[HN Gopher] Rockstar employee shares account of the company's un...
___________________________________________________________________
Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting
efforts
Author : mrzool
Score : 423 points
Date : 2025-11-07 18:22 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gtaforums.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gtaforums.com)
| metadat wrote:
| This makes me sad, R* has made some of my most favorite games,
| especially Red Dead Redemption 2.
|
| They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat their
| employees like human beings?
|
| I don't recall reports of Valve (Steam, also super profitable)
| stooping. Is Rockstar a genetic relative of GAFA, because this is
| more like what I've come to expect from Amazon.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Businesses desire growth, not conservation or charity. And that
| desire is frequently achieved through illegal means. Wage theft
| for instance is a far greater sum than the total of robbery in
| the US. The criminality is rampant!
|
| Meta is also in the news today for making 10% of its revenue
| from scams, as well as for having codified policy that scammers
| representing at least 0.15% of their revenue must be protected
| from any moderation.
|
| Business thrives on illegality.
| saubeidl wrote:
| It's almost as if capitalism was a deeply messed up system
| that brings out and celebrates the very worst in humanity.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| You think the administrators of a socialist, communist or
| other collectivist society would not face the same
| temptation and respond similarly?
|
| At least under liberal capitalism I have the option of not
| buying games and of making my own.
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Well you're onto something re: authority and hierarchy...
| m0llusk wrote:
| Systems need to be managed. If you cook with high
| temperatures and let your attention wander then the food
| burns. If you drive fast with bald tires then you may fly
| off the road. We know that strong regulation on industry,
| especially monopolies, high taxes on the wealthy, and
| powerful unions can keep Capitalism in balance, but we have
| chosen not to use these mechanisms. Is that Capitalism
| being flawed or is it us as custodians failing in our basic
| duties?
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Crony capitalism is capitalism. How do you know it can be
| kept in balance if it is not?
| m0llusk wrote:
| We've been through this before. As recently as the 1930s
| the Capitalist economy tried to eat itself and had to be
| stopped. That is historical and everything changes, but
| the basic principles are the same. Find out where things
| are going wrong and address that with some basic controls
| and limits.
| saubeidl wrote:
| If a system leads to catastrophic failure on a regular
| basis, maybe it's just a bad system? See also https://en.
| wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| Because no amount of profit is ever enough for the stock
| market, everything must perpetually grow.
| fn-mote wrote:
| That's a very reductionist take on what happened here. I
| don't think increased profit is likely to result from these
| firings. How would it?
| saubeidl wrote:
| Profit = revenue - expenses.
|
| Firings reduce expenses, the equation above explains the
| rest. Of course, that's only in the short term, but that's
| what exec bonuses are given out on!
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| Firings in this case were for union busting. Illegal union
| busting is profitable - that's why business owners do it.
| Because it's illegal, they will make up a different excuse
| for why the workers were fired. They will never admit to
| illegal union busting. So you should not take their
| statements as good faith.
| zaptheimpaler wrote:
| It may sound simplistic but its the truth and there are
| plenty of other examples and history around this -
| Starbucks recently. 30 employees unionizing may not have
| any significant impact on their profits, but if they let
| that union grow it would have a lot more members demanding
| better working hours or wages over time. A strong union
| also generally leads to a loss of control by management
| where they have to negotiate more with workers which they
| don't like. Why do you think they were fired?
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| This is also true if humans in general, at all stations in
| life, including union members and union leaders. Is there any
| offer a union would refuse on the grounds that's too much?
| tclancy wrote:
| Is that true? Feels like you are begging a huge question
| and also assuming everyone has to exist in a capitalist
| society forever.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| It will still be true under not-capitalism. Perhaps it
| won't be measured with money but it will exist.
| ineptech wrote:
| People like getting more money, but they don't die without
| it. You can get a job that pays just enough to pay your
| bills and work at it until you die. Companies can't do that
| under capitalism. They take on debt and require growth to
| pay back their investors, or they don't take on debt and
| get undercut by a competitor who does.
| t-writescode wrote:
| And yet Costco still does just fine.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Costco might not be your intended example. It has amazing
| revenue growth:
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/COST/costco/reven
| u...
|
| While simultaneously growing profit margin:
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/COST/costco/profi
| t...
|
| Hence growing annual net income from $2.3B to $8B in the
| last 10 years.
| castwide wrote:
| I imagine the GP was referring to the fact that Costco
| experiences that kind of growth while giving their
| employees excellent pay and benefits. Even low-level
| store employees typically make $20-30 an hour.
| t-writescode wrote:
| Correct
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| > They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat
| their employees like human beings?
|
| That's not how human nature works. Greed doesn't lead to
| idealism or altruism, it invariably leads to entitlement and
| more greed. The rich are never satisfied with hundreds of
| billions, they insist upon trillions.
| immibis wrote:
| People who are nice and treat their employees like human beings
| are not allowed to become CEOs.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| This would be less of an issue if game companies operated as
| co-ops.
| mlrtime wrote:
| Isn't that what indy game developers are, why can't both
| exist? You don't have to play GTA.
| rayiner wrote:
| > They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat
| their employees like human beings
|
| Because American unions usually don't stop there. It's the
| American winner-take all/scorched earth approach to everything.
| stego-tech wrote:
| That's not a Union thing, that's a system thing. Anyone
| fiercely on either extreme of the spectrum is missing the
| forest for the trees and proudly waving their willful
| ignorance of the dynamics of power.
|
| In an ideal scenario, Unions and Shareholders would cooperate
| to achieve suitable outcomes for both parties; in reality,
| the amount of power needed to even get a Union off the ground
| and keep it sustained against the onslaught of Capital means
| those who wield said power are inclined to use it often. It's
| why the (debatably) smarter gamble has been more workers
| forming anti-Capital institutions: cooperatives, union-first
| enterprises, sustainable corporations with stringent, anti-
| Capital bylaws. By removing Capital's power early, those who
| _do_ come to the table are more likely to negotiate in good
| faith rather than scorched-earth tactics.
|
| Don't slight unions as a whole just because power dynamics in
| a Capitalist society dictate everything be a zero-sum game.
| Instead, focus on building a better game and fairer set of
| rules, and recognize Unions are part of that.
| appreciatorBus wrote:
| Those power dynamics are part of the human psyche. The will
| persist and be present under any alternative you care to
| impose.
| fhackenberger wrote:
| I'd strongly disagree, as there are examples of societies
| that don't exhibit these traits. See the Kogi from
| Colombia for example. A necessity environmental condition
| seems to be that social groups size stays within certain
| limits (around 120 as I remember).
| hueho wrote:
| The affected employees are in the UK and Canada branches,
| with their own local unions.
| tbrockman wrote:
| Valve is a "flat" organization, where your compensation is
| determined based on peer review.
|
| Rockstar, and owner Take-Two (largely owned by institutional
| investors--well known for their historical championing of
| workers rights and fondness of unions), both seem to have your
| typical corporate hierarchies, where executives are fairly and
| correctly compensated for being more productive than over 200
| software engineers combined.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| >They make so much money
|
| Their 10-Ks show they lost a lot of money.
|
| https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TTWO/take-two-inte...
|
| 2025 $-4.479B
|
| 2024 $-3.744B
|
| 2023 $-1.125B
|
| The meager earnings in years previous to that are beyond wiped
| out. In fact, expect a lot more squeeze if you work at Take Two
| or a lot more rent seeking if you are a customer, because based
| on the stock price movement, the market is expecting a lot more
| net income.
|
| Edit: looks like they set a ton of money on fire by overpaying
| for Zynga a few years ago. Customers and employees are going to
| be paying for that bad decision for a long time.
| kg wrote:
| It's true that Take Two lost money but it's also true that
| Rockstar makes them tremendous amounts of money. Lifetime
| revenues from GTA5 are estimated to be near or exceeding 10
| billion USD.
|
| Managing to lose money on those kinds of profits is arguably
| further evidence that leadership there is overpaid.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| > They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat
| their employees like human beings?
|
| Because they want to make great games. It's sad but we've never
| figure out how to replicate the creative output that crunch and
| stress triggers. I don't understand it and frankly I couldn't
| stand it so I left the industry but I won't pretend that we
| have a solution too the problem.
| epolanski wrote:
| > They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat
| their employees like human beings?
|
| Because they can.
|
| In the gaming industry the biggest studios get away with
| running sweat shops because there's endless hordes of brilliant
| engineers and artists who had always dreamed to make videogames
| and need a huge name on the CV to move to better places.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| The accusations of "IP theft" are already flying. Creative
| people, technical people, and everyone must stop working for
| megacorps and form their own, civilized worker-owned co-ops.
| Corporations will never respect those who perform labor, and will
| never _ensure_ sustainable work environments.
| dude250711 wrote:
| Good news is that, especially given the modern distribution
| methods, they are already very free to raise capital or take
| their life savings and make courageous bets on their
| creativity!
| sonu27 wrote:
| Definitely one for the courts
| pera wrote:
| There is a fundraising for that organised by their union (IWGB
| Game Workers):
|
| https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/support-rockstar-worke...
| rwmj wrote:
| (Employment Tribunal, but yes.) If even half the stuff in the
| posting is true, it should be an easy win. Unfortunately Legal
| Aid for Employment Tribunals has been cut to the bone, but
| their union should be able to help here by taking the case up
| on their behalf.
| monospacegames wrote:
| Wouldn't have happened under Dan Houser. R* made too much money
| for its own good.
|
| On another note, heard on Bloomberg today that they've been
| working on GTA 6 for 10 years at this point. Considering the size
| of their development teams it's possible that more manhours may
| have gone into this single title than all video games that were
| made until the PS1 era combined.
| ml-anon wrote:
| I'm sure it'll be as good as Duke Nukem Forever and Daikatana
| put together.
| lawlessone wrote:
| Is there a cut off? at some point the stuff they made / wrote
| when they started working must be becoming dated.
| esskay wrote:
| What makes you think Dan would've handled it any differently?
| Rockstars got a long well known track record of being in crunch
| mode with obscene hours, that didn't suddenly start after Dan
| left.
