I worked on console games for a large company and we were paid bonuses that bracketed larger depending on how well the game sold, so not exactly royalties, but close. For large companies, I think this is pretty standard. It was the same when I worked in CG films as well.
I don’t speak for “most” games though. More games are made by small teams than large ones. For indie and mobile games, the creators/devs might be only getting royalties, and no salary.
That might be true if you’re being well paid. Game devs tend to be less well paid on average than people with equivalent skills in other tech businesses. And if you’ve been putting in unpaid overtime to finish a game, which is rampant in the industry, or if your friends in other game companies get royalties, then in both cases there actually is an immediate monetary downside to having a flop.
Anyway, “insane” is a pretty strong word considering profit sharing is super common in all kinds of industries. Some people and some companies really do try to share a little bit of the wealth and reward and retain talented employees, not all company owners are out to keep every cent for themselves.
No, that's simply being laid off. You still got paid while developing the game that made no money.
Being paid a wage and also expecting royalties is wanting to have your cake and eat it too. Generally when an artist (or creator of any sort) is paid royalties, it's in lieu of wages, so you're also shouldering risk if the project fails.
> Being paid a wage and also expecting royalties is wanting to have your cake and eat it too.
Expecting royalties or bonuses is generally a bad idea in the “don’t count your chickens before they hatch” sort of way. I saw people spend money they didn’t have, and then get smaller bonuses than they counted on. Oops.
Being offered a bonus by your employer after six months of 80 hours/week crunch because the game sold well is not the same thing as either expecting royalties, nor having+eating cake.
> Generally when an artist (or creator of any sort) is paid royalties, it’s in lieu of wages, so you’re also shouldering risk if the project fails.
Why do you think this? Lots of people are paid both wages and royalties and/or bonuses. I have no idea how often it’s royalties-only, I’m curious why you claim it’s “generally”. I have only seen the mix kind in my experience, never royalties-only payment in lieu of wages. FWIW, my experience includes six different companies and maybe roughly about a thousand people being paid sales based bonuses on top of wages.
I’m not sure I understand. Being laid off is absolutely a downside to flopping, and “unfortunate” is, in my mind, fairly synonymous with “downside”, I’m not understanding your objection.
Nor do I understand how owing money back to an employer is a realistic scenario. I’ve never heard of that happening. Maybe it happens in weird indie or friend group startups for various reasons. Are you suggesting this happens with any real frequency to employees at established companies?
I’m totally getting the feeling you have an interesting story to share, perhaps about a startup exploding in the bad way? I’ll stick around if so! I’ve had one myself that was a roller coaster, but at least didn’t end with people owing personal money.
I don’t speak for “most” games though. More games are made by small teams than large ones. For indie and mobile games, the creators/devs might be only getting royalties, and no salary.