Title days “devs” article says HR and QA most laid off. Those aren’t devs…
Still, it does sound like employees in gaming companies should unionise!
QA aren’t devs? I would like to know your definition of development.
Most QA titles have very little to do even with QA itself. If QA doesn’t start at ideation, you’re not doing QA.
If you think QAs are software developers, I’d like to know what you think QA stands for. Hint, it doesn’t stand for developer.
Inb4 “they develop tests”: so an event planner is also a developer then because they “develop a programme” and the words “develop” and “programme” are in the job description.
If you’re trying to hint that Quality Assurance doesn’t have “developer” in the title, therefore they aren’t part of development, I better tell all of the programmers, tech leads and game directors I know that they aren’t real developers either.
Bro, what? Being part of the development process doesn’t make you a developer. The hell? So you think somebody who has never even seen a line of code and manages a team of developers is a developer? You seriously want to tell me that the finance director of a construction company can call himself a builder because he manages the money needed to pay the builders? Jeff Bezos is a top paid developer at Amazon because he developed a strategy to R&D the fuck out everything and signed off on a product?
Also, I thought it was obvious that my sentence about a “programme developer” not being a software developer would make it pretty obvious, that the presence or lack of “developer” in the title isn’t the defining attribute of the job.
lol… do you think that only coders go to gdc?
pfftt…hahahah ah, this is hilarious.
Jeff Bezos is a top paid developer at Amazon
and btw, jeff doesn’t even work at amazon anymore.
Make random comparisons from other industries all you want, this whole conversation is about game devs and to think that people inherently involved in the development of a game “are not developers” is absolutely part of the industry’s current problems.
This ancient attitude is the same upper management position where cutting swathes of knowledgable established QA will bring short term profits only to later hire even more fresh QAs, often contractors or outsourced.
You think QA has never seen a line of code? If we ignore what another commenter mentioned that there are high level QA jobs that are very technical, or are literally coding positions, even a lot of entry level QA also have formal education on game design. Many go on to be designers, coders, artists. Do they only become actual developers then?
What’s the imaginary line to being part of game dev to you?
There’s absolutely no need to call QAs, product owners, HR, finance personnel, or janitors “devs” because they work in or for a gaming company. They have roles and it’s completely fine for them not to be devs.
Make random comparisons from other industries all you want
I thought it would help with understanding and provide perspective, but it seems like the shutters are down and bolted. Understanding cannot penetrate the fortress of “everybody in a gaming company is a developer”.
This ancient attitude is the same upper management position where cutting swathes of knowledgable established QA will bring short term profits only to later hire even more fresh QAs, often contractors or outsourced.
What does this have anything to do with definition of developers? Diddly squat. Upper management will fire anybody with little to no understanding of their function because they consider everybody below them to be a number on a sheet; a replaceable cog in the machine.
You think QA has never seen a line of code?
What are you on about? Seeing a line of code doesn’t make you a developer. Reading memes about coding doesn’t make you a developer, shocker.
What’s the imaginary line to being part of game dev to you?
Being part of the game development process does not make you a developer. How many times do I have to repeat this? If you write the game, you’re a developer, otherwise you have another role on the team that is not game development. It’s that easy.
You design a character? Not a developer. You test the game? Not a developer? You develop the story and draw the art? Not a developer. None of that is writing the game’s code.
You can be both a developer and an artist, for sure, if you write the game’s code.
What are you on about? Seeing a line of code doesn’t make you a developer.
I feel like I only need to reply to this, because this is the second time I’ve directly replied to something you said using your own words, to then have you say those words don’t matter.
It also completely ignores the point I was making that some “QA” code, some pick through code, some may not understand it at all, but why are any of those not classed as developers?
You design a character? Not a developer. You test the game? Not a developer? You develop the story and draw the art? Not a developer. None of that is writing the game’s code. You can be both a developer and an artist, for sure, if you write the game’s code.
Oh I see, so you are indeed only calling programmers developers. Absolutely unhinged take.
Where I worked QA did nothing else but programming. They were writing automated tests for anything we worked on.
There are devs who work in QA, automated tests absolutely need software developers.
So while not all QA are devs, but some QA absolutely are.
