4 ms·

Yes, certain types do. Game programmers come to mind. Not sure everyone else needs them though, but there are likely others who do. Additionally, less onerous

by gte910h 16y ago

Yes, certain types do. Game programmers come to mind. Not sure everyone else needs them though, but there are likely others who do. Additionally, less onerous IP terms for employment, standard non-competes and a reduction of the idea of absurd overtime being the norm are all good things. California can thank their non-compete/IP laws for part of Silicon Valley's success.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
Why do game programmers need a union? As for IP terms/noncompetes/overtime, I'm not sure why you need a union. Why not just negotiate for that yourself?
- Tiktaalik 16y ago
  Collective bargaining power is better. A guy with a decade of experience may be able to negotiate a good deal, but for someone just out of university they'll likely be treated like their just lucky to have a job. Certain rules should apply industrywide. For games industry in general a focus some sort of standardisation for credit would be useful. How long does one have to work on a project to be in the credits for example? People get screwed out of credit all the time. Royalties is another point of contention. Some sort of standardisation for minimums would be useful. Call of Duty 2 has made well over a billion in revenue, yet there was all sorts of drama regarding royalties and the studio collapsed as a result and likely many walked away with nothing.
- gte910h 16y ago
  >As for IP terms/noncompetes/overtime, I'm not sure why you need a union. Why not just negotiate for that yourself? Because certain portions of our field have jobs that people are willing to be whipped and beaten for if they can get the jobs (entry level game programming, I'm looking at you). There isn't anything about programming that makes it reasonable to require unpaid overtime exemptions, etc, unlike most other fields have. It's merely poor management demanding it. Game programming, especially, would be nice, as there is no reason to make games come out faster, they're pure entertainment without just recompense for hours worked. A heavy preponderance of unions would deescalate the field, making everyone do less over a given period of time (or pay people much better than they do for the overtime they demand).
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    Game programmers are presumably compensated with fun. There is nothing preventing a game programmer from quitting to work at a bank, a rails shop or google. If a game programmer stays, it's because he/she enjoys game programming so much that it's worth the long hours and poor pay. I'm not sure why you consider unions reducing productivity to be a good thing.
    - gte910h 16y ago
      Are you aware of the fact that if we had 1992's productivity, there would be full employment in the US right now? You know when your boss lays off 1/3 the team, then expects you to do the same work: That's productivity! Productivity is not god. Productivity does not trump the health of the people who work there. Programming jobs currently do horrible things to the health of IT's practitioners, especially ones with stupidly long hours, including game programming. Saner hours would employ more people (or the games would do less). No one can say "games are essential enough to damage people's health over" but guess what: their development largely damages their health of their programmers.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        Are you aware of the fact that if we had 1992's productivity, we would all be 30% poorer (and living 2.8 years less) than we are today?
        gte910h 16y ago
        I don't see your numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distr... And productivity doesn't drive medical research, so: >(and living 2.8 years less) is unlikely
        yummyfajitas 16y ago
        http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+usa http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mk... You can do the inflation calculation yourself. Income is a poor measure since it excludes non-wage compensation (e.g., medical spending) which have gone up significantly relative to income. I'm not sure why you conclude life expectancy went up due to medical research. Wealth increases life expectancy, but not due to medical spending.
dantheman 16y ago
Game programmers choose their work environment they could easily be paid more and work less hours by using their skills in other industries, but they choose not too. A lot of them choose that environment just people involved in movies and television work crazy hours. Entertainment seems to require massive amount of work in relatively short bursts. Those who can figure out a way to not need this will quickly get the best talent and destroy their competition. What would a union do? Take their money? Have them go on strike? Bankrupt the company? Make it harder to fire crappy programmers (as if it isn't hard enough already).
- gte910h 16y ago
  >A lot of them choose that environment just people involved in movies and television work crazy hours. And almost everyone in the movie industry is union as well. For the same reason (highly desired jobs allowing for crazy abuse of the workers). Actually movie industry programming (Special effects, etc), are actually very tame compared to many other forms of programming as far as hours go, especially compared to video games, which is another place some of those skills they have could be applied. The point would be to require sane amounts of hours, feature cuts rather than overtime, etc.
  - dantheman 16y ago
    Anyone can create a company that does that, and if they're successful then that's great. Creating games in under 40 hours a week: http://archives.igda.org/qol/IGDA_2005_GDC-QOL-Lecture.ppt http://archives.igda.org/qol/IGDA_2005_GDC-QOL-Lecture.ppt
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    The point would be to require sane amounts of hours, feature cuts rather than overtime, etc. The point would be to harm society for the benefit of union members?
    - gte910h 16y ago
      As opposed to harming the programmers for the benefit of society? If that truly was the choice, yes, I'd be all for giving less of a benefit to society over actually harming programmers. I don't think that is true however. As many people have successfully developed software in general, and games in particular, with 40 hour weeks, I believe the overtime shops are throwing hours at a problem that has other solutions. By forcing game companies to have the same overtime type regulations that almost every other sort of company has, you make those solutions mandatory. If you think I'm full of it, perhaps you should look at EA: They peeled back from massive overtime, and now "only" do stupid hours 2 months a year (down from 4-8 months a year). Evidently, those stupid overtime hours weren't needed. Holywood has unionized. Notice movies are still made. Sitcoms are still made. Nothing stopped there. Occasionally there is a strike or something, and we watch reruns.
heresy 16y ago
In 2002, I had 3 friends employed by gaming companies. In 2010, none of them are, and happier for it. One of them got an 90% pay increase by moving to a company doing kernel level development. They also got normal working hours. Hmmm, tough call.

by gte910h 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

Why do game programmers need a union? As for IP terms/noncompetes/overtime, I'm not sure why you need a union. Why not just negotiate for that yourself?

Tiktaalik 16y ago
Collective bargaining power is better. A guy with a decade of experience may be able to negotiate a good deal, but for someone just out of university they'll likely be treated like their just lucky to have a job. Certain rules should apply industrywide. For games industry in general a focus some sort of standardisation for credit would be useful. How long does one have to work on a project to be in the credits for example? People get screwed out of credit all the time. Royalties is another point of contention. Some sort of standardisation for minimums would be useful. Call of Duty 2 has made well over a billion in revenue, yet there was all sorts of drama regarding royalties and the studio collapsed as a result and likely many walked away with nothing.
gte910h 16y ago
>As for IP terms/noncompetes/overtime, I'm not sure why you need a union. Why not just negotiate for that yourself? Because certain portions of our field have jobs that people are willing to be whipped and beaten for if they can get the jobs (entry level game programming, I'm looking at you). There isn't anything about programming that makes it reasonable to require unpaid overtime exemptions, etc, unlike most other fields have. It's merely poor management demanding it. Game programming, especially, would be nice, as there is no reason to make games come out faster, they're pure entertainment without just recompense for hours worked. A heavy preponderance of unions would deescalate the field, making everyone do less over a given period of time (or pay people much better than they do for the overtime they demand).
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  Game programmers are presumably compensated with fun. There is nothing preventing a game programmer from quitting to work at a bank, a rails shop or google. If a game programmer stays, it's because he/she enjoys game programming so much that it's worth the long hours and poor pay. I'm not sure why you consider unions reducing productivity to be a good thing.
  - gte910h 16y ago
    Are you aware of the fact that if we had 1992's productivity, there would be full employment in the US right now? You know when your boss lays off 1/3 the team, then expects you to do the same work: That's productivity! Productivity is not god. Productivity does not trump the health of the people who work there. Programming jobs currently do horrible things to the health of IT's practitioners, especially ones with stupidly long hours, including game programming. Saner hours would employ more people (or the games would do less). No one can say "games are essential enough to damage people's health over" but guess what: their development largely damages their health of their programmers.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Are you aware of the fact that if we had 1992's productivity, we would all be 30% poorer (and living 2.8 years less) than we are today?
      - gte910h 16y ago
        I don't see your numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Income_Distr... And productivity doesn't drive medical research, so: >(and living 2.8 years less) is unlikely
        yummyfajitas 16y ago
        http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mktp_cd&idim=country:USA&dl=en&hl=en&q=gdp+usa http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&met=ny_gdp_mk... You can do the inflation calculation yourself. Income is a poor measure since it excludes non-wage compensation (e.g., medical spending) which have gone up significantly relative to income. I'm not sure why you conclude life expectancy went up due to medical research. Wealth increases life expectancy, but not due to medical spending.

dantheman 16y ago

Game programmers choose their work environment they could easily be paid more and work less hours by using their skills in other industries, but they choose not too. A lot of them choose that environment just people involved in movies and television work crazy hours. Entertainment seems to require massive amount of work in relatively short bursts. Those who can figure out a way to not need this will quickly get the best talent and destroy their competition. What would a union do? Take their money? Have them go on strike? Bankrupt the company? Make it harder to fire crappy programmers (as if it isn't hard enough already).

gte910h 16y ago
>A lot of them choose that environment just people involved in movies and television work crazy hours. And almost everyone in the movie industry is union as well. For the same reason (highly desired jobs allowing for crazy abuse of the workers). Actually movie industry programming (Special effects, etc), are actually very tame compared to many other forms of programming as far as hours go, especially compared to video games, which is another place some of those skills they have could be applied. The point would be to require sane amounts of hours, feature cuts rather than overtime, etc.
- dantheman 16y ago
  Anyone can create a company that does that, and if they're successful then that's great. Creating games in under 40 hours a week: http://archives.igda.org/qol/IGDA_2005_GDC-QOL-Lecture.ppt http://archives.igda.org/qol/IGDA_2005_GDC-QOL-Lecture.ppt
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  The point would be to require sane amounts of hours, feature cuts rather than overtime, etc. The point would be to harm society for the benefit of union members?
  - gte910h 16y ago
    As opposed to harming the programmers for the benefit of society? If that truly was the choice, yes, I'd be all for giving less of a benefit to society over actually harming programmers. I don't think that is true however. As many people have successfully developed software in general, and games in particular, with 40 hour weeks, I believe the overtime shops are throwing hours at a problem that has other solutions. By forcing game companies to have the same overtime type regulations that almost every other sort of company has, you make those solutions mandatory. If you think I'm full of it, perhaps you should look at EA: They peeled back from massive overtime, and now "only" do stupid hours 2 months a year (down from 4-8 months a year). Evidently, those stupid overtime hours weren't needed. Holywood has unionized. Notice movies are still made. Sitcoms are still made. Nothing stopped there. Occasionally there is a strike or something, and we watch reruns.

heresy 16y ago

In 2002, I had 3 friends employed by gaming companies. In 2010, none of them are, and happier for it. One of them got an 90% pay increase by moving to a company doing kernel level development. They also got normal working hours. Hmmm, tough call.