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Game programmers are hard to find

Published on 3rd March 2009 by Joe Martin

According to a new survey by TIGA, game developers often have trouble recruiting game programmers.

According to a new survey published by the trade organisation TIGA more than 85 percent of those working in the games industry believe that the UK government needs to provide tax incentives to encourage further growth of the the game market throughout the United Kingdom.

And yes, we're just shocked that there was a 15 percent group who apparently thought that developers could make more money by not paying tax.

The survey launched by TIGA looked at a sample of 100 UK-based CEOs and managing directors for game developers and publishers and found that the UK market is also suffering from considerable skill shortages, possibly as a result of the tax situation. Countries such as Canada and the USA are increasingly offering tax incentives to game developers and as such many possible recruits for the UK market are moving overseas.

According to the survey (via Gamasutra), more than 63 percent of developers in the UK had faced skill shortages within the last year, with 74 percent struggling to find available programmers with the required skills.

TIGA CEO Richard Wilson reckons that in order for the UK market to compete with overseas then the government will need to provide a 20 percent tax break for developers based in the UK, which should allow companies to grow and provide more jobs. But if there's nobody out there to hire...

Do you work in the games industry, or do you think these developers are just whining for the sake of it? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.

27 Comments

Discuss in the forums Reply

Fod 3rd March 2009, 11:16

game programmers are hard to find? well, i got turned down from 2 game programming jobs because 'it didn't seem like i wanted the job enough', so obviously they're not _that_ hard to find...
[/bitter]

Nedsbeds 3rd March 2009, 11:45

It seems like most developers are hard to find at the moment. We are looking for a php web developer and not having much luck. Very hard to find anyone (cheeky plug, in West midlands, PM me for details if you know anyone!)

perplekks45 3rd March 2009, 11:48

Well, if you want 20 years old programmers with at least 10 years of professional experience, willing to work for what a Chinese woman earns by making Nike shoes and willing to work as long as the former mentioned w/o benefits... I guess it's kinda hard.

Xir 3rd March 2009, 11:54

Quote:

Well, if you want 20 years old programmers with at least 10 years of professional experience, willing to work for what a Chinese woman earns by making Nike shoes and willing to work as long as the former mentioned w/o benefits

Under those conditions, you could work as an engineer in Germany! ;)

perplekks45 3rd March 2009, 11:58

Trust me, I know. Born in Offenbach, lived there for 20 years, 4 years in Hamburg, then I finally made it out of there. :) Although Hamburg is one of the nicest cities in the world.
[/hijack]

Back on topic: I guess it's even harder to find a job at the moment than for companies to find new employees. Just a guess though...

UrbanMarine 3rd March 2009, 12:45

How many of these companies want degrees?

Omnituens 3rd March 2009, 13:46

This is bollocks - I've been applying for jobs in the games industry left right and centre - all of them saying "no programming vacancies"

vampalan 3rd March 2009, 14:39

The price of a being a games developer is to have no relationship, no life, no weekends, no sunlight, no sleep, no free time and not much else.

The pay is pretty crap for the hours and skill as well because the job is similar to being a fireman uk in terms of supply and demand.
Except being a fireman you get to wear a uniform and go to crazy house parties where students have set off the fire alarms just to see some men in uniforms.

Edit: Being a fireman, I would guess you can have all the things mentioned above.

UrbanMarine 3rd March 2009, 14:43

I think firefighters also work 240ish days a year and get paid for 365.

Fod 3rd March 2009, 14:49

Quote:

Originally Posted by UrbanMarine
How many of these companies want degrees?

a good (2:1 or higher, with demonstrable ability) bachelor's degree in computer science is the minimum these guys will consider. the demonstrable ability part is huuuugely important, however.

vampalan 3rd March 2009, 15:13

Dont forget, you cant be a nerdy coder in your bedroom at home, you will need to be able to talk to people in order to work as a team. The ability to knock out code is worthless if people can't talk to you about it... I guess that's stating the obvious.

varese4 3rd March 2009, 15:28

i think good programmers are hard to find anywhere, in any industry - i worked in games before, but now i'm in finance, and it's nearly the same story, difference is that there's so much money in finance, they hire 4 people to do the work that could be done by just one good programmer

UrbanMarine 3rd March 2009, 15:34

I know a few people that are talented with computers but don't have money to get that piece of paper that says you are "officially" educated in computers. There are only a few lucky people that get into a high paying industry without papers.