| bespokedevelopr wrote:
| > On another note, heard on Bloomberg today that they've been
| working on GTA 6 for 10 years at this point.
|
| It's incredible to think about what else has happened during
| these past 10 years of development. Or think about other decade
| long stretches and what was accomplished.
|
| Not cutting short what the undertaking of this is, just that
| the scale of this project spanning a decade is fascinating.
| elephanlemon wrote:
| As a kid I always lamented that every studio seemed to sell out
| as soon as they had the chance. Valve is basically the only one
| that didn't... clearly it's paid off very well for Gabe and the
| employees. Wish more people would resist the payday and keep
| what's theirs.
| immibis wrote:
| Gabe is the Apple of PC gaming, taking a 30% tax on all
| transactions. It's not this particular kind of evil, but it is
| a different kind of evil.
| samiwami wrote:
| There is nothing forcing developers to release on steam, they
| can sell directly through a website. It's not Valve's fault
| no other competitor has gotten close to the quality of Steam.
| Epic Games could have made a dent, but they decided to try to
| bribe customers instead of making a functioning store.
| SaltyBackendGuy wrote:
| This made me laugh. I tried Epic because I got a free game
| that I was interested in, but could only play it on the
| Epic Game store. After a week, I was no longer able to
| login no matter what I tried. So anecdotally, your
| statement tracks with my experience.
| gruez wrote:
| >instead of making a functioning store.
|
| For all intents and purposes it's "functioning" for me. You
| can search for a game, hit buy, put in your credit card
| number, then download/play it. I've seen some spurious
| arguments about how it lacks a cart or reviews, but it's a
| stretch to claim the lack of them makes them non
| "functioning". I never bulk buy games, and for reviews I
| can go to steam or metacritic.
| skotobaza wrote:
| In 2025 I expect an online store to have at least some
| cataloging option (like Steam's tags) and some user
| feedback (like Steam reviews or Steam community
| discussions). Yes, most of Steam's features are half-
| baked, and Valve doesn't really want to improve them
| (curators, user tags, guides etc.), but it's baffling
| that no other store gives at least the same amount of
| those features to you. Even though they could.
| gruez wrote:
| >In 2025 I expect an online store to have at least some
| cataloging option (like Steam's tags)
|
| To be fair most online storefronts don't have that.
| Amazon/walmart at best have "categories", which epic also
| has. Even online content portals like spotify don't have
| tags, preferring something like "more like this".
|
| > but it's baffling that no other store gives at least
| the same amount of those features to you. Even though
| they could.
|
| The better question is why storefronts don't directly
| compete on price. We see with airlines that consumers are
| willing to put up with hellish conditions to save a few
| percent on airfare. Those features are definitely nice,
| it's just unclear how they can avoid the free-rider
| problem if there are competing storefronts.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Plenty of companies have tried to compete with gabe, they're
| all just terrible at it
| gruez wrote:
| No. First mover advantage is just that strong. How are the
| competitors to whatsapp or facebook doing? At best you have
| something like tiktok, which might be technically "social"
| media but is a totally different segment. You don't catch
| up with old high school buddies on tiktok, for instance.
| chacham15 wrote:
| - Facebook was not first. Before it was friendster and
| myspace.
|
| - Tiktok was not first. Before it was vine and youtube.
|
| - Google was not first. Before it was yahoo and
| altavista.
|
| Plenty of todays big companies were not the first in
| their area.
| gruez wrote:
| All of the examples you gave, the challengers had some
| revolutionary idea/improvement on top. Tiktok had its
| recommendation algorithm and short videos. Google had
| pagerank. That's also the reason why whatsapp hasn't been
| supplanted. There's no room for innovation (or nobody
| bothered trying). The same is true for digital
| distribution. Every steam competitor is basically "steam
| but [publisher]" or in epic's case, "steam but with steam
| games".
| mjr00 wrote:
| That's what the person who started this comment chain
| said, though. Every Steam competitor has been "does the
| same thing as Steam, but worse" so why would anyone
| switch over?
| gruez wrote:
| That's not the same as "terrible" though? Signal is
| basically "whatsapp but not facebook", but you wouldn't
| say it's "terrible". Same with lyft (which came after
| uber), or ubereats (which came after many food delivery
| startups).
| mjr00 wrote:
| Right but if there were a better platform than Steam for
| buying games it'd win out in the marketplace. It's not
| like anyone is locked into Steam really.
|
| Every online gaming platform other than Steam and GOG
| sucks. And in fact GOG competes very well with Steam
| precisely _because_ it offers something Steam doesn 't,
| which is DRM-free games. Steam didn't just beat the Epic
| Games Store and Origin and Games For Windows Live because
| it came first, it's just a better platform and the others
| offer nothing outside of exclusives which they paid for.
| nullify88 wrote:
| Lets not forget Ubisofts uPlay which was absolutely
| shambolic. Blizzard's / Activision launcher was alright
| though. It did the job but no where to the likes of Steam
| which is really feature rich.
| vablings wrote:
| There is some argument to be made that the cost benefit
| analysis for your average user doesn't make sense unless
| the platform is a significant improvement over steam.
| Having two fragmented systems is a huge inconvenience to
| users now almost to the point that I will outright refuse
| to play games that are not on Steam.
|
| And for companies that shoehorn really bad launchers as
| an extra layer on steam like EA, you are doing the work
| of the devil himself
| mjr00 wrote:
| Some extremely popular games, like all the Hoyoverse
| stuff (Genshin/ZZZ/etc) or most of Blizzard's games, have
| their own launchers and aren't on Steam. So gamers are
| certainly willing to use non-Steam platforms and
| launchers _if there 's a reason_.
| duxup wrote:
| PCs are plenty accessible to developers without Steam.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| Uhhh....
|
| 11 percent. That is the charge back rate in gaming. The
| "overall" stat for all transactions is something like 3
| percent.
|
| Card processing isnt free. There are fees, and supporting
| card processing still has more humans in the loop than one
| needs. Never mind all the technology that comes with running
| the dam platform.
|
| Is 30 percent a lot. It sure is. Valve isnt a charity, this
| is how they chose to make money.
|
| Meanwhile, AWS has a 30+ percent margin and I dont see CTO's
| lining up to run hardware...
| gruez wrote:
| >11 percent. That is the charge back rate in gaming. The
| "overall" stat for all transactions is something like 3
| percent.
|
| 1. source?
|
| 2. How does that justify a 30% rate, when presumably it's
| clawed back from developers?
|
| >Card processing isnt free. There are fees, and supporting
| card processing still has more humans in the loop than one
| needs. Never mind all the technology that comes with
| running the dam platform.
|
| Again, nowhere near 30% though
|
| >Meanwhile, AWS has a 30+ percent margin and I dont see
| CTO's lining up to run hardware...
|
| 30% margins on renting hardware is totally different than a
| 30% tax on transactions, and it's disingenuous to imply
| they're comparable. At the very least amazon needs to spend
| the other 70% on running servers and investing in
| datacenters, whereas valve doesn't. It's studios that are
| actually doing the development. Valve just is charging 30%
| on top of that. To take an extreme example, compare the
| 2-3% fees charged by visa vs the ~15% gross margins that
| car companies make. Even though that's 5x higher, I doubt
| many are outraged about car companies' profiteering.
| dartharva wrote:
| Valve also hosts and maintains the game files for
| consumers to download, and the bandwidth/hardware needed
| to serve hundreds of GBs for each game to millions of
| customers across the globe is not trivial.
| cwillu wrote:
| And the minefield of user cloud storage; I'm amazed that
| they've managed to avoid basically any abuses of the
| service.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| I wonder then how you expect valve to operate profitably.
| Paying for the maintenance and upgrade of equipment, the
| developers to build the features and SRE to monitor the
| systems, designers, marketers, HR and lawyers.
|
| For some reason, people in tech live under the illusion
| that everything nontangible should be literally free
| gruez wrote:
| >For some reason, people in tech live under the illusion
| that everything nontangible should be literally free
|
| Strawman.
| saintfire wrote:
| I would assume it's less than 11% for steam due to their
| incredibly consumer friendly refund policy.
| koakuma-chan wrote:
| Is AWS not being forced on CTO's? I don't see what AWS does
| that you can't self-host in an OVH container.
| acedTrex wrote:
| This is in no way true because there is no requirement to use
| steam for PC releases.
|
| Apple is a firm technical gatekeeper to their ecosystem.
| Steam is not at all analogous to that for PCs.
| threetonesun wrote:
| Steam isn't even analogous to that on their own Steam Deck,
| where they absolutely could have been.
| al_borland wrote:
| Are you of the opinion that these marketplaces shouldn't
| exist, that they should take a smaller percentage, that they
| should be entirely ad-supported, or something else?
|
| How can user have an optional one-stop-shop that is
| sustainable for the long-term while not being "evil".
| robhlt wrote:
| Valve allows developers to generate activation keys for their
| games and sell them on other platforms, where Valve gets a 0%
| cut. This is how you're able to buy games from places like
| the Humble Store and activate them on Steam. Their agreement
| does technically require that you don't sell at a lower price
| on other platforms, but as far as I know it's never been
| enforced.
| kevinh wrote:
| There's a lawsuit ongoing about Valve threatening
| developers with delisting if they sell non-Steam copies of
| games (that's NOT Steam keys, but, say, a version on the
| Epic store) on other stores.
| mjr00 wrote:
| Can you provide a source for this? This is the first I've
| heard of anything like this and searching only gives
| results about the game delisting due to payment processor
| problems from a few months ago.
| axus wrote:
| Can a Steam Deck install games without using Steam? If so,
| big advantage over Google Play and the App Store.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Yes, which is why nobody attacks them from that angle.
| jamie_ca wrote:
| It's more fiddly in that you need to swap to desktop mode
| to do the installs, but you can get it set up so that your
| "external" games from Epic or Itch or emulators or whatever
| show up in the standard Steam UI.
| chrisnight wrote:
| Yes, I have plenty of games from, e.g. the Epic Game Store
| on my steam deck, even in the steam home page, seamlessly.
|
| Gamescope is even fully open-source, so you could remove
| the steam deck UI, and still run any game with the same
| performance benefits of not running it inside KDE. Of
| course also, you could flash a new OS on the device itself
| if you wanted to entirely remove Valve's presence.
