maybe I'm wrong, but, I think in addition to all the usually talked-about reasons why people under-value certain crucial team-members (QA, CM, & CS, for ex), and why those career paths are murky/brittle is a fundamental lack of control

(a short thread)

I've said it many times, but you need serious skills and experience to excel at Quality Assurance, Community Management, Marketing, and Customer Service. Companies who treat them like entry-level jobs into other career paths are doing a huge disservice to themselves & their games

Even more, we all know that folks who get into and excel at these roles are passionate about games. Their gamercred is often STRONGER than the gamercred of programmers and artists, and they endure MORE for LESS. So why don't we see tons of QA Directors at the AAA megacorps?? well

(sometimes we do but they tend to come from/around/through other disciplines. even Lead QA is something of an unusual step, it seems. "don't you want to be a designer?" is something I've heard QA friends asked lots, ugh)

(and sorry for the super-tangent but there's also gendered aspects to this whenever possible ofc. as soon as something needs any soft skills, oh, let's underpay it and shorten that career path ASAP, right? right, agh, ok let's get back on topic)

fundamentally, if you are in one of these "para-developer" roles, you are at the mercy of your team-members, even moreso than usual. your work doesn't (by its definition) determine what game is being made.

designers' and artists' and programmers' and producers' work impacts each other of course, they don't work in a vaccuum, but they all, hopefully collaboratively, decide WHAT the game IS.

(we'll pretend that marketing doesn't sometimes overstep and define What the Game Is incorrectly/deceptively to the player, and are instead doing their jobs ethically & skillfully)

anyway, a lack of control is fine, theoretically! QA and CM and marketing and so on are still CRUCIAL to a game's success. they should still have parades and appreciation. but there's a cost...

(again maybe I'm wrong but) a cost of being a para-developer is your career trajectory can be driven by something entirely out of your hands. even if you're participating from Day 1 of production, the nature of your role is to react to/use the game being made, not make it.

and again, that's still beautiful and skillful and necessary and valuable!

but without that control of the 'source', as it were, you're at the mercy of the dev team, because they're further upstream on the river.

ambition without control over one's destiny will always be frustrating. no moral to this story, just saying I see the pain, and I get why a lot of people choose other career paths even when QA/CM/etc are good for them, and properly paid, and bring them joy. it's a hard problem.