Ubisoft’s first North American union, located at their Halifax, Nova Scotia studio, was certified on December 18th, 2025. Now, not even a full 30 days later, Ubisoft Halifax is closing.
Capital would rather burn everything down than lose a penny to the working class. Yes in this example, highly paid developers are considered working class relative to billionaire owners
Yes in reality, like 90% of people are working class, but I just wanted to make that designation for anyone reading it and going “software engineers aren’t working class”. I mean it in the more general working class vs capital owners.
Anyone who cannot stop working and live off their own wealth (and not rely on the working income of others) for the rest of their lives is, by definition, working class.
That’s a mistake. If you treat them as your equal then you can make then see they aren’t special or “middle class” and then you have another pair of hands to help the working class.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m talking about not treating then as special but just as anyone else and reply as you would with anyone else, not as if they are superior.
Higher wage working class is working class. If your income doesn’t come from owning things, if you put in work to get your income, you are working class. Division among ourselves only weakens us.
Just making the distinction that both blue and white collar workers are all still the working class generally. Colloquially, “working class” can be used more to mean blue collar workers, but in my context I mean anyone not in the capital ownership class.
Noooo, not even close. There may be some senior devs in AAA studios making bank, but the vast majority of people doing the day-to-day art and development work on games typically get much worse pay and benefits than similar roles in other parts of the tech sphere.
A lot of people are very passionate about making games, and the games industry heavily exploits that passion to short change its workers. A lot of (mostly young) devs are willing to accept less pay to work on games because they feel like it will be more fulfilling than working on other mindless corporate crap, and those who do get jobs in the industry are afraid to ask for more money or try to unionize because they know there are a dozen equally passionate candidates waiting to replace them for less money if they make too many waves.
The result is that wages stay lower than other tech jobs and hours worked are much higher. With AI on the rise the problem will no doubt get even worse as execs use it as an excuse to shrink teams and “do more with less”.
That’s interesting. Because writing code for 3D graphics is way more complicated than writing an SQL query or some input form UI. I assumed those devs are super skilled and hence paid accordingly.
Gaming industry relies on game devs being super passionate about it, so they can pay them less.
My game dev friends almost all got out of it because they weren’t paid well and had to crunch all the time.
In corporate software you get paid well and just hate the work you do.
It’s not by chance that for example the Investment Banking industry pays a lot more money to developers than the wider IT industry - a system breaking down for an hour or two there can cost millions because, for example, trader’s can’t actually trade certain assets.
Generally the more money that depends on their systems being functional without errors or interruptions, the more an industry is willing to pay for devs.
Not to mention generally enterprise devs aren’t beholden to public launch dates set externally by publishers and therefore end up burning out really fast trying to make a deliverable happen. Not saying that doesn’t happen elsewhere in software, but it’s really common in the games industry
Everyone wants to work in games. Few want to work on accounting software and client messaging organization programs. Who do you think gets paid more despite doing basically the same thing?
Doing matrix operations in C++ is super annoying and difficult coompared to writing SQL queries wrapped in Java jdbc, or creating some REST APIs in python/ruby for some js react UI. Another comment response acknowledges this.
But I get that probably most people want to write games. Having the skills to do 3D graphics programming is another thing. (I remember this kid in my undergrad linear algebra class, who was complaining he failed the class like three times, and that he was going to go to the department head and get the professor fired lol. I think that guy wanted to do game programming. I’m betting he’s writing unit tests now.)
100%. I always ask people to look at their tax return. Does your money come from your labour/work, or from the things you own? If you aren’t living off of the things you own, then you are working class.
If your income comes mainly from your work, you’re Working Class (even if you own you own business), if your income comes mainly from the money made by the money you have (in assets or even “investments”) you’re Owner Class.
Certainly, modern politics only ever divides people in those two classes, with mainstream parties generaly only working for the good of the Owner Class which is how you end up with falling salaries in real terms and growing Asset valuations in the form of bubbles on all kinds of assets, most notably stocks and realestate (notice how most mainstream politicians see the rising of both stockmarkets and house prices - tough of late, they don’t say it about the latter quite as openly - as being good things).
The single greatest scam of modern Neoliberal Capitalism was making people who own their means of production - sometimes only partially or not really because they’re in debt for it - but still have to work for a living think they’re not Working Class and hence Neoliberal Capitalism is actually working for their benefit.
If there is one thing that around a decade working for the Finance Industry has taught me, is that almost all government policies are directed to help those who make money from having money make even more money, which is why, for example, plenty of countries have lower taxes on income from “investments” than on income from “work”, when the fair thing would be the other way around since the former is parasitical so lower taxes on it just induces more economic actors to engage in non-productive, extractive economic activities.
Because they actually work on products literally, they’re the base of their profession with pretty much nobody under them bar a few juniors if any
I fear the day when being a dev like me becomes so normal I make minimum wage and can’t afford anything anymore… It’s seriously terrifying to realize I worked and learned all this time and it may be for nothing in like 10 years…
lol that day is coming sooner than you’d think, I think 10 years is being generous tbh
You should learn a highly niche specialization within SWE if you don’t already have one (that’s what I have). That will be overtaken by AI too, but it’ll give you more runway at least.