| Phelinofist wrote:
| Sure, it is a Linux box after all
| whatevaa wrote:
| Steam Deck desktop mode is full blown KDE desktop. The only
| nuance is that system updates are managed by A/B partition
| scheme, so root is readonly. Can be made writeable but it's
| an overlay, so changes get lost on system update and need
| to be reapplied.
| preisschild wrote:
| That is bullshit, you are not even locked to using Steam on
| the Steam Deck. 30% is completely fair for the amount of
| infrastructure Steam provides to your game.
|
| Definitely not comparable to Apple, which is forcing all
| iPhone users to use their own app store.
| daedrdev wrote:
| Its definitely the ones that sell. There are plenty of small
| studios run by founders, but often once they sell they start
| burning consumer trust and goodwill as if those things don't
| exist and have an actual cost
| Loughla wrote:
| Once you have an IP that's massive and you know people will
| buy regardless of if you're a trash monster or not, there's
| zero incentive to do the right thing.
|
| Until people stop buying games from these places nothing will
| change.
| monospacegames wrote:
| Financially Valve exists in an incomparably different space
| compared to companies like Take Two that actually have to make
| games to make money.
| bak3y wrote:
| And they were able to get there because they made good games.
| jeffwask wrote:
| I would rephrase this as they got there because they treat
| their customers with respect, they take feedback to improve
| their platform, they don't pack their launcher / store
| front with ads and trickery, and you can trust that your
| games will be there and not go away.
|
| Yes, they are loot box whores but so is everyone else.
|
| Steam is a community, social media, and a store. The
| community is what they built and that community is
| extremely loyal. That community is also what developers are
| paying for.
|
| In Gaben, we trust. I have 20 years of experience saying
| Gabe won't fuck me over to increase EBIDA by .5%. Are they
| perfect? No, but they are lightyears better than most of
| their competitors except GOG in terms of putting consumers
| first.
| caconym_ wrote:
| This is what I always say about Valve. They are not
| morally unimpeachable, but at the end of the day I've
| been a regular customer for over 20 years and they've
| never fucked me over. I don't think I can say the same
| about any other software company.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And most importantly, the moment they show any indication
| of doing otherwise, I will happily drop them.
|
| I keep giving Valve my money because they keep giving me
| good value for that money and a trustworthy environment
| to spend that money in. I have no loyalty. I also buy
| games from Humble Bundle and GOG.
|
| I'm not excited about the prospect of losing my 4000
| games but the literal only options available for
| consumers right now are "Pay money and get a game that we
| can take away at any time, fuck you over, do all sorts of
| bad things, and we demonstrably hate you", or "Pay money
| to get a game and a refund period and a bunch of features
| and _maybe_ when Gabe dies we will do that other thing "
|
| There is no alternative. GOG is run by the same people
| who released CyberPunk2077 as a bug ridden mess to please
| upper management, so they even have evidence of already
| straddling that line right now.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| Valve makes a _significant_ amount of their money from the
| gambling they 've attached to their games, and profits
| immensely from the culture of farming loot boxes to gamble on
| for skins and such.
|
| They also take an absurd cut of developer income and saddle
| devs with costs that they don't always want. (Selling on Steam?
| Valve takes 30% and forces you to moderate the forums on your
| listing page that you cannot opt out of.)
|
| They also have an internal culture that's been fairly regularly
| criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women and
| minorities.
|
| Valve has done some cool stuff, but let's not lionize them too
| much. They are probably better than an average company, for
| sure, but it's important to remember that they are also sketchy
| in some very gross ways as well.
| umvi wrote:
| I'm happier to pay Valve's 30% than Apple's. With Valve you
| could always switch to Itch or something if you didn't want
| to pay, but with Apple you have no alternative. Valve gives
| you access to a huge player base and lots of useful marketing
| tools and such.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| Ok!
|
| _Happier_ is a fine place to be. They are both still too
| high. Not everything has to be binary -- I can think Valve
| is offering some utility and also think that Valve is
| charging too much for that utility.
|
| The fact that Gabe has _a billion dollars worth of yachts_
| probably suggests that maybe, just maaaaaybe, that 30%
| could be lower and Steam could still provide you the same
| level of marketing support and player base.
| Whoppertime wrote:
| The only reason EpicGameStore was able to rise as a
| competitor to Steam was because of the Billions Fortnite
| was earning.
| mathgeek wrote:
| Pretty much. If it weren't for free games and exclusives
| there would be no Epic Store to speak of.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| I don't understand. You think Steam exists without Half
| Life and Counterstrike?
| DaSHacka wrote:
| Nowadays? Yes
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| Of course now it does, but it was bootstrapped off the
| back of commercial success. The parent poster was
| suggesting Epic could only finance a game store off the
| commercial success of Fortnite. Which seemed to be the
| exact same path Valve took, so I was curious to explore
| why the parent felt they were different.
| Whoppertime wrote:
| It's like being a first party for a Video Game Console.
| Gabe Newell having a billion in Yachts, Bill Gates might
| have a billion dollars tied up in Real Estate. It has
| less to say about the personal greed of Gabe Newell and
| more to say about the relative size of the market.
| keyringlight wrote:
| I think while PC is a good example of epic struggling to
| compete with someone who took full advantage of being
| first mover, the apple appstore/google play mobile stores
| are also where they've put in significant financial/legal
| effort trying to create a more lucrative openings in that
| market as well.
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| I think Gabe is doing a great job. If he wants to have a
| billion dollars worth of yachts, that's fine by me.
| daedrdev wrote:
| You can just not sell your game on steam if you dont
| agree.
|
| The sales you will miss are what steam brings to the
| table
| bigyabai wrote:
| > They are both still too high.
|
| You don't get to decide that. Apple's price is not set by
| free market competition, Valve's is.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Apple's price definitely gets affected by competition.
|
| https://9to5mac.com/2025/05/19/apple-may-lower-app-store-
| com...
|
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-
| app-s...
| rcxdude wrote:
| Valve's price is still very strongly predicated on
| network effects which make it very hard to avoid.
| DaSHacka wrote:
| Almost like they make the best game distribution platform
| around for customers, and thus customers flock to it.
| jsheard wrote:
| Indeed, when big publishers like EA and Ubisoft started
| leaving Steam they introduced a tiered pricing system
| which progressively reduces the cut to 25% or 20% after
| tens of millions of dollars in revenue, to lure those AAA
| juggernauts back. The price is now indirectly based on
| how much leverage you have over Valve - Ubisoft can get
| away with not releasing their games on Steam, so they pay
| 20%, while small-to-medium studios effectively have no
| choice, so they pay 30%.
|
| It's especially backwards when you consider that those
| AAA games put far more strain on Steams infrastructure
| with their >150GB install sizes.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| What? What network effects?
|
| There are even games you can buy on one service and play
| multiplayer with people who buy it on steam! I chose to
| buy MSFS2020 through steam for example because the steam
| platform is dramatically better than the absurd way the
| Windows Store does anything, but we fly in the same
| skies!
|
| There's no lock in or exclusivity. You can literally buy
| the same exact executable from multiple places, and the
| only change is the feature the store program supports.
| Buying a game through the Epic Store for example won't
| let you use steam input, but you can even then play it on
| the steam deck with some effort! I think you can even use
| Proton on executables you don't get through steam!
|
| A dev can even make it so that, if you buy their game on
| steam, you do not have to have steam running _or
| installed_ to play it. They have that freedom. They also
| have the freedom to mark a version of the game such that
| steam allows you to access that old version _forever_
|
| If you are a dev who releases a game on steam, you can
| mint a _bulk quantity of steam keys_ and _sell or
| distribute those outside of steam!_. Probably if you
| abused it, Valve would tighten it up or ban you, but why
| would you bite the hand that feeds you? It 's how, for
| example, Humble Bundle initially worked.
|
| That's right, you don't even need to buy your game from
| Valve to use all their features! A substantial portion of
| my library paid money to Amazon instead, through humble
| bundle.
|
| People use Steam because it has 20 years of established
| trustworthiness in an industry otherwise made up entirely
| of assholes who hate you.
|
| Meanwhile, in the place that Steam does poorly: Old
| games, GOG has much more of the market.
|
| People actually are willing to pay for trust and care.
| Steam has repeatedly and regularly improved how their
| storefront displays information and informs consumers,
| because their primary problem is discoverability and
| wading through the mountains of games from people
| desperate to collect some of the money waterfall that
| Valve enables.
|
| When you put a game on Steam, the contract ensures that
| anyone who purchases it cannot lose access without it
| being _Valve 's_ decision. Developers or publishers who
| do stupid things or pull games five years down the line
| cannot prevent you from playing a game you buy on steam
| if it isn't dependent on some server somewhere. None of
| the other storefronts have ANYTHING like this, mostly
| because they are run by the exact companies who WANT to
| be able to prevent you from ever playing an old game
| again, so they can sell the same thing to you in a new
| box.
|
| Compare that to Apple's 30%, which similarly has lots of
| features their platform enables including unlocking
| significant consumer spending, but they do not give you
| any alternative. If you want even a single dollar from
| someone on an iPhone, you HAVE to pay apple 30%, and at
| least for a while they wanted that even to cover _netflix
| subscriptions_ for example.
|
| If you as a developer do not want to pay valve 30%, you
| are free to do like Notch did for Minecraft and
| distribute it yourself, and you are free to run into the
| same problem it had where my friend was unable to
| purchase minecraft for decades because his bank refused
| to send money to the Scandinavian bank involved, whereas
| even a literal child without a debit card can use
| birthday money to buy a steam gift card and purchase your
| game with no adult involvement. (maybe that's not a good
| thing for society, but it's great for game dev business).
|
| Valve does not have a moat other than simply consumer
| trust. Minecraft sold a hundred million copies through a
| dude's website. There has literally never been a moat in
| computer game distribution. An entire industry of British
| children existed writing games and selling them in local
| stores. A moat has never been possible, because Valve
| cannot make your computer not run other software.
| galkk wrote:
| That's weird argument. How about letting man to enjoy the
| fruits of his work?
