could work ...

[tough remnant]

exactly!

Like you can sell but you don't do that 24/7

and you are alone (bottleneck)

[digital gate]

I might entertain such a high commission If I made middleware/etc that required virtually no ongoing support, but if I'm regularly going to be doing work of any sort related to any individual sale I don't think I'd be comfortable going that high

like I'd need to be essentially hands off and free to make the next product

[carmine quest]

Youtube is notoriously bad for learning to do this kind of stuff because of the bite sized formats everyone does. Had to rewrite all my systems like 3x as i learned to do it better. Even epics own channel has a lot of bad practices... Their official course on multiplayer has the guy hard coding stuff into the menu system.

[bleak dagger]

Guess it depends on his client list

if he has connections to 500 AAA studios that pay a good price .....

[carmine quest]

All i can say is behavior trees can be swapped out so dont depend entirely on them. You can use a single tree for a single behavior and run the rest with blueprints. Keep everything component based and run everything off event dispatchers so its modular and extensible.

Behavior trees suck imho

[bleak dagger]

I also really like to run all my ai in a component / blueprint

Dunno ppl say bhvr trees and state trees are better managable

doesnt feel like it to me but oh well

[carmine quest]

Considering just switching to that but im putting it all in a plugin and i want it to be compatible with stuff ppl have already built

[carmine quest]

Blackboards are an absolute ass way of passing information

[bleak dagger]

They really are haha

[carmine quest]

The fact that i cant just use a boolean and i actually just have to check if the variable is set or unset

That is just

I want to smack whoever designed that

State trees are new as of which version again?

At least state machines are definitely better than behavior trees but I don't have the money to shell out for logic driver

[muted basalt]

Yeah, and it doesn't go into huge amounts of depth, which is why I am asking for book recommendations.

[digital gate]

data orientated design
Might ask in #cpp or #programmer-hangout

making good AI
Might ask in #gameplay-ai

[low crystal]

Damn what the hell??? How much is the minimum wage in Florida?

I live in Texas and the minimum wage is 7.25$

[void gust]

It's only $15/hour here.

[void gust]

Ouch

[low crystal]

A McDonald’s employee doesn’t make near 2000$ a month

Ah damn

That’s not bad for minimum wage not gonna lie

Other stuff must be expensive in Florida I figure

[spark rock]

It depends on the living economy, it's around 15$ here aswell, no where near enough

[void gust]

Texas is cheaper cost of living a in some places. My friend in Ingleton (sp?) showed me the cheaper rents there.

[low crystal]

Yeah that’s true I’m not gonna lie, some things are definitely cheaper.

[void gust]

Even gas is hella cheap there.

[bleak dagger]

The more i hear from Usa the more it sounds like a horrible nightmare country

how can anyone survive with 7$ / hour

You have to take on like 3 jobs

[void gust]

Most companies will pay more than that, because if they don't then their employees leave to work for the other ones. But wages aren't the same throughout the country and each state can set most of their own rules.

[coarse ember]

Doesn't Texas also have 0% income tax?

[round radish]

If you're earning 7 dollars an hour, do you even pay income tax in other states?

[wraith mortar]

Physically injurious? You mean RSI or something?

Its a pretty awful time to be a game dev, my options are basically 1) Switch industry and spend time reskilling (while being bored, coz your resume won't get you a satisfactory role for a while), or 2) Go without work for long periods with fingers crossed, or 3) Reduce rates and work on lesser projects than you usually would, with a whole lot of uncertainty

For RSI I got a very large desk space and move my mouse from the shoulder instead of the wrist
So no risk of RSI anymore, and its considerably better once you actually get used to it

[smoky beacon]

This $2000 number is kind of bullshit.

I really wonder how many McDonalds workers actually get full time hours because a lot of places will try to skirt around fulltime so as not to have to pay for benefits.

[void gust]

It's not bullshit, lol. I know people who have either worked there in the past or they currently do now. Here is a quick Google search for you, which is kind of outdated because the minimum wage is now $15/hour, not $13/hour. They increased the pay to keep people from quitting all of the time, and also because McDonald's is making record profits anyway.

[spice dagger]

You got that right, I'm holding onto my job as long as possible (suffering through whatever nonsense it brings) as the job market is so uncertain right now. I shudder to think of the lack of potential alternatives there are right now.

[wraith mortar]

Yeah most industries we can side step into got decimated

[spice dagger]

Luckily I have trade skills and qualifications (that I haven't used in nearly 10 years mind you). But the drop in compensation would be a non trivial adjustment.

I feel for the people who do not have anything to fall back onto.

[wraith mortar]

Large amounts of people coming out of schools unable to start a career at all for that matter

[spice dagger]

I feel like a lot of degrees and the promises of sustainable careers has been a massive grift for a while now though, even prior to the downturn in our industry.

[wraith mortar]

Yeah. The part I don't understand is what you're actually meant to do now as a young person. Go into trades?

[spice dagger]

Well TBH, I would say that is the answer, especially for Australia.

The reason I say that is because of the shortage of dwellings.

There is a lack of supply in the housing sector

Those houses get built by trades

[wraith mortar]

And the answer for NZ is to move to Australia which is what they're doing. Christopher Luxon literally told them to move to where the work is and now they are doing that... Of course the idiot thought there was work in the South Island they could do (there isn't)

[spice dagger]

Is he your PM at the moment? Cant say I've heard of him. But I believe it.

[wraith mortar]

Yeah he's an incompetent middle manager who failed upwards his entire life. A businessman / CEO. One of the dumbest people on earth

Nobody likes him, not even the people who vote in his direction

[spice dagger]

Heh, failed upwards should be on every politicians Linkedin shouldn't it?

[wraith mortar]

Generally it's just nepotism

[spice dagger]

True

[wraith mortar]

His financial minister has never had a job and doesn't have a relevant degree

[spice dagger]

Ouch

[wraith mortar]

She cancelled the ferry contracts that we got a ludicrously good deal on during covid because the boatyards on Korea had little to no business at the time
And literally said she will find a "used corolla" version of a ferry...
Cancelling the contracts had a break fee higher than any of her imaginary used corollas
All to "stick it to the other team"

[spice dagger]

I encourage everyone I speak to that is serious about finding stable work to go into trades.

It just seems logical to me

[smoky beacon]

Trades and starting your own business if you have the capital are your only options.

Anything tech related has become a commodity/the novelty factor for normies has worn off on a lot of things.