If I were in your shoes (and I am), I would start trying to blindly use AI to do various aspects of my job (and I have).
The results are laughable.
There are things that I do that AI can do. Stupid, boring, uninteresting things. In particular, AI excels at doing things I already wrote a simple Bash script to do for me a decade ago.
Seriously, I encourage everyone to give it a try.
Let’s all build that passion project we’ve been dreaming of and host it for the world to enjoy.
In the best case, the world has a happy little passion project chugging away being useful.
In the worst case, we learn what AI cannot do yet, and realize we can still keep charging people for our labor for a few more years (and decades and centuries).
I mean, at least you always have those supple wrists to fall back on.
I hope more people do follow this advice, though. It’s always a joy to discover people’s little passion projects. They make life richer for the rest of us.
Currently working on an Ubi-style game set in Middle-Earth. Maybe my niece and I will be the only ones to enjoy it, but I’m ok with that.
it’s not even just about the money really. it’s just as much about control. you have to make an example of any uppity unionizing peasants right at the start, lest you end up with your entire corral of cubicle drones strutting around thinking they have some kind of say in any aspect of their work environment
Yeah, that’s another fun aspect of our culture. Jobs that many people actually want due to what they are passionate about lead to abuse.
It’s the reason I never seriously considered getting into game development or becoming a teacher.
I am the rare father involved in the PTO (parent-teacher organization) along with my wife at our kid’s elementary school. We were handing out basic cheap supplies to the teachers last month as a Christmas thing. We’d interrupt the class to give the teacher a SINGLE roll of paper towels and then a small box of tissues or some glue sticks or whatever, and they were excited and grateful every time!
how highly paid are we talking? I doubt they’re making 200k
keep in mind that Canadian tech sector wages are not on par with american - as a rough rule, just keep the dollar value and change the currency (i.e. 100k USD salary is 100k CAD salary)
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Capital would rather burn everything down than lose a penny to the working class. Yes in this example, highly paid developers are considered working class relative to billionaire owners
I like to think that we’re all working class, and that to subdivide classes further benefits only the capital
Yes in reality, like 90% of people are working class, but I just wanted to make that designation for anyone reading it and going “software engineers aren’t working class”. I mean it in the more general working class vs capital owners.
Anyone who cannot stop working and live off their own wealth (and not rely on the working income of others) for the rest of their lives is, by definition, working class.
I agree, but I think there are enough people who conflate working class with blue collar that making the distinction is justified.
They don’t live week by week, they have thousands to tens of thousands of dollars of disposable income per month.
No, I’m not going to treat them the same as my fellow lower classes.
That’s a mistake. If you treat them as your equal then you can make then see they aren’t special or “middle class” and then you have another pair of hands to help the working class.
That’s well natured but naive.
Richer ‘working class’ already do shit on the poorer classes, they already punch down with ferocity.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m talking about not treating then as special but just as anyone else and reply as you would with anyone else, not as if they are superior.
Higher wage working class is working class. If your income doesn’t come from owning things, if you put in work to get your income, you are working class. Division among ourselves only weakens us.
Not in the games industry, lol
Just making the distinction that both blue and white collar workers are all still the working class generally. Colloquially, “working class” can be used more to mean blue collar workers, but in my context I mean anyone not in the capital ownership class.
Really? I always assumed they made more than developers in the “enterprise” world.
Noooo, not even close. There may be some senior devs in AAA studios making bank, but the vast majority of people doing the day-to-day art and development work on games typically get much worse pay and benefits than similar roles in other parts of the tech sphere.
A lot of people are very passionate about making games, and the games industry heavily exploits that passion to short change its workers. A lot of (mostly young) devs are willing to accept less pay to work on games because they feel like it will be more fulfilling than working on other mindless corporate crap, and those who do get jobs in the industry are afraid to ask for more money or try to unionize because they know there are a dozen equally passionate candidates waiting to replace them for less money if they make too many waves.
The result is that wages stay lower than other tech jobs and hours worked are much higher. With AI on the rise the problem will no doubt get even worse as execs use it as an excuse to shrink teams and “do more with less”.
That’s interesting. Because writing code for 3D graphics is way more complicated than writing an SQL query or some input form UI. I assumed those devs are super skilled and hence paid accordingly.
Gaming industry relies on game devs being super passionate about it, so they can pay them less.
My game dev friends almost all got out of it because they weren’t paid well and had to crunch all the time.
In corporate software you get paid well and just hate the work you do.
On the flip side, errors in 3D graphics typically won’t cost a company millions, while errors in an SQL query very well might
It’s not by chance that for example the Investment Banking industry pays a lot more money to developers than the wider IT industry - a system breaking down for an hour or two there can cost millions because, for example, trader’s can’t actually trade certain assets.
Generally the more money that depends on their systems being functional without errors or interruptions, the more an industry is willing to pay for devs.
