[HN Gopher] Video game workers in North America now have an indu...
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Video game workers in North America now have an industry-wide union
Author : ksec
Score : 326 points
Date : 2025-03-19 13:47 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.engadget.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.engadget.com)
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| United Videogame Workers-CWA (UVW-CWA)
|
| https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/video-game-workers-launc...
| dtagames wrote:
| This is fantastic news and something we need very much!
|
| When my studio was closed and 36 of us fired without notice 7
| months ago, I poked around at union options and was shocked to
| find they were only inside individual studios, not even across
| whole companies, much less across the industry.
|
| The games industry is 100 years behind film and music in
| standardizing contracts, roles, and rights (including IP rights
| for failed projects). This initiative gives us a chance to fix
| it!
| dontlaugh wrote:
| That does depend on laws in your particular country.
|
| In the UK, you can be join the national union even if you are
| the only one in your workplace. Typically union recognition
| within a particular workplace comes later after sufficient
| numbers join.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| The churn rate in the gaming studios is usually abnormally
| high. Most key talent often breaks off into their own indie
| studios, and while budgets wont be spectacular AAA level... the
| content usually offers better quality fun, and the artists
| aren't burned out in 6 months.
|
| The film and TV production situation is nothing to aspire
| toward... especially if you are a contractor. It never lead to
| more stable work for the crews, and became a feast or famine
| type seasonal working arrangement for many.
|
| Unions are better than none, as at least your crew actually
| gets paid by some rat-fink production manager that often
| disappeared on wrap.
|
| Best of luck, and some of the best talent I've met was shafted
| by a AAA studio at least once in their career (often for some
| really bizarre reasons.) =3
| smeeger wrote:
| companies with unions are a hundred years behind companies that
| run efficiently and do what they are supposed to instead of
| acting as a playing piece in the game of politics and union
| corruption. nobody ever talks about the fact that unions in
| america are corrupt... unions in germany aren't corrupt and
| germans can build bridges still. we can barely manage it
| without hiring foreign firms... stop worshiping unions its part
| of the problem
| officeplant wrote:
| Unions and the labor laws they helped create save American
| lives. Unfortunately American companies have been upset about
| this for decades and fight it at every level. Including
| lobbying laws into places preventing industry strikes. Thus
| leaving us far behind countries with properly working unions
| like Germany as you mentioned.
| jisnsm wrote:
| Yes, unions at video game studios are bound to save so many
| lives.
|
| In other words your comment is hyperbolic and does not
| apply to the topic at hand.
| crooked-v wrote:
| Given the pattern of video game studios unceremoniously
| laying off people the second a game is complete and how
| health care in the US is overwhelmingly tied to
| employment, it's extremely plausible that somebody
| somewhere has died from lack of collective bargaining
| power. If it hasn't happened, that's most likely because
| people just leave the video game industry before they
| actually need those health care benefits.
| officeplant wrote:
| >Yes, unions at video game studios are bound to save so
| many lives.
|
| Stress & constant overtime crunch culture will absolutely
| be a detriment on the health and wellbeing of workers in
| any industry.
|
| Again, labor laws saved lives in the past, they can save
| and/or benefit lives today.
|
| >In other words your comment is hyperbolic and does not
| apply to the topic at hand.
|
| Welcome to the topic at hand.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> Again, labor laws saved lives in the past, they can
| save and/or benefit lives today._
|
| They can, but game dev is not a critical national
| industry that politicians are gonna fight for with laws
| to protect labor. Otherwise we could have had unionized
| clothes making union but what saw instead was the entire
| textile industry shipped oversees. Game dev will follow a
| similar fate.
|
| You can unionize if you want, but unless you're guarantee
| to have a blockbuster IP on your hands capable of raking
| in billions, you won't be able to compete with game devs
| from lower CoL countries.
|
| In a globalized free market with no tariffs, high CoL
| labor can't compete with low CoL labor making commodity
| goods, which a a lot of games are nowadays. Unions won't
| fix this, but accelerate offshoring at the expense of the
| local industry.
