Josh Sawyer has been making games professionally for 26 years. What started as a hobby, making and playing tabletop RPGs, has grown into a storied career. Sawyer had his first position in 1999 working at Black Isle Studios, and now serves as studio design director at Obsidian, where he led development on games like Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity 1 and 2.
And yet, Sawyer believes job security for himself as well as other devs is worse than ever before despite his current position, as well as shipping so many well-respected titles over the years,
"In 26 years, I’ve never really felt secure in a job. Even now. Less so now, actually", he tells the audience during a keynote at GCAP, a game development conference in Melbourne, Australia. "That’s actually pretty messed up" he adds, almost as though he’s realising it upon saying it out loud.
The games industry is a vastly different space than it was 26 years ago when Sawyer began. Back then, teams of developers for AAA games were usually between 15-40 people, with almost everyone branching out across different skills and, more often than not, undergoing constant crunch to deliver. Halo: Combat Evolved, for example was a team of 40, and GTA 3 was put together by a 23-person team.
Now we see games made by teams that range from one person up to potentially thousands, if modern GTAs are to be believed. But according to Sawyer, these larger teams haven’t lead to greater job security, nor even necessarily better conditions. Instead, we see more contracts and short-term work for specialists, while crunch has been replaced by mass burnout.
As Sawyer says, "Games are bigger than ever (again), baby!" And this is a huge part of the problem. Development cycles have gone from an average of between 10 months to three years in the 2000s to 5-8 years now. While not every member of the dev team will be on board for the entire cycle, those that are often wind up feeling incredibly drained by the long process.
Wages for game developers also aren’t necessarily any better than before. With remote work becoming easier, some studios are outsourcing to the cheapest bidder. This has lead to devs looking for a living wage—or healthcare when it comes to living in countries like the USA—going hungry.
But remote work hasn’t been all bad. One area Sawyer has seen change for the better is diversity, which has been improved not only by changing times but by remote accommodations.
"I didn’t work with any women developers for my first five years", he says, adding that while queer and trans folk were definitely present, finding those that had the safety and comfort to be open about it was a rarity. Even other nationalities were uncommon, which is in stark contrast to the wonderfully diverse landscape we see now.
Overall, this videogame vet painted a picture of a precarious industry, which is baffling when you consider the money it brings in. If someone like Sawyer feels less job security than he did when he first start decades ago, despite games only continuing to grow, it’s hard to imagine many developers feel particularly safe in their employment.
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