Switch Theme:

GW employee bonus  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
»
Author Message
Advert


Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:
  • No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
  • Times and dates in your local timezone.
  • Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
  • Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
  • Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.
If you are already a member then feel free to login now.




Made in us
Infiltrating Broodlord




Lake County, Illinois

So, you made up something completely false to try to prove your nonsense point. It turns out the truth is the exact opposite of the thing you made up, but you're going to pretend that doesn't demonstrate that your point was nonsense. And your justification is just to wave your hands and go "people with money are bad!"
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






TBF on average they are.

Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

A light googling gives us 20% of the production cost of a Big Mac is labor. This doesn’t seem to be the gotcha you thought it was.

Does anyone remember what percentage of the cost per mini or per rulebook is the labor, specifically creative labor?

   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Albino Squirrel wrote:
So, you made up something completely false to try to prove your nonsense point. It turns out the truth is the exact opposite of the thing you made up, but you're going to pretend that doesn't demonstrate that your point was nonsense. And your justification is just to wave your hands and go "people with money are bad!"


But it isn't false. That you wish to characterize it as such is your choice. I'm in the top 8% or so, mind you. It isn't that people with money are bad. It's that people with money lack regard for how other people are affected by their actions.
   
Made in us
Infiltrating Broodlord




Lake County, Illinois

Something being true or false is not a choice. What you said was not true.

https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/why-big-mac-costs-more-seattle-austin

And don't project. If you don't care about how your actions affect other people, that's on you. Don't assume everyone else is the same. Just like not everyone lies about easily disproven things to try to make a point on the internet just because you do.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 alextroy wrote:
How much GW pays their employees is interesting and all, but whether they earn £20,000 a year or £100,000 a year, a £5,000 bonus on top of their normal profit sharing is a very generous bonus for a company to give. So why are we arguing about whether GW is a sweat shop or an upstanding corporate citizen when it comes to base pay?


Because a "bonus" that you need to make ends meet isn't a bonus, it's a "bonus." Paying people close to poverty wages and then giving them occasional bonuses doesn't show generosity. But your response is why companies love bonuses - it allows them to underpay people while simultaneously generating good publicity and taking the moral high ground for being "generous."

And it was always going to be a topic of conversation in this thread when an article conveniently appears in a well known paper a few days after revelations related to GW's pay practices, touting a bonus that was actually first reported by GW months prior. Is it a coincidence? Was the Grauniad always planning to release this story months after the news broke, and just happened to choose this particular day to do so despite there being no clear reason for it? I guess it's possible. But when timing is that convenient, people are always going to talk about both issues together.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/29 21:18:45


 
   
Made in be
Longtime Dakkanaut





yukishiro1 wrote:

Paying people close to poverty wages and then giving them occasional bonuses doesn't show generosity.


To clarify and quote from the other topic in Dakka Discussion :

 lagoon83 wrote:
 kurhanik wrote:


I would say a non poverty rate for start. Housing (I mean a roof over your head, not a grand estate) and food should be a right, not a privilege for a high paycheck. Nobody should have to live wondering where their next meal is going to come from or if they can make rent. Even moreso, nobody working full time especially should have to worry about those things. When a company is making hundreds of millions in profits on the back of its employees, it can easily slush some of that around into a stable pay rate structure.


To be very clear, a salary of £19k in 2014 was a fair way above the poverty line. We were able to rent a house, pay bills and afford food. We were hardly living in the lap of luxury, our savings were constantly empty and we couldn't really afford holidays or expensive hobbies (ironically), but we weren't in poverty. There's a big difference.

That's not to say the pay wasn't bad for the amount of work we were expected to put in, but like I said in the blog post, that's no different for any number of other corporate positions. The lesson here isn't that Games Workshop sucks, it's that Games Workshop is no better than any other big corporate office, but it's easy to forget that because of the hobby and community aspects.


So stop saying they're "close to poverty wages", Yukishiro. That was false. You're trying to lie so that your argument has more impact.

Saying it's "low" is the correct way to describe it.

For reference, lagoon83 is James Hewitt.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/07/29 21:33:10


 
   
Made in gb
Mad Gyrocopter Pilot





Northumberland

Yeah except when you're living like that with barely any savings, one bad month puts you into poverty. It's a thin line. I fething know exactly how thin. If you don't get it, then try and do a big think with your brain about how it must suck to struggle.