[spice dagger]

Politics 🤦‍♂️

[wraith mortar]

My BIL is a licensed builder and he might disagree, because he's middle aged and feeling the toll on his body, esp. looking at my sister and myself in tech roles making more than him without being on his hands and knees all day

But the world has absolutely shifted very recently

Over here in NZ tho there isn't a whole lot of work for him, and he is very experienced
The current govt also cancelled all their projects, because they're practicing austerity (despite evidence that it doesn't work)

[spice dagger]

For sure, its certainly a young mans game, I felt the same when I transitioned to Game Dev, being in an office all day and not in a hot roof was much more comfortable,.

[spice dagger]

The great thing about trades is that you can build up to owning your own buisness.

The capital problem is only temporary.

[wraith mortar]

I often hated being stuck inside, I need a balance but the balance between office/outside doesn't really exist
I think I have the closest thing now, living on the beach in Orewa and WFH
But who knows how long until I start running out of contracts then money

[spice dagger]

I keep my hands busy by doing a lot of physical stuff in the backyard or on the house.

[wraith mortar]

I'm also not sure if I should drop my rates - and it would have to be a sharp drop, like at least 40% - or wait it out

[spice dagger]

Are you looking at the barrel of finding a new job soon?

Its hard to predict whats going to happen, on the one hand, I can see things just leveling off as AAA realizes what they have been doing for the last number of years isn't working anymore and they just reshape their products.

Or if we see Indie become the new place to be

[wraith mortar]

Maybe a few months out. I did interview for Weta here and was told I'm the preferred candidate but the publisher is dragging their feet with funding like the rest of the world and it's putting the studio on hiatus

[spice dagger]

Which I think both can be true as well

[spice dagger]

Weta would be a cool place to work.

[wraith mortar]

Yeah but there's not much funding in indie which means you basically want to build a small highly skilled team and rely on successful releases. But it's hard to motivate people to that

[spice dagger]

Its certainly riskier thats for sure.

Thats why I feel quite lucky to be where I am, the CEO has a lot of money, unfortunately, the project is shit because he has no idea how to make a game.

[wraith mortar]

I've dealt with those types, especially the ones who won't take advice from the people they pay

[spice dagger]

Yeah well, thats this studio lol

Talking with other colleagues, it seems like its not uncommon haha

[wraith mortar]

Just gotta distance yourself emotionally from the project lol

[spice dagger]

Tell me about it. I checked out a long time ago.

[wraith mortar]

I'm more than happy to take their money, offer my advice and have it ignored, then just do my part, and let them fail - I'm not going to fight them and get upset while they shoot themselves in the foot
Luckily my current client is fantastic, but its a limited contract

[spice dagger]

Yeah this one seems more like a keep going until the money runs out deal.

But we have no idea when that is lol

[shut token]

Hot dang - it sounds like y'all are America lite!

[wraith mortar]

Luxon literally had a maga hat in his office and was proud of it. They take inspiration from a certain someone fruit

[granite brook]

Please use the job board via #instructions and make sure to read the #rules once more.

@viral shore Same goes for you.

[viral shore]

sorry, I was just need for something quick

[round radish]

If I need to do something quick, does that mean I can hurl insults at you to achieve it? Of course it doesn't. Because that'd be breaking the rules too.

[raven ermine]

Apologies. I did try and post on the job board but there was no way to do it

[granite brook]

The #instructions should explain how it works and you can always ask for help with it. Doesn't mean you are free to post outside of it.

[raven ermine]

Unable to select a server. And thought this was a relevant forum since it pertains to careers. Was not intentional

[granite brook]

@tawny kayak Any idea what the above is about, related to the Job Board? Never tried this on mobile.

[tawny kayak]

If you are unable to select a server to follow updates from #volunteer-projects, you either don't own a server or there is a bug in the Discord app. Anyway, this is unrelated to the #instructions for posting a job opportunity.

Can you please clarify what you are trying to do?

[raven ermine]

I understand. I can remove my post. I dont want to break the rules. It was for people that are interested in freelance work. They can create a profile if they want hired. But thinking about it is this more for career advice?

[tawny kayak]

Read the channel topic, please:

Talk about working in the industry, getting a job, and anything else career-related. Hiring or looking for work? See #instructions for posting on the job board.

Also read rule 8:

No recruiting or self promotion outside the designated channels
Use the Job Board category for recruiting (see #instructions), and the Community Creations category for self promotion. Recruiting and self promotion must be related to Unreal Engine unless otherwise specified.

[raven ermine]

Understood.apologies

[carmine quest]

I got a friend who says archvis is still going strong... The only clients he still got that are still going strong. Cuz he does virtual production too and that has hit a low

[carmine quest]

This will never happen.

[wraith mortar]

Interesting, does archviz pay well, is it just an artist thing, or is it engineering too

[carmine quest]

I treat every job like that these days. Its just the state of things now

[spice dagger]

I'm glad someone can tell the future.

[carmine quest]

It is an artist thing for sure. Not engineering but definitely technical. 360 cameras and floorplans and whatnot. He also did say that he was seeing delays on payments from them too and you know things are bad when even real estate is running out of money

[carmine quest]

Not the future, just when someone is too far gone to ever see the error of their ways

I really do hope the senior level talent AAA gaming continues to shed finds enough capital to build their replacement because things are definitely not going to change for the better there, they've made that very clear

[spice dagger]

You might be surprised how motivating a factor that consecutive financial losses has in deciding products futures.

Everything happens in cycles

[carmine quest]

Lol yeah you'd think that, but there is a long pattern of behavior that kind of defies all reason

Until you realize once people have enough money they start not really thinking logically

[spice dagger]

The games industry is still relatively new, the bust happening right now might just be the end of the first cycle.

A new one will begin

The industry isn't going to die, never to be seen again.

[carmine quest]

Idk in my experience people are extremely stubborn and with enough money and power someone who wants to can delude themselves to just about anything. For as long as it takes for the money to be all gone.

[carmine quest]

Yeah its just a matter of how long before the next cycle can start

When people hoard wealth the way they have, not just in the games industry, but any industry, it makes it hard for an economic boom anywhere

There WILL be another golden age for the games industry but it might be decades before we see it

[spice dagger]

I disagree entirely with that statement.

Just because you can't see where the booms are, doesn't mean they don't exist, or cannot arise.

[carmine quest]

No i mean they're just slower

90% of startups fail, the games industry has got to be worse than that overall

You need the scratch not just to hit the ground running but to last long enough to ship a polished game

Its a marathon, not a race

[spice dagger]

I feel like you focus far to much on the upper end of towns expectation for what success means.

