Game workers do not receive any residuals/royalties on shipped titles and shipping bonuses are increasingly rare. There's also no guarantee that your name will even be in the credits if you leave before ship, and studios will use this to keep you compliant.

All of this can and should change.

March 30, 2026 - 03:15 UTC

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It only makes sense. If musicians can get royalties for copies of music sold, then devs should get royalties for copies of games sold.
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I am regularly instructed to move any non-current developers to Special Thanks, retroactively erasing their contributions.
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I got Special Thanks on my first two games. One because the publisher had another company finish off the game after Alpha. Second because the company went under and another company finished game.

On the bright side, those games have terrible Metacritic, and my first full credit is on Crackdown.
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I've been in the industry for over 15 years and I think my name is in the credits of like one (1) thing I've worked on. It's depressing ngl
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It's indeed outrageous.

I also find extremely annoying that any credits for support workers on a film are listed at such a speed that human eye can't read them, and those credits are often cut out completely for TV.

I wonder if they get any royalties.
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People writing in the academy need to see ourselves as akin. Our words are our craft, and we need a union to help us fight for recognition and dignity in our own workplaces. Thank you for the reminder and solidarity!
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if you worked on a thing your name should be on it
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no matter how small the credits. I think we should have an industry award for least important, yet real contribution
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They will however, tell you all about bonus structures in your interview and then you'll later find out that your projects/studio will never qualify for them.
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The number of times mid-interview I've been asked to compromise on salary and been promised shares in lieu of pay, which have such a low chance of paying out. 🙄
(I reply calmly that shares won't pay the bills I have now, and that my requested salary is appropriate for my location and skill level.)
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F* AAA. This is an Industrie what could die. And I think it should
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There’s no guarantee your name gets in the credits even if you are still employed when the game ships. It’s crazy.
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Seconding this
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Had this happen a few times now. It’s really shitty.

Spend a year plus working on the game? Nope sorry, you joined a month too late to be in the credits. Granted the game didn’t ship for another 8mo out and had only been in development for about 6mo.

But fuck you, no credit.
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Yeah that's terrible.

In 1994, the SquareSoft programmer Nasir Gebelli was able to make enough off the royalties of the first three Final Fantasy games and Secret of Mana to retire. He's not had to un-retire. He's able to live off those royalties to this day.

It should still be like that.
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Arguably, with the amount of people making AAA titles these days, it'd have diminishing returns... Maybe they shouldn't make games that require 5000 people to make and can only make a profit if none of them get paid fairly.

Just a thought. Maybe AAA development is bad.
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