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| That's a weird structuring of the concern. How about
| letting all developers enjoy the fruits of _their_ work?
| gretch wrote:
| they are free to do that - simply don't sell your game on
| steam
| sumedh wrote:
| > The fact that Gabe has a billion dollars worth of
| yachts probably suggests that maybe
|
| That is not a good argument though. Try building your own
| distribution and take some of those billions.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > Valve gives you access to a huge player base and lots of
| useful marketing tools and such.
|
| So does Apple. Despite this, they are both engaged in rent-
| seeking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking), which
| has a harmful effect on everyone but them.
|
| Imagine if roads weren't public, but were built by a single
| private company. You have a business that moves goods by
| truck. You can use the private company's roads, but only if
| you pay 30% of the profit of your goods to the company that
| owns the roads. It only takes 2% of the profit to maintain
| the roads; the other 28% is profit (rent) for the road-
| owning company.
|
| You could choose not to use the roads. But then the only
| way to deliver the goods is by parachute (which may be
| possible, but isn't practical). So you use the roads. But
| this means you have to jack up your prices to make any
| profit for yourself. Competing is much harder (tighter
| margins), and your customers are paying more than
| necessary. Everyone's life is harder, except for the road
| company.
| roggenilsson wrote:
| >Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth
| by manipulating public policy or economic conditions
| without creating new wealth
|
| Would the PC video game market be bigger or smaller
| without steam?
| Loughla wrote:
| I think it would be smaller.
|
| While I hate always connected DRM, and lamented the death
| of physical media when steam got huge (and also refused
| to get a steam account for years for that reason), we
| would have multiple shitty stores if steam didn't exist,
| I think.
|
| Look at epic and all the other distributors. Their stores
| are terrible and that's _with_ the inherent competition
| of going against steam. Imagine if they were the only
| game in town. . .
| mjr00 wrote:
| Except in this example, there is nothing preventing other
| companies from building new roads. And in fact other
| companies _have_ attempted to build new roads, competing
| by lowering the 30% fee to 10%, and even paying trucking
| companies to start using their roads. Except their roads
| are so poorly maintained that trucking companies choose
| to continue using the existing roads despite the higher
| fee. Also EA made some roads that went directly into the
| ocean for some reason.
|
| This doesn't match with the definition of rent-seeking at
| all, as described in your wikipedia link:
|
| > Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing
| wealth by manipulating public policy or economic
| conditions without creating new wealth.
|
| To my knowledge, Valve has not manipulated public policy
| or economic conditions to maintain Steam's dominance.
| Steam hasn't pushed for legislation to prevent
| competitors, it hasn't prevented developers from selling
| their games on other platforms, and it doesn't even
| prevent you from installing non-Steam games _on Valve 's
| own proprietary hardware and operating system_.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| You are happy now and will probably be for as long as Gabe
| Newell is in charge of Valve. (He's 63, by the way; not
| quite elderly but not young either.) After he retires,
| well, Valve, as the dominant gatekeeper for PC gaming, has
| a lot of opportunities for cranking up monetization that
| investors would just love to get their hands on.
| scheeseman486 wrote:
| So it's either choosing to buy from a company that
| _might_ become public after the owner dies which then
| succumbs to the rot that you admit is inevitable with
| public companies. Or choosing the companies that are
| already public that is already exploitative and only
| interested in short term gains?
|
| That's actually a very easy choice to make.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Investors did not imply public. Enshittification is not
| limited to public companies. They did not say it was
| inevitable. Are GOG exploitative and only interested in
| short term gains?
| knollimar wrote:
| Don't they have a disgusting most favored nations clause
| that prohibits you from pricing anywhere else lower (e.g.
| you can't raise price X by 42% and sell on your site for
| X)?
|
| I think they're being sued over delisting someone for this
| last I checked, even if their public policy might not
| interpret their MFN that way
| xinayder wrote:
| > They also have an internal culture that's been fairly
| regularly criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women
| and minorities.
|
| Source?
| tyg13 wrote:
| No, that's the game engine.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| A couple sources:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo
|
| https://medium.com/dunia-media/the-nightmare-of-valves-
| self-...
| o11c wrote:
| The second link is paywalled, but from the various
| sources I looked at, the diversity problems with Valve
| seem limited to "Valve refuses to spend company
| time/effort to support my cause". I have not seen _any_
| concrete claims of misbehavior, in direct contrast to
| some other video game companies.
|
| Additionally, when I actually look into the alleged
| statistics of claims that "Valve is primarily white and
| male", the numbers ... don't actually look that bad? We
| shouldn't expect _any_ company to fit national
| demographics _exactly_.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| Additional allegations of discrimination: https://discrim
| inationandsexualharassmentlawyers.com/valve-c...
|
| Allegations of unpaid labor: https://web.archive.org/web/
| 20160209211205/https://www.reddi...
| jimbokun wrote:
| Did the plaintiff win that suit? (A quick Google didn't
| find the outcome.)
|
| As for the second, I'm confused as to why anyone would
| provide unpaid labor to a large, profitable corporation.
| josefx wrote:
| Going by the short update on this page, no:
| https://kotaku.com/former-valve-employee-sues-
| for-3-1-millio...
| jimbokun wrote:
| Not going to spend an hour watching a video.
|
| The medium link says _nothing_ about women and minorities
| specifically. It 's a critique of flat management
| structures in general.
| doright wrote:
| Another source from 6 years ago:
| https://youtu.be/41XgkLKYuic
|
| It seems like the flat management structure allowed an
| ad-hoc hierarchy of cliques to form in the office anyway,
| pitting entrenched teams of old-timers against new hires,
| but implicitly. When you think of the lack of support for
| TF2 over the years, this is illuminating.
|
| It's astounding that Valve/Steam are still as successful
| as they are in spite of this culture.
| xhrpost wrote:
| If you were a dev selling a game years ago when physical
| distribution was the only method, you'd likely end up with a
| lot less than 70% after both the publisher and retailer take
| their cut.
|
| https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/company-town-
| blog/sto...
| kwanbix wrote:
| The difference is that the company had to risk
| manufacturing cartridges, distributing them, etc. If the
| game didn't sell, you ended up with lots of money lost.
|
| Steam is much much easier for Valve.
|
| I am not saying it has a value, but 30% seems a lot.
|
| Of course, in the end that 30% we end up paying it
| ourselves.
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| It clearly isn't easy, given that nobody else is doing it
| their way. Maintaining the company culture might be the
| toughest challenge of them all. The other game
| storefronts simply can't resist muddying the water for
| the consumer, making the shopping experience hostile for
| some stupid ass monetization reasons. Shopping on Steam
| is a breeze, and it always feels like the store is on
| your side trying to help, instead of trying to get in the
| way. The developer-side publishing experience is much
| similar.
| dmix wrote:
| I use steam for the community as well. Just look at how
| bad reviews are on Xbox store, they are more like app
| store reviews... mostly complaining about a version
| update.
|
| Steam also has a solid update/beta pipeline. Game
| companies post blog posts about new game updates so you
| keep up to date with development. They also did an
| amazing job with SteamOS which feels rock solid.
| kwanbix wrote:
| I shop on Epic Store and GOG and it is a breeze also.
|
| I never had issues with GOG or Epic (where I buy less to
| be honest), but that might be me.
|
| But Steam has the network effect. They launched first. Of
| were the first that successfully did it.
| throwuxiytayq wrote:
| I'm going to assume that while shopping on Epic you alt-
| tab to Steam to read reviews and to find out what the
| game is actually like.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| I look at neither for reviews. Steam Reviews are often
| bombed to hell for things like, "Game has woman. Woke."
| or "Game has racism." or other culture war nonsense. Or
| the very common, "Creator I follow on Youtube
| liked/disliked this game, so I left a similar review" or
| "Creator I _dislike_ liked /disliked this game, so I left
| the opposite review". Or, the worst of all, "Game uses
| Unity/Unreal/Godot/Something Else, automatic dislike".
|
| Ultimately, reviews of games tend to be pretty useless
| because people who play games have very little
| understanding of a) what makes games fun, and b) the
| complexity involved in making the games.
|
| I have creators I follow whose tastes are closest to my
| own, and I watch their content for reviews, then go to
| the store that makes the best offer.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| No, when you asked Nintendo to manufacture you a run of
| cartridges, you paid for them whether they sold or not.
| You took that risk. Nintendo took zero risks _per game_ ,
| they took the risk in the physical hardware. Legacy game
| distribution also never took the risk. Retailers were
| able to return unsold inventory. There were court cases
| about this when companies tried to go around Nintendo's
| cartridge building services to save money. Those
| companies largely won their court cases, so then we made
| the DMCA to say "No, get fucked"
|
| The up front risk you take on Steam is $100. It still
| ends up being a meaningful risk because the numbers show
| almost nobody makes that back, because developers are so
| interested in selling their game on steam that the market
| is outright supersaturated.
|
| >Of course, in the end that 30% we end up paying it
| ourselves.
|
| I used to buy video games at walmart. Unlike games I
| bought at walmart, Valve has done things that
| _retroactively add value to games I bought decades ago_ ,
| like remote play together, adding internet multiplayer to
| games that never even thought about it, and a controller
| system that allows pretty much anything you can think of.
| Games that had zero controller support for a decade just
| do now, no extra download, and the required configuration
| is often the single button press to select whatever
| configuration someone else made. Valve created an
| entirely new software platform for games that makes it so
| even games that are utterly broken on modern systems can
| work again, and it's just built in. If I buy a game
| today, I'm pretty confident I can play it in 20 years. An
| actual system for sharing digital games with other
| accounts, with large caveats.
|
| Refunds, despite Valve only offering them because it's
| the law in several countries and they were losing court
| cases, are not a thing for physical game purchases here
| in the US. Once you take off the shrink wrap, you are
| fucked.
|
| Steam has built in support for Beta branches and old game
| versions that the game dev can enable. Steam has built in
| support for DLC, and market systems for trading and
| selling digital "goods", not that I really think that's a
| good thing but some people seem to. Steam has fully built
| in support for cloud saves.
|
| Steam has a fully integrated "friends" system, and that
| system is convenient for the end user and includes
| features like screen sharing and voice chat and gifting
| people games.
|
| Steam offers fully integrated mod management for at least
| a large subset of all possible mods for any game.
|
| Like I cannot stress enough how even if video games were
| 30% more expensive in steam (they aren't, devs
| distributing through steam are making a larger portion of
| the profit than they used to), retroactively adding
| functionality to games I bought a decade ago and
| producing a system that makes it very likely I can play
| these same games in 20 years is so worth it. Everything
| else is just a bonus. Their hardware also shows great
| value per dollar, so the "They are overcharging"
| narrative just doesn't track.
|
| Meanwhile, steam _avoids_ problems that plague other
| digital storefronts. Easy returns (again, forced on
| them), their launcher mostly respects my resources and
| doesn 't destroy my computer every time there's an
| update, the way Valve negotiates terms they have a much
| better setup: Even if a publisher or developer pulls
| their game, as long as you bought it before then _you can
| always install it and play it_. Transformers Devastation
| was pulled from the store years ago and cannot be
| purchased by anyone I think anywhere, but I can still
| download and play it on a new machine because that 's the
| contract Valve got _Activision_ to sign. The game
| literally doesn 't have a store page anymore.
|
| Fuck Valve's child gambling profits and invention of loot
| boxes, but their distribution business is unambiguously
| the most respectful of the consumer and developer. Only
| GOG with their work towards preservation and lack of DRM
| comes close.
|
| I own 4000 games on steam. That's about 3900 more than I
| would have ever bought in a world without Steam. Their
| wishlist system is a direct driver of sales that wouldn't
| happen otherwise. When the Epic Store launched, it didn't
| even have a damn shopping cart.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Steam can also take away things from games you "bought",
| like GTA getting replaced with a lower quality remaster
| and different sound track.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| 10% if it's a Linux copy ;)
| sugarpimpdorsey wrote:
| > They also have an internal culture that's been fairly
| regularly criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women
| and minorities.
|
| If they don't like the culture, then they should work
| elsewhere.
|
| I hear Google is hiring.
|
| Nothing worse than joining a company you contributed zero to
| building from the ground up, then unilaterally deciding the
| culture needs to change according to your whims, _right now_.
|
| You might feel uncomfortable working in a black barber shop.
| Or a cat cafe with pet allergies. You've contributed nothing
| to their business, they shouldn't have to change for you.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| What nonsense. A decision about workplace should be a
| combination of factors -- workplace culture, products you
| can work on, compensation, skill fit, alignment with your
| interests, etc.
|
| You should feel empowered to have a voice in the products
| of your labor. And you should feel empowered to have a
| voice in the culture that produces those products.
| sugarpimpdorsey wrote:
| They're a game company. They're not feeding the poor.
|
| Your employment is "at will".
|
| You are not _entitled_ to any item in your list of
| demands.
|
| You are, however, free to leave at any time for something
| more suited to your tastes.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| > You are not entitled to any item in your list of
| demands.
|
| Can you point to the word entitled in my posts? Or are
| you putting words in my mouth?
|
| Can you point to any demands? Or are you arguing against
| something I didn't say?
| thereisnospork wrote:
| You seem to be misunderstanding how language works? Can
| you please explain why you think the literal word
| entitled had to be said by you here?
|
| You listed a bunch of things which should be, an opinion,
| he says your not entitled to those things, a probable
| fact relevant to the likelihood of attaining your
| professed desires, and he then offers a solution if you
| are unhappy with not having the things you professed
| 'should' be afforded.
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I think employees are actually entitled to some of those
| things, like not being made uncomfortable purely because
| they are a minority or a female. I would find the
| opposite position to be an exceptionally strange take:
| that it is entitled to not want to work at a place that
| puts you in uncomfortable positions for your sex or your
| race.
|
| I don't have an opinion on Valve or allegations Valve is
| doing that. I just find it very strange to say it's
| entitled for a black to want to be treated as equally as
| a white.
| sugarpimpdorsey wrote:
| Being uncomfortable has no equivalence to racism, which
| you are trying to assert.
|
| Assume a white guy voluntarily takes a job working in a
| wig shop that only sells black women's hair care
| products. He's going to be _uncomfortable_ at some point.
| Does he have a right to not be uncomfortable? Should the
| company culture change, should they stop selling wigs and
| ditch their customers until he becomes comfortable?
|
| No. The easiest solution is he should work elsewhere. He
| took the job knowing exactly what was involved. So no,
| you are not entitled to not be culturally uncomfortable.
| kotaKat wrote:
| > They also take an absurd cut of developer income and saddle
| devs with costs that they don't always want.
|
| Fun fact: Nintendo's revenue split on WiiWare was 60/40, and
| required minimum downloads to even get your revenue out of
| Big N.
| vkou wrote:
| Valve charges 30% for access to their marketplace, and allows
| you to sell Steam keys for your game _at whatever price you
| want_ through your own sales channels, without paying Valve a
| cent.
|
| I'm not sure how any of that is sketchy or gross. As far as
| marketplaces and platforms go, this is quite reasonable, and
| there are many successful games which are either not on
| Steam, or are cross-listed on multiple platforms, or are
| cross-listed on both Steam and the developer's own
| distribution channel.
|
| I'll give you lootboxes, they are pretty shitty.
| eckmLJE wrote:
| I appreciate what you've posted here. Valve fanboyism is
| widespread (I'm guilty of it too) and while they are
| shoulders above the alternatives, it's a good reminder that
| no one's perfect and I'll be sure to take a closer look at
| the company in the future.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| That's all I was saying. Valve is way ahead of most of the
| rest of everyone else. But they are _still_ shady.
|
| We should be ok with pointing at the shady parts of things
| we like and going, "It would be better if it were not so
| shady."
|
| Valve is good in many ways! Valve would be _better_ if it
| didn 't profit from getting kids to gamble on skins!
| Bombthecat wrote:
| How much money do they make through counter strike loot boxes
| and selling games etc?
| John23832 wrote:
| > Valve is basically the only one that didn't...
|
| Lol Valve is taking a cut of a ridiculous amount of video game
| sales while releasing no games.
|
| I like some of their work on the linux support side, but they
| have sold out as much as Apple has if anything.
| jsheard wrote:
| > Valve is basically the only one that didn't
|
| They kind of did, with their sudden pivot from primarily making
| singleplayer games to almost exclusively making F2P GaaS titles
| the instant they got a taste of lootbox money. Half-Life 3 and
| Portal 3 will never happen because Valve makes 100x as much
| money with 1/100th of the effort by peddling Counter Strike
| skins.
| pphysch wrote:
| HL3 is under active development though. If that's a success
| I'm sure they'd try a Portal 3 as well.
| saintfire wrote:
| Allegedly HL3 is in active development.
|
| No official announcement yet.
| PetitPrince wrote:
| HL3 kinda happened though, but it was called Half-Life Alyx.
| And while it wasn't a conventional FPS like HL1 and 2,
| there's absolutely no trace of GaaS in it.
| jsheard wrote:
| Alyx is a bit of an edge case because they needed a VR
| showcase, and it's unlikely that a PC VR game (even a Valve
| one) could have sustained a healthy multiplayer population.
| Regardless of the reasons why it happened, it's the one and
| only singleplayer title they've released in the last 14
| years, which neatly aligns with them discovering the joy of
| lootboxes 15 years ago.
| Something1234 wrote:
| What about Aperture Labs Desk Job as a demo for the deck?
| Full self contained single player story.
| mathgeek wrote:
| While it was more a tech demo than a full game, this one
| was a great game anyway.
| vablings wrote:
| To say Alyx was just an "VR demo" is pretty sad and
| reductive. Even today it's the one of the best VR games
| to be released in both fidelity and performance and as VR
| tech continues to improve its truly aged like fine wine
| jsheard wrote:
| I called it a showcase, not a demo. I know it's a full-
| blown game in its own right.
| hamdingers wrote:
| Alyx is a great spinoff, a mindblowing tech demo, and a
| thrilling prequel. It is not Half-Life 3.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Didn't Valve just deliberately tank the Counter Strike
| cosmetics market?
| jsheard wrote:
| They tanked ultra-high-value items, which were primarily
| traded off-the-books because their value exceeded the
| official Steam marketplaces $1800 price cap. Bringing those
| prices down is _good_ for Valve because it means more
| trading activity will happen on the official market, where
| Valve gets a cut of every transaction, rather than on
| third-party exchanges, where Valve gets nothing.
|
| Simply raising the $1800 transaction limit and $2000
| balance limit would have been far less disruptive, but that
| may have put Valve in financial regulators crosshairs.
| There's surely a reason why they chose those numbers in
| particular.
| manjalyc wrote:
| What does the G in GaaS mean?
| jsheard wrote:
| Games (as a Service)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_service_game
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Valve never sold out because they became the "out" other
| companies sell out to. They successfully built a revenue-
| capturing money-printer in the form of the Steam store and
| service and now they don't have to make games at all to keep
| their bottom line strong. Not to imply they _shouldn 't_ have;
| get that gold ring and all.
|
| (But I may also argue the point they never sold out in terms of
| being a game studio as opposed to a publisher.... "So when's
| Half Life 3 releasing?")
| jayd16 wrote:
| I wouldn't call this selling out, exactly. If the issue is
| endless crunch, its more a matter of having enough money to
| support it endlessly and an aging workforce that knows their
| worth and can push back.
|
| The issue is trying to force (or likely, continue) bad
| practices when they're clearly not working and then lacking the
| leadership to realize that a retaliatory layoff is only going
| to make things worse.
| haunter wrote:
| >Wish more people would resist the payday and keep what's
| theirs.
|
| Ah yeah unregulated illegal underage gambling, the great
| resistance. Gabe could shutdown the whole thing with 1 click,
| all the sites are using the Steam API, but they don't and you
| know why.
|
| Valve did a lot of things good but they are also the original
| source of a lot of bad things from lootboxes to skin gambling
| to the FOMO battle pass cancer of modern gaming.
| Aunche wrote:
| Smaller studios can maintain a small team of highly passionate
| people that will happily work 60+ hours a week or achieve
| similar productivity. As a studio grows, this becomes harder to
| maintain. You're pressured to either become a slave driver or
| dilute your product and make more money through derivative
| content or micro transactions. For example, I heard that EA is
| actually a relatively chill company. What sometimes works at
| keeping employees and customers both happy is fostering a cult-
| like environment, but that can easily lead to exploitation.
| guywithahat wrote:
| But union "busting" isn't selling out, if anything it's keeping
| to their true cause. Companies don't function well with
| adversarial units within them, and companies don't start out
| with unions.
|
| Case and point: Valve doesn't have a union.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| The phrase is "case _in_ point ", and unionized companies
| often do quite well.
| ab5tract wrote:
| It's a privately owned company. This leads to an entirely
| different relationship between employees and the top layer of
| management.
|
| You have to be very misguided to believe that the c suite in
| most companies is not engaged in n adversarial relationship
| with its employees, whether those employees are unionized or
| not.
| righthand wrote:
| They definitely get a free pass from people. Valve is plenty
| evil.
| shaky-carrousel wrote:
| Well, there goes GTA 6. Better for my wallet, I guess. Don't want
| to finance some thugs.
| pixelpoet wrote:
| I'll probably end up buying GTA 6, once it's on sale or
| something; good people worked on it too I would imagine, and
| helped make it a good game.
|
| Also, with apologies for the whataboutism, we unfortunately
| finance thugs all day every day (my internet provider, German
| government and pension, Deutsche Bahn, etc are massive
| extortionists); it's not really black and white.
| martin-t wrote:
| And this is why "vote with your wallet" does not work. As a
| consumer there's no way to decide who gets the money.
|
| In fact, even the people who made the game (did the actual
| work, not managers, advertisers, etc.) don't get to decide.
|
| Correct me if I am wrong but the programmers, designers,
| artists have already been paid and any money from sales goes
| to the company and its execs/shareholders.
|
| (And yes, employees can also be shareholders but they almost
| always own such a tiny share it does not really matter. In a
| just world, ownership would be distributed automatically
| according to time_worked * skill_level.)
|
| EDIT: I might have overstated by saying it doesn't work but
| it definitely doesn't have the same level of effect as people
| collectively saying "this behavior is wrong and you will be
| punished for it, regardless if I buy the product" (for
| example by editing laws). It also doesn't allow any control
| over how the money is distributed among those who worked on
| it (compared to for example adding a law that limits
| absolute/relative spending on marketing - whether you think
| it's a good idea or not).
| skotobaza wrote:
| > and any money from sales goes to the company and its
| execs/shareholders
|
| Some companies may share a profit. I heard that Activision
| used to pay some of the revenue from Call of Duty to the
| developers, although I can't confirm it. And it was a long
| time ago, not sure if they still do.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| It would work if we dispensed with intellectual property
| and instead voted on what should be created rather than on
| what already has.
| martin-t wrote:
| I hear this argument with some regularity and i don't
| think it would work the way you expect. Have you gamed it
| out in your head?
|
| 1) A lot of people would immediately stop contributing to
| open source. In fact i ahead have because ML is being
| used to launder my work to use it without resourcing my
| licenses. Same with any other area where people share
| their work for free. It would all be monetized by those
| with access to better advertising.
|
| 2) Anything published would be immediately scooped up by
| the big players. How would a small competitor like Nebula
| compete with YouTube if YouTube took all its content and
| offered it for free with ads?
|
| 3) How would you even know who the original creator was
| if those stealing the work stripped away attribution?
| They already do but at least you have some limited ways
| to fight them.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| 1) I contribute to open source because I want the thing
| to exist. I use open licenses because I don't want
| anybody to use the law to deny anybody else access to it.
| If we gut the parts of the law by which others would deny
| access, I no longer have to worry about licensing, but my
| original motivated is untouched.
|
| 2) what do you mean "scooped up"? What's to stop a small
| platform from providing the same content that a large
| platform does, if we've done away with intellectual
| property?
|
| 3) I'm confused. If you're paying somebody to create a
| proposed work, and then they create it and get paid for
| doing so, and then nobody is allowed to restrict access
| to it, where does the theft come in?
| 9rx wrote:
| _> And this is why "vote with your wallet does not work".
| As a consumer there's no way to decide who gets the money._
|
| Huh? That doesn't make any sense. "Vote your wallet" does
| not mean throw money on the ground haphazardly and pray
| that it finds its way to the appropriate home. It means
| hand the money directly to the person you want to have it.
| There is no way to avoid deciding who gets the money.
| That's the only choice you get to make.
| tbrockman wrote:
| Please don't try to spread the idea that it "does not
| work", it's incorrect and discourages one of the most
| effective non-violent mechanisms consumers have for driving
| change in market economies. It may not necessarily be
| _sufficient_ (coordinated boycotts, for instance, are
| _much_ more effective than individual decisions), it may
| not _always_ be an option (particularly when there aren 't
| viable alternatives), it may not work immediately, there
| may not be enough people who "vote" a certain way, and
| there may be insufficient information to make informed
| decisions--but consumers absolutely decide which products
| and companies live and die, and every single dollar you
| spend allocates power.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Target's CEO saw a significant impact to their
| compensation, a change in role, and ~1800 layoffs occurred
| because of the Target boycott. Boycotts work. Voting with
| your wallet works.
|
| https://rollingout.com/2025/05/07/target-ceo-salary-drop-
| ami...
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/08/21/the-
| qui...
|
| > The Quiet Part Out Loud: Target Ditching DEI Cost The CEO
| His Job And Investors $12 Billion
|
| So, it would not be hard to impair Rockstar with a
| coordinated, sustained economic retaliation campaign
| against them. If it kills the company, we help workers find
| other jobs and shareholders learn a lesson about capital
| allocation. Poorly run companies die all the time, some
| just need to be helped along.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| See also Disney+ and Jimmy Kimmel. Something like 2
| million subs were dropped.
| righthand wrote:
| It's so nice to be guilted into supporting awful people,
| because a bunch of nice people were abused by the awful
| people but at least the art will keep one entertained and the
| corpos keep on abusing.
| beepbooptheory wrote:
| Perhaps we can all hope one falls off the back of a truck for
| each of us.
| Animats wrote:
| GTA 6 just slipped to late 2026. At least.[1]
|
| [1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/gta-6-delayed-once-again-
| to...
| fracus wrote:
| I think the offline gameplay of GTA is becoming dated. Playing
| GTAV just felt like cut scene, then chores, cut scene, then
| chores, rinse, repeat. To be fair, I don't understand the
| purpose of GTA online but it was wildly popular.
| MYEUHD wrote:
| > the offline gameplay of GTA is becoming dated.
|
| GTA V is dated. It's 12+ years old.
| jrflowers wrote:
| I'm also kind of concerned about the game itself suffering. If
| they're shedding institutional knowledge to avoid unions we
| could end up with a vibe coded GTA 6.
|
| Like imagine if MindsEye had _thirteen years_ of anticipation
| before it came out.
| lingrush4 wrote:
| > I am aware of one employee who had a panic attack at this
| moment, and HR hung up on them during this panic attack not
| caring at all about their wellbeing.
|
| One can only hope this employee survived.
| Permit wrote:
| How many people die each year from panic attacks?
| joshe wrote:
| What's sad is that unionizing will accelerate whatever the
| decline of the company is causing the dissatisfaction. Wiser for
| employees to just jump ship or found a new game studio when this
| kind of decline happens.
|
| The chances of a company turning around are super low, adding a
| union makes it harder. Just run.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| The alternative to every company is to proactively repair the
| conditions incentivizing the formation of a union. It continues
| to amaze me that those in charge of making those decisions
| choose decline over alternatives.
| hiddencost wrote:
| Baseless claims can be dismissed without evidence. Happy
| employees are more efficient.
| exabrial wrote:
| happy employees doesn't imply the need for a union
| blasphemers wrote:
| The thing holding back unions in the U.S is the unions
| themselves and the laws around them. Once a union forms, they
| have entirely too much power.
| tclancy wrote:
| Next thing you know, people want to not work on weekends!
| blasphemers wrote:
| Russia defeated the Nazis, so everything they do and have
| done from that point is good right?
| tharne wrote:
| > The thing holding back unions in the U.S is the unions
| themselves and the laws around them. Once a union forms, they
| have entirely too much power.
|
| This is a nice summary of the central issue with unions in
| the U.S. A rational person can quickly see why people are
| clamoring for unions in the U.S. and also why American
| companies are so resistant.
| dymk wrote:
| What power do they have too much of?
| blasphemers wrote:
| Besides a complete stranglehold on labor markets in a
| number of industries where the government is required to
| use union labor for infrastructure projects and they limit
| the number of laborers to drive up price. Or how about the
| Plumbers union that forced the city of Chicago to continue
| installing lead pipes until the federal government had to
| force them to stop. Beyond that, the power to promote good
| workers or make necessary changes across the org. For
| example, why doesn't Chicago have any driver-less trains
| and a conductor shortage? The unions are preventing both.
| whoknowsidont wrote:
| >For example, why doesn't Chicago have any driver-less
| trains and a conductor shortage? The unions are
| preventing both.
|
| Most of your post was complete non-sense but this last
| line really does take the cake.
| pixelpoet wrote:
| Very brave of them to speak out, but TBH I'm not sure I'd do it
| if I were worried about anonymity - their written English is
| flawless, which is very uncommon. Unless they took considerable
| care to imitate a different writing style, it's probably trivial
| to identify who wrote it.
|
| In any case, a longtime friend of mine was senior graphics
| programmer on GTA5, and I was very close to interviewing with
| Rockstar in Edinburgh at his recommendation. But then I
| remembered how gamedev burnt me out at age 19 (my first job, at
| Lionhead), and how I've never been burnt out since, and decided
| against it. Been in offline rendering since then and never looked
| back.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| > their written English is flawless, which is very uncommon.
| Unless they took considerable care to imitate a different
| writing style, it's probably trivial to identify who wrote it.
|
| Rockstar North is based in Edinburgh as you say, why wouldn't
| English be at a high level?
| pixelpoet wrote:
| I'm going to get downvoted into a massive smoking hole in the
| ground for daring to state this opinion, but, as a lifelong
| enjoyer of the English language: native speakers butcher it
| the most.
| cj wrote:
| This is true of many skills you grow up learning.
|
| E.g. someone who grew up playing piano might be able to
| play at an incredibly advanced level, while also being
| terrible at reading or writing sheet music.
|
| The science around skills acquired during
| childhood/adolescence vs. learned skills is interesting.
| For example, I would not be surprised if non-native
| speakers, on average, have a better handle of the
| difference between effect/affect, there/their, etc.
| pixelpoet wrote:
| English is my 4th language, after German, Afrikaans and
| Indonesian. People get very angry about it when it's
| pointed out, and yes, "you just say Bingo" (non-native
| speakers tend to get idioms and certain turns of phrase
| wrong, Dutch people struggle with build vs built), but at
| least we get singular vs plural, past vs present vs
| future tense etc right. I'm not sure why but "most"
| (therein lies the thesis) native speakers struggle so
| much with that basic stuff, to say nothing of its vs
| it's, were vs we're vs where, maybe caring about much vs
| many, past perfect "had had 'had had', had had"...
|
| Shoot the messenger if you want, but the evidence is
| literally ubiquitous.
| kace91 wrote:
| >I would not be surprised if non-native speakers, on
| average, have a better handle of the difference between
| effect/affect, there/their, etc.
|
| That's from training system rather than age.
|
| You'll rarely catch me mixing up there and their because
| I've learned those words reading them, and in written
| form they're very distinguishable.
|
| I couldn't write a poem to save my life though, because I
| can't tell which words in English rhyme - the written
| form of an English word isn't trustable.
|
| An interesting example is natives with different accents
| making different mistakes - Latino Spanish speakers for
| example commonly confuse c and s while writing, as it's a
| similar sound.
|
| Spain's dialect however pronounces those letters very
| distinctly (their famous "lisp") so to Spaniards it's
| obvious which one to use.
| hamdingers wrote:
| In much the same way chess grand masters make moves that
| don't make sense to the novice.
| pixelpoet wrote:
| At a guess: polyglots try to raise the error floor of
| their languages / not make basic common mistakes, whereas
| monoglots have no concern with / perception of this all.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never
| does any good, and it makes boring reading.[1]
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| tialaramex wrote:
| Right the fact you may not be able to understand some
| Scottish people because of their accent doesn't mean they're
| not competent English speakers, it just means the accent is
| difficult for you to understand, which isn't relevant when
| writing.
|
| There are a few famous movie scenes where somebody
| deliberately uses perfectly reasonable English sentences but
| with such a thick accent that most English users cannot
| understand it, but once you know what they said you can play
| that sound back and yeah, that's what they said, you just
| couldn't understand the accent e.g..
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs-rgvkRfwc
|
| Indeed the joke is that people keep repeating what the hard-
| to-understand bloke said even when it's perfectly obvious
| what he said, because if you can understand it then you can't
| tell whether it was hard to understand.
|
| That's not even Scottish, the bloke in that scene is from
| Somerset, which is the far side of the country but exactly
| like Scotland _most_ people in Somerset don 't talk like that
| _most_ of the time, but some of them do, some of the time and
| to them it 's normal, that's just how you say words.
| pixelpoet wrote:
| My stepdad is Glaswegian :) Funny that you immediately
| assume I'm having difficulty understanding the accent (I
| can do a pretty good Scottish accent, along with several
| others BTW!), and conflating that with the average level of
| English writing you see on the internet.
| flumpcakes wrote:
| It was written English, not spoken. I think that's why I
| was confused by the statement it might give away who they
| are...
|
| I know plenty of people from the area this forum post is
| about and everyone has a high standard of English... even
| the people with thick local accents and non-native English
| speaking Europeans.
|
| Does Rockstar hire lots of non-European people to work in
| Edinburgh or something?
| bartread wrote:
| Even discounting this, and despite everyone bleating on about
| its (very real) flaws, ChatGPT and other LLMs do quite a good
| job of proofreading and suggesting improvements to written
| English text[0]. I find it works best if you keep them on
| quite a tight leash but it's certainly within the compass of
| their capabilities to take badly written English and turn it
| into well written English, and even adopting a particular
| style to do so.
|
| _[0] Performance in other languages... well, I suspect it 's
| still going to be quite variable, which is another valid
| criticism that has been levelled at the more popular
| mainstream models over the past year or two._
| bowmessage wrote:
| If they were careful, which I'm sure they were, the flawless
| English is the result of a round of LLM proofreading.
| pixelpoet wrote:
| Yeah I was thinking about that, these days you just run
| whatever text you want to anonymise through an LLM with some
| instructions for style.
| martin-t wrote:
| That's what I am thinking.
|
| I'd use a local LLM too to make sure the original prompt does
| not leak and can't be connected to the published output.
| m463 wrote:
| > I've never been burnt out since
|
| Why can't this style of management just take hold at a game
| company?
|
| I suspect that hollywood has a pretty similar release cycle,
| and I've never heard of the dysfunctional management in that
| industry. (maybe it is normalized? maybe people don't expect a
| job after a movie is done?)
| mrkpdl wrote:
| The crunch culture in the film industry is legendary,
| particularly in visual effects, where many studios go out of
| business. There has recently been mass layoffs in the
| industry and much of the employment is temporary from film to
| film.
| motbus3 wrote:
| Not that they did on purpose or anything, but the delay was at a
| very convenient time
| lazzlazzlazz wrote:
| Given all the research that shows that unions actually depress
| wages and damage companies, it's incredible to see a few HN
| comments in support. It's okay to recognize that unions are bad
| and that the best companies, and their products, don't need to be
| held hostage by a very small number of grifters.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Citations? I'm not aware of this strong a conclusion. In fact,
| my understanding is that generally wages go up.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Doing my own research, ChatGPT summarizes the state as
| generally unions improve wages and working conditions for
| employees much more than they pay in premiums. This has gone
| down since the 1970s but is still a noticeable effect. Indeed
| the 40 hour work week comes from unions. There is a negative
| effect on profitability, but that's subject to
| interpretation:
|
| > The negative effect on profitability from unionization may
| reflect that unions raise labour costs (via higher
| wages/benefits) and may impose work rules or other
| constraints that reduce flexibility. The classic model:
| higher labour cost - lower margins, unless offset by higher
| productivity or price increases. But the productivity and
| growth effects are less clear: many studies find little or no
| negative effect on productivity or capital structure,
| suggesting that unions may shift the distribution of returns
| (towards workers) rather than clearly kill growth.
|
| So it may be worth revisiting the research you cited so
| decisively against unions as it likely contradicts your
| belief about them.
| cwillu wrote:
| I believe you replied to the wrong comment
| jjulius wrote:
| >Doing my own research, ChatGPT summarizes...
|
| One of these things is not like the other.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| No but one step further than OP went making
| unsubstantiated claims that actually contradicts the
| actual research that paints a much more complicated
| picture.
| daedrdev wrote:
| When your industry is notorious for insane hours, low pay,
| disgusting crunch, and covering up sexual abuse, a union seems
| reasonable.
| liquid_thyme wrote:
| Cherry picking examples to paint broad brush/strokes doesn't
| work. There are game companies all over the world, and have
| varying levels of work/life balance. Your crude caricature is
| just that; crude.
| arcosdev wrote:
| > ...research that shows that unions actually depress wages
|
| Citation?
| liquid_thyme wrote:
| A rational person would agree that unions, like anything else,
| have pros and cons. They can do good, but also can do harm.
| It's the commenters here seem to fly off on emotional rants
| that derail the conversations. The thinking is capital takes
| less risk than labor; and that model of thinking makes it easy
| to ascribe faults to capital, but not to labor. You can't argue
| your way out of that. When you have to manage a bunch of
| employees and run payroll, bonuses, benefits, increments, that
| is when you'll know who takes more risk.
| 8note wrote:
| I'll believe you that capital is the bigger risk taker when
| limited liability is revoked.
|
| or if we change bankruptcy such that labour is paid out
| rather than creditors.
|
| laws are setup to reduce and limit the risk for capital, and
| capital can hedge its risks where labour cannot. Generally
| nobody is able to work to full time jobs
| mmooss wrote:
| For the full post, see here:
|
| https://gtaforums.com/topic/1004182-rockstar-games-alleged-u...
| neilv wrote:
| * I want to keep liking GTA, and to keep giving Rockstar more
| money, for each new chapter and new console/device. If it turns
| out that Rockstar was union-busting and defaming, then I really
| hope that they soon have a we-messed-up moment, and genuine
| corrective action for whatever went wrong.
|
| * Has anyone heard of game-buying consumers voting en masse with
| their pocketbooks _over ethical /social concerns_ about a
| game/publisher/studio?
|
| (I absolutely don't mean something like the Gamergate psychosis,
| though that was the first very loosely related event that came to
| mind. I mean respectable commercial boycotts, for admirable
| reasons.)
| saintfire wrote:
| There was a big deal made over Blizzard's policy and behaviour.
|
| Also, I may be misremembering, but there was something
| pertaining to esports supressing the hong Kong riots.
| neilv wrote:
| Thanks:
|
| /r/gaming post that wasn't only about product: https://www.re
| ddit.com/r/gaming/comments/154ko01/why_is_bliz...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment#Hearths.
| ..