| Apocryphon wrote:
| > you won't be able to compete with game devs from lower
| CoL countries.
|
| I mean, those devs might unionize as well. Certainly
| would've helped both the ZA/UM and CD Projekt Red devs,
| for different reasons.
| AngryData wrote:
| Most of the problems with US unions can be traced back to
| anti-union legislation that used the promises of
| entrenching current unions as a carrot to get the laws
| passed to suppress new unions. New unions are much harder
| to create today, even more so if there is an existing union
| that covers similiar employees to your own. And old
| established unions are hard to get rid of even if the
| majority of employees are unhappy with it and would rather
| it was either gone or replaced with a different union with
| different rules and leaders. And an old entrenched
| bureaucratic political position is an easy target for
| corruption.
| matthewmacleod wrote:
| America talks often about union corruption. In fact, it does
| this to the point of crowding out any productive discussion -
| because Americans are often quite resistant to looking at
| other countries and understanding what approaches they take
| to certain social issues.
| dreadlordbone wrote:
| I don't understand. If a company closes, how is a union
| supposed to help?
| alexathrowawa9 wrote:
| Can a union force a company to continue a project if the
| company decides to cancel it?
| wickedsickeune wrote:
| Yes. But it can more reasonably force the company to retain
| the employees of said project, and move them to other
| projects instead of firing them.
| munk-a wrote:
| Unions are a bargaining tool that can theoretically
| advocate for anything - it's more useful generally to talk
| about what they usually do. Generally unions focus on
| employee rights and will only organize for specific
| business policies if it is causing obvious harm to the
| company and employees. I'd only expect a union to force a
| project to be continued if it was being canceled for silly
| reasons (internal company politics and similar) but usually
| simply moving the workforce to another project would be
| sufficient.
| banannaise wrote:
| Ideally the union wants to deal with the larger entity that
| controls the studio. Presumably, the studio did not go out of
| business; rather, it was shut down by its parent company.
| gopher_space wrote:
| One of the benefits to having a labor representative in top-
| level planning is as a sanity check. Harder to tank your own
| company if you have feedback loops in place.
| khrbrt wrote:
| This is the first I've heard of "direct-join union"s. DuckDuckGo
| only brings up variations of this article, or the pages to join
| individual, employer specific unions.
|
| Where can I learn more about this type of union? Is there one for
| US IT workers?
| diggan wrote:
| Seems the full name is "Directly affiliated local union" (or
| "federal labor union") unless I'm mistaken:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directly_affiliated_local_unio...
| bsimpson wrote:
| Sounds like an effort of the CWA, who is also behind the efforts
| to unionize Google, the Apple Stores, Mapbox, the NY Times, NPR,
| and the gaming companies mentioned at the bottom of the article:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODE-CWA
| tekla wrote:
| Who cares? A union doesn't stop the fact that high budget games
| just kinda suck. Layoffs happen because these games bomb over and
| over and over and money runs out.
| lenerdenator wrote:
| What makes you think they just kinda suck?
| tekla wrote:
| What is the last game you can think of that has the cultural
| impact of the Halo 3 release?
| Etheryte wrote:
| This is a common phenomenon, but I forget what it's called.
| Everyone thinks the golden age of whatever was when they
| grew up with it and it's never been quite the same ever
| since. Doesn't make it true though.
| tekla wrote:
| OK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-
| selling_video_gam...
|
| How many modern games are there on this list?
| diggan wrote:
| Almost half of the games on that list launched after
| 2010, 6 of those being after 2020. Not sure what
| qualifies a "modern game", but after 2010 would probably
| be where I personally draw the line.
|
| The most recent game on that list is from 2023, maybe it
| just takes time before a game end up on that list?
| Baldurs Gate 3 was beyond mainstream popular at one
| point, and surely will end up that list sooner or later,
| but maybe it's still too early?
| robertlagrant wrote:
| I wouldn't call a 16 year old game particularly modern.
