20 ms·

Nearly Half of Game Developers Want to Unionize

• jdlyga 8y ago
  I don't know what's driving people to work in the gaming industry. If you worked on simulation software, for example, you could still do graphics programming, have a phenomenally better working environment, reasonable hours, and more pay.
  • devoply 8y ago
    A lot of people love the industry and the idea of making games. They hate the working conditions however which leave much to be desired... especially considering the working conditions are bad at many companies that make a significant profit on many of their projects.
  • mjn 8y ago
    A pretty large number of people do end up making that decision. I'm an academic researcher who does some stuff related to AI & Games, and one of my personal problems is that my game-industry AI contacts keep leaving the game industry for jobs elsewhere, which makes it hard to build any kind of longer-term collaboration.
  • muststopmyths 8y ago
    Games are more than "graphics programming". In fact, the fraction of programmers on a game is small, and the number of graphics programmers is a tiny fraction of that. In my most recent project we didn't even have a dedicated graphics programmer because we used Unreal Engine. Yes, sometimes things had to be tuned and UE had to be kicked in the butt, but mostly it just worked. I haven't worked in regular software in ages and have no intention of every going back to that. A single game will have multiple areas in which you have fun, interesting and challenging problems to solve. You don't typically get that in a vanilla software job. Of course, if you work for a large game company, they tend to have specialists for various areas and I would guess the job gets old in one of those places pretty quickly. In my experience, the ones who really get exploited in the game industry are non-programmers. There are plenty of young people who want to work on games but not be programmers. They are frequently tracked into QA, game design or producer (known as program manager elsewhere) careers. There's an oversupply of these kids and along with artists they are the most egregiously underpaid. The best among them do go on eventually to be game designers (or upper management if they so desire) and do well.
  • zjaffee 8y ago
    It's because it's a dream for people, comparable to working on movies. That's like saying why should a AV technician not work on movies when they can make more money doing recordings for corporate events.
    • magduf 8y ago
      So why should anyone outside this "dream" industry give two shits about the people inside the industry being mistreated? If they don't like it, they should go to work in some other "boring" industry that uses those same skills. There's no shortage of jