That is fairly delusional. £142k per year puts you in the top 1% of earners in the UK, and Erin is on twice that. His CV before CIG consists of 14 years of forgettable lego games.
It isn’t a matter of ‘thinking’ his pay is too high, his pay is objectively far higher than he would ever receive in an open job market. You really aren’t doing yourself any favours in being a reasonable counterpoint to all the naysayers when you come out with nonsense like that. First you tried to argue that he wasn’t receiving that much and then you try to argue that it isn’t actually that much. You’re quite clearly goalpost moving.
The Star Citizen project took in $36million in 2016. Almost 1% of the entire money taken in by the project went to one Director in their UK subsidiary - and you think that that’s reasonable.
This is again ironic because it seems SC is constantly doing it to you. As someone who isn’t really involved all that much in this whole thing I get the usual “fanboys” and “haters” such a project creates but you are certainly a special kind of egomaniac behaviour (and this isn’t even internet hyperbole).
Surely you can see how a project such as Star Citizen would cause a lot more passion/angst from someone in Derek’s position than the typical internet hater, though?
What Star Citizen is purporting to do has obviously been Derek’s passion for bulk of his life, not to mention his business/income/whatever. People tend to get a lot more involved with topics the closer they hit to home.
My apologies, I didn’t realise that you trying to explain how good Erin has been for the project wasn’t you trying to downplay how much he was being paid. Nor pointing out that one of the Lego games he was studio director for received 5/5 from Tom Chick. And suggesting that his payout was actually split between 3 people wasn’t disagreeing with how much he was paid either.
“I can understand if you think the pay is too high though” is about as strong an implication that you feel differently.
As I said, there’s a difference between being a positive counterpoint and being disingenuous via goalpost shifting and hiding behind implications.
1% of total revenue (not expenditure) for the entire SC project went to a single director in a single subsidiary. That isn’t 1% of salaries, that’s 1% of total revenue. That is absolutely scandalous, particularly as it’s guaranteed he’s being paid less than Chris or Ortwin. Probably Sandi too. Maybe more. A company with multiple offices and over 400 employees pays 1% of its revenue to one employee who happens to be the brother of a founder.
That would be like Take 2 paying Sam Houser an $18million yearly salary, only Sam Houser had a track record as a studio director for small Nintendo Switch games and in 3 years working for the company had finished zero projects.
ps: And that’s got nothing to do with the fact that having spent the better part of three fucking DECADES curating and supporting this genre, that ass-clown, shows up, makes promises he can’t keep, tried to vilify me, while actively running a scam that has so far stripped over $156M from the very people in the genre I have spent a lifetime curating. So yeah, as they say, ignorance is bliss.
Precisely. A lot of people who know me, “get” it. Aside from the fact that Chris and his Shitzen posse who are fighting a proxy war for him, are the ones who keep testing my resolve.
Yes. And that’s precisely why I have been writing about the nepotism side of this. That aside from the fact that Chris has blown through $75M (of $156M) on a single studio which he built for his brother. A studio which, 6 years later, has yet to ship a SINGLE game.
The only time we will get to know how much the other 8 people in the friends & family program gained from this project, is when the lawsuits start flying. And you bet your last Dollar that it will all be made public.
It was merely my response to you pointing out that he’s Chris Roberts’ brother, and you pointing out his CV before CIG. Which is the point I was making: you have a stronger argument that the pay is too high for anyone in his position rather than arguing that he is uniquely unqualified.
Now it feels like you’re being disingenuous, since my entire conversation with you occurred after I learned that was not the case.
As an American, that’s surprisingly low. At the current exchange rate, 162K comes out to 207K, which is well off of the US 1% cutoff of 288K.
On the whole “this is remarkably high”, my view is distorted by the industry I know best: corporate law. A starting associate salary at a “biglaw” law firm, straight out of school, is 180K USD, not including bonus. There are literally 1000+ of these starting positions across the country. Is a directorship in a 400+ person company at 300K (USD) that unusual?
Speaking from the Silicon Valley bubble: 300K cash would be unusual, 300K total comp including equity is not unreasonable. But that’s here; I don’t know if a comparable position in Austin would pay as well. And I think the games industry tends to be underpaid because so many people want to be in it.
In the videogame industry, hell yeah. The “Director” position would be the equivalent of either CEO or studio head here in the US. And those roles tend to peak at around $125K depending on the studio. Here is the 2014 Gamasutra salary guide. There are others, but I’m on mobile and can’t be arsed to dig them up.
Regardless, in the UK, and the region (Manchester) that F42-UK is based, a director for a video game company making £235K is unheard of. Especially in the UK. Go take a look at p35 of Frontier Dev’s financials to see how much David Braben is making: £180K. And he’s not running a 100% crowd-funded company.
All Chris has done with backer money, is made him and his friends and family rich. That’s it.
That company (Frontier) appears to have 3 director level positions, each making ~200K (base + bonus) for a total director compensation of ~600K. The company has 280 employees.
How big is the F42-UK operation? It’s hard for me to make a comparison, not knowing that number. Admittedly, compensation is more than just adding up the number of employees, but it is a place to start. At the end of the day, I don’t think it matters if the operation is crowd-funded, once it hits this size. You can’t run a ~400 employee game studio on volunteer labor–you’ve got to compete for the same employees as more traditionally funded studios.
As to the Gamesutra report, I may have missed it, but I don’t see director-level-specific info there.
Again, from my corporate law bubble, I’ve got a bunch of useless baby attorneys running around at 200K+ compensation, so I’m personally not mortified by the salary, but I fully admit it’s apples and oranges.