|
| I would probably say the OP was commenting more on
| Western gaming, as that's the pattern (see UbiSoft's
| consecutive string of failures, for example). Games like
| Elden Ring, Animal Crossing, and Cyberpunk came out of
| popular non-Western gaming.
|
| The only Western games in that list for the last 6 years
| are Call of Duty games and Hogwarts Legacy, which was
| good, although from what I remember vilified by Western
| media for helping enrich JK Rowling.
| mrob wrote:
| I draw the line at the 2006 release of the Horse Armor
| DLC for Oblivion:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_of_The_Elder_Sc
| rol...
|
| This is the turning point where the industry began to
| change from selling products to selling services.
| Expansion packs existed before then, but they were sold
| as complete experiences, essentially mini-sequels sold at
| a discount because they reused the same engine. The horse
| armor was something different and controversial at the
| time.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| Think about what you're saying - the majority of those
| games are at least 16 years old.
|
| That itself is fairly damning but what puts it over the
| top is that there are wayyyy more gamers nowadays than
| there were 16 years ago.
|
| Modern AAA stuff is just simply pretty bad. Games made on
| a conveyor belt just don't work, at least beyond a point
| - and that point, wherever it may be, is well behind us
| for just about all AAA studios.
| simonw wrote:
| Games don't have the same effect as movies where everyone
| sees them within a month of release.
|
| It's hard for a game released in the past year to make it
| onto a top ten list full of games like GTA5 that have
| been consistently selling copies for over a decade.
| Goronmon wrote:
| Well, Halo 3 isn't on that list either.
|
| And I see a handful of games released since 2020 on that
| list.
|
| It also only deals with games that are sold. Whereas
| games like Genshin Impact have a massive worldwide
| audience and yet aren't going to show up on that list.
| jcranmer wrote:
| First off, video game sales are notoriously opaque, and
| one always has to take numbers like this with a grain of
| salt. (I particularly doubt the number for _The Oregon
| Trail_ here, and the citation for it is extremely weak).
|
| But also, note that many of the games--especially the
| ones near the top--also double- and triple-count their
| numbers by doing rereleases and special editions and
| whatnot that all get to count for the "same" game.
|
| Next, note that already 10% of the list came out since
| the COVID-19 pandemic started--is that not modern enough
| for you?
|
| Finally, several of these games are continually being
| worked on and receiving content updates. Minecraft and
| The Sims 4 may be over a decade old, but they both
| received updates within the past several months, and
| their players fully expect _more_ updates in the next
| several months. Does that mean they _aren 't_ modern?
| dandellion wrote:
| It's not that. Some of my favourite games of all time
| have been made in the last few years. Japanese devs,
| eastern European devs, Nordic devs don't seem to have any
| issues making absolute bangers. Meanwhile, the most
| recent one in my list from an American developer is...
| Skyrim. Over a decade old.
| smeeger wrote:
| and it doesnt make you any more right. i remember in 2007
| i noticed that movies sucked... i was a teenager. and i
| was right because every industry has its ebbs and flows.
| if you just measure the metrics of cultural impact, halo
| is a high water mark. people dont even play single player
| games or watch movies anymore. now the big cultural
| impact is happening on tiktok and things like that.
| things are not the same regardless of how much you want
| to believe that
| pmalynin wrote:
| Most recently I think Baldurs Gate 3. People have also been
| enjoying Balatro a lot
| smeeger wrote:
| go out onto the sidewalk in your city. ask a hundred
| people what they think about balders gate 3 and then ask
| them what they think of halo... doing so might break your
| mind open to the truth
| Maxatar wrote:
| I didn't go out and ask random people, but as far as
| sales figures go from what I find Baldur's Gate 3 has
| sold more copies than Halo 3 has. Of course it's not a
| fair comparison since Halo 3 was released in 2007 and
| only on a single platform, but I would imagine if I went
| around and asked a random group of people they'd likely
| be far more familiar with Baldur's Gate 3.
