Okay, I’m gonna get myself in trouble here. So I was talking about Adobe and as I excited that the FTC is actually going after the mother lousy cancellation policy when people got all mad about they’re using our content as AI for AI. All right, but so why do people use companies like Adobe when there’s GIMP out there, there’s Davinci, there’s all kinds of stuff. Why would people use Photoshop and Premier and other products? Or I saw a video the other day, someone asking, why would somebody use Maya over blender? Because blender is free and don’t companies want to save money? Yeah, they do. They want to save money. And so what they want to do is have you, the employee, be the absolute best employee you can be, the highest productivity.
Because think about it this way. Each, let’s say you’re get paid $120,000 a year to be an artist in Seattle. With that, it’s, you’re about $60 an hour. Actually, it’s probably higher with that with once you get healthcare and healthcare is such a nightmare. But so let’s say you’re $60 an hour. Well, if you struggle for a day on a problem because the conversion of GIMP PSD files doesn’t work the same way that Photoshop does, and you struggle for an hour. That’s 60 bucks. Awesome. That subscription gets a little cheaper and it just keeps whittling down that way, right? And so think about it, when a company buys you a computer, they’re not buying you a computer out of the goodness of their heart. They want you to be working on the same computer everybody else is working on. So if there’s a problem, they can solve it. So for support, everybody’s using the same piece of software. Everybody knows how to support it. It’s on the same kind of machine, so everybody knows how to support that, right? And so you can also not even have to have like full support. You can just go talk to your friend and be like, hey, I’m having this problem with Photoshop. Can you help me with it? They can help you with it cuz they know about it and everybody knows about it and all the legacy of everything you’ve ever done at that companies in that same format. So it’s all supportive all the way back. So you lessen your support costs.
The other thing is when you come in this way is the companies themselves, like when you’re paying for the software, you get support. And we’ve had our tiny little company that nobody should care about, unreal, fixed a bug because it was hurting how we were using materials and we were using them in the right way and they had broken it and made a support clause with them so that I fixed it. That’s awesome, right? Like they cared enough because we had that relationship with them to fix a bug. And you see that across the board with all of the software. That’s what you get for it. And you also get, hey, we’re really stuck. How do we do this? And they’ll gonna come and help you, right? So you have that. And it just all works a lot cleaner and everybody’s coming in has been trained on it because you all know and professionally, that’s what you’re gonna use. You have this cohesiveness. And that’s why monopolies are bad ultimately, because it removes choice.
Sure. I mean, if you’re just working on your own and your own little indie project, Man, Rock on, use whatever software you want. But at big companies, this is why they do it. And if you want to get into a big company, this is why you learn it so that you fit in. Here is a way not to fit in at a company.
And you will then ask, I don’t understand why I was fired. Be the guy who cares about tools, not output, right? Cuz all these companies, think about it, they’re just looking at this going, here’s this math equation. We want output. We want to ship a game. How do we do that? What’s the cheapest way? Well, the cheapest way is actually buying a subscription because that thousand dollars a year is so cheap compared to losing 60 bucks an hour here and there, right? So, okay, they have that. But if you’re the tools guy where like, man, licenses suck, I only own my own software and that’s all I do. And I’m gonna be the one who stands out and I’m gonna make you support my.
Hey, wait, I’m having this problem with Kim. Can somebody help me here? And you’re gonna be standing on your hands because you can’t do any work, right? And again, you know, there’s exceptions, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like if a whole company changes over like the blender or something, I think somebody did that. Sure, rock on. But again and again, you’re gonna see, don’t be the tools person. I mean, accepting, unless you’re making tools for the system and everybody, sure, that kind of tools person, but I’m talking about the person and who cares more about the tools and they care about what the tools output. And you’ll see this a lot.
And this is what separates professionals from dabblers. Dabblers will get caught up in tools. They will tell me I’m using the wrong tool, that I am, oh, no, this thing is so much more cooler. But it’s like, it’s a one off weird thing and you have to learn it just for that. And like, oh yeah, it took me three weeks to learn how to do that. And I’m like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I ain’t gonna happen, right? So you if you wanna become a professional game developer at a company working with other people, you are gonna learn the tools everybody else is using. Because at the end of the day, those companies are trying to be efficient and cost effective and it is oddly cost effective to pay these subscription fees. And now let’s be clear, both Adobe, Auto Desk, all of these, if you’re a company, you’re not paying quite that same subscription. Actually, Adobe, you are at this start and then I think you graduate up. We never graduated up. And it was a real pain in the ass cuz I would have to buy licenses for each individual. And it was just a nightmare. Ado desk is like, no, you buy licenses for the company, then you give him, take him away as you want. That makes a lot easier.
Audio desks, back end. This is beautiful. Or Adobe is just a nightmare. But so, but they will then offer you discounts. I mean, auto test to be like, hey, we’re going on sale here. You should renew your subscription here and you’ll save, you know, half the amount of money, right? They could literally send you warnings about sales coming up so that you could save money because they know if you just stay on their platform, if they remove some of the reasons why you would leave, long term, it’s gonna benefit you and it’s gonna benefit them. And that’s why companies there were com, you know, big game companies stick with these services like Adobe and Auto Desk, right? And so again, you can be the person who’s insisting your desktops can be Linux and you’re gonna use GIMP and you’re gonna change the world.
Rock on. Like seriously, that is, I love that people push on those things. I love that Godo exists. I love that all of these things push against these others to make them better. But don’t think that you’re gonna walk in the Ubisoft then and be like, you guys got it all wrong. It ain’t gonna happen, right? It just doesn’t.
I’m sorry. Don’t be mad at me. It’s the system. Don’t hate the player, hate the game, right? That’s a good example of it. But that’s the way it is. And so if you want to get a job at a big company, if you wanna enter the game industry professionally, you want to learn these tools. And a tip for any indie developer, if you don’t want to be a dabbler, but you want to ship things, remember, I’m all about shipping. I don’t care about tools. I don’t care. I use Visual, Fox Pro from 1997, Visual Studio.
Okay. I don’t care about tools. Like I’m just doing the thing I’m most efficient with. You want to learn though? If you want to make games, if you want to ship games, learn how to be as most efficient as you can. And yes, you can tell me stories of the people who took six years to make something rock on.
That is cool. It is a different way to do it as, I mean, so this is my perspective. But if you want to ship, you want to learn the tools that make you most efficient and quickest to do it where you don’t have to think about it. And a lot of times, if you wanna see a bunch of tutorials and all of that, like you’re gonna see them in there and they’re gonna like, it’s just easier for me.
I personally have a subscription to the Adobe suite of tools, right? I hate that. I do. I hate that they got some game stuff and they didn’t include it in there. I got an argument with our support person about that one, but there you go. So is it a great system? No. But that’s why it exists. That’s what happens and why you should join the horrible system if you want a job in the game industry. I guess, I don’t know. Feel like I’m working for the other side on this one, but I just wanted to explain why this happens this way. Like companies aren’t stupid. There’s a reason for it and they’re just trying to be efficient.