that sux dude

Well man, if you're not making as much money as doing something you've been doing at home, I say leave.

If you get paid more being an independent flash artist, just quit. Your work will speak for itself, so don't worry about "work experience". £50 a week is outrageous, and way below the LEGAL minimum wage for the hours you work.

Working that many hours a week for shit pay is not right, so don't put up with it.

You're definitely not making a living wage, the hours seem excessive. If this seems like what the rest of the team is going through, and what other possible jobs for you will be like, then it might be safest to stay.

Otherwise, leave, because it sounds terrible.

Man, thats a difficult situation. I think it really comes down to learning and experience. If you feel you are meeting good people, and making good long term connections, and hell, if you feel your learning a lot every day, then even thought he wage sucks, and your parents arn't super happy, i would stay.

But if every day, you go in, and they say "draw this" and you draw it, then you dont get any more exposure. Then it might be worth it to leave.

I think the most important thing about any intro level job, is to get the experience and exposure you need, so that some day you can get a real awsome job.

Good luck, and whatever choice you make, just make sure you are happy with it!

If they need an animator so bad, tell them about how you feel and they'll probably realise that raising your salary is cheaper than finding someone new.

I would say don't bother with it if they aren't paying you enough.

There are more stable companies out there so when you do this as a job eventually, just make sure they can sustain your economic needs.

How much do the other people in the team get payed for similar hours? I mean, it sounds like a nice job IF you were getting payed reasonably.

Wow this is tricky... I guess suicide is the only option left. :'(

...

Nah im kiddin just quit the job and get a new one

Isn't there some minimum wage kind of thing over there?
Cause that does seem like not much at all for the time you're putting in.
It doesn't make sense to me that minimum wage here in Israel, a country poorer than England, has better minimum wage than over there.

And if they're not paying you minimum wage, fuck them. They basically took you cause they assumed they could get away with this kind of SHENANIGANS.

They are paying as much as a damn paperboy, with insane hours. Leave.

So they mistreet you and disrespect your position...just quit.

Hmm.

If it was me, i'd give it a little more time.
Atleast TRY and see if it really is worth it for you.

Oh and minimum wage for an 18 year old is just on or is £5, it goes up to about £5.75 eventually, i think that when your 20 or 22...

Either way it's not much.

You need to establish what you and the team are making and there is no way what so ever they can misguide it as you being a twat.

You're entitled to fair work right and a good work eniroment and it obviously sounds like you don't want to be there due to your own judgements of the team.

Establish some information from your 'fellow emplyees' so you can find some piece of mind and try and come up to a better decision.

I think, if your playing a big enough part of the team you may want to stick around, if you have a xbla game or whatever on your resume then I think that may be worth the extra several weeks of sticking around, because your skipping college and getting something that you can put on an application for an job you will ultimately get paid well and love doing then I think you should stick with it. Atleast until you see your name in the credits, then make like a tree and get the fuck out of there.

Work is hard to find. What are your other options?

And I know this is off your point, but a statue of Big Boss sounds pretty awesome.

Hell no, 50 a week? fuck that. I make more money in retail. Youd be better off freelancing.

It sounds like they're basically scamming you. You have little to no professional experience in the industry and haven't had any pay from such a company before. So, they feel they can pay you less than they would have to pay someone who has been in a similar profession, say, 5 years. They're taking advantage of you, simple as that. You need to stand up and say, hey, if you can get someone else to do it for free, great, but I'm not going to work for this little. Especially if you expect overtime.

If the money doesn't matter to you and you like working there, then by all means stay. Your parents seem to be the biggest problem here as they have problems with what you're doing, but what you should do is make clear to them why you work there, why you want to work there and why it's important that they do not interfere.

Sure, it might not be an ideal job when it comes to making money and having good hours, but work experience (having to work in a team) will eventually prove more valuable than the money you could've been making.

Whatever it is you choose to do, remember that is no wrong choice. Every choice you can make will come with it's own opportunities and will offer a different kind of profit. What's most important is what you make of those opportunities, so if you choose to stay, make sure people know about your choice and respect that that's what you've chosen. And if you decide to quit, make sure to work hard to either improve by yourself or to find something else that suits you.
Whatever the choice you make, commit to doing what makes you happy.

Iffy situation. Atleast you can out that you've had SOME experience on your resumes now >.>

£50 for a week?! You're 18, you should be earning hundreds more than that.

Forgot to say, if you like your job that much ask them to pay for your travel fairs.

Apply for other jobs, once you have a secured job, confront your boss and discuss wages and hours. I hope this helped.

If you live in Manchester and they are paying you £1 an hour, you could actually sue them for a great deal of money.

Breaking the minimum wage laws in such a grotesque manner is a serious criminal offence for any company.

