Game Workers Unite is a UK-based movement aiming to unionize game development
25 replies, posted
I couldn't really decide if this better belonged here or in Polidicks, but my buddy Dec has been working on starting a push for unionization in the game industry, and he and some of his partners were recently interviewed by Eurogamer on the subject.
The games industry needs unions
Game development isn't a blue collar job, and to many it's considered
quite middle class, so some might suggest that unions aren't the
solution. "I would argue that role has changed," Marijam argued. "we see
a lot more full-time contracts being changed into freelance contracts,
we're seeing outsourcing to the global south of all sorts of development
jobs, we're seeing speculative labour being introduced. It's a complete
curb and a change of workers rights, so I think if we don't put our
foot down right now as game workers, then we will see a complete
disappearance of our workers rights."
At the moment, video games and unions don't exactly go hand-in-hand, a
problem shared to a degree by the tech industry en masse. "The problem
with the game industry is there's so many people vying to get into it,
and so employers are like, 'Oh this is your dream to work in this
industry,'" said Declan. "'Why do you care about doing overtime? And
being paid for it? You want to do this! This is fun, isn't it?'" This
culture of employees being guilt-tripped into feeling privileged and
lucky to have their jobs is one factor in why unionising has been so
difficult.
also lmfao he wore a goddamn jean jacket to the interview eat shit dec you smelly wannabe 80s travesty
Considering what I hear about working conditions at Rockstar and half the studios in London, I'm 100% for this. Games & VFX are predatory towards people of generally docile nonconfrontational & "passionate about their work" nature so it would be great for them to have a union backing them up.
I got friends one of which works as QA in Rockstar and has been testing RDR2 for the better part of a year and the other in Sony who did QA for Detroit: Become Human, from the sounds of it the hours are long and the shifts can be crappy especially during crunch but on the whole it doesn't seem that bad and they enjoy the job,
I know that doesn't speak for gamesdev as a whole but the main issues from what I have heard (I know around 5 people who have done QA at Rockstar over the last 10 years) I think the main concerns are basically that in QA you generally get minimum wage with little to no prospects to move up, extreme inflexibility on holiday/shifts and zero job security as QA is generally treated as disposable and you can be replaced or axed on a dime.
Would be good to have a certification system like the article describes though, so companies can be held accountable for their bad business practices by having a black mark on their record.
This quote from the article pretty much sums it up though:
"The problem with the game industry is there's so many people vying to get into it, and so employers are like, 'Oh this is your dream to work in this industry,'" said Declan. "'Why do you care about doing overtime? And being paid for it? You want to do this! This is fun, isn't it?'" This culture of employees being guilt-tripped into feeling privileged and lucky to have their jobs is one factor in why unionising has been so difficult.
For every person who wants better pay and job security there are 100 people who would gladly jump in their place just to get their foot in the door.
Imagine that, might even improve the quality of some games because folk are actually getting the rest and time to unwind that they need.
Crunch happens regardless of industry but R* is notorious for bad crunch periods. Crunch is healthy in small amounts & while it should never be budgeted in your schedule (that's bad producing) it will happen 90% of the time.
Unions are far overdue for the games industry. It's ridiculous the sorts of shit that gets pulled in some companies.
It's alright if everyone wants to and is so enthusiastic about a game that they stay in the office for weeks at a time, sleeping under their desk, and so forth -- but that leads to a very unhealthy work/life balance. I say this as a man who made games in a professional capacity from home, over the internet, for 9 years: even if it's out of love 'to keep them healthy and happy' more than hate for someone 'forcing them to do it' - someone other than the people working there needs to be in control of how long people are allowed to work.
If your crunch is severe that's a failure on the management, not the workers
There's some crunch at my workplace, but we're just software engineers, not game devs. I've never experience it since I just started, but the other day a guy was here til 2am preparing a demo. I told myself I'll never let that happen, but if it does I'm gonna deal with it an start updating my resume
by the way, not to distract from the very real subject of my own thread here, but can I just note how fucking weird it is to see a big fancy article like this and people seriously discussing my friend, the guy that I've had 4AM arguments about furry penises with
he's trying to become a big respectable activist boy and I've got so many quotes on record that could utterly ruin him in an instant
it's a strange sort of feeling
I mean, you or I could wait, but games are quite strategic in terms of exactly when/how they are released. Besides seasonal variation, sales of games are heavily front-loaded, and the marketing department spends months creating a carefully-orchestrated demand spike at the time of release. I agree that games themselves would be better off this way, but I'm not sure it's realistic to expect companies to do this.
This is why there need to be unions for people like him.
Programmers of the world unite
My number 1 piece of advice is you're more important than the work you're producing.
Easy to say if you have a relatively decent family structure/income/whatever.
Know your value.
There are no cut and dried solutions to deadlines or bugs.
Not always, problems happen, and if you've got a deadline to hit. It's not always up to the developers either, often than not it's the publishers (which in some cases may be the same company, but they're not the same as the dev team) that can cause it, especially if they bring a projects release forward.
QA is always the arse end of a company when it comes to games. It's generally the easiest level to get into a company, with long hours and extremely repetitive work. People often think QA is just playing the game to test it, but invariably, it ends up not being and instead, you end up having to repeat, often excessively, particular actions at a particular place, either to make sure there is no bug when doing so, or, trying to track down exactly when, why and where a specific thing occurs.
gamer developers RISE UP
(really this is cool though, hope it all pans out)