Success doesn't mean a viral breakout hit.

[carmine quest]

Early funding is the issue and partnering with and eventually being absorbed by AAA at least historically is the only way to ensure that

But even that has proven unstable

You can't depend on them, they will eat you up then shut you down

[carmine quest]

True but it does mean standing out from the crowd.

A lot of noise.

[spice dagger]

Thats a given though, thats entirely in your control.

You can choose to remake Call of Duty, the result of which is almost always going to be failure.

Because you had nothing of value

Thats not AAA's fault.

Thats not the industries fault

[carmine quest]

It kind of is though. I mean its the escape velocity effect

When you got something with that kind of mass just sitting in the games industry. Even if its inert and not doing much. The gravitational force won't allow you to leave orbit and start your own shining star

[spice dagger]

Its always been like that dude.

[wraith mortar]

Right now the only way to secure funding if you're not a large AAA studio already is through successful kickstarter/etc campaigns (most of which will fail)
How that changes in the future, we can't predict until things start to change, everything is in limbo at the moment

[carmine quest]

Yeah but I'm trying to explain its not always cyclical

Just like its too late for most stars to be created in our universe

The giants are there

A snowball doesn't have a chance

If our shining sun becomes a black hole

Its not going to easily be replaced with another sun

I was watching a talk about the fediverse and the whole philosophy behind federation as a strategy to combat this effect in the social media industry

Because social media networks also experience that escape velocity effect even worse probably

Indie game dev might have to do something similar honestly

[carmine quest]

I had a producer friend who said in order to have a successful kickstarter campaign you need to spend at least 10-20 grand which seemed crazy to me lol

[wraith mortar]

Nonsense

[oblique ice]

do you producer friend have completed that kickstarter with the 10-20 thousand? 🤔

[wraith mortar]

My client ran a very successful kickstarter with check notes nothing more than a well designed project, trailer, and a great niche in the market
Prior to kickstarter it was just family/friends making a game

[oblique ice]

thank you for sharing, i didn't actually do kickstarter, i just normally make a game but it's for learning purpose only, so it's not risk to anyone at all, any lost is just myself, and any benefit is just myself only ☺️

[carmine quest]

I'm not sure. His business was international consulting for the film industry

[oblique ice]

thank you for sharing, i see it's not for games but the film industry

[carmine quest]

I think the principle is the same though. Need a sizeable marketing budget to reach a big enough audience and cut through the noise.

That or you get lucky and go viral

But i think more and more these days that is not about luck...

[oblique ice]

i agree, the part get lucky is really dependant on the individual, yes these days not luck

[carmine quest]

I think the budget part is about eliminating luck. You can't get money from your target audinece if you can't even reach them. And even viral stuff these days, its not like the early internet. There is no accidental viral sensations... Last one was fkn hawk tuah and people spent ungodly amounts of energy trying to see if they could distill it to a formula.

Its something the music industry has been trying to push for decades, beyond just the mr beastification of the internet... in order to "make it" you gotta have a collab with someone who made it, get their rubber stamp and consistent promotion from pre-ordained outlets. get crowned part of the in-group of influencer culture by the existing establishment. No one becomes a smash hit overnight the way they used to.

Idk if there is a word for it yet... influencer oligarchy maybe?

[oblique ice]

hm you have a point, no such thing as the accidental viral sensation, i remember when early access was ready, they shared the video of windwalker echo in the dessert, then early access can be downloaded, just one video and become viral, everyone just downloaded and immediately making stuff with it, it was really exciting at that time

[carmine quest]

i think there is a lot of hidden economics to the way things work now. 100% there is payola going on with a lot of gaming influencers. all it takes is one big youtuber talking about your game, but why would they even notice you?

And with the kickstarter stuff there needs to be a kind of immediacy. People need to be talking about it from day one, so you need the influencers on board on day one too.

Otherwise it never gains enough traction.

Idk maybe i have a cynical outlook lol but i would argue its the world itself that is cynical

[oblique ice]

that is interesting view, i was told among us actually not get any attention at all, nobody care until someone play live on twitch then everybody wanted to play suddenly or interested
then among us suddenly got some much attention, i didn't even heard about it until i saw video on youtube

[carmine quest]

Yup thats usually the way it goes. But i do question how many of those were manufactured phenomenons and how many just got lucky that their game got discovered randomly on itch.io

[wet grove]

Hey guys! Looking for a VR dev for a neato battle Royale game, am I in the right place?

Or is there like a channel I’m supposed to post in

[carmine quest]

Theres several channels depending on whether its paid or not

[wet grove]

Gotcha, it’s a paid position need about 4 months of work for development

[smoky beacon]

I just realized something. Why do the majority of the freelance/salary job listings not include a dollar amount of pay?

Might be something that needs fixed/required by the Moderation team.

Why should I or anybody else “apply” blind to what could be a huge waste of time.

[wraith mortar]

That did come up in the feedback channel, and I think it was going to go ahead, but then it didn't happen for quite a long time and they said that they haven't had time or something. Haven't checked on it since

[oblique ice]

Yes is really hard to know, alot of game on itch.io is independent and small team abd almost never get any attention, I only found about itch.io few years ago

[carmine quest]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTD55g3xvhg Weird that an audio youtuber had to be the one to do a video on this subject but it really is an interesting breakdown

between him and benn jordan (flashbulb) its weird that some of the hardest hitting journalism these days is coming from indie musicians xD

https://youtu.be/GZ5XN_mJE8Y?si=oAkNOBh4I9u4dYzR unrelated but just fkn wild

[smoky beacon]

Well yeah, thats what happens when you democratize knowledge. You get a flattening of corporate structures. You don't need 50 different kinds of specialists you need 5 good generalists who know how to use Youtube/Paid Courses/LLMs.

We'll see AAA studios become platforms and peddlers of premium IPs for a large upfront fee plus a fat percentage of the profits.

[bleak dagger]

What do you mean? You dont want to create Billy Joes complete ai for 20$ ? 😄

[smoky beacon]

I told that sumbich I’d do it for $50 and he said No.