People in this thread are complaining about a lack of reasoned debate here, but reasoned debate expects empathy as a minimum. People saying it's their fault for doing a job with gak pay haven't had to live on gak pay.

This isn't just GW this is life in general. Surely that is pretty obvious? GW's 5k bonus is symptomatic of the entire system.

If you're really trying to argue the toss that people don't deserve a better salary and should just try harder if they want to be able to live securely then have a word with yourself eh?

One and a half feet in the hobby


My Painting Log of various minis:
# Olthannon's Oscillating Orchard of Opportunity #

 
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Something being true or false is not a choice. What you said was not true.

https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/why-big-mac-costs-more-seattle-austin

And don't project. If you don't care about how your actions affect other people, that's on you. Don't assume everyone else is the same. Just like not everyone lies about easily disproven things to try to make a point on the internet just because you do.


Yea look at that data more closely. Oklahoma price is $5.09 with a minimum wage of $7.25. Maine is a price of $4.79 with a minimum wage of $12. And Maine isn't exactly on the right end of the supply chain. Just because some really expensive metro areas raise prices, because their economics are so horrible through gentrification doesn't mean the premise it isn't correct.

A big mac is 40% in the $14 market and 61% in the $7.25 market. If the trend was consistent the big mac would be over $8 in the $14 market, but it isn't.



This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/07/29 23:22:10


 
   
Made in us
Powerful Ushbati





United States



Supposedly this guy backpaddled on twitter, but I can't find it. Can anyone confirm that, or have a link? Or is this just misinformation?
   
Made in us
Infiltrating Broodlord




Lake County, Illinois

Come to America where you can pay the same for a Big Mac where ever you go


No, you lied about that. That was a lie. You can't choose for something to be true or false, but you do choose what to believe. And you have chosen to make up lies in order to justify the nonsense that you've chosen to believe.
   
Made in us
Pragmatic Primus Commanding Cult Forces






Southeastern PA, USA

 GaroRobe wrote:
I'm going to take a wild guess and say this thread will be locked soon.

But has anyone else noticed the increased hostility on dakka lately? Not that there hasn't always been fights in the comment section, but recently there are a lot of new accounts just posting negative stuff.


I go back a fair ways on this forum. It's been a gakshow lately, but it's been a bigger gakshow at other points in its history. The point right before Yakface took over was rough...albeit with a small fraction of the traffic.

Part of it is the moderation approach. Call someone a big dummy and you get a time out. Derail thread after thread, gak all over everything, contribute nothing useful, do the same tired carping seen 1000 times before including probably just last week, insult people *just the slightest bit indirectly*...yeah, that's all good. It is what it is and it isn't changing.


My AT Gallery
My World Eaters Showcase
View my Genestealer Cult! Article - Gallery - Blog
Best Appearance - GW Baltimore GT 2008, Colonial GT 2012

DQ:70+S++++G+M++++B++I+Pw40k90#+D++A+++/fWD66R++T(Ot)DM+++

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I came in to see how the black knights would spin this as a bad thing, not disappointed!

Good on GW for paying it back.


Are you still going to die on the hill that GW employees are paid adequately?

Cause they still aint.

GW hasn't changed in the last 5 years in regards to salary, mostly just treading water with inflation. At least for designers.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Come to America where you can pay the same for a Big Mac where ever you go


No, you lied about that. That was a lie. You can't choose for something to be true or false, but you do choose what to believe. And you have chosen to make up lies in order to justify the nonsense that you've chosen to believe.


Nope, I didn't lie. That there has been some drift since I last bothered to look at the info doesn't mean that the cost of the big mac is tied to minimum wage as the data still shows it is not.
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






stratigo wrote:
 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I came in to see how the black knights would spin this as a bad thing, not disappointed!

Good on GW for paying it back.


Are you still going to die on the hill that GW employees are paid adequately?

Cause they still aint.

GW hasn't changed in the last 5 years in regards to salary, mostly just treading water with inflation. At least for designers.
Heads up; pretty sure you quoted me accidentally instead of a different post.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Come to America where you can pay the same for a Big Mac where ever you go


No, you lied about that. That was a lie. You can't choose for something to be true or false, but you do choose what to believe. And you have chosen to make up lies in order to justify the nonsense that you've chosen to believe.


Nope, I didn't lie. That there has been some drift since I last bothered to look at the info doesn't mean that the cost of the big mac is tied to minimum wage as the data still shows it is not.
I think anyone reasonable understands the validity of the point you were trying to make even if the initial claim was inaccurate. Which is to say this is probably one of those 'leave it and move on' situations.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/30 02:13:44


Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 the_scotsman wrote:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
 Gene St. Ealer wrote:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
GW has 2,191 employees which works when you divide the 10.6M by 5K.

The pay rises across the board amounted to 7.8%, which is pretty hefty by normal standards.

Total staff costs are 99.9M making the average salary at GW a bit above 45K pounds as an average.





Eh, I don't know about that. You can't assume 100% of staff costs are salary. No clue how benefits packages work in the UK or whether they are part of this, but there's likely still other overhead that would go into a "staff cost" number. I would be pretty surprised if the average salary was over twice what Hewitt was making (even though I wouldn't be surprised if he was making below the median.)

Levels.fyi for hobbyists when?


True, but I have no idea how that stuff works in the UK. In the US my employer pays like 50% of insurance, which is like $9000 a year for garbage insurance. I imagine the UK bills that through taxes instead.


Yeah, that is true, basically any comparison with salaries in the US has to take into account the fact that like 10k a year of what you make in the us is "Oh, you wanted to not die if you get sick or have an accident? Well in that case...." but still even accounting for that if true that number is pretty silly. The mcdonalds across the street from me is currently advertising for a night shift job that pays almost twice that....


American healthcare costs are also mostly funny money that literally no one else in the world pays for the same treatments.

 gorgon wrote:
No, it's the employee's fault if they STAY in a job where they're getting paid like feth and don't explore other opportunities. It's their fault if they don't use an entry-level position as a platform for trading up to its fullest extent. And it's their responsibility to carefully assess their finances before taking a job with a given salary.

TL;DR - Companies look out for themselves and their bottom line, but people have agency and need to use it.


And they should use it to unioni.... oops the company fired everyone trying to collectivize their power and fight for better compensation. So sad. But hey, they could have hired armed murderers to kill them, so silver linings.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
While the bs corporations get away with is well established, let's not forget that individuals can be just as misleading, dishonest, and self-serving as they are. We shouldn't inherently trust an individual is giving an accurate account any more than we should do so with a corporation, media outlet, or politician--not only are people fully capable of willfully misrepresenting the truth they are even more capable of misunderstanding it, and the fallibility of human memory heaps more problems on top of that.

It's down to the evidence. What evidence is there that the entity is communicating the truth? If the account was misleading (by accident or otherwise) how would we know?

For the record I am not speaking for or against anyone involved in this.



Come on dude, you are clearly posting to throw doubt on Hewitt.

And, like, you KNOW current GW employees can't publically talk about their wages without being fired.

But it remains still very low.

puree wrote:
I always find funny this kind of arguments were corporations and multinationals have 0 power over peoples lives.


I'm not saying they have no power over your lives though.

The worth of your service, and therefore your wage, is based on simple demand and supply - therefore it is other people who are your enemy and not the corporation.

Most people would not get 3 quotes for new windows and take the highest if all else is equal, neither do they deliberately go to the most expensive shop to get the exact same thing they can get cheaper. Our services are exactly the same - if you are offering the same thing as a lot of others when there are not that many jobs around for that skillset then the corporation is not the problem.


This is not and has never been true mate.

Capitalism fails when power is badly imbalanced, as it is between an individual and a corporation.

puree wrote:
You're right--I'm not making an argument against your position. I don't disagree with the point you are making. Nor do I assume what your situation is, that is you reading into my comment. I am pointing out that the language you are using sounds like judgement-from-afar without any real world experience as to what it is actually like for people in such a position. That's it.


Really, what language dictates that? I've flipped burgers in Macdonalds, worked 80 hours a week in a fish factory, I've had banks threatening bailiff over debts, I've watched what little money I had disappear as I tried to raise a child and worry about how to pay for the next car service etc.

I've also spent all my waking hours teaching myself new skills, and taking it on myself to improve my own life rather than whine that others are not doing it for me.


I'm sure.

