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Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)

Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.

× Talk about whatever you like related to games that doesn't fit anywhere else.

Will Fantasy Flight ever hire a real graphic designer?

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21 Nov 2015 14:39 #215566 by OldHippy

Frohike wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: It suffers from a severe lack of organization with a lot of iterations. Everything is behind schedule and high priority. This creates more work for employees than needed. Management suffers from a lack fo professional training and experience. A lot of people were promoted into roles without professional training or experience as a manager. Upper management occasionally inserts itself into the creative process, hindering creativity.

So basically, one of the biggest hobby game companies in the business is run - and pays - about like an FLGS.


This sounds like the operational model for most AAA video game design studios too. It's not confined to or symptomatic of the small size of the board game industry. It's the consequence of any mid to large corporate structure and project management bureaucracy colliding with a booming creative field that requires agility and flexibility. It usually just translates to middle management bloat, constantly ineffective iterations, and high burnout/churn in the creative department.


If not in video games, where do graphic designers make decent cash, if anywhere at all? I only know one graphic designer that worked for video games (EA here in Vancouver) and when he was on their salary he wasn't making much... but it was certainly much better than 30,000$ a year. Is advertising the only place to make the big bucks unless your famous?

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21 Nov 2015 15:07 #215569 by Erik Twice

Josh Look wrote: If you think that's bad, what they pay their artists is criminal.

They outsource their artistic workload like they do with production or printing. I think a discussion on worker's pay can be had but I think it's kind of unfair to draw an arbitrary line and demand higher pay for artists but not for the factory workers.
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21 Nov 2015 15:09 #215571 by hotseatgames

Michael Barnes wrote: Not at 33% below the national average they won't. I thought their wages were "competitive"?


They are competing. They just can't see the front-runners anymore.

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21 Nov 2015 15:10 #215572 by OldHippy
I'd be willing to bet that it's the manufacturing side that gets the shittiest wages.
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21 Nov 2015 16:23 - 21 Nov 2015 16:24 #215574 by stoic

JonJacob wrote: I'd be willing to bet that it's the manufacturing side that gets the shittiest wages.


This is a very uncomfortable topic to discuss since most of our purchased consumer crap involves a manufacturing stream that most don't want to consider. And, it surely involves [whispering in hushed tones] cheap labor, uncomfortable work and poor working conditions.

Let's assume that the manufacturing process occurs in China. I'm sure that high-tech and skilled industrial machine work skew these figures and that unskilled workers make much less, but, the average Chinese worker makes @$27.50 per day. (See www.economist.com/news/briefing/21646180...ring-tightening-grip ). I have no idea what the purchasing power of those wages buys for the average Chinese worker or what their actual living or working conditions might be--I'm certain that Chinese officials (i.e., their Animal Farm like Marxist leaders) all report flowery and savory conditions in their provinces that fully meet any officially published propaganda regarding labor issues. Yet, I'd imagine that after the more skilled factory printing and plastic/polymer/wooden pieces-parts production occur, the menial game box assembly, miniature painting, and board making and the like are likely farmed out to a cottage industry that is composed of an irregular and largely unregulated labor force (i.e., child, home, elderly, servitude, and an imprisoned workforce).
Last edit: 21 Nov 2015 16:24 by stoic.
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21 Nov 2015 16:42 - 21 Nov 2015 16:43 #215577 by MacDirk Diggler
Ya, I have always wondered about how pre painted minis are made. Some kid in China getting paid 5c per figure?

But for sure the cost of living is completely different in most Asian countries. I was in Cambodia and wanted to tip a kid working in an ecolodge a dollar for carrying two heavy suitcases 1/4 mile in 100 degree heat. The manager told me it was too much, I would "spoil" him. And that a school teacher makes $80/ month.
Last edit: 21 Nov 2015 16:43 by MacDirk Diggler.

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21 Nov 2015 16:44 #215578 by wadenels
A lot of really cool people work for FFG because they love games and they're excited to see the company grow. For some people that's worth the probably below-average pay. There's something to be said for doing what you enjoy vs doing what pays well, and for some people the overlap between the two is pretty small.

I wonder if FFG is really just paying what they can afford, or is exploiting the enthusiasm of the people that work there.
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21 Nov 2015 17:35 #215583 by ubarose

Frohike wrote:

Michael Barnes wrote: It suffers from a severe lack of organization with a lot of iterations. Everything is behind schedule and high priority. This creates more work for employees than needed. Management suffers from a lack fo professional training and experience. A lot of people were promoted into roles without professional training or experience as a manager. Upper management occasionally inserts itself into the creative process, hindering creativity.

So basically, one of the biggest hobby game companies in the business is run - and pays - about like an FLGS.


This sounds like the operational model for most AAA video game design studios too. It's not confined to or symptomatic of the small size of the board game industry. It's the consequence of any mid to large corporate structure and project management bureaucracy colliding with a booming creative field that requires agility and flexibility. It usually just translates to middle management bloat, constantly ineffective iterations, and high burnout/churn in the creative department.