[carmine quest]

lol is this a joke because i literally saw something not far off from this recently

[bleak dagger]

Why is something like this in the freelance job section lol

So not even the rev share gamble, its a gamble if you ever get paid a normal salary lmfao

Ohhh what a great offer hahahaha

Senior level qualifications ofc

[carmine quest]

Lol. For stuff like this i always tell them why should someone with the skill and experience to make your dream come true waste what little free time they have as a working professional helping you with your dream when they have their own dream projects they could be working on instead

And if you don't even believe in the idea enough to invest your own money into your project why should they stake their livelihood on it

[bleak dagger]

Shouldnt that be obvious to everyone? I mean what is going on in their head haha

[carmine quest]

People just dont think about things from other perspectives. People can be quite myopic.

[finite knoll]

is making a blockchain MMORPG still fooling investors

but yeah, I would just assume this is just some scam to get some labour for free

[oblique ice]

that been happening alot recently, some people want to trick others to do labour for free

[bleak dagger]

Why would a Senior dev that could easily earn 100$ / hour fall for something like that tho

[oblique ice]

not sure, but it's better to aware of this thing still happens until today, even slacker had some of the people that come in and do these kinds of things

[bleak dagger]

Vultures, scam business model try to scam devs and customers

[oblique ice]

yes, it's really unfortunate, several already of the people here in slackers even have been scam and actually fighting with one particular person that used to be in slackers but left after that, i forgot the name but i hope they leave for good

[winter birch]

Just flunked the design interview I was prepping for all day

The ai interview bot tried to conduct a design assessment

It asked me to talk about a design tool, my process and how I would use it to approach a solution

But it kept switching questions , jumping from one question to another , one tool to another , and also figured I might speak urdu and started interviewing me in urdu

I don't speak urdu

I kept asking it to go back to English

And I said I was finally done with it in frustration

And it took that to mean I was " done"

And I was supposed to have another retake but it's not letting me

How are designers supposed to get hired and assessed this way?

I have enough conversational design experience to know it wasn't being human

[spice dagger]

Who on earth would be using AI to conduct interviews

[winter birch]

It's one thing to have a bit ask standard interview questions but another thing all together for it to drive a product design demo

[spice dagger]

That honestly doesnt sound like a place you would want to work for anyway

[winter birch]

Bot

It's my fourth AI interview

And they have all been horrible

This one takes the cake

I am hoping the human reviewer on the other side realizes the bot messed up and lets me proceed .. I really do not want to be screened out by a bot that can't conduct a conversation much less design exercise

[oblique ice]

now the company using bot to conduct interview?!

[spice dagger]

Even if they do pass you on, their willingness to use a poor performing AI to do interviews just screams laziness to me. I wouldnt want to work there.

[winter birch]

Also it switched to talking to me in urdu ( I am of Indian descent) which I am pretty sure can be considered discrimination

Esp since I don't have to specify my race unless I want to... This also violates equal opportunity

[spice dagger]

Just sounds like more red flags to me

[winter birch]

So I am not sure how it's even legal... Ai is so new we need legislation against this

[oblique ice]

wow, i don't about anyone else but, one of my interview asking me how old am i and i almost wanted to say to their face, do i need to be certain age to working?

[winter birch]

Mercor

It's a contracting firm

But I am sure there r others

[spice dagger]

https://www.mercor.com/

This one?

[winter birch]

Like the job itself is fine. It's standard design stuff but it didn't even wait for me to finish

Yeah

[spice dagger]

Ok well now it makes a little more sense.

They are literally an AI company

Makes sense they would use AI

[winter birch]

I have had retail stores use ai for non tech positions

....

Well maybe they use the messed up interviews as free user testing videos

If selected they said they will do a paid assessment

Should I just proceed and leave a note with interview about my experience

[oblique ice]

it's strange they using bot to conduct interview..

[void gust]

Do the job and then upload it on gumroad. Tell them they can have it when their funds come in.

Increase the price the longer they take.

[blazing dock]

I mean, Urdu is a pretty important language to know these days

[carmine quest]

This sounds like some dystopian ass shit. I 100% would not want to work for that company. But if they're sending an AI to interview you, just send an AI to interview on your behalf lol 😂

[carmine quest]

I've got a newsflash. This has been happening long before ChatGPT was a thing. Try poking your head into the messed up rabbit hole of applicant tracker systems and you'll realize for well over a decade its rare you'll even get your resume seen by an actual person at all. If you ever talked to an HR rep on linkedin and they forced you to submit your resume to an email instead of dealing with it directly, that is why. ATSs are where resumes go to die.

[carmine quest]

Well if the interviewer is any indication doesn't seem like their model is going to succeed 😂

[oblique ice]

i agree about the applicant tracker system, even i also get rejection in just same day

[winter birch]

See they wanted camera on and screen share .... To make sure I am human

[winter birch]

My rejections have been days or weeks later

[carmine quest]

The rabbit hole goes deeper when you find out about ghost jobs and resume farming. The more i find out about how HR actually operates the more i consider it useless communist style busy work

You break the matrix when you think to ask yourself why the person complaining about hundreds of resumes on their desk as an excuse to why they can't just have a human conversation with you is spending most of their time posting ads on facebook and linkedin to solicit yet more resumes

If you're so swamped with applications that you can't bother to give time to any one of them, then why are you actively courting more?

But of course, the only real hiring going on is through the back or side door, through word of mouth and professional recommendation of those already inside. Like Kafkas gate of justice allegory in "the Trial", the front door was designed just to refuse you.

[oblique ice]

i relly hate this kind of person, who dun bother to even at least look at resume and quickly send quick message to just ask a question to understand something, if this person is in HR i really dont event want to send application to the m@@@@@@ 🤬

[carmine quest]

I've seen this kind of behavior from the biggest studios. Who almost always seem to be mid 30s attractive but aging women who treat hr with the same detachment and callous disregard they treat tinder

No real training in the field they're hiring for either. Couldn't tell you what an HDRI or UV map is if you asked em.

At one point i had to explain to a tinder match that just because she had 1000 matches doesn't mean i deserved to be treated as 1/1000th of a man. And i realized in recruiting they do the exact same thing.

On the other hand an actual production supervisor (in whatever field) could probably tell in a very short conversation if you know what you're talking about and if you have what it takes. They know what they need and whether you fit in to that. But you're usually gatekeeped by complete amateurs.

Or i guess now gatekeeped by an actual robot 😂

[void gust]

At least you get rejected on the same day. Some employers will call you two years later and ask, "hey, buddy, are you ready to work yet?"

[carmine quest]

Re: resume farming lol

[oblique ice]

interesting you mention that, because they dun even know either HDRI or UV map, when all they keep asking is"how old are you?" , "how long it takes you to do this?"
i almost want to tell them "lets sit down and speed a modular asset now, from blockout ---> material in engine then we see who is faster".
i was fighting with amatuer in linkedin few months before, who claim that machine learning can beat artist, we fighting until i challenge that person straight to free hand draw now! i told that person you post your drawing and then i share mine, no reply, and i really shared my freehand drawing

[carmine quest]

How old are you is literally illegal to ask in some countries lol

The funny part is since AI happened recruiters are now swamped with auto generated mass submitted and often fraudulent resumes

Sometimes people literally just prompt an AI to take the job listing itself and convert it into a resume and auto submit it

So every part of this system is so irreversibly broken on both sides by laziness and slop that the old fashioned human approach is pretty much the only effective way to do it any more 😂

You got AIs writing resumes, AIs submitting resumes, AIs reading those resumes and AIs sitting on both sides of the interview process. The dead internet is upon us, lol

[oblique ice]

i heard about fraudulent resumes, well i kepp my resume for as long i can rememeber, typed in microsoft word, just words only and something like that also get rejected from ATS

[oblique ice]

this is news to me 😲

but yes, the hiring part, using the AI for resume, AI reading resume, and AI doing interview, it really frustrating, i heard the same complain at linkedin also

[carmine quest]

https://youtu.be/tSEOXRLSpVc?si=4r54err82gX19EtF lol this whole situation reminds me of that old onion news sketch lol

[finite knoll]

once ATS platforms started using AI to filter applicants, the gloves were off

so even as a genuine applicant, you have to use AI to rewrite your CV to fight fire with fire

[smoky beacon]

HR is built to enforce discrimination against certain groups of people. (White men)

I personally think game companies were given massive amounts of grant money to enforce these HR policies but that’s just a conspiracy theory of mine.

[carmine quest]

Yeah and since AIs are glorified pattern recognition algorithms, they will automatically prefer the outputs they create over man made text, making it disadvantageous not to use it to bullshit a bland ass low quality resume. 😂 So yeah they brought it on themselves

[low crystal]

White men are being discriminated against?? Lmao 😂

[coarse ember]

From what I remember, they are a 996 company and the jobs are about training the models with specialised knowledge sets for their AI services

[winged dragon]

trying to find a job in this industry is starting to feel really toxic and suffocating

just the fact that I have to sit on the computer for hours looking and searching for vacancies just to get rejected

and this repeats every day for months

really is bad for the mental health

[ivory echo]

Sadly that’s the same with most industries

[low crystal]

Damn bro has been on a cycle

[void gust]

HR is not racist, they hate all people equally.

[bleak dagger]

No wonder ... i would too after a while 😄

[twilit saffron]

know any companies hiring Viewmodel Animators?

[ivory echo]

I hate HR

So we’re on equal terms

[oblique ice]

so some of us or anyone here agree about HR

[wraith mortar]

Some of these ads are really absurd. Must be skilled. Payment about 0.001x what a skilled engineer makes. Not really a big deal when they're upfront tho

[carmine quest]

Well i personally haven't had great experiences with HR and i'm a white man, so maybe lol. If i wanted to I could make every one of my failures about being a white man. xD I'm much more inclined to believe there are serious systemic issues with the industry as a whole.

[low crystal]

White privilege backfires in HR

[carmine quest]

Idk where they're handing out this white privelege but i'll take some if any has some left

Didn't really find it in the welfare line or the homeless shelter but i'll keep looking

[ivory echo]

It’s not surprising considering the amount of narcissists I’ve seen here giving themselves CEO and CTO titles when they’re completely clueless lol

[oblique ice]

that one i agree

[wraith mortar]

That's funny. Beware the person on LinkedIn who has CEO of their own company on their work experience

[oblique ice]

i saw that also in linkedin, they just putting the title, is nonsense

[bleak dagger]

I would like some too pls ....

[smoky beacon]

what should they label themselves as then? Janitor?

It's all so comical how you get labeled as unemployable once you've worked for yourself for any length of time.

[bleak dagger]

Not true

If you had any success

[smoky beacon]

see success is a tricky thing to define/show. Do I need multiple press releases about my company before I can safely label myself as "ceo" of my business?

Its all very arbitrary and HR/hiring managers to me always see it as "unemployable"

[bleak dagger]

No but a fassade that looks like it was legit helps a lot, website, some sales etc

Some of them even accept portfolio videos from what ive seen

[smoky beacon]

Dunno, I've no real experience with it nor any luck landing a job. Ever.

I've always had to make my own money since 2012.

[oblique ice]

am sure alot people find way to make money even if notdoing job that they interested at

[bleak dagger]

Thats a horrible life tho

Tried it for the longest time

Dont wanna work 40 hours + a week for some asshole in a Job that gives me nothing but depression for a paycheck that is bareley enough to scrape by

Fk that

[oblique ice]

ouh that me a long time ago, i was even working at weekend, include sunday, by the time i went home was already early morning 🤣
but that time was understaff

[coarse ember]

It's more about what you did. The labels titles don't matter outside of search terms/keywords

For example, if you are pulling in 500K revenue per year, that is something you tell people about

It matters less that you are the owner or whatever

[smoky beacon]

Long time no speak, how is yaustar?

[coarse ember]

I thought we crossed paths before!

[smoky beacon]

Oh yeah, you were big into mobile stuff I remember.

[coarse ember]

Ups and down, can't remember when the less time we spoke but I've invested into my 4th games startup this month

[oblique ice]

? started new company? how iz it? how bussiness?

[coarse ember]

No, angel investment

Someone else is growing their business and I'm helping back it a bit

[smoky beacon]

Very nice

[coarse ember]

How's you?

[oblique ice]

ouh okay, not familiar about bussiness side, i mostly production side

[smoky beacon]

Not made anything in a while, mainly been spinning my wheels. It's hard starting from scratch again. :/

[coarse ember]

What's the new idea/project?

[smoky beacon]

I'm thinking of expanding Eat Venture out to a 3d space. Running into issues that EV game mechanics got around. I love these idle sim games and how they print money with a mix of ads and iaps.

[coarse ember]

Been tempted to try running a sim with something like https://machinations.io/

[smoky beacon]

Yeah thats the defacto tool of the trade for ANY idle/sim game. You can actually find pre-setup game equations in machinations. Just so you can get a feel for the tool.

you can design just about any spreadsheet game in machinations

[carmine quest]

Specifically mobile or other stuff too

[coarse ember]

A range of stuff

[carmine quest]

Seed rounds or what

Maybe we should talk

[coarse ember]

2 mobile studios with 1 exit, a small PC title (for now) doing Gen AI UGC for character personalisation a light storyline and a distribution label/platform for non mainstream/the weird and wacky

Early stage startup in the UK

[carmine quest]

Oof. I tend to stay away from AI stuff. One of the guys on the money side of things for a project recently that hit... How should we say... Cashflow problems? Was super into that stuff. Gave me red flags then and my suspicions were right.