How much do you make now?

 totalfailure wrote:
I must have missed the briefing where it was said that the world owes you a comfortable living just because you’re following your dream to be a ‘game designer’. It’s a job with few positions, and a lot of people willing to do it. Thus, it does not pay well, because they can find the next moron ‘following their dream’ easily enough when you get sick of the low pay. Until that changes, the pay will be low.

It’s gotten that way with college degrees, to the point many of them are meaningless. Does the world owe you a comfortable life because you went $200K in debt studying 17th century French literature? Or were you a fool for ‘following your dream’ and studying something that had almost zero career path?

And now your student loan debt is my problem, because you studied something useless, and bought into the mantra chanted by the mind numbed robots - ‘Everyone must go to college! Everyone needs a degree!’ A high school degree is virtually worthless in the USA now. When everyone has a college degree, they will be worthless as well. AS and BS degrees are all but toilet paper now; soon you’ll need a master’s for an entry level job, thanks to the industrial-education complex.


Why is jeff Bezos entitled to his billions and not have most of them taken (still leaving him with, say, one hundred million)?



 GaroRobe wrote:
I'm going to take a wild guess and say this thread will be locked soon.

But has anyone else noticed the increased hostility on dakka lately? Not that there hasn't always been fights in the comment section, but recently there are a lot of new accounts just posting negative stuff.


Some people in America tried to overthrow democracy and have decided a pandemic is actually a political issue, ignore the corpses. It raised all the tensions.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
What are other companies paying their rules writers? What are other rules writers at GW paid?


About the same from a couple other positions.

Retail gets paid more.

Audustum wrote:
 Daedalus81 wrote:
Audustum wrote:
All a 'living wage' does is increase inflation and ultimately make itself pointless.

If the economy has 100 widgets and 100 people willing to pay $1 for 1 widget, you have price equilibrium.

If the economy has 100 widgets and 100 people willing to pay $5 for 2 widgets, you don't have price equilibrium. There's too many people who want widgets and not enough widgets. So the widget supplier is going to raise the price above $5 and see if it still clears out of widgets. If it does, it'll raise the price again and see if it clears out again and so on and on until it reaches a new equilibrium point (i.e. where it can clear 100 widgets at the highest price). If $10/widget sells 90 widgets but $9/widget sells 100 widgets, they'll do $9 so they don't have excess widget inventory (like GW giving a bonus while most of the rest of the U.K. doesn't, to bring this a bit to the thread topic).

When you pay a 'living wage' all you're doing is increasing the amount of people who have $9 to buy a widget. So the widget supplier will raise prices in response and, ta-da, you'll end up back where the same 20 people are buying widgets as before you made a 'living wage'. All the wage increase did was increase the price of widgets (i.e. inflation). This is why you can't just flood more money to people: giving people more cash doesn't increase industrial capacity. If you want more people to get widgets, the way is actually to find a method of producing more widgets not giving more cash for people to bid up the price of widgets currently out there. That takes R&D, discovery of new natural resources and/or capital investment to build new facilities.


Come to America where you can pay the same for a Big Mac where ever you go, but in my state the minimum wage is $12 while in other states the minimum is $7.15. But the Big Mac stays the same price no matter what. Weird, right?

And then my state has a lower cost of living that most others despite having a higher minimum.

We're not talking about people getting paid enough to out strip scarcity items. We're talking baout them not having to choose between food and rent.


A couple points.

1. Many states are small enough that simply increasing their minimum wage won't fall into this trap because there is still so much of America that is not subject to that rule. In essence, the higher minimum wage state is piggy-backing off of the lower minimum wage states (mandating that its people are the $9/widget people and the others are not through fiat). This would only disguise it on a macro level. Inflation might still exist on a micro level.

2. Since you mentioned Big Mac's, there's actually a project that's been running for over 30 years called the Big Mac Index. It uses Big Macs to keep track of currency valuations and you may find it interesting: ( https://www.economist.com/big-mac-index ).

3. As noted, Big Macs don't actually cost the same in every state. A value meal in CA is around $7 I think (but that was 9 years ago) while in Missouri it's about $5 (also 9 years ago). Since McDonalds is rich enough it could standardize prices for convenience and just eat any regional loss, it's probably better to look at something as universal but not as centrally controlled: like the price of milk, which also fluctuates.

4. Unfortunately, rent is no exception. If you raise minimum wage, more people will be able to afford new or better housing, which means landlords will raise rental rates because we haven't actually made any new housing for these people. People in rentals will want better rentals, people without rentals will want rentals and the net result is they'll bid themselves up just like with widgets and you end up back at square one.


Mcdonalds franchises. They don't standardize because most mcdonalds are effectively separate from mcdonalds the corporate entity.



Housing is an extremely poor example because more housing doesn't lower prices. Landlords and house developers will sit on empty houses until someone meets their price, and if no one does, they will sit on it forever.

Sarouan wrote:
yukishiro1 wrote:

Paying people close to poverty wages and then giving them occasional bonuses doesn't show generosity.


To clarify and quote from the other topic in Dakka Discussion :

 lagoon83 wrote:
 kurhanik wrote:


I would say a non poverty rate for start. Housing (I mean a roof over your head, not a grand estate) and food should be a right, not a privilege for a high paycheck. Nobody should have to live wondering where their next meal is going to come from or if they can make rent. Even moreso, nobody working full time especially should have to worry about those things. When a company is making hundreds of millions in profits on the back of its employees, it can easily slush some of that around into a stable pay rate structure.


To be very clear, a salary of £19k in 2014 was a fair way above the poverty line. We were able to rent a house, pay bills and afford food. We were hardly living in the lap of luxury, our savings were constantly empty and we couldn't really afford holidays or expensive hobbies (ironically), but we weren't in poverty. There's a big difference.

That's not to say the pay wasn't bad for the amount of work we were expected to put in, but like I said in the blog post, that's no different for any number of other corporate positions. The lesson here isn't that Games Workshop sucks, it's that Games Workshop is no better than any other big corporate office, but it's easy to forget that because of the hobby and community aspects.


So stop saying they're "close to poverty wages", Yukishiro. That was false. You're trying to lie so that your argument has more impact.

Saying it's "low" is the correct way to describe it.

For reference, lagoon83 is James Hewitt.



Look up what is considered poverty in 2014. 20k is close to it.
   
Made in be
Longtime Dakkanaut





stratigo wrote:

Look up what is considered poverty in 2014. 20k is close to it.


And from the same topic, here is why what you think is wrong (short version ; UK isn't the US)


 techsoldaten wrote:
 lagoon83 wrote:
 kurhanik wrote:


I would say a non poverty rate for start. Housing (I mean a roof over your head, not a grand estate) and food should be a right, not a privilege for a high paycheck. Nobody should have to live wondering where their next meal is going to come from or if they can make rent. Even moreso, nobody working full time especially should have to worry about those things. When a company is making hundreds of millions in profits on the back of its employees, it can easily slush some of that around into a stable pay rate structure.


To be very clear, a salary of £19k in 2014 was a fair way above the poverty line. We were able to rent a house, pay bills and afford food. We were hardly living in the lap of luxury, our savings were constantly empty and we couldn't really afford holidays or expensive hobbies (ironically), but we weren't in poverty. There's a big difference.

That's not to say the pay wasn't bad for the amount of work we were expected to put in, but like I said in the blog post, that's no different for any number of other corporate positions. The lesson here isn't that Games Workshop sucks, it's that Games Workshop is no better than any other big corporate office, but it's easy to forget that because of the hobby and community aspects.


Yeah. £19k sounds really bad compared to the same amount USD, it's hard for people to put into perspective. If it was $19k, you'd be living very close to the bone in any US city.

For the record, salaried creatives (in the broad sense) often receive inadequate compensation relative to sales. Salaries are typically based on industry averages, and this includes people working for companies that do not enjoy the same success as GW. Something like 90% of new product offerings fail to find a product-market fit, this factors into compensation for everyone in industry.

The US Bureau of Labor and Statistics maintains salary data for job classifications across a wide spectrum of professions.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm

Not sure exactly where 'game designer' fit into these categories, but multimedia designer and animators is a close cousin.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/2019/may/oes271014.htm

Technical writer might be a good comparison as well.

https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes273042.htm

Were one to account for differences in currency, annual leave, healthcare / social services, taxes, etc., your compensation would have put you in the lower half / bottom quadrant by either of these measures.

