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Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
For future chat, probably worth nothing the whole “you don’t discuss your wage” thing is pretty common in the U.K.

I’ve no idea if there’s a legal or purely cultural background there, but it is what it is.

I am surprised to hear how comparatively little he earned though.

Unless it's specifically written in the contract, I believe it's illegal to stop you from talking about your salary.
And you should. Talk about it I mean. How else will you find out you're severely underpaid?

Anyway, not surprised, they're a corporation and corporations always treat the creatives like trash.
I suppose at least there isn't an ongoing sexual harassment/suicide suit against GW unlike some other gaming companies so there's that.
   
Made in gb
Crafty Goblin




Nottingham, UK

 privateer4hire wrote:
Kinda surprised that they don’t have better NDA in place to prevent this type of information from surfacing. And then I remember that it probably won’t change a single person’s buying plans.


Yeah, didn't think of that until after the fact. Ho hum! Bring it on.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

Your point about printing money is spot on. They have continued to make a killing paying peanuts. They would be stupid to change, wouldn’t they?

Thread Slayer 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Seattle, WA USA

I'm not surprised, honestly, for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, the tabletop game industry isn't exactly among the great paying jobs out there; there are many, many stories of many companies paying minimum wages or just above them. Large companies (not sure how many employees GW really has, but their revenues are pretty big for the tabletop game industry) always, always try to pay bare minimum that they can for non-executive positions. And, when you also have a pretty big fanbase of folks who see making games as a "dream job," you can get away with it even more.

Also, while GW does publish rules, they've long considered them ancillary to their core business, which is model kits. And, with reason; the volume and margin on models is just better than it ever could be with rule books.
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

It's just so very short sighted. If they were unethical but smart they could reward top talent with a high salary and let everyone make peanuts, but they couldn't even manage that.

Not advocating for that of course, it's saddening when I hear some of my friends who went into video games and get paid peanuts and get rewarded with passion, it's just surprising how GW internal management can't even be competent at being unethical.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/26 20:08:59


 
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Sophie Williams (another former GW employee) just shared this off the back of James's post.
   
Made in us
Decrepit Dakkanaut





It's less about being ethical than rewarding the people that bring in the money. Typically the people that bring money into a company, the salesmen, are the ones with the highest compensation, and all the back-end people who produce the product (plus administration, etc) are paid the least Management can pay and still meet quotas.

And you can see why, because paying a salesman who brings in many times his salary in sales is worth more in salary to a company than the more easily replaceable guy overseeing production, or the likewise more easily replaceable guy in marketing.

Of course, as I understand it GW's frontline sales force is also paid peanuts.

There's the connected issue of executive compensation where they make enough that they can hire lawyers to negotiate a compensation package rather than just accepting whatever the hiring company offers, usually with the understanding that their management is even more critical to the company's bottom line than even the salesmen they'll hire/oversee. Which is kind of funny from the perspective of production as typically the executive management, directors and up, can't find their own bums without an assistant's help.

Where game rules aren't exactly sales, and seem to be closer to a form of marketing than production, it's not terribly surprising to see it poorly compensated.

I mean, when was the last time you bought a GW game because of the rules? I'd be more interested in seeing the compensation of the sculptors/factory-workers as they're more directly in line with what people are actually buying, which is the models (although the occasional book, artbook, novel, measuring tape, and other hobby-related gash makes sense where otherwise they're leaving money on the table).

I think the game design, in terms of game products, is the very tip of the iceberg with all the business, product design, etc going on unseen and typically commented on.
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

I can say for certain there are products I would explicitly avoid because of bad rules, so I'd say rules play a deciding factor in the product they are pushing out.

While there is a large contingent of the 40k community who enjoy the hobby aspects and not the game aspects, the ones who enjoy decent rules is rather sizable.
   
Made in gb
Crafty Goblin




Nottingham, UK

 Irkjoe wrote:
I am wary of posts like this. "I love gw product, but they mistreated me, and I'm heart broken that I have to do this.... Donate to my gofundme"


Yeah, this wasn't what I was going for at all. I only mentioned my ko-fi because, well, I'd be silly not to. If it's any consolation to you, no one's used it at all
   
Made in us
Swift Swooping Hawk







That one is interesting but I hesitate to read too much into it. It's very unfortunate that she dealt with the situation above, and I hope GW improves their internal processes. But also, every company ever seems to have dysfunction like this; I don't think it's surprising or damning to hear that about GW. Not every company pays peanuts though, so I am surprised to hear that.
   
Made in gb
Crafty Goblin




Nottingham, UK

 Irkjoe wrote:
I'm just saying that becoming a victim or causing a controversy followed by shilling is a tried and true tactic. I don't doubt that gw treats their employees poorly, that there's more to the story, and that this is a cash grab.


This is my favourite take of today. Thank you.
   
Made in us
Swift Swooping Hawk





 Nurglitch wrote:
It's less about being ethical than rewarding the people that bring in the money. Typically the people that bring money into a company, the salesmen, are the ones with the highest compensation, and all the back-end people who produce the product (plus administration, etc) are paid the least Management can pay and still meet quotas.