If you're doing anything not related to crypto / gen AI i might be interested. Im building several tools that can seriously help games startups

[coarse ember]

1 out of the 4 startups USP is the Gen AI UGC. The others, I don't know if they are using AI as part of their day to day workflow but not a major concern for me personally if they were

I trust them enough that they can make sensible decisions about what they can/allowed to use for what work

[carmine quest]

Hm alright. Well at least might as well be worth discussing with you. Though I'll DM you if thats alright. Rather not discuss details publicly at this point.

[coarse ember]

Sure, fire away

[oblique ice]

interesting to see bussiness discussion in this part ☺️

[smoky beacon]

Its rare to find business people in here but its always a welcome sight.

[hallow furnace]

Are there any Unreal Engine or survival game dev Discords where people look for collaborators on ARK/Rust-style projects? Im not sure where to look would love some help!

[low crystal]

Hmm not any that I know of

[frail mural]

Anyone looking for a short movie Project? I have ten years professional script writing, story boarding and character design experience. Looking for someone (specialized on stylized cinematic in Unreal) who would be open to collaborate. I have a small team and a script. You can DM me for questions.

[bleak dagger]

#freelance-jobs
#rev-share-jobs
#volunteer-projects

[round radish]

Is the bot back?

[oblique ice]

i think so

[vague oriole]

I really do think AI is gonna destroy the job market for game programming, or even just programming in general in the very near future. The studio I work at started to use AI recently, and it can code entire gameplay systems within seconds. Granted, it does make quite a bit of mistakes and errors, so it needs to be looked over by a human. The point is though is that companies really only need to hire a couple senior programmers to look over and correct the AI code. No more need for junior or mid level programmers. Very concerning imo.

[bleak dagger]

Ye and if we have not reached the ceiling already it will get way worse

Scary isnt it ? ^^

Something very big will happen soon

[vague oriole]

yup, exactly

[round radish]

Gameplay programming is certainly at risk. Backend not so much.

[vague oriole]

AI needs to be destroyed

[round radish]

Or graphics programming. Etc.

[bleak dagger]

No chance, the battle is already so lost lol

The boulder rolls already nothing anyone can do to stop it now it only matters whats happening next

[vague oriole]

Why would graphics or backend be any different?

[bleak dagger]

Either they tax Ai companies like crazy and hand that money back tp the population
They forbid the use of it in commercial Things - only with a very specific ai license
Or they dont need us anymore 🙂

[vague oriole]

yeah, I agree. The thing is though is that they recently did the complete opposite of that and unregulated them. Well at least in the US.

[bleak dagger]

I think we will see a big system change very soon, for the better or the worst ....

[vague oriole]

Hopefully for the better, or else I'm gonna have to go back to working in the trades or at McDonald's.

[bleak dagger]

They almost have robotic done

Ai controlled robots

[vague oriole]

damn, maybe I'll just become one of those social media guru grifters and just scam people online . Honestly seems like the only viable career path nowadays.

[bleak dagger]

How will people fall for your scam if they dont have jobs ?

[vague oriole]

yeah true lmao.

[round radish]

It's far more complicated than gameplay programming.

Gameplay is reasonably simple compared to writing graphics apis.

[smoky beacon]

Three options

1. Scams
2. Crypto
3. Begging

[ivory geode]

or all 3 at once

https://tenor.com/view/andrew-tate-top-g-cigar-smoking-andrew-tate-cigar-gif-26262606

[carmine quest]

This is the type of thing people who don't code say. It can code a lot, but the quality is not good and it makes a mess of spaghetti code where the easiest thing is just to start over. The only useful AI tools coding wise is the AI autocomplete (which is literally what the tech was designed for initially). It can't and probably never will be good enough to build an entire game or app but its incredibly good at predicting what you're going to type on the next line and that actually does save a lot of time.

[oblique ice]

hm i don't know anything about programming so i cannot see any difference, or understand how the code is use, but if anyone show screen shot of the modular with wireframe and bake textures, i would know already by the output if generated content

[round radish]

Not true. It's also really good at code analysis and bug detection. And helping debug problems.

[carmine quest]

Not really. It constantly hallucinates methods that don't exist, pastiches code across 5 different plugin versions and will always give the most statistically common answer to the most statistically common question for a given set of keywords even if the question you actually askedis a niche thing no one has asked for. So you can spend days barking up the wrong tree because you listened to AI like an idiot instead of just asking on one of the many subreddits or discords even if its something super simple that can be solved in an instant

If AI can solve your code, you suck at coding.

Or as is the case for a lot of "vibe coders" these days, don't speak a word of it so you can't tell the difference anyway 😂 its like hiring the worlds shittiest chinese translator and because you don't speak any chinese you don't know whether they've done a good job at all

[round radish]

You're using the wrong Ai software. 🙂

[carmine quest]

That's what they all say, buddy

Claude, chatGPT, Gemini. They're all shit

[round radish]

And I'm not using any of them.

[carmine quest]

As well you should

[round radish]

It's a tool specifically trained in the ue source and it's highly effective.

Not sure I can really say what.

[carmine quest]

If you're talking about the new UE AI it is even more garbage than the rest

[round radish]

I am not.

[carmine quest]

That thing is actively unhelpful, I don't know why they added it

[round radish]

Because Ai I suspect. Never used it. Probably never will.

It's not an in-engine feature.

(that I use)

[leaden inlet]

What do you use?

[wraith mortar]

This sounds like a red herring. What games are being made primarily by AI?
I've used AI and it just gets it wrong, all the time, repeatedly, consistently, wrong.
As far as I can tell from other senior level devs, that is the norm with AI.

All it does is sometimes save time

[round radish]

I'm not sure the company I work for, or the company they work for, want people to talk about it with specifics. Ai evil etc.

[smoky beacon]

AI has been a great help to me personally. I’d never have gotten as far as I have without it. Its coded seveeal structs/classes for me. It also helps me break down game mechanics I have in mind to build.

Just learn how to use it properly/sounds like a skill issue.