Your assessment that this is common amongst public companies is spot on. Any publicly-traded company receives audited financial statements annually. During this process, accountants look at labor codes for every employee and compare them with the figures cited. Overcompensation affects stock prices and the board will exert pressure to bring any exceptional compensation in line with market norms. Accountants will compare compensation to market cap of the company and it's competitors, a company that's not at the top of it's industry can actually be sued by shareholders in the US and UK for labor costs exceeding the median in any category. Plus the last thing any C-level executive wants is to have employee compensation come up on an earnings call, this is a figure most CEOs actively manage.

Something to consider: niche positions like 'rules writer' will often be classified in the stupidest way possible by an accountant who doesn't understand the first thing about how the company actually works. It's not necessarily that the company doesn't want to pay you, it's that there's top down pressure to conform to boundaries on how compensation should work.

An effective strategy for someone in this position could be to argue the position is miscategorized and undercompensated based on industry averages. Your direct report might not understand the issue, but a director or officer would. You might find they are very sympathetic when you're speaking their language.
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






I just think there are a lot more people who want to get paid to write rules than there are positions.

Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran




stratigo wrote:
Look up what is considered poverty in 2014. 20k is close to it.


OK.

The threshold for being at risk of poverty in 2014 was a disposable income of £9,956 for a single-person household without children


https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/personalandhouseholdfinances/incomeandwealth/articles/persistentpovertyintheukandeu/2014

The ONS is regarded as an excellent source of statistical data in the uk.
   
Made in gb
Stubborn Dark Angels Veteran Sergeant





Teesside

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I just think there are a lot more people who want to get paid to write rules than there are positions.


That doesn't mean that people who get paid to write rules aren't skilled, experienced, and deserving of a decent salary, particularly when the rules they write help their employer make huge profits.

Most of my jobs in my working life (i.e. 30 years / 18 jobs, something like that?) have been stuff I really enjoyed doing. I rarely pursued high wages. But, whether I was doing theatre work, or designing games, or teaching game design, I did the job because I needed to pay the rent/mortgage and support my family, not because it was fun. I'm happy that it *has* often been fun. Doesn't mean I want to work more than 37 hours a week, though, or not take my gods-given 35 holiday days a year, or take a low wage.

My painting & modelling blog: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/699224.page

Serpent King Games: Dragon Warriors Reborn!
http://serpentking.com/

 
   
Made in us
Infiltrating Broodlord




Lake County, Illinois

Well, to the person giving you the money, it doesn't matter much what you think you deserve. It matters what value you are providing them for the money they are giving you. And if there are plenty of other people just as good at it as you are, or at least good enough for their purposes, and those people are willing to do it for less, then you have to accept less or find something else to do. I mean, they may think THEY deserve 60 hours of your time every week, but you might not be willing to give that much of your time. Doesn't make you a bad person for not giving it to them, does it?

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/30 21:58:54


 
   
Made in gb
Stubborn Dark Angels Veteran Sergeant





Teesside

Absolutely, but it still *doesn't make it OK* that GW (a) is fine with massively underpaying their creative talent and (b) is fine with churning out whatever rules people will buy.

My painting & modelling blog: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/699224.page

Serpent King Games: Dragon Warriors Reborn!
http://serpentking.com/

 
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Albino Squirrel wrote:
Well, to the person giving you the money, it doesn't matter much what you think you deserve. It matters what value you are providing them for the money they are giving you.


No, what matters is not the value you provide, but how much of that value they can get away with pocketing by paying you less than the value you provide. And with workers, this depends much less on the value you provide in the abstract and much more upon the balance of power between workers and employers in the given industry. If you're the only one who can do a needed task, you get to name your price; if there's 100 starving people lined up to give the corporation 100k of value for their labor, they can get away with paying far less than that because they can play the starving off against one another to bid down the price.

Salaries in most cases depend comparatively little on value added, and much more on relative bargaining power.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/30 23:35:13


 
   
Made in us
Humming Great Unclean One of Nurgle






 Ian Sturrock wrote:
 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I just think there are a lot more people who want to get paid to write rules than there are positions.


That doesn't mean that people who get paid to write rules aren't skilled, experienced, and deserving of a decent salary, particularly when the rules they write help their employer make huge profits.
On a moral level absolutely. But that's just not how capitalism works. It isn't that I feel there's nothing wrong, it's that I feel the wrong is far larger than GW. GW isn't any worse than the standard society has set. We can absolutely criticize them for not doing better, but I feel like there is a strong sentiment that GW is *worse* than the norm when that isn't the case. The norm is just really crappy.