And you can see why, because paying a salesman who brings in many times his salary in sales is worth more in salary to a company than the more easily replaceable guy overseeing production, or the likewise more easily replaceable guy in marketing.

Of course, as I understand it GW's frontline sales force is also paid peanuts.

There's the connected issue of executive compensation where they make enough that they can hire lawyers to negotiate a compensation package rather than just accepting whatever the hiring company offers, usually with the understanding that their management is even more critical to the company's bottom line than even the salesmen they'll hire/oversee. Which is kind of funny from the perspective of production as typically the executive management, directors and up, can't find their own bums without an assistant's help.

Where game rules aren't exactly sales, and seem to be closer to a form of marketing than production, it's not terribly surprising to see it poorly compensated.

I mean, when was the last time you bought a GW game because of the rules? I'd be more interested in seeing the compensation of the sculptors/factory-workers as they're more directly in line with what people are actually buying, which is the models (although the occasional book, artbook, novel, measuring tape, and other hobby-related gash makes sense where otherwise they're leaving money on the table).

I think the game design, in terms of game products, is the very tip of the iceberg with all the business, product design, etc going on unseen and typically commented on.


I mostly buy models because of looks, but I admit, I have bought some because of rules also. I don't think I'm an exception there. And with books, I *definitely* buy those because of rules, or maybe I should say quality; and rules definitely drive the quality of the book. GW has 100% lost money from me from slapdash hack jobs, and I don't just mean weak books; if something is stupid OP, I'm not going to buy it either because I won't play it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 lagoon83 wrote:
 Irkjoe wrote:
I'm just saying that becoming a victim or causing a controversy followed by shilling is a tried and true tactic. I don't doubt that gw treats their employees poorly, that there's more to the story, and that this is a cash grab.


This is my favourite take of today. Thank you.


Woah, incredible to have you in the thread. Thanks for the labor of love you have provided us fans over the years.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/26 20:33:20


 
   
Made in gb
Rampaging Reaver Titan Princeps





Warwickscire

 lagoon83 wrote:
 privateer4hire wrote:
Kinda surprised that they don’t have better NDA in place to prevent this type of information from surfacing. And then I remember that it probably won’t change a single person’s buying plans.


Yeah, didn't think of that until after the fact. Ho hum! Bring it on.


Surely it'd be against giving away company secrets not how shoddily you'd have been treated. Otherwise, Glassdoor would be flooded by legal requests to expose so and so for revealing that it really is a gak place to work...
   
Made in us
Legendary Master of the Chapter





SoCal

 privateer4hire wrote:
Your point about printing money is spot on. They have continued to make a killing paying peanuts. They would be stupid to change, wouldn’t they?


There’s a difference in douche level between just paying the minimum they can get away with to Game Rules Michael Jordan and what they actually did; when another department gave him a better offer, instead of trying to match it they used their influence to have the better offer retracted. That’s …That’s disgustingly petty.

   
Made in us
Elite Tyranid Warrior






 Gene St. Ealer wrote:


That one is interesting but I hesitate to read too much into it. It's very unfortunate that she dealt with the situation above, and I hope GW improves their internal processes. But also, every company ever seems to have dysfunction like this; I don't think it's surprising or damning to hear that about GW. Not every company pays peanuts though, so I am surprised to hear that.


Exactly, lots of stuff can be true. Maybe they treated her horribly, and maybe in the final analysis they made the right decision.

I'd also be interested in knowing if there are any game designers who aren't paid little and expendable. Seems like even key staff get the boot. I vaguely remember some of the privateer design team not able to afford living near the headquarters on what they got. Maybe mtg designers make a lot.

@lagoon83 Always good practice to meet twitter crying with suspicion imo.

Edited by ingtær. No, just no.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/26 21:20:29


 
   
Made in us
[DCM]
Savage Minotaur




Baltimore, Maryland



Its not loading, some sort of twitter error. Give us a summary?
   
Made in us
Growlin' Guntrukk Driver with Killacannon





Italy

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
 privateer4hire wrote:
Your point about printing money is spot on. They have continued to make a killing paying peanuts. They would be stupid to change, wouldn’t they?


There’s a difference in douche level between just paying the minimum they can get away with to Game Rules Michael Jordan and what they actually did; when another department gave him a better offer, instead of trying to match it they used their influence to have the better offer retracted. That’s …That’s disgustingly petty.

Yep, its extraordinarily petty and unfortunately not uncommon in corporate culture. It's why many professionals prefer to jump ship than do an internal transfer, especially in the tech sector.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

 lagoon83 wrote:
 Irkjoe wrote:
I'm just saying that becoming a victim or causing a controversy followed by shilling is a tried and true tactic. I don't doubt that gw treats their employees poorly, that there's more to the story, and that this is a cash grab.


This is my favourite take of today. Thank you.