[strange plinth]

I take more time explaining to the AI what i need than writing the code myself

Just a waste of time for any relatively complex system

Since most game mechanics or systems has to be modular to be compatible with other mechanics

A standalone mechanic made by AI will probably be a waste once you have 2-5 of them

[smoky beacon]

You are likely trying to get the AI to build everything about a mechanic at once?

Ask grok or another llm to break your mechanic down into small chunks. It should guide you on a better way to feeding the AI what it can handle.

You can’t just yell at a human “build me a XYZ mechanic”. You have to step it through, provide notes, first impressions of how it’ll work, and do it in a way that doesn’t overload/confuse the human’s mind.

[strange plinth]

thats probably even worse, bits of code of AI are less likely to work once tied together

[round radish]

Yeah. A human is more likely to already have knowledge about the current systems and it'd be hard and time consuming to explain everything to an AI.

[smoky beacon]

Thats a you problem. Not the AI. Again a skill issue.

[strange plinth]

lol

[bleak dagger]

Ah well, if you properly prompt it the output isnt all that bad with Gpt, atleast for c.
It helped me a lot with building a shell from ground up.
The code isnt always the cleanest, sometimes mistakes happen but as long as your overworking its output a little bit you can create almost anything with it

It can 100% already do junior level stuff without mistakes

And especially co-pilot speeds you up so hardcore that 1 person can do triple the work, atleast thats what it feels like for me

[smoky beacon]

You’ll need to use claude code/sonnet 3.5 or newer to really get the benefits.

Gemini 3 pro is great too.

[fiery plinth]

Ai is unusable with pre existing systems, asking the new ai tool or previously the other popular solutions to simply list all the methods or fields of fundamental ue5 classes as a kind of litmus test outputs made up results

Gave it a fair shot working with Cmc, but unfortunately for anything ue related there isn't prior data for ai to pull from

[smoky beacon]

False. https://github.com/1scriptz/ue5-topdown-camera I made this oneshot with the help of grok and gemini 3 pro.

[vague oriole]

Someone needs to make an AI bot that constantly feeds other AI models wrong information to make them less useful

[fiery plinth]

I can't put this any more nice, this is like the bare minimum I hope ai could do, plenty of examples for what should be trivial

[smoky beacon]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1pt8dv6/3d_artist_vibe_coding_an_rts_ue5_and_its_working/

[wary idol]

Not a skill issue, LLMs are just pretty horrid at software engineering, logic and planning

The less skilled you are the more perceived benefit you will think you see, the more skilled you are the less benefit there will be

[fiery plinth]

It does, ai already feeds ai, like image gen being perma yellowed due to the Ghibli style genning

[smoky beacon]

Its the exact opposite. The less skilled you are the less you can get out of an LLM. The more skilled you are the better results you can get.

[wary idol]

No, I'm sorry but you are at the peak of the Dunning Kruger curve, you don't know what you don't know but you know just a little bit to think you know everything

[fiery plinth]

I'm still on board if people want to use ai as a search engine replacement it's just incredibly obvious when ai had plenty of examples to pull from

That Reddit article following suit, RTS formations again sounds impressive but it's staple RTS mechanics

Worries me there's no video, map height, or examples of how dynamic it acts, red flags

Looks good enough to get started in lieu of sample projects

[carmine quest]

Less useful? Impossible

[wary idol]

Even the rts camera sample is quite simple/trivial yet code quality is poor and there are issues just at a quick glance

[carmine quest]

1000%. It's the dunning kruger effect in action. It's why i seriously doubt the skill of anyone championing this technology, you're basically painting yourself as an unskilled amateur and also a bit of a dick for zealously advocating the use of something built on stolen data

Someone said it best i think it was that ex google engineer, that AI is incredibly good at convincing you its absolutely brilliant but only at subjects you know nothing about

And the more you know about a subject the more you realize its limitations

Timnit Gebru i think it was

https://youtu.be/jAHRbFetqII?si=punxhEuPlcohomYd

[fiery plinth]

To keep this more related to the chat topic, there is a good reason that studios and companies make programmers sign NDA and NC contracts, good code is on lock and key

With ai if you reach your end goal use case great, but for the basics, naming, commentating, big o notation, ai isn't there yet

That camera example while fine, needs good comment as there like 3 total, also lacks a deadzone, it really should use enhanced input as the base input is deprecated

If you are paying for ai tools I can't recommend that like the RTS link either

[grave cove]

NDA's are usually about controlling press and limiting who talks about the product to people that know what to say about the project.
Worse is when bad images get out there uncontrolled. It also allows companies to quietly cancel products that aren't working.
Non-compete's usually fall into two categories. Those to prevent getting a job at a competitor, which never really comes to anything and are bs anyway.
The other is to (theoretically) prevent folks from doing similar work for anyone else while employed. The theory being to keep you focused on your primary employment. Similar with wanting to prevent you from doing personal projects. They wanna prevent any cases where folks might take advantage of the corporate stuff to make personal things.
But it depends on the company and what you wanna do. From what I've heard, it's probably why I'll never work for Epic (draconian on side project stuff from what I understand) but it's never been a problem for me at my last or current workplace. My current one even uses a couple of my github plugins as "third party" imports.

[fiery plinth]

most large companies ive applied for in canada have an nda at least, for example i participate in game jams frequently and ive been asked to "halt" on that

[grave cove]

participating in game jams isn't something that should be covered by an NDA.

[fiery plinth]

in the employment contract recently that included nda, it includes a clause for personal projects and publicly writing code

[woeful iron]

and you signed that?

[fiery plinth]

its almost as nasty as disney at this point

[woeful iron]

doesn't seem enforcable tbh

[grave cove]

oh sure, as sepatrate parts

[fiery plinth]

ya i mean you have to agree to everything we dont get to pick and choose

sorry if that was confusing

its rough out there

[grave cove]

Sometimes you can negotiate. It's hard to say anything in detail without seeing the contracts, but anything like that you should consult a lawyer.
There's usually an inventions assignment, but good ones will have carve outs for existing things and things done on personal time & with no company resources.

[woeful iron]

how does a company have anything to say about what code you write in your own time as long as you're not using company property (physical or intellectual) to do so

[grave cove]

Crazy contracts that still think of "inventions" and code as something you'd only do professionally.
Like back when you wouldn't really be able to do it without any company hardware.

[fiery plinth]

im shocked that your shocked lol, i thought this kind of thing was normal, as has been my application process for a decade

[grave cove]

Like I said, reasonable contracts do have those carve outs.
It's also possibly negotiable

[wary idol]

We have even adopted some of my personal projects at work

I can't imagine working at a place that doesn't allow me to have personal projects

[grave cove]

Bad contracts become that way by just being the default that no one changes for a long time.