|
| Halo 3 seems to also be very popular only in the U.S.,
| while Baldur's Gate 3 is more recognized internationally.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Only if they are in your age group though. People older
| wouldn't know Halo, and Fortnite is far more popular than
| halo ever was both overall and with the youth.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Just from the 2020s, Hogwarts Legacy, Animal Crossing New
| Horizons, and Valorant. I think you're overweighting the
| impact of Halo 3 - note that its sales numbers put it
| nowhere close to the list of best-selling games you linked
| below.
| qingcharles wrote:
| Is Halo 3 good? I honestly didn't even know there was a
| Halo 3 and I'm an ex-gamedev, so I'm thinking the impact of
| it wasn't that huge?
| ANewFormation wrote:
| It set the standard for online matchmaking, had
| exceptional (if not revolutionary) AI for an FPS,
| phenomenal level design, and is a definite competitor for
| the best game soundtrack ever. It is probably Bungie's
| magnum opus.
|
| So it makes perfect sense that contemporary AAA devs
| would have no idea it even existed.
| silisili wrote:
| I'd argue Halo 2 set the standard for online matchmaking.
| I don't think younger people understand just how popular
| xbox live/halo 2 were in that era. Probably how us olders
| underestimate just how popular stuff like Fortnite is
| today.
| Jach wrote:
| I'd second this. The "advanced AI" was pioneered with
| Halo 2's Behavior Trees. I'd not give very high props to
| level design to any of the 3, partly because I so easily
| remember all the re-used assets and geometry and moving
| areas, but also because Halo was responsible for what I
| see as a decline in overall FPS design. From reload
| mechanics to limited ability to carry weapons, to the
| level design itself that went from more abstract and
| branching level design to long corridors with too much
| linearity. There's more creativity in things like the
| Metroid Prime series, just because of the need for
| backtracking and new areas when you get new gear. (Of
| course the Half-Life series also contributed, though
| interestingly few FPS games have tried to imitate the
| physics puzzles.) Later on Gears of War and other cover
| shooters took that to its own sort of perfection. There's
| good level design in all these, but it's good in their
| contexts, not exactly phenomenal or standout especially
| just looking at the FPS genre. (The multiplayer Halo maps
| are of course pretty good, but again while it's probably
| just a difference in taste, I think of them as overall
| steps down from what was going on in Quake/Unreal and
| their derivatives.)
|
| I guess I'm mostly just amused by the initial comment
| suggesting Halo 3 of all games as a super incredible
| cultural impact game. I just can't see it like that at
| all -- at the time it was just a capstone to what Halo 1
| and 2 set up. And in modern times, Halo is so irrelevant
| that it's probably going to be on Sony's console.
| tekla wrote:
| Just because you are ignorant means nothing
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reaXYMihM1Y
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marketing_of_Halo_3
|
| Halo 3 broke sales records at a time where you needed to
| buy physical copies.
|
| It had a famous Superbowl ad
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKDkKKt9Y7I
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Modern Warfare 2 probably was more influential than Halo
| 3, especially for the FPS genre.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Fortnite has had a larger impact on the newest generation
| of gamers.
| chii wrote:
| a union doesn't guarantee money, that's true. However, a union
| can guarantee acceptable hours worked - for example, limit
| overtime (without pay) to X hrs per week.
|
| Or, they ensures you're credited regardless if you left before
| the game shipped (because it is a form of portfolio for your
| career).
|
| And lastly, a union means you cannot be exploited hard, like a
| lot of wanabe game programmers and artists are wont to be.
| tekla wrote:
| And cool, good for them. They can get laid off after Korean
| game devs working for 1/5 the pay make games that sell much
| better
| munk-a wrote:
| You're focusing on a fact of the market which is not
| relevant to unionization discussions - what you're
| presenting is a risk for everyone in the industry. Instead
| unionization focuses on doing what we can to ensure we're
| treated with common decency and respect where we do work.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| > what you're presenting is a risk for everyone in the
| industry
|
| I don't think that's quite true. Unions can definitely
| make a company less competitive, in addition to the usual
| headwinds they face.