Road to Renown! It's like classic Path to Glory, but repaired, remastered, expanded! https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/778170.page

I chose an avatar I feel best represents the quality of my post history.

I try to view Warhammer as more of a toolbox with examples than fully complete games. 
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

I don’t get that sentiment. I get more of a “GW is just as bad as everyone else” sentiment, not worse. But they’re a company we are more familiar with and might have more influence over through the small size and interconnectedness of their customer community.

   
Made in gb
Sadistic Inquisitorial Excruciator






It makes me wonder how much creatives at other wargaming companies get paid. You’d think, given it’s the biggest, most profitable company in its industry, GW would be paying more than anyone else to attract the best people. I somehow doubt that’s the case though.

This feels more like a strategy of attract the eager young designers as an injection of fresh ideas, then let them move on once you’ve milked them of creativity. Meanwhile, the same people stay in management positions for decades, presumably on decent wages.
   
Made in gb
Using Object Source Lighting







 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
It makes me wonder how much creatives at other wargaming companies get paid. You’d think, given it’s the biggest, most profitable company in its industry, GW would be paying more than anyone else to attract the best people. I somehow doubt that’s the case though.

This feels more like a strategy of attract the eager young designers as an injection of fresh ideas, then let them move on once you’ve milked them of creativity. Meanwhile, the same people stay in management positions for decades, presumably on decent wages.



Creatives pay + Find yourself another 9 to 5 steady job to pay bills = Okish

We do creative work because we like it not because it pays anything decent or continuous in this tiny industry and GW knows it.

Reading all these GW related recent topics you need to consider something... the red flags are all raised so dare at your own risk.
Before these topics, there was already some 'strange' feedback ( not public) from other ex creative employees... but if you read carefully for the positions they advertise theres already some hints there.


   
Made in gb
Sadistic Inquisitorial Excruciator






 NAVARRO wrote:


We do creative work because we like it not because it pays anything decent or continuous in this tiny industry and GW knows it.



On the other hand you have ‘creatives’ such as big name actors earning 7 or 8 figure salaries per movie and the justification is always to look at the money they are earning for the studio. GW is making record profits and is the biggest player in its field. I’m sure if could pay its creatives a wage that really reflects the profits their work earns for the company.

For the record, I would have happily played Iron Man for a tenth of what they had to pay RDJ, but I wouldn’t have done it for £20k per year.
   
Made in gb
Using Object Source Lighting







 MonkeyBallistic wrote:
 NAVARRO wrote:


We do creative work because we like it not because it pays anything decent or continuous in this tiny industry and GW knows it.



On the other hand you have ‘creatives’ such as big name actors earning 7 or 8 figure salaries per movie and the justification is always to look at the money they are earning for the studio. GW is making record profits and is the biggest player in its field. I’m sure if could pay its creatives a wage that really reflects the profits their work earns for the company.

For the record, I would have happily played Iron Man for a tenth of what they had to pay RDJ, but I wouldn’t have done it for £20k per year.


Yeah but you want to bet that you could find someone to do it for free?

Obviously the "artist" credit is been a bit lacking since they moved more into 3d. Speaking of sculpting mostly today you dont see anyone credited since the process is very different... same goes for new concept art etc... What im saying is that apart from the old sculptors artist that still work there and are credited you dont know much of who did what. Unlike actors or the guys that are on GW twitch/painting tutorials most is anonymous.

   
Made in gb
Stubborn Dark Angels Veteran Sergeant





Teesside

For me the issue is that by pretty much any metric, GW *is* worse on this matter than comparable companies. Even allowing for capitalism being a bit crap generally.

It is hard to figure out which companies to compare them to, admittedly.

Still. My experience of the tabletop games industry is that the big-ish names in any field (RPGs, boardgames, and wargames) all pay a bit better than GW does, for game design. These days I also teach computer games design and have a bit of a sense of what designers, games writers, etc. are paid in that field, thanks to talking to alumni, and... GW still falls significantly short.

My painting & modelling blog: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/699224.page

Serpent King Games: Dragon Warriors Reborn!
http://serpentking.com/

 
   
 
Forum Index » News & Rumors
Go to: