A part of the reason you hear these stories of the games industry is that it's a desirable job for many people. Games companies can get away with more than some

A part of the reason you hear these stories of the games industry is that it's a desirable job for many people. Games companies can get away with more than some other software companies because enough people want to work on games despite worse employment conditions than they might find with the same skill set elsewhere. There's a supply and demand issue. There's also a certain amount of self imposed crunch by people who are genuinely passionate about the game they're working on and don't have as many other demands on their time due to family or other outside interests or commitments. To the extent that unions improve worker conditions, they do so in part by restricting entry and thus influencing the supply side. In general unions tend to benefit people already in the industry at the expense of people outside who'd like to join, among other groups. Whether that's a desirable outcome depends on large part to which group you either belong or care about the most.