You can't really benifit from this anymore than you already have, id say leave. I would think the only reason to stay is to build experiance for another job but youve already done that. Leave and start the search again

It sounds like you're being semi-blackmailed into staying; "If I leave, the boss may pass along a bad word to other companies." That doesn't sound pleasant, and certainly shouldn't be a reason for staying.
No-one can really decide for you, since you're the only one who knows all of the details; how nice they all are and the like. However, if it was the boss who said that they could get a better person for free, I think it would be better to leave 'for the good of the company'.

Also, keep in mind that the company/boss/whoever can find this and look at it, so be careful with what you say.

you could look at it as an internship. (free education while putting something on resume, basically). depends how close this project is to finishing and if it will be released to the public on any scale. i'd stick around until you have a complete project with them under your belt but if thats gonna take another year, i'd look for other jobs BEFORE you quit. if you still hate the job so much go back to indie dev till you find another REAL job then.

Wait wtf? Usually people doing contracting get paid MORE than most full time people since you don't get benefits and stuff... It just makes me wonder.. If your getting paid this shit salary and kids in 6th grade mowing there neighbors lawns are getting paid more than you.. How much do the full time people get?

I guess if your doing stuff where your learning a bunch of things that could help you later in the game industry you might be getting something out of it.. But if you are just doing a repetitive things that you already know then this job isnt worth shit and you should quit...

But hey you just gotta weigh each choice and pick out the positives and negatives of both sides of staying/quitting...

Good luck

Quit now and make your own games.

You don't have to quit your current job before you start looking for a new job. You can start looking now, and if you don't find something, you can always keep your current job. All that's really necessary is that if you do indeed find something better, you need to give your current job two weeks notice. That's the civil thing to do at least.

As for your current pay situation - that is abysmal, especially for the hours you put into it. If the game is released, and you get a percentage of the earnings, that might make things worth-while in the long run. But if you don't think its going to sell well, or you aren't getting any cut of the profits, you are working for sweat-shop wages. I did some math, and for your current work hours, you're making a pound an hour. I've made more money taking a shit.

So yeah, that's my two cents.

you cant really get other ppl to decide for you
it's your life and you descision
and it doesn't help that we ourselves are not in that position
so your gonna have to figure out how you're gonna direct your own life

and if you do need a opinion I'm absolutely sure you can get a better job and your wage sucks for those hours you'll meet better people elsewhere anyway

besides someone is gonna figure out why you should stay and once you do you might regret it

or maybe not... you never know

Obviously they can't "get a mate to do it for free," or they would have by now. If you're considering quitting anyway, why not at least try to work out a better deal ('cuz it sounds like they need you more than you need them :P). Flat out tell them ...you signed on to work 10-6:30, and those are the hours you will work. If they want you to stay late and/or work weekends, you'd be happy to renegotiate your salary.

...what ever you decide, Good luck!

If they have money to buy a $500 dollar statue of Big Boss they aren't putting money in the right places. I think you hit the nail right on the head when you said "That's my wages for the next six weeks". And your boss is trying to get you to take lower wages, with unpaid overtime?

I mean honestly, it's like saying that the statue is worth more than 6 weeks of your time. They feel a statue of Big Boss would benefit the company more then at least trying to pay their employees decently.

I've never been employed so I can't tell you what to do. The real world experience with at least some sort of pay is better then a free internship, and if you enjoy it then stay. If you want some sort of decent pay with decent hours maybe you should look around. Honestly though, if it were me, I would stay.

As somebody who has always wanted to work in the games industry, I say do it - you don't have to go to a boring degree, you get to be DOING SOMETHING. I envy you! You say that the pay sucks, but you also said there is a lot of work to do in a short amount of time. I assume that means you will be done soon! Thus, should your company require you again, you can ask for a pay rise, and if they decline you can leave with another project on your resume. If you leave, you leave with little gain and an angry company sure to put in a bad word for you should you try to get a job somewhere else. Slug it out if you really want this to go through!
Also, degrees are hard, AND you have to actually PAY to get them.

"I've definately heard "If we didn't have you, I could get a mate to do it for free." which I find insulting and kind of hard to believe."

Yeah, I'd quit. See if they can really get an animator for free. If you like the team, then... try and keep in touch? I dunno, it is a bit of a pickle.

I'm gonna go click all your ads because I feel sorry for you. <3

if you can make more money with your own games i'd go ahead and quit dude. as fucking cool as that job is, you could be saving and making a lot more money from home (plus no travel expenses either)

i gotta applaud you on goin straight for the big game instead of plodding about for 3 years in university

Can you say, "That blows major ass!"

Because it's way past that, bro.

Yeah a lot of new companies are just fucking stupid when it comes to basically... everything.

Perhaps at the time they bought the Big Boss Statue, they figured they were ok financially. I am kinda in the same situation, a small company asked me to make mini games for their site and at first wanted each game for $50.. Since then they raised to $100-$200 per game. I know I would be getting ripped off for the amount of time Id be working on the games, but the woman there says she will introduce me to many higher up people in the industry.

