General / Off-Topic The future of Britains Game industry

[Sunleader]

Interesting. I love Japan by the way .. worked there, four years (and visited Seoul too). Yo Ro Shi Ku ne.
Presumably (I could be wrong of course) games use the (international languages) of C++ computer code?

Player licenses and UI languages are different agreed (ED in Japanese??) but cross-pollination between developers, and artists, could be +1

Western Markets thanks to the same Problem also often dont go for the Japanese Market. Despite it being one of the Real Big Markets for this.

And well half.
By now. At least the bigger Companies do use the same programming Language.
I do in fact have some Games on my Computer (I like playing VNs) which required me to install some extra stuff as otherwise my Computer could not actually play these Games as he did not recognize certain parts of the signs used in the code.
In fact if you wanted to play VNs before just 1 or 2 years ago before local publishers started to port these games for the local market (which does not rarely require quite a bit of work and in some cases currently offered or announced for Steam takes em nearly 2 years for a Single Game) you usually got told to install Japanese Language and Software Packs right ahead because you would sooner or later hit a Game which your Computer would not be able to read. Either because he cannot read the code or because he cannot display the used signs.

Ok. As an sidenote. I just wanted to Copy Paste the Path used on my Harddisk to one of my VNs into the ED Forum xD
But the ED Forum cant Read the signs and just deletes or replaces them xD


And well Barriers are not Unbreachable.
There is always ways around.
But Barriers mean that you have to make this effort to Breach them
And this effort Costs Money.
Making it less attractive.

One Reason why many Japanese Games never appear on the Western Market is exactly these Barriers.
Of course breaking them is Possible. But the effort would be too Expensive to yield much Profit.

Online Platforms and Distirbution on large Scale. Like Steam.
Finally made this more possible.


Another thing you can easily Check.
Is just how much Physical Copies of Japanese Games Cost in the West.
Titles which are A or B+ Ratings (so not Triple A but not Bad either)
Which would cost maybe 30 Bucks if they were from a Company over here.
Easily come up to 50-70 Bucks if they are from Japan. The Price Increase for the West versions is often real Crazy. As someone actually having done that over Years I can tell you this is an heck of an Expensive Hobby
There is a reason why even Nintendo which is one of the earliest Japan Games Exporter to the West. Is having most of its Games Published by local Publishers instead of Shipping them themselves.

But thats the thing.
Imagine that Elite Dangerous would just cost 20 Bucks more in the EU than in the UK
(Again I know the Example is Extreme. The Barriers for the UK even after leaving the EU will still be much smaller than Japan ^^ but just for the sake of explanation )
That would likely not only cause quite the Crabstorm it would also reduce Sales considerably.


Albeit ED is one of the Safer Titles here to begin with.
As its an Online Game and mostly Distributed Online its fairly Unaffected by this.

Actually worse off will be Studios which still do alot of Physical Copies for their Games.
Especially Console Game Studios are likely to be Hit way Harder by this than the Studios for PC Games.
Because they are still much more reliant on Physical Copies which then need to pass the Border Taxes etc...


Edit:
Also I envy you a bit for that by the way ^^
I still hope that at some Point I can get a Longer Vacation to Japan.
Right now I just got too much on my Plate to get time for that.


Albeit well I am German. So I am way more Inclined to like the Japanese to begin with.
Aside from being our WW2 Allies and sharing the Culture of Industrial and Military ancestry. Their demeanor somehow feels more familiar than other Cultures around.
There is also this funny thing that somehow the Languages around Europe mostly do not have this Difference between Polite and Friendly addressing.
In German the word "You" comes in two forms. One being "Sie" which is the more polite way of "you". And one being "Du" which is the normal form of "you".
The Japanese share this as they got "kimi" and "omae"
While most other European Languages somehow dont make this difference at all. Or make it by using different context in the Sentence.

Its somehow a bit of an Odd Soulmate case I guess xD




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no Patrick, you're the one confused.

The EU "freedom.of movement" only means that, for EU citizens, there is a reduction in the administrative barriers to living and working in other countries.

Are the UK immigrants living in Spain who don't learn the language, live in groups and aren't even the same religion as the local Spanish a "dangerous scourge" to the unity of Spain?

Are the Eastern European builders, cleaners, accountants, photographers etc threatening the UK?

Or are you, as I suspect, actually talking about muslim and black migrants from the middle east and Africa?

You must be aware that those immigrants are nothing to do with "freedom.of movement"?

Well would not surprise me at least.
After all he also went right ahead claiming that after leaving the EU the UK would not have to Deal with Refugees anymore.