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Rockstar has historically always had anti-worker practices
| baked in, with crunch culture being the obvious one. They
| aren't your or their workers friend.
|
| They're in it to make boatloads of cash and will do whatever to
| whoever is needed.
|
| And no, consumers have never really cared in the gaming space.
| They won't do anything differently because of this.
| tharne wrote:
| > And no, consumers have never really cared in the gaming
| space. They won't do anything differently because of this.
|
| Consumers almost never care outside of isolated causes du
| jour or when it directly affects someone they know. Look at
| all the self-proclaimed socialists and progressives walking
| around with iPhones manufactured by Foxconn, a company known
| for treating its employees so badly there were inquiries into
| the suicide rates of their workers at one point.
|
| While I have my concerns about unions, they are absolutely
| necessary in many cases. Companies are not your friend, nor
| are your fellow consumers most of the time.
| Night_Thastus wrote:
| Yeah, I wanted to say that but figured someone would make a
| big stink about it.
|
| It's the truth though. It doesn't matter if the product was
| produced as a result of slave labor, union-busting,
| corporate government coups, extensive pollution,
| monopolistic behavior, manipulation either of or from the
| government, theft of natural resources, etc.
|
| People just go 'la la la I can't hear you' and buy whatever
| they want.
|
| And to some extent I don't blame people for doing that. To
| really dig into the actions of even a _single_ company
| could take months of careful research. And given how
| convoluted the ownership charts can be, you may end up
| finding that 3 /4 or more of what you buy is from a company
| with despicable practices - I mean shoot look at what
| Nestle owns.
|
| I don't know if there's a solution. Even if you got people
| to do all the hard work (ha!), it would be hard for people
| to get around it.
| tharne wrote:
| > To really dig into the actions of even a single company
| could take months of careful research.
|
| That's a really good point. With the way modern supply
| chains work, it may not even be possible to really know
| if you're buying something that was ethically produced or
| not.
| fracus wrote:
| Didn't the gaming community essentially kill Star Wars
| Battlefront 2 for EA because of the microtransaction PR fumble?
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Could have kept the _Rockstar Games_ in the title for clarity
| exabrial wrote:
| Every union I've been a part of has been more of a pain than its
| worth, or has tried to keep individuals from become any more
| successful that others. I don't understand the obsession with
| them on HN.
| newfriend wrote:
| It's a luxury belief held by those who aren't personally
| affected by any drawbacks. Many such cases.
| tialaramex wrote:
| I am an individual who doesn't like just being one of a group,
| so I have never joined a union, but I support some union
| actions at my employer and so I too go on strike (and thus
| don't get paid) if I agree with the cause of their action. It
| can be simultaneously true that unions aren't perfect and that
| unionisation is better than not.
|
| Indeed that's par for the course, there's plenty to dislike
| about democracy, but the alternatives we've tried are worse for
| example.
| mlrtime wrote:
| I'm guessing 90%+ of HN posters are not in a union. They
| idealize what it could be, not what it actually is.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Which unions have you been part of?
|
| I used to work at a university that was NON-union, but
| basically ensured our benefits/raises were always at LEAST as
| good as the unionized university across town negotiated. THAT's
| a way to avoid unionizing efforts.
|
| I have a teacher in the family - it's been an unequivocal
| necessity for them - otherwise the city / schoolboard would run
| roughshod over them - like 1% raises over 5 years, while their
| coffers are full.
|
| And there's always a few (*&@#$ parents who think they're "all
| that" who would try to have individual teachers fired just
| because their 1st grader only got a "B" when they're clearly a
| generational prodigy... Unions really help with that.
| exabrial wrote:
| I worked for Chance Coach and I don't remember the exact
| Union they were all a member of. I was worked as a contract
| employee for Volt Technical Services. I was told I was
| required to pay dues even though I wasn't a permanent
| employee, which was an absolute fabrication of a lie told to
| me by union leaders on the job site I later learned (I was
| swindled out of a few hundred bucks, but as a teenager I
| didn't really know any better).
|
| They had several (4 I think?) union-mandated breaks during
| the day, which I got in trouble for not taking several times.
| The reason given was if I didn't take my breaks than they
| could disappear for everyone. I also was willing to do any
| job given to me, and given that I had some shop and machining
| experience, was happy to help with any task given, which made
| me an asset to management as they cold put me in anywhere as
| needed to help production along, but angered old crotchety
| employees that didn't want me in their space and were happy
| doing the absolute minimum to collect their wage.
|
| So yeah, my experience with Unions is they breed mediocracy
| and pull everyone down that wants to set themselves apart to
| management. Wages were standardized rather than based on
| individual accomplishments so there was no incentive to
| excel.
| rburhum wrote:
| Try to work at a place that has a union and decide to not be
| part of it... then you can see the true face of injustice.
| Don't want to be extorted out of union fees? Good luck, you are
| better off working somewhere else.
| mrkpdl wrote:
| This is not representative of all unions, and the union fees
| are generally small compared to the higher wages that
| wouldn't exist were there not a union in place.
| Mathematically you give a little to get a lot.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| Former IBEW; I'm forever grateful for the paid training and
| industry experience.
|
| Had I any dependants, I'd definitely stay ( _just for the
| benefits! which cost nothing-more for one dude or an entire
| family_ ).
|
| Started my own residential shop, now-retired; life probably
| would have been easier had I stuck with commercial, instead.
| mrkpdl wrote:
| I work for a sector with a strong union and feel the benefits
| of collective bargaining every day. Higher wages, better job
| security, and many basic accomodations that are codified in an
| EBA that one might have to otherwise fight for (eg work from
| home at least two days a week is something that is protected in
| our eba thanks to our union).
|
| Just because some unions aren't as good as others is not a
| reason to dismiss unions.
| whamlastxmas wrote:
| If I was trying to astroturf anti union sentiments this is the
| sort of stuff I'd post
| Tryk wrote:
| Do you like not working on weekends?
| LMYahooTFY wrote:
| Having been a member of the Teamsters union, I completely
| agree.
|
| It seems likely the vast majority of HN has never been a member
| of a union themselves given the audience, so the obsession
| feels like a savior complex IMO.
|
| Yeah, unions accomplished a lot of good things many decades
| ago. But if you think they haven't morphed over those decades
| and are still automatically a net positive for all workers, I
| could probably sell you a bridge.
|
| For my experience at Teamsters, there was zero incentive for
| employees to actually perform. Everything was done by senority
| across the board, and you're literally just aging and waiting
| your turn.
|
| The insurance was good, the wages were average, and the
| incentive to do better was non-existent. And yes, firing people
| unless they did something egregious was much, much harder.
| physarum_salad wrote:
| I love GTA/Red Dead but Rockstar really is just another monopoly
| (in terms of creativity) at this stage. More mid sized studios,
| like Rockstar when it started/midway, would be better.
|
| Also the narrative and dialogue is ever so slightly overated in
| Rockstar games because the competition is quite nerdy/square in
| that department as are most of the audience. The ending of Red
| Dead II was actually quite trite, especially in terms of dialogue
| and narrative (in my opinion) even though the game is incredible
| overall. It is honestly still very far from a Tarantino script.
| t-writescode wrote:
| "Monopoly" has a particular meaning. Would you describe how
| Rockstar is one? Or is even one of a small list of "big dogs" /
| defacto choices in a specific industry?
| physarum_salad wrote:
| Yes, that's vague. I specifically mean a creative monopoly.
| Compare the writing and dialogue of a Paul Thomas Anderson or
| Tarantino movie to Rockstar. Most of their games don't come
| close. Because it's a game the standard for storyline and
| dialogue is slightly lower because you are like "wow I am
| almost literally a cowboy/Nico". I wonder if we will see a
| mix of games with genuinely Tarantino style writing and
| narrative + technical / design implementation. Small studios
| doing this faster and more ethically would be better. People
| who quit Rockstar are very talented with something to prove
| too.
|
| I genuinely cringed at the end of RDII due to the dialogue
| just feel the need to mention that again...
| codeduck wrote:
| Pretty sure this is illegal under UK employment law. I smell a
| very uncomfortable period for Rockstar's HR department
| hnthrowaway0315 wrote:
| This is but a small set back. I hope people recall what their
| ancestors did in the early days of unioning.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| I would encourage anyone in tech that is interested in forming a
| union at their workplace to sign up for CWA's CODE (Campaign to
| Organize Digital Employees) training: https://code-cwa.org/
|
| CWA is a big, traditional, national union (think phone company
| employees, health care workers, flight attendants) that has voted
| to set aside a portion of their dues to help organize us, their
| fellow workers in the tech sector, which I consider a truly
| beautiful act of solidarity. They are having some successes,
| which seem to be building.
|
| Getting plugged in with the training and, almost as importantly,
| a CWA organizer, is a great first step if you know you'd like a
| union but don't know where to start.
| annexrichmond wrote:
| Are you aware of any resources for how to combat colleagues
| aiming to start a union? I am personally opposed to being part
| of a union.
| vkou wrote:
| If you don't like the people you're working with, you could
| quit.
|
| You could also vote no on a unionization vote, or just not
| join. I'm sure your loyalty will get a special consideration
| when the next round of arbitrary layoffs (coupled with
| record-breaking profits) happens.
| nevon wrote:
| I have a simple solution for you: don't join a union if you
| don't want to be part of one.
| ElevenLathe wrote:
| Just don't join. Closed shops are already illegal in the US
| so nobody can make you.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| > Closed shops are already illegal in the US
|
| I do wonder what country American Airlines operates in
| then...
|
| https://viewfromthewing.com/american-airlines-fired-two-
| flig...
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Support for unions in the US is at record highs, so pick
| carefully where you work I suppose or work as a consultant
| with no labor protections.
|
| https://www.marketplace.org/2023/01/03/gen-z-is-the-most-
| pro...
|
| https://thehill.com/business/4854173-union-approval-
| surges-p...
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/12751/labor-unions.aspx
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/510281/unions-
| strengthening.asp...
| marknutter wrote:
| Start your own company that supports unionization. Problem
| solved.
| benzible wrote:
| https://archive.is/bDc8R
| gorbachev wrote:
| They are going to get smacked down hard in the UK, if the post
| has the events described accurately.
|
| What was done was blatantly illegal, EVEN IF the people weren't
| fired for union organizing, which Rockstar will have a hard time
| explaining away since they fired only people involved in union
| organizing.
|
| The fired employees in the UK (not sure about Canada) will get
| back pay and penalties once the unavoidable legal process
| finishes.
|
| I'm sure, however, Rockstar will consider all of the sanctions
| they'll receive as price of doing business.
|
| Despicable.
| nfriedly wrote:
| HN is currently linking to the start of the forum thread, but
| here is a direct link to the Rockstar employe's reply:
| https://gtaforums.com/topic/1004182-rockstar-games-alleged-u...
|
| (And, the very next post is the forum admin confirming that the
| poster is indeed a rockstar employee.)
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