Video Game Studios Embrace Transparent Pay to Battle Wage Discrimination

(Bloomberg) -- Siobhan Beeman, a video game programmer, was recently preparing to leave a job when she mentioned to a co-worker what she had been getting paid. “Wow,” the co-worker said, by Beeman’s recollection. “You’re making less money than me.”

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The colleague, who didn’t have as much experience as Beeman and whose title was one notch lower, was getting paid $15,000 more a year, Beeman said. So when she was interviewing for a new job earlier this year at an independent game developer called Gardens, Beeman was thrilled to hear that the company had a transparent salary policy.

Gardens was founded last year by experienced developers who had worked previously on high-profile games such as Marvel’s Spider-Man and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, with the mission to create a more humane, healthier work environment than many other game companies. While it may not be able to compete with bigger studios in prestige or job security, Gardens is betting that its approach, including fair and transparent pay, will be a draw for talent. It was for Beeman.

“There’s that security of knowing you’re not leaving money on the table,” she said. “You're not getting undervalued compared to other people doing the same job.”

Wage discrepancy has become a major issue among video game workers in recent years, part of a broader reckoning over working conditions throughout an industry notorious for long hours and allegations of sexism and discrimination against women. In the UK, which requires companies to report their gender pay gaps, men at game companies were making 17.1% more than women in 2021, according to Gamesindustry.biz. That’s more than double the median pay gap across all professions in the country.

In the US, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing sued the video game publisher Activision Blizzard Inc. last year for sexual misconduct and discrimination, including unfair pay. League of Legends developer Riot Games agreed to a $100 million settlement in a similar case, and a former PlayStation employee sued the company alleging gender pay discrimination and wrongful termination after she spoke up about the issue. Activision says it’s working to make its workplace culture more inclusive, and has recently named more women to the board, and Riot said at the time of the settlement that it has improved its culture in recent years. Sony Group Corp. denied the allegations in the case. Read more about how pay transparency in tech could reduce racial and gender inequities

For decades, sharing or talking about salaries was considered taboo, and for many workers it can still feel uncomfortable. But in the last few years, 17 states and municipalities have enacted some form of salary transparency laws, including New York, which will mandate later this year that job listings include salary ranges. David Turetsky, vice president of consulting at Salary.com, said those regulations have encouraged more companies to be open about pay, which he said will help them recruit and retain staff. “The market is best run when everybody has full information,” he said.

Stephen Bell, a co-founder of Gardens, said employees have been very receptive to having open wages. “Not only was a push for pay equity right and fair,” he said, “it really helped attract amazing talent that had wanted to see this kind of change happen, and it helped us stand out a bit.”

It’s unlikely that big video game companies such as Activision — whose Chief Executive Officer, Bobby Kotick, took home almost $300 million of stock last year from a set of old equity awards — and Electronic Arts Inc. will be quick to adopt similar policies. But pay transparency is becoming popular among smaller game companies that are often founded by former workers of the gaming giants who say they want to do things better.

Lightforge Games, an independent game studio launched in 2020 by former Blizzard and Epic Games Inc. employees, implemented a transparent salary policy during its early days. Every role and level at the company is now standardized, with a specific number attached to it, and an internal spreadsheet with everyone’s salaries is accessible to anyone who works there.

“I think it helps crowdsource accountability to the whole company,” said CEO Matt Schembari. “It definitely makes some conversations harder, but that’s kind of the point.”

Schembari said he thinks most, if not all, of his employees feel good about working for a company where salaries are open and fair. He said that even those who have taken pay cuts to join Lightforge “express relief to know that we’re doing the right thing, that they’re part of an equitable organization.”

Disbelief, an outsourcing company that provides technical support for big video game franchises like Borderlands and Gears of War, was one of the first gaming studios to offer transparent salaries. When it announced in 2018 that every title would correspond to one specific, open salary, the firm saw a huge jump in applications. Steve Anichini, co-founder and chief technology officer, said that in four years of following the practice, he hasn’t seen any downside. “Honestly, I can’t think of a single time anyone’s brought it up as a problem,” he said.

Anichini said other gaming companies have begun to show interest in following a similar model. “Any time studio heads are curious about it, I set aside some time to talk to them,” he said. “I think the industry would be better if more people did this.”

If there’s a potential negative to the practice, it’s that companies may find it more difficult to be competitive in luring top talent. Some companies use bonuses or flexible pay tiers to account for that. Others don’t think it will be a significant hindrance. “My personal feeling is that if you’re trying to maximize personal income at all cost, I don’t know that you’re in the games industry to begin with,” said Anichini.

At first, some employees say it can be uncomfortable for everyone to see one another’s salaries, but soon it begins feeling like the norm. Chris Wood, founder of the UK-based video game outsourcing firm Tanglewood Games, said his company began implementing the practice in March. Although they’re still tweaking the numbers and figuring out what kind of salary tiers make the most sense, so far the experiment has been successful, he said.

“Our company is run by programmers,” Wood said. “We've worked for places where these things are very much not talked about, and we’ve worked for places where they’re a little bit more open. We definitely favor the openness.”

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