Will Fantasy Flight ever hire a real graphic designer?

Apparently whoever is working there now makes $30k a year .

All of their games are just so lurid and cluttered. It's like they took the word "elegant" out back and shot it. I realize this is subjective--I like the original Age of Steam graphics. I have everything cartoony, like Small World. There are so many iOs games I won't buy because they are so goofy looking.

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

At 30k in that field you are getting just-graduated kidsthat haven't savvied up to the fact that working for the cool game company for considerably less of what you might make elsewhere isn't worth the trade off. You're going to get mostly inexperienced folks, kids from lower end programs at "Art Institute" like schools, people using the job as an entry level stepping stone and career nerds that can justify living in a shitty apartment and driving a beater because they work at a game company.

Reading the reviews there was pretty interesting too.

a) I agree.
b) At least they have someone salaried/benefits on staff for design. Compared to the freelance norm I perceive in this industry...

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

double posted

"Experience"?

One free copy of the game and rulebook "credit"?

The wonders of the gig economy for creative work!

I don't know how much I should say. The art community (directors included) at times runs on a system worse than high school level politics and gossip, if you know where I'm going with this.

The reviews on glassdoor Barnes pointed to say everything for you, Josh.

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.

Low pay is probably typical in game companies. In the second edition rules for the Villains & Vigilantes rpg, there was a random occupation table that included the result "game designer/bum." I laughed back then, but when I finally got a game published by a high-profile company based in Atlanta, my co-designer and I each received $300 and 3 copies of the game. Oh, and a complimentary hotel room plus meals and drinks at a game convention where we did some demo games.

It's a very real reminder that the boardgame industry is actually still really small. FFG is huge to us but still small potatoes outside of this hobby.

I'm still surprised they managed to get that Star Wars licence but then both them and Hasbro putting out boardgames under the same banner made me confused. I'm thinking there was some deal there, like - hey we'll let you release games because you're nothing next to us.

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.

Heh, lots of people mad at CP on there.

“Amazing co-workers and managers, but beware the Eye of Sauron ”