| munk-a wrote:
| Your statement isn't false but it isn't the norm.
| Unionized employees have much higher retention rates and
| that comes with better skill growth within an
| organization which generally leads to a more competitive
| entity. The modern market driven employment process
| causes massive long term inefficiencies while optimizing
| for short term valuation which can increase debt
| accessibility but generally lowers long term value. I
| think this is a wider discussion however and it'd be
| better to focus any examination of unions on the employee
| outcomes who are effectively the consumers of union.
|
| Whether a company prospers or fails the employees working
| for that company will, in nearly all circumstances, have
| much better quality of employment while that company
| lasts. I'd argue that long term company health is
| supported by unionization but I understand that there is
| a massive entrenched cultural rejection of that notion.
| soperj wrote:
| Can also get you a loyal workforce like at Costco.
| qingcharles wrote:
| I quit gamedev because the hours were insane (often 80/wk)
| and the pay was ridiculously low. I would have loved a union
| to have tamped that down.
|
| But.. the core problem was the schedule for development was
| bunk. If the schedule was right you wouldn't need crazy long
| hours.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| _> If the schedule was right you wouldn 't need crazy long
| hours._
|
| Unless you're making the next GTA6 for which the customer
| is willing to wait forever, if you increase the schedule so
| that everyone works fewer hours, then you'll get
| outcompeted in the free market by game devs from China,
| Korea and Japan where long hours are not an issue and can
| get games much quicker to market on lower budgets, putting
| you out of business.
| hamandcheese wrote:
| Why aren't China, Korea, and Japan outcompeting
| Hollywood?
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| They are starting to outcompete Hollywood on quality (see
| Godzilla minus one, Squid Game, Parasite, etc), they just
| don't have the hundred millions of dollars of marketing
| budget that Hollywood has to push and advertise their
| movies in foreign cinemas across the world, nor do
| Americans have a huge appetite of watching movies with
| subtitles, nor could they read even if they wanted to
| ("54% of adults have a literacy below sixth-grade
| level"[1]).
|
| [1] https://www.crossrivertherapy.com/research/literacy-
| statisti...
| qingcharles wrote:
| Humans are humans. I'm betting the workers in Asia doing
| 80+ hours are equally as weary as the ones in the West.
| What's the burnout rate? It's expensive to replace a
| developer halfway through development as it takes forever
| to get up to speed on both the codebase and the game
| design.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > This is a direct-join union, meaning that workers can sign up
| on their own. This allows folks to bypass traditional
| unionization processes like elections and employer consent.
|
| Good reminder that the word "union" is overloaded and doesn't
| always mean what you might assume.
|
| People who join a union like this don't have union representation
| or union contracts with companies. They rely on individual
| members to take action in various forms within there own
| companies. In theory they could call for a strike and ask
| everyone who is a member to strike from their respective
| companies, but in practice it's more about raising awareness and
| making noise in hopes of driving change.
|
| So while technically it's a union, it's not comparable to what
| most people think of as a union in the United States.
| throw9304040 wrote:
| I would be careful with assuming that.
|
| In some countries/industries you have to be a member of an
| union by the law. Just by working in industry, union is forced
| upon you by law, and you have to pay their fees. The only way
| out, is to form your own union, with all paperwork. It really
| sucks for self employed folks.
| drakonka wrote:
| Could you please point me to which countries/industries those
| are? Just a link is fine. Googling isn't helping :(
| bena wrote:
| Just in the US
|
| Screen Actors Guild
|
| Writers Guild of America
|
| Directors Guild of America
|
| NFL Players Association
|
| Now, I'll give you, SAG, WGA, and DGA don't control _all_
| film and television production and there are plenty of non-
| union jobs available. But most of the film and television
| you consume is union work.
|
| Every player in the NFL is required to be a member of the
| NFLPA.
| banannaise wrote:
| The NFLPA functionally only deals with one company (the
| NFL) so it's not really a great example. Most
| professional sports leagues have a players' union
| specific to that league.
|
| The others, though, yes.
| bena wrote:
| Coaches and other front office personnel aren't required
| to enter a union to work for a club.
|
| There is a union for coaches and it's entirely voluntary.
| Which is why you won't see Belichick in most Madden games
| as his contract has to be negotiated separately.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| The NFL does jot employ players, and is a separate
| company from the teams, which do, and which are also
| separate companies from each other.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Now, I'll give you, SAG, WGA, and DGA don't control all
| film and television production and there are plenty of
| non-union jobs available.
|
| The thing about the "hollywood" unions is that they are
| very supportive of the others. So when the recent
| writer's strike was taking place, the actors also
| supported them as well as the directors by not working
| without their writers.
|
| If the auto union workers strike, the steel workers
| aren't stopping work in solidarity. If the stevedores go
| on strike, the truck drivers don't go on strike in
| solidarity.
| Animats wrote:
| Not any more. That's called a "secondary boycott", and
| has been illegal in the US since 1959. Before that, it
| was common for union truckers to refuse to cross a picket
| line. When a company's workers went on strike, deliveries
| by Teamsters stopped.
|
| American labor law was written when unions were much
| stronger. It assumes strong unions and strong employers
| in conflict, with the NLRB as referee. That hasn't been
| true in the US for decades now.
| drakonka wrote:
| And just to be clear - there is an actual law forcing you
| to join these unions and pay their membership fees? (Not
| in the US, maybe this law is actually common knowledge
| that went completely over my head so far!)
| jcranmer wrote:
| My understanding is that it's not so much a law as it is
| a contract between the union and the employer that
| prohibits the employer from hiring people who don't join
| the union.
| butshouldyou wrote:
| We have a similar thing in Switzerland for the gastronomy
| (food and drinks) industry. The industry is pretty abusive
| - here and abroad - so the "union" makes sure there's
| protections for workers.
|
| Because of this, there's free management training, free
| skilled training, and holiday and pay minimums. Plus, free
| advice and legal support for workers.
| jcranmer wrote:
| The terms you want to look for are "closed shop" and "union
| shop" (the difference between the two is that a union shop
| allows non-union members to be hired, but they have to join
| the union after being hired).
| Animats wrote:
| Basic labor terms:
|
| - Closed shop - must be member of union to be hired.
|
| - Union shop - must join union when hired.
|
| - Agency shop - don't have to join union, but have to pay
| a fee to it.
|
| - Open shop - don't have to join union, but can.
|
| - Yellow-dog contract - not allowed to join union.[1]
|
| The two extremes are mostly illegal in the US.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow-dog_contract
| Retric wrote:
| The word is extremely overloaded. China has a lot of "unions"
| that exist to protect companies, avoid strikes, and stifle
| complaints not represent workers.
|
| That doesn't have any relevance for American unions, but
| people seems to think any issue they ever had with a union
| applies to every union.
| skyyler wrote:
| America has unions like this, too. Ask anyone that works
| for an Albertson's.
| Retric wrote:
| You might think they are overly cozy with Albertson's but
| it's a categorically different situation.
|
| I'd suggest you read up on "fake unions" it's 1984 level
| double talk shit.
| Yeul wrote:
| "that exist to protect companies, avoid strikes, and stifle
| complaints not represent workers"
|
| That sounds like the Republican Party.
| lalaithion wrote:
| How do you think unions start? Yes, an entire workplace can
| just up and decide some day to unionize but more often unions
| start as non-bargaining unions and then at some point get
| enough support to bargain with the companies.
| 3acctforcom wrote:
| uhhh you should really look into how that works. The union
| playbook is to organize in secret because retaliation is in
| the HR playbook. All sorts of fun and completely (not)illegal
| retaliation like firing organizers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _more often unions start as non-bargaining unions_
|
| Source? I'd guess most unions start as collective-bargaining
| unions because if they can't colletively bargain I'm
| struggling to see their point over, like, a conference or
| subreddit.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| Most people in the united states think of unions as some kind
| of entrenched bureaucratic entity that's not capable of
| effecting change. Typically we say "the union" as if there can
| only be one, and once it's corrupt, there's no recourse. Often
| our laws reflect this, striking as part of a "wildcat" union
| can be illegal. It leads to this feeling that you have to know
| the right people to unionize.
|
| It's a problematic perspective. "The" union might be an
| impotent lost cause, but "A" union can appear suddenly, strike
| hard, and dissipate once the need for it has gone. This seems
| more like the latter.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Looking at their website, it has obvious socialism / communism
| design influences. I hope these activists fail to get a foothold
| in the industry. These are not the type of people I want to work
| with and it would be bad for the stock price.
| frakt0x90 wrote:
| Most people joining unions are concerned about horrible working
| conditions and lack of basic respect and rights. The stock
| price should not be put above basic decency.
| Vaslo wrote:
| Source?
| short_sells_poo wrote:
| It is truly amazing how violently certain people want to
| fight against their own rights and organizations whose
| purpose is to fight for those rights.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| Workers in industries where there's an oversupply of labor
| driving down wages want unions. Workers in industries where
| there's an undersupply of labor don't care because there's
| no benefit to them. What's amazing about that?
| mullingitover wrote:
| Unions in the past century were strongest when there was
| a chronic labor shortage. Somewhere around the 1970s the
| labor shortage ended, and that's also about the time that
| union power began a serious decline.
|
| Negotiating solo against a large organization with an
| available labor pool is the weakest possible position,
| even if the type of talent is in demand. I'd argue that
| people _always_ want the power in compensation
| negotiations that 's only obtainable by forming strong
| associations. It's just a matter of whether they can get
| it or not based on the political power of their
| counterparties. This type of conflict has been happening
| since the dawn of civilization.
| diggan wrote:
| > it has obvious socialism / communism design influences
|
| Which website are you looking at?
|
| Unless I'm mistaken, the website is https://uvw-cwa.org/ and it
| isn't even red, have no hammers/sickles, and mostly talks about
| "stronger together", which fair enough, I guess could give some
| knee-jerk reaction about socialism if you don't believe in
| working together with others.
| charcircuit wrote:
| https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/video-game-workers-
| launc...
|
| This is red. And look at the zine cover.
| duskwuff wrote:
| Do you also avoid YouTube, Coca-Cola, and Netflix because
| of their obvious socialist connections? :)
| charcircuit wrote:
| No, because I am evaluating the overall design language
| the organization uses. Red is just one element that this
| group of people uses, but other people also use red.
| munk-a wrote:
| Ah, much like Republicans - the party of socialism and
| communism because red.
| mullingitover wrote:
| You're going to be _furious_ when you look at the terminology
| and symbolism of the United States:
|
| - it's a "Union," founded by "We the people" rather than being
| subjects subservient to an ordained ruler
|
| - It has revolutionary ideals at its core
|
| - There are fasces _everywhere_ , an overt symbol of collective
| effort
|
| - Right out of the gate, the US socialized one of the largest
| industries: transporting mail across the nation. Founders wrote
| it into the Constitution to ensure that it was untouchable
|
| - To go along with that, the interstate highway system is a
| massive, communal project
|
| - The most politically untouchable service, something
| politicians practically place on an altar, is a massive wealth
| redistribution scheme: Social Security
|
| Beyond all this I didn't see a single thing on that site that
| has socialism design influences, which frankly makes it sort of
| un-American.
| YesBox wrote:
| Just my opinion. I have no experience working in the industry
| _for someone else_. I am, however, working on my own game (3+
| years). I'm not a believer in poor work environments, as I don't
| think that environment maximizes creative output. I know what
| it's like working with less than 7 hours of sleep, or sitting in
| front of a screen hours on end. It dulls the mind. It's like
| being half alive.
|
| All that said: A hit based industry is not one that provides
| stability. I cant think of how slapping a union on top of an
| unstable foundation is going to solve anything. I've heard a
| couple people who crossed over from the film industry say it's
| just going to turn most roles into contracts (just like the film
| industry), and will quickly filter out the unskilled and less
| driven people.
|
| There isn't really a solution to this. Market pressure keep the
| prices of games down. Funding gets a better bang for buck by
| investing in up and coming countries (e.g. Poland). Most
| qualified[1] games don't even break a million. Hitting [just!]
| $150,000 in revenue is when Steam starts seriously promoting your
| game[2]. $150K is not even enough to live in a coastal city
| (after dev. costs), never mind hiring people.
|
| [1] The dev had the intent to market _and_ sell a legitimate
| product, which is the minority of games on steam.
|
| [2] howtomarketagame.com
| jmyeet wrote:
| > I cant think of how slapping a union on top of an already
| unstable foundation is going to solve anything
|
| You mean like the entire television and film industry? Any
| production over a certain (small) size is completely unionized.
| It's so massively successful the American cultural exports
| dominate in almost every corner of the world.
|
| I'm not sure where the idea that unions can't work for the
| games industry comes from since it's almost identical to the
| film and TV industry. Unions exist so workers don't get
| exploited and to provide stability.
|
| What about Nintendo? They famously have very limited layoffs.
| They see value in providing stability and maintaing culture and
| institutional memory.
|
| If anything, it's short-term profit-seeking that destroys
| industries. You see this in the world of original content
| production for streamers. They cut the size of writers rooms.
| They tried to no longer have writers on set. There's a push for
| "mini writing rooms". Why? Because it cuts costs on a very
| short term basis.
|
| In doing so, Netflix (etc) are intentionally throwing away the
| model that created billion dollar properties like Friends,
| Seinfeld, ER, MASH, Cheers, etc that, to this day, generate
| massive profits. Seinfeld was known for getting over a million
| viewers when it was running in syndication.
|
| Long-term it creates problems. Future products and showrunners
| are writers who need to get experience on set. Shortsighted
| cost-reudction is literally killing the future of the industry.
|
| As for the price of video games, there are several aspects to
| this:
|
| 1. AAA publishers like to complain that games still cost $60
| after years. That's true but also the distribution is
| significantly higher than it was 20 years ago. You're selling
| way more games;
|
| 2. The marginal cost of producing a game via download is
| essentially zero; and
|
| 3. Games eventaully get much cheaper on Steam. That's a good
| thing. Early experiments with this showed that selling a game
| cheap on Steam could generate significantly more revenue than
| the original release. And because the marginal cost is zero,
| it's all profit.
| maxglute wrote:
| The entertainment industry isn't doing well right now. Nor
| gaming. US film+TV grew by 5x thanks to streaming money in
| last 20 years. Gaming sector also exploded. But everyone is
| competing for attention with each other and decades of
| backlog. Netflix has milked the game to the point where
| they're competing against sleep - there's only so demand for
| the occasional hit properties. IMO it's not the same
| supply/demand enviroment anymore that can support unions
| everywhere. Very few companies are Nintendos who has a few
| golden goose franchise and an entire hardware ecosystem to
| support long term vision. And of course if most of the
| industry doesn't unionize, the few that could likely won't,
| even if the should.
| nitwit005 wrote:
| Being a contractor isn't inherently bad. If you work at a
| company that is contracted to work on games or films, you're
| more insulated from the financial risks. You will normally get
| paid either way.
| TaurenHunter wrote:
| Gamergate II loading...
| egypturnash wrote:
| WOOOO
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| looking at the games US workers have put out... this is only
| gonna make 'western' games worse.
|
| US games are in a tremendous slump of quality and seem to be slop
| factories rn. Add in unions, I don't know. I don't see this
| helping the slop factories become _not_ slop factories.
| wnevets wrote:
| Kind of surprising it has taken this long for such little
| progress, video game workers have been abused by these mega
| corporations for decades [1].
|
| [1] https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html
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