There is an operational model for managing creative in established industries, such as publishing, advertising and theatre, that works quite well (I have my Masters in Production Management so I know a bit about it). If you watched Mad Men you got a peek at it. Essentially you have at least 3 silos and sometimes 4 if you are actually producing or manufacturing a product: Business, Administrative (B and A are sometimes combined), Creative and Production. Each silo has it's own Director/Manager/Administrator, because each silo requires a different specific skill set, and there is a natural conflict of interests between the silos. Those conflicts create friction in the upper levels of administration and management, which if you have good people in those positions is actually a good and productive thing, but because you have these silos, the people that work in them are insulated fro, the friction and conflicts. Communication between silos needs to go up the chain across and then down again. So you don't get the creatives taking hissy fits at the producers, or the business people stressing out the creatives, or everyone dumping on administrative support people. And everyone only has to answer to one master. Also, budgets for the silos are separate, so if Admin gets the great idea that everyone should pack boxes for a week, or hang posters, or sweep floors everyday, the silo directors are usually like, okay, but their pay for those hours isn't coming out of our budget. And since you are paying my 20 people sweep and vacuum an hour each day, that gives me enough in my budget to hire another part timer to make up for those hours that my folks aren't doing the work I need them to be doing.

In smaller companies and emerging industries you often get one director wearing too many hats. Unless that person is highly skilled and very disciplined they run the risk of turning into a slave driver, and creating a schizophrenic management style and work culture that is not only very stressful for the employees, but opens the door to all kinds of interpersonal unpleasantness and politics. Everyone ends up feeling disgruntled sooner or later.
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21 Nov 2015 17:36 - 21 Nov 2015 17:42 #215584 by Sevej
For artists they pay well enough, at least from the artist's perspective. I know one of them. FFG uses non-US artists. That 30k pay per year? That's still 4 times what a local company middle level manager here makes per year.

EDIT: I still remember the story of Martin Wallace that he get paid like 5000-10000 pound per game, and then 1000-ish pound per year from royalties. I guess when doing everything in house (with salary) costs quite a bit.
Last edit: 21 Nov 2015 17:42 by Sevej.

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24 Nov 2015 23:20 #215881 by Cranberries

wadenels wrote: A lot of really cool people work for FFG because they love games and they're excited to see the company grow. For some people that's worth the probably below-average pay. There's something to be said for doing what you enjoy vs doing what pays well, and for some people the overlap between the two is pretty small.

I wonder if FFG is really just paying what they can afford, or is exploiting the enthusiasm of the people that work there.


You've just described the adjunct teachers where I work.

I lived for two years in the Marshall Islands. Many Marshallese have moved to the U.S. to work in chicken processing plants. The work is terrible and the pay is low, but it's better than manually removing coconut meat from shells and eating fish, rice and breadfruit. And we all get really cheap chicken!

thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/10/27/371...oultry-plant-safety/

Of course, nobody wants to pay twice as much for boardgames, or twice as much for chicken. And most of us don't want to slaughter our own meat.

I feel like, given these restrictions, there is a solution staring us in the face.
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25 Nov 2015 07:54 #215885 by dontbecruel

craniac wrote: Of course, nobody wants to pay twice as much for boardgames, or twice as much for chicken. And most of us don't want to slaughter our own meat.
I feel like, given these restrictions, there is a solution staring us in the face.


Eat each other?
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25 Nov 2015 08:44 #215886 by Msample
My guess is that their low pay is both a combo of taking advantage of game fans eager to "live the dream" as well as that's what they can afford to pay. As others have noted, FFG may be big in the eyes of the typical gamer, but in the overall scheme of things, they are still a small company. A good chunk of their revenue these days probably goes towards licensing costs , seeing as the majority of their best selling games rely on someone else's IP. In some ways, I am surprised they've been able to hold retails on this stuff as long as they have - an X-Wing box or Star Wars LCG pack retails for the same price now when it first released.
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25 Nov 2015 08:55 #215888 by Sagrilarus
Are we all leaping to the conclusion that the number listed on that web site is correct and complete? Salary data is notoriously bad, where one person misreporting (or not reporting) can swing a number $15,000, especially if there are a low number of employees in the sample size. It's often based on job advertisements.
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26 Nov 2015 00:23 - 26 Nov 2015 00:24 #215955 by Cranberries

sagrilarus wrote: Are we all leaping to the conclusion that the number listed on that web site is correct and complete? Salary data is notoriously bad, where one person misreporting (or not reporting) can swing a number $15,000, especially if there are a low number of employees in the sample size. It's often based on job advertisements.


I think the important thing to keep in mind here, once we are done pretending to care about labor issues, is that the games just look so cheesy.

Last edit: 26 Nov 2015 00:24 by Cranberries.
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26 Nov 2015 02:02 #215957 by Disgustipater

craniac wrote: is that the games just look so cheesy.


What? Dash Rendar has never looked better:

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