I'm going to trust that he understands his desires, ambitions, and capabilities better than anyone reading that thread, the discussion around the Internet, or the job posting. This is not some naive kid fresh out of college being abused by a powerful corporation.
Yes, actually it is somebody being abused by a corporation. His attempt at sugar coating it is a decent one, but is not convincing.
The clincher is how he ends his post: "There is this notion that work/life balance is some kind of sacred goal. I’m sorry, but it’s ludicrous. That’s like saying everyone would be fulfilled by getting married and having 2.5 kids. If you want to work 40 hours and never think about your job after 5pm, great! Find something that does that for you. If you want to work 80 or more hours at something you truly enjoy, in fact you don’t want to stop working ever because you love it so much, shouldn’t that be okay too? Shouldn’t we be so lucky as to have a job that we are so invested in?"
He has set up a false dichotomy and left out a whole lot of other possible options out of his little attempt at rationalizing selling oneself to a rich person for less than his efforts are worth. Dismissing an abusive employment environment with a statement about people "choosing" to work there while ignoring all the context around such "choices" is just runny icing on that crap cake.
In a nutshell, he has described one of the fundamental problems of the gaming industry. Companies know people want to work in games so badly that they can pay them low wages and work them to the bone. In some cases, people are laid off as soon as the game ships. The company gets to pump up the balance sheets and the employees just take it until they're forced out of the industry to be replaced by another crop of fresh meat.
In pure capitalistic terms what these companies are doing is profiting from an imbalance in the labor pool. But what they are also doing is creating a vicious cycle where a whole swath of smart people avoid the industry altogether, and experienced employees eventually get burned out and leave. This in effect embeds all sorts of idiotic behaviors in the game industry.
As a pure business move, if someone agrees to be paid far less than they're worth, that's an easy way to make more money. But it is unethical and ultimatley counterproductive in my book.
Absolutely spot on description of the gaming industry. I spent a few years in it. I won't do it again, precisely because of the issues you describe. The kicker is they don't really seem to care that the "best and brightest" aren't interested in working for them. They care about getting product out the door, and quality is only on the radar to the minimal extent necessary to keep a plurality of fans happy.
This is especially an issue with "big name" companies that have "franchises." Their core market is unlikely to not purchase the next release in the franchise, so quality is less of an issue.
Absolutely nothing he has said in this post has contradicted anything said about this position. He flat out states he is underpaid and has no work/life balance.
It sounds like you are surprised that there are people who are not like you. There are lots of people in lots of companies that prefer working longer hours and maintaining their social circles at work. The author of the post says he's one of those guys, and he took a pay cut to work there. He worked at Amazon, he's not dumb and he's not being willfully exploited. So one must assume that he did it because he wanted to. He could have left long before now.
Saying that he somehow has a problem because that's what he wants in life is pretty judgmental. Do I want to work that way? No. Do you? No. Does it mean he has a "problem" because that's what he wants? No.
If you work long hours, you should be paid accordingly. If you want to volunteer your time to make a company profitable that's your choice but I reserve the right to believe that's dumb/wrong. It also devalues the work of every other developer.