Please stop grabbing cash. It’s dirty and you don’t know where it’s been.

Also, the fact that Calth wasn’t adopted as a default board game approach to boxed set releases already points to an undervaluing of your designs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
 privateer4hire wrote:
Your point about printing money is spot on. They have continued to make a killing paying peanuts. They would be stupid to change, wouldn’t they?


There’s a difference in douche level between just paying the minimum they can get away with to Game Rules Michael Jordan and what they actually did; when another department gave him a better offer, instead of trying to match it they used their influence to have the better offer retracted. That’s …That’s disgustingly petty.


Invisible hand of the Emprah!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/26 20:55:21


Thread Slayer 
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

Poor communication & inter-department rivalry meant her job disappeared while she was on maternity leave and they didn't know what to do with her when she returned.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

That’s bad news in the UK, innit? Like they better figure it out?

Thread Slayer 
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut





I'm not sure if this is entirely analogous, but I've made similar experiences in the video game sector several years ago. They specifically recruited for "passionate" people because they knew they could get away with paying them poorly, have them work overtime on a regular basis etc. And I wasn't even doing creative work, which was in an even worse state than my department. Anyway, I can imagine that GW operates on a similar basis, because people who want to work there tend to be strongly invested into their product.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/07/26 21:00:41


 
   
Made in us
Dakka Veteran




Seattle, WA USA

 Irkjoe wrote:


I'd also be interested in knowing if there are any game designers who aren't paid little and expendable. Seems like even key staff get the boot. I vaguely remember some of the privateer design team not able to afford living near the headquarters on what they got. Maybe mtg designers make a lot.

Outside of very small, wildly successful companies (are there any of those?), I'd be surprised if there were any really well paid designers. I'm sure there's got to be some outliers (Richard Garfield, Justin Gary, maybe others?), but most of them went on to form their own business, so they're not really "just game designers" anymore.

I mean, I want to design games, too. That's why I formed my tiny little 1 person LLC, so that I could do that. Of course, it doesn't make any money currently, so I have to keep my day job in software, which means I'm not really putting "full time" into doing the game company stuff, which means it isn't making any money, which means I have to keep my day job, etc. But I have known other folks who did design/dev work for other studios (PP, Ral Partha, others), and, yeah, they weren't making great wages either.
   
Made in gb
Crafty Goblin




Nottingham, UK

 Gene St. Ealer wrote:

Woah, incredible to have you in the thread. Thanks for the labor of love you have provided us fans over the years.


Sometimes I lurk, sometimes I get involved. It's normally funnier if people don't realise who I am for ages.

Hi!

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2021/07/26 21:23:26


 
   
Made in gb
Moustache-twirling Princeps




United Kingdom

 BertBert wrote:
I'm not sure if this is entirely analogous, but I've made similar experiences in the video game sector several years ago. They specifically recruited for "passionate" people because they knew they could get away with paying them poorly, have them work overtime on a regular basis etc.


Or they get students on work placements and can pay them even less...
(I've never 'officially' worked for a games studio but have done tech support, alpha & beta testing, crunch food runs, etc. and while there are a few good ones most are horrible)
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





No wonder the rules are careless on occaision..actually with this in mind... Its astonishing that there even are rules

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2021/07/26 21:11:00


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut





Myrtle Creek, OR

Hey, these rules have horrible balance!
So does my bank account! Ba-dum-tish!

Thread Slayer 
   
Made in ch
The Dread Evil Lord Varlak





 privateer4hire wrote:
Hey, these rules have horrible balance!
So does my bank account! Ba-dum-tish!


It would be funnier if it wasn't that accurate a statement.
Meanwhile gw forced piecemeal DLC sales of rules.. makes Hand over fist in money and can't even pay their writers decently?!?


https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/0/766717.page
A Mostly Renegades and Heretics blog.
GW:"Space marines got too many options to balance, therefore we decided to legends HH units."
Players: "why?!? Now we finally got decent plastic kits and you cut them?"
Chaos marines players: "Since when are Daemonengines 30k models and why do i have NO droppods now?"
GW" MONEY.... erm i meant TOO MANY OPTIONS (to resell your army to you again by disalowing former units)! Do you want specific tyranid fighiting Primaris? Even a new sabotage lieutnant!"
Chaos players: Guess i stop playing or go to HH.  
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut




Not Online!!! wrote:

Meanwhile gw forced piecemeal DLC sales of rules.. makes Hand over fist in money and can't even pay their writers decently?!?

It can, the managers choose not to.
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut





@lagoon83:
On a more positive note, would you mind telling us which of the rulesets you've worked on in your time with GW is dearest to your heart?
   
Made in gb
Crafty Goblin




Nottingham, UK

 BertBert wrote:
@lagoon83:
On a more positive note, would you mind telling us which of the rulesets you've worked on in your time with GW is dearest to your heart?


I don't wanna derail the thread, so I'll just answer this one. Probably Silver Tower, although Titanicus is a close second
   
 
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