I dont think I am going to take the job though. I am never that great with people anyways, so knowing people in the industry probably wont do a whole lot for me, unless I could somehow hire them or use them to make my games better.

But you are basically forced to work long hours for little pay. (no idea how much a quid is though in canadian dollars). And if they are talking to you about lowering your pay, thats even worse. I think what you need to do, is find out what your finished product of the game is going to look like. Ask yourself if you think the game will be good enough to continue working on. If it is, then it will open up tons of doors for you and thats when you can quit the shitty job or they will start paying you more by then.

Also you can ask them for a percentage of whatever money the game makes.

Some people might even volunteer their time to do a job like that, but they would have to be enjoying themselves to do it. Just make sure you are having fun and not working long hours like that and free up your weekends more. Otherwise I would say quit. If you are enjoying yourself stay, otherwise.. yeah, talk to them and see if things can change..

working for other people is almost always complete and utter shit.(with the occasional good job)

you know you can make more money working on your own stuff, and you should do that.

I don't have much to add, what with this being discussed at length already, but what I can say is that you should consider the option of making it Very Clear to them that you're about to quit and why, and see if that's any leverage at all for improving your situation. If they still treat you like shit, then you should probably leave because they think you're some kind of extra, useless part of the team.

This is what you should do before quitting if that's what you decide; if you decide it's worth putting up with the BS in the long run, then threatening to quit probably isn't a good idea.

Fuck THAT. Imho you're one of the freshest flash game designers out there, why are you wasting your time with people that obviously dont appreciate your talent?

If you sat and made games full time you'd make probably 10 times as much money and after a year have an awesome portfolio full of games. Youve already got a name for yourself and should be building on that, not being shat on by the man just so you can put their name on your CV. Just because they are an established studio doesnt mean they can treat you like shit and pay fuck all.

Quit that shitty job and make some more sweet games, its the best thing for you, you aint some generic animator.

ooo, you're definitely in between a rock and a hard place.

50 pounds conberts to about 80 usd
my parents make atleast 400 usd a week each
and they have pretty shitty jobs.

Oh hey remember me? I left comment on robot dinasuars. No i don't mean RAWRSOME!!!!!!!!!!!! But that was ironic and funny tho.

So what happened?

I had a similar situation when I got into Architecture, my friend had an even worse situation in the animation industry back home in L.A. He worked on.. a primetime Fox cartoon... for 2 years out of college for NO PAY. $0. 2 years. Eventually he got hired on full time hourly. Now that the show's cancelled, he's focusing on freelance and personal projects.

I got hired at what turned out to be an architectural sweatshop for a year. It was horrible though (in contrast to your experience). I eentually and left and created my own potfolio for architecture (brandtpileggi.com) but more importantly found out that I wanted to start doing comedic stuff like websites (awesomeology.org) and improv and standup. I woiuld have never figured that out if I stayed I think because by the time I got off work my mind, body and soul were spent on someone else's needs. I'm much happier now. Have pretty much all I need and want.

I believe we all go through the shit we go throuh for a reason. That year of hell for me made me really appreciate what have now and work my ass off. My friend learned the same. If I have any advice to impart it wouldbe that whatever decision you make wil be the correct one. I know that can't possibly solve anything for you but just know that people have gone through this same thing and come out better for it either way. If you stay the company will do well and you'll do well with them (not guarunteed), or they'll continueto take advantage of your abilities until they sink. What the pattern seems to be with friends n the game industry is that with small groups, someone eventually embezzles the money, everyon gets screwed and people that really got along and enjoyed working together split off to do their own thing.

If you leave however... I understand that in the previous year you believe your production was pretty low with 2 games but let me ask you this. Does the process speed up witheach game you make? Is it likely to assuem that trend will continue and you'll get more production out of the same time spent doing it? Did you spend 10-12 hours/day AND weekends doing your games as you are theirs? If you did, do you think your production go up? I tend to think that if you want to get out of this place, and had the discipline to put in the same hours on your own work, not only would the production climb higher than you expect but obviously the quality would as well.

I think you have a hard choice in a hard industry. I think you are undervaluing a great portfolio. I know most of them want shipped titles and all that, but I've seen people with rediculous portfolios and no indutry experience get $75k jobs with good companies.

Me? When they said that they could get someone to come in and do it for free, I wouldhave asked if they could do it as well as you, and if they said yes, I'd say, "Well why the fuck aren't they here right now helping us get this shit out asshole!?"

Make your connections. Work on the weekends with people you like on your own shit. Build up your portflio, and when you have something good, portfolio or product, take your friends and bounce. While you're at it, leave a deuce on the bosses desk with a toothpick and a small sign that reads, "Resignation Letter"

I hope that helps somewhat. If you need any help, I'd be happy to brainstorm, write or record omething for you. Games with alot of humor do well (mastermind?). And you clearly have a good sense of humor. Hit me up.