Not to mention generally enterprise devs aren’t beholden to public launch dates set externally by publishers and therefore end up burning out really fast trying to make a deliverable happen. Not saying that doesn’t happen elsewhere in software, but it’s really common in the games industry
Everyone wants to work in games. Few want to work on accounting software and client messaging organization programs. Who do you think gets paid more despite doing basically the same thing?
Doing matrix operations in C++ is super annoying and difficult coompared to writing SQL queries wrapped in Java jdbc, or creating some REST APIs in python/ruby for some js react UI. Another comment response acknowledges this.
But I get that probably most people want to write games. Having the skills to do 3D graphics programming is another thing. (I remember this kid in my undergrad linear algebra class, who was complaining he failed the class like three times, and that he was going to go to the department head and get the professor fired lol. I think that guy wanted to do game programming. I’m betting he’s writing unit tests now.)
I’m moving from a “not bottom of the ladder but pretty damn low” test automation position to the game industry and I’m expecting to make half as much
100%. I always ask people to look at their tax return. Does your money come from your labour/work, or from the things you own? If you aren’t living off of the things you own, then you are working class.
I mean I own stocks and stuff in index funds, so… AM I THE CAPITAL?? lol jk
If your income comes mainly from your work, you’re Working Class (even if you own you own business), if your income comes mainly from the money made by the money you have (in assets or even “investments”) you’re Owner Class.
Certainly, modern politics only ever divides people in those two classes, with mainstream parties generaly only working for the good of the Owner Class which is how you end up with falling salaries in real terms and growing Asset valuations in the form of bubbles on all kinds of assets, most notably stocks and realestate (notice how most mainstream politicians see the rising of both stockmarkets and house prices - tough of late, they don’t say it about the latter quite as openly - as being good things).
The single greatest scam of modern Neoliberal Capitalism was making people who own their means of production - sometimes only partially or not really because they’re in debt for it - but still have to work for a living think they’re not Working Class and hence Neoliberal Capitalism is actually working for their benefit.
If there is one thing that around a decade working for the Finance Industry has taught me, is that almost all government policies are directed to help those who make money from having money make even more money, which is why, for example, plenty of countries have lower taxes on income from “investments” than on income from “work”, when the fair thing would be the other way around since the former is parasitical so lower taxes on it just induces more economic actors to engage in non-productive, extractive economic activities.
Devs are working class
Because they actually work on products literally, they’re the base of their profession with pretty much nobody under them bar a few juniors if any
I fear the day when being a dev like me becomes so normal I make minimum wage and can’t afford anything anymore… It’s seriously terrifying to realize I worked and learned all this time and it may be for nothing in like 10 years…
lol that day is coming sooner than you’d think, I think 10 years is being generous tbh
You should learn a highly niche specialization within SWE if you don’t already have one (that’s what I have). That will be overtaken by AI too, but it’ll give you more runway at least.
Yea… I definitelly need to do that…
If I were in your shoes (and I am), I would start trying to blindly use AI to do various aspects of my job (and I have).
The results are laughable.
There are things that I do that AI can do. Stupid, boring, uninteresting things. In particular, AI excels at doing things I already wrote a simple Bash script to do for me a decade ago.
Seriously, I encourage everyone to give it a try.
Let’s all build that passion project we’ve been dreaming of and host it for the world to enjoy.
In the best case, the world has a happy little passion project chugging away being useful.
In the worst case, we learn what AI cannot do yet, and realize we can still keep charging people for our labor for a few more years (and decades and centuries).
To repurpose The Fermi Paradox, if AI allows anyone to easily make a useful product, then where are they all?
Is that The AI Fermi Paradox?
E: obviously this is the FermAI Paradox.
Oh yea I know that. I use it as well and it’s exactly as you said.
I can get the base of a feature laid out with it but it’s not going to finish it for me, ever
I mean, at least you always have those supple wrists to fall back on.
I hope more people do follow this advice, though. It’s always a joy to discover people’s little passion projects. They make life richer for the rest of us.
Currently working on an Ubi-style game set in Middle-Earth. Maybe my niece and I will be the only ones to enjoy it, but I’m ok with that.
it’s not even just about the money really. it’s just as much about control. you have to make an example of any uppity unionizing peasants right at the start, lest you end up with your entire corral of cubicle drones strutting around thinking they have some kind of say in any aspect of their work environment
You’re not familiar with the games industry are you?
Their wages are significantly lower than related software fields of similar skill sets.
Yeah, that’s another fun aspect of our culture. Jobs that many people actually want due to what they are passionate about lead to abuse.
It’s the reason I never seriously considered getting into game development or becoming a teacher.
I am the rare father involved in the PTO (parent-teacher organization) along with my wife at our kid’s elementary school. We were handing out basic cheap supplies to the teachers last month as a Christmas thing. We’d interrupt the class to give the teacher a SINGLE roll of paper towels and then a small box of tissues or some glue sticks or whatever, and they were excited and grateful every time!
how highly paid are we talking? I doubt they’re making 200k
keep in mind that Canadian tech sector wages are not on par with american - as a rough rule, just keep the dollar value and change the currency (i.e. 100k USD salary is 100k CAD salary)
deleted by creator
Capitalism will let us all eat shit and die and still cut that shit with the last of the Amazonian sawdust.