Entirely ignoring that the EU has absolutely nothing to do with the Refugee Laws of the UK.
The EU is asking other Countries all over to also Accept Refugees. But this wont stop after the UK leaves the EU xD

 

[beelbeebub]

A games programme (or any other large scale software development programme) will span over months and years, if you need a skill set that can't be found locally, you'll have arranged it ahead of the work schedule and have organised any requirements for this upfront, this is done a lot right now across closed borders, especially between North America, Europe and India.

Tight deadlines for deliverables yes but not on staffing as the programmes of work span a large timeframe and have a lot of planning around them

And as winterwalker points out, there are also fast track border controls for highly skilled areas too, put in place to enable these industries to prosper. This wouldn't stop because of Brexit...

I think you guys are doom and glooming again lol

it's simply that it will put extra impediments in the way.

Say you are a London based Dev.

You need an expert in AI. Do you look for the absolute best person you can find regardless of budget or do you have a budget?

Say it's money no object. The best guy (or gal) in the field is Italian. So you need a visa for them. The catch is that there is an annual quota and the limit has been reached, maybe you wait til next year? Or maybe there is a lottery for visas, so you keep your fingers crossed. Maybe the are visa waivers for certain worker classes, but is AI expert one of them?

Then there's the question of their partner and family, can they come? What about the wife/husbands work? The AI expert may be un a waiver scheme but the wife is an accountant, which isn't so can she work? Can the kids go to school?

The point of freedom.of movement was to.cut down on he paperwork and admin barriers to labour movement. That means that hiring international workers, either because they are the best or they are cheaper or simply they will do the work, is no longer the preserveof big companies with huge HR depts amd the experience to navigate the paperwork, but smaller firms too.

 

[FuzzySpider]

A games programme (or any other large scale software development programme) will span over months and years, if you need a skill set that can't be found locally, you'll have arranged it ahead of the work schedule and have organised any requirements for this upfront, this is done a lot right now across closed borders, especially between North America, Europe and India.

Have you ever worked on a large project?

In anything engineering related, circumstances change constantly and the workforce is always in flux. Anything from sickness, to injury, to maternity/paternity leave, to a key staff member finding a new job, to the project itself changing can create the need for new people.

I suspect that game development is no different.

Aside from that, what about that dreaded thing that the EU is supposed to cause that holds up business and justs adds costs to everything - red tape. Why should a company who wants to hire a Spaniard or Pole or Finn be subjected to all of this?

What is the real reason that other human beings, some of them posting in this very thread, must be automatically subject to extra layers of government scrutiny based upon their place of origin when those extra layers add costs that everyone else has to pay?

 

[Winterwalker]

Aside from that, what about that dreaded thing that the EU is supposed to cause that holds up business and justs adds costs to everything - red tape. Why should a company who wants to hire a Spaniard or Pole or Finn be subjected to all of this?

Well the Brexit argument would be that everybody in the UK subsidises exporter (shareholders) by being nett national contributors to what was, osetnsibly at least, a trade agreement.

Alternatively if investment from Europe hires UK workers, the proceeds leave the country untaxed or same with no taxation on imports, money hemorrhages the country, causing under-funding on infrastructure either way.

If your company is profiting from imported workers, should that pressure on infrastructure be taxed?
52% said at least, it should not be automatically subsidised.

 

[kaivalagi]

Have you ever worked on a large project?

Yes, currently on a circa £80mil programme as the integration architect, we are using a lot of offshore workers and rotate them onshore too, all from India (not the EU), not an issue at all.....the current processes are working just fine for us. Some of the guys who are here for a few years bring family too.

I really don't see the issue, yes a little red tape will be involved for EU workers post leaving but it's not like we haven't got this issue with non-EU members, and in all honesty most of the valued staff I've worked with over a lot of various programmes have not come from the EU either, in the last 5 years I know of one decent dutch guy, and another German, the rest have been UK predominately (we have a great software industry and some clever people within our borders) and a few from the US, with a lot of the code monkeys from India

Where there is a need for highly skilled overseas workers for the UK to prosper there will be border controls to support things, we're leaving the EU, that's not changing, so this is what will be and it ain't all that bad. Yes, it'll be more hassle for EU workers than before, but it's not like we live in an EU bubble where nothing else exists, these processes already exist for non-EU workers.

 

[FuzzySpider]

Yes, currently on a circa £80mil programme as the integration architect, we are using a lot of offshore workers and rotate them onshore too, all from India (not the EU), not an issue at all.....the current processes are working just fine for us. Some of the guys who are here for a few years bring family too.

Never does a large project start by hiring all the staff it needs at the outset and then keeping all of those staff through to completion of said project. Never.

Things happen.

I really don't see the issue, yes a little red tape will be involved for EU workers post leaving but it's not like we haven't got this issue with non-EU members, and in all honesty most of the valued staff I've worked with over a lot of various programmes have not come from the EU either, in the last 5 years I know of one decent dutch guy, and another German, the rest have been UK predominately (we have a great software industry and some clever people within our borders) and a few from the US, with a lot of the code monkeys from India

The experts in the industry do see the issue. They have described the visa process as being burdensome already.

Where there is a need for highly skilled overseas workers for the UK to prosper there will be border controls to support things,

The competency of the UK in this regard is highly questionable.

we're leaving the EU, that's not changing, so this is what will be and it ain't all that bad.

That could be changed. Also, they could continue to allow freedom of movement for EU citizens, even join Schengen. Allow business to thrive, allow cultures to mix, allow people to find new homes and build new lives etc. Everyones a winner except for odd lunatic who is obsessed with keeping out foreigners but who totally isn't racist. Why on earth make things harder than they are now in this regard? What is the advantage?

Yes, it'll be more hassle for EU workers than before, but it's not like we live in an EU bubble where nothing else exists, these processes already exist for non-EU workers.

We live in an EU market and are reaping the benefits of it. The processes that exist for non-EU workers have caused damage in themselves, applying it to the EU (which has major investments in education and training in many of its countries) is kind of like sawing your own hand off to avoid shaking hands with foreigners. You're going to hurt yourself more than you hurt them. Game development isn't the same as construction or manufacturing - if the talent becomes harder to move than the studio then the studio will go elsewhere, and will take the tax it pays with it.

 

[Boomer Kay]

The experts in the industry do see the issue. They have described the visa process as being burdensome already.

Well, the indian offshore guys he's talking about make between 6,000 and 14,000 EUR .. a year .. at home.
For the kind of money they get payed in the UK, they'd take 10times the hassle.
Well paying UK jobs are mostly offset by the high living cost in UK metropolies. Add to that the risky pound conversion rate and all of a sudden, that job doesn't look to appealing for a EU talent.
So if the companies still want to hire from the EU, they need to pay more. Works fine in Switzerland. My friend from school makes about 4k swiss francs a month post tax .. as carpenter. Swiss franc is brutally overvalued and if he's frugal, he can make a fortune there that he could never have made over here in that job.
Switzerland is the top expat destination for highly qualified German employees.

 

[Edith_The_Hutt]

To add a few facts to the debate, here is a simple guide for applying for the most common type of work visa the UK offers: https://www.gov.uk/tier-2-general/overview

This is the visa most skilled workers from outside the EU currently have to attain to work in the UK, as you can see it's not particularly cheap or simple to attain. The Certificate of Sponsorship required by the employer is similarly bureaucratically cumbersome.

 

[beelbeebub]

Yes, currently on a circa £80mil programme as the integration architect, we are using a lot of offshore workers and rotate them onshore too, all from India (not the EU), not an issue at all.....the current processes are working just fine for us. Some of the guys who are here for a few years bring family too.

I really don't see the issue, yes a little red tape will be involved for EU workers post leaving but it's not like we haven't got this issue with non-EU members, and in all honesty most of the valued staff I've worked with over a lot of various programmes have not come from the EU either, in the last 5 years I know of one decent dutch guy, and another German, the rest have been UK predominately (we have a great software industry and some clever people within our borders) and a few from the US, with a lot of the code monkeys from India

Where there is a need for highly skilled overseas workers for the UK to prosper there will be border controls to support things, we're leaving the EU, that's not changing, so this is what will be and it ain't all that bad. Yes, it'll be more hassle for EU workers than before, but it's not like we live in an EU bubble where nothing else exists, these processes already exist for non-EU workers.

So you're saying the proposed £1000 per head fee for non-UK workers that was floated (although may well have been shot down by now) wouldn't have impacted you £80mil project in any way?

Ok it wouldn't have sunk it, but that's not the issue, it would have impacted it even if just a few tens of thousands of pounds and some extra paperwork.

The point is that pretty much anywhere we go from here will add a bit of extra complexity and cost to anyone with a need for non UK labour.

And for what? Blue passports? (which we could have had anyway - Croatia have black, apparently the burgundy was just the default). Going back to imperial measures (really? -idiots) or maybe being able to use 19th century tech incandescent light bulbs instead of 21st century light bulbs?