[woeful iron]

the only related kind of thing I ever had is that I'm not able to launch a competing product, but even then I think they would have to prove that I used company property

[woeful iron]

I'm not shocked, I know these kinds of things exist, I'm just saying they're rediculous and probably not legally enforcable in most cases

[bleak dagger]

I think it was made so other Studios can not simply steal talents
Ive heard of non compete clauses but complete block of any personal projects is overkill.....

[grave cove]

And in many places, non-competes aren't enforceable in that way.
Companies shouldn't be able to prevent (in general) people from following their profession at another employer

[bleak dagger]

It would cuase insane copyright problems for the employer

[grave cove]

It really doesn't have to.

[bleak dagger]

Lets say you work as Programmer in a Studio on a combat system, another company offers you more money you switch and you do exactly the same combat system again

[grave cove]

There's no copyright on ideas. As long as you don't take the source, it shouldn't be a problem.

[bleak dagger]

What if you reproduce the exact same code

Or if you picked a few things up in the studio, for the Studio trade secrets are now part of your experience

[grave cove]

Then either it's trivial or it's not exactly the same.
It's also unlikely the entirely of the game value hinges on a single system like that.

[wary idol]

You can kinda see that with Arc/Embark, Embark are ex DICE devs that worked on Star Wars battlefront games and they clearly have applied their knowledge there to Arc
The movement, rolls, etc... has the same feel as the battlefront games

But that's the knowledge you gain, that's not stealing anything

[bleak dagger]

Lets say you create a succesfull game that sells well, another studio hires all your Programmers and creates a clone of your game, just distinct enough to not get slapped for it, would you be fine with that?

[wary idol]

Yeah, if the game is different and not a blatant copy

[bleak dagger]

h1z1 - pubg

For example with the difference that the new studio also hires all the Programmers that made your game a success

I dunno, i would be annoyed by it

[wary idol]

If the game is different I wouldn't really care

[coarse ember]

Ownership of work outside work hours/resources is common in contracts but not always enforceable depending on country

[bleak dagger]

Even if overnight everyone switches to the new game leaving you with a dead game ?

[wary idol]

But everyone switching overnight doesn't happen

[woeful iron]

that's not really relevant in a legal sense

[bleak dagger]

Happens a lot, maybe not instant death but the clone becoming the next big game

[coarse ember]

It would only really be an issue if a parent existed tbh

*patent

[bleak dagger]

If i pay someone 70k+ a year i feel like what he develops belongs to me

[coarse ember]

Yes, but you don't own the person or the knowledge/experience they gain

You can try to enforce a non compete if you had one but that could be problematic depending on the country

[bleak dagger]

Ye, non competes are usually only for a certain time and genre

[wary idol]

You also benefited from that person's past work experience and knowledge they gained before working for you

[coarse ember]

We had people doing clones/similar games before but it's based on trademarks and copyright

[grave cove]

Sure, but only as long as you're paying them. If that stops and someone else is paying them, they own anything new that is created.

[woeful iron]

what they develop during the working time you pay them for yeah

[coarse ember]

There's undoubtedly the same code in games/companies just because people move around

[bleak dagger]

But if the new thing they create is exactly the same as the one the person created for me we have a problem

[coarse ember]

Nope

[bleak dagger]

Yes

[coarse ember]

They can have the same code but a different game

[bleak dagger]

And for exactly that reason they let you sign contracts with a non compete

[grave cove]

Only if they actually took the code. Which is copyrightable.
Otherwise you'd have to prove idetic/photographic memory that they replicated the code exactly.
Replicating the results isn't something that you can protect.

[coarse ember]

That only stops me working at a competitor, in my country, you would pay me while I'm serving a non compete

[coarse ember]

If they create the same game, sure it's a problem.

[bleak dagger]

They run for x years after your contract ran out

[coarse ember]

And that's what you will be paying me for

[bleak dagger]

Ye exactly

[woeful iron]

there's a reason in the US the FTC was trying to ban noncompetes

[coarse ember]

In my country, you can stop me earning a living so if you enforce a non compete, I won't be working for anyone while you pay me

[grave cove]

And California already has

[woeful iron]

they're completely illegal bullshit 99% of the time

[coarse ember]

Nor will I be working for you during that period

[woeful iron]

I think this is called "garden leave"

[coarse ember]

Yep

[woeful iron]

this is often done in e.g. high frequency trading firms

so you're officially employed by them for like a year or 2 after you actually want to stop working for them just so you can't work for someone else in that time

[wary idol]

This convo reminds me of the AI industry, when someone comes out with a state of the art model the competitors try and yoink the key people behind it for absurd amounts of money lol

[coarse ember]

But generally @bleak dagger , it's rarely an issue when people move between companies and go make a very similar game

At least similar enough to raise a case

[bleak dagger]

Dark and Darker got sued into the ground

[coarse ember]

If they took actual assets from a previous company, then that's the expected outcome. It's stolen assets

But even then, it's still rare

[bleak dagger]

They didnt

[coarse ember]

Given how often people move companies

[bleak dagger]

That got thrown out by the court

[coarse ember]

(need to read up, brb)

[bleak dagger]

But they settled for a huge amount because of "plagiarism" if im not wrong

Basically the entire dev team of the canceled p3 started working on Dark and Darker

It looked pretty similar to p3 and for that they got slapped

[coarse ember]

A quick read is that the court found them guilty of using trade secrets

Can't find what trade secrets though

Irrespective of this, it's rarely an issue given how often it happens

[woeful iron]

and you don't need a non compete to enforce trade secrets as you can see from this case

[coarse ember]

People move between companies all the time and most people aren't silly enough to bring code over or share previous companies NDA information

Or to put it another way, why are people leaving in the first place for you to be worried

And perhaps solve that issue first

It's not always possible but as with your example, if an entire programmer team leaves at once, why they are leaving is the bigger question

On Dark and Darker

"Trade Secret Violation Confirmed: The court determined that Ironmace misused proprietary Nexon data, siding with the publisher’s claims that information related to Project P3 was leaked and used in Dark and Darker’s development."

[bleak dagger]

Because p3 got canceled and they thought the game concept is good

So they split up from nexon to develop their own version of it

[coarse ember]

From the news stories, it looks like they were using P3 data in someway for DnD

[bleak dagger]

There were allegations but it got thrown out