FeRaL 3rd March 2009, 16:17

...

Redbeaver 3rd March 2009, 16:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by UrbanMarine
I know a few people that are talented with computers but don't have money to get that piece of paper that says you are "officially" educated in computers. There are only a few lucky people that get into a high paying industry without papers.

very true.

and thus those few people should work their ass off in walmart and save enough money to get a degree.

Fly 3rd March 2009, 17:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by varese4
i think good programmers are hard to find anywhere, in any industry - i worked in games before, but now i'm in finance, and it's nearly the same story, difference is that there's so much money in finance, they hire 4 people to do the work that could be done by just one good programmer

I love that. Anyone employing 4 programmers to do the work one that could do obviously has no practical project experience. It's the same type of person who thinks that throwing money (hence more programmers) into the pile gets work done more quickly.

vampalan 3rd March 2009, 17:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fly
I love that. Anyone employing 4 programmers to do the work one that could do obviously has no practical project experience. It's the same type of person who thinks that throwing money (hence more programmers) into the pile gets work done more quickly.

It's actually good to have more than one programmer, so they dont end up being prima donnas, thus keeping each other in check.

Xir 3rd March 2009, 18:48

Correct...you should have more than one.

I have one programmer for my production machine...
if anything happends to this guy we have 30 multi-million dollar machines worth of scrap :|

Fly 3rd March 2009, 19:38

I meant that having 4 programmers to do the work of one doesn't reduce the time by 4, like most management types seem to believe. I won't get into the discussion of how many a company should have, as there are so many different cases, but having a mountain of them won't turn you into Microsoft. As for being primadonnas, they will only be primadonnas once in their career for one company. ;)

Omnituens 3rd March 2009, 20:30

While I am a fairly good programmer, my skills are increased by having someone to bounce ideas off, it worked very well in uni.

hodgy100 3rd March 2009, 20:48

I want to be a programmer, but I am currently at college and my teacher seems to have an obsession with Pascal ¬_¬ (yeah I know) I'd learn C++ myself but the guides on the net don't help me much. I have a mate that is wiling to start up a project with me when we can use C++ properly, but it looks like this may take a while :(

Paolo 3rd March 2009, 22:04

Interesting. I went to most of the recruitment events when I was at Uni and did a fair bit shopping around before settling on which company to work for (yeah, the times when you could be picky - last February!) - I think there was one poster for a games company somewhere up north, that was it.

Maybe they just need to get out more?

chrisuk 3rd March 2009, 22:44

The games companies expect too much from graduates now. That has been my experience anyway. Barely any graduate will have any demos or portfolio of work now as, tbh, the technologies are significantly more complex than the bedroom days of old, and there is no time to create stuff outside of degree work.

Zut 4th March 2009, 13:18

I don't have enough C++ experience to be a games programmer, but even if I did I wouldn't want that kind of job.

I remember a guy from Frontier came to an open day at my Uni and he looked like he was about to collapse. He was unshaved with bags under his eyes, trying to convince us that working conditions in the games industry aren't as bad as people say... I wasn't convinced!

Fod 4th March 2009, 13:20

Quote:

Originally Posted by hodgy100
I want to be a programmer, but I am currently at college and my teacher seems to have an obsession with Pascal ¬_¬ (yeah I know) I'd learn C++ myself but the guides on the net don't help me much. I have a mate that is wiling to start up a project with me when we can use C++ properly, but it looks like this may take a while :(

two books. 'accelerated c++' and 'effective c++'

then start with graphics programming :)

ParaHelix.org 4th March 2009, 15:06

Unfortunately I am limited to Visual Basic (vb08) at the moment, I would love to learn C++ as it is a very powerful language, I just dont know where to start :(

vampalan 7th November 2009, 03:15

Quote:

Originally Posted by ParaHelix.org
Unfortunately I am limited to Visual Basic (vb08) at the moment, I would love to learn C++ as it is a very powerful language, I just dont know where to start :(

Dont know if I am supposed to dig up an old thread here.

Anyways, C++ as opposed to C, and not C++ coded with one massive class, uses a very useful concept of object orientated programming, and very hard to get your head around. I would start with OOP theory. VB uses it, but its very hidden last time I checked. Knowing C++ is for the sake of it is pointless. Oh there's now C#, which is more gear around MS Windows app programming. I guess the first thing to decided is where you want to be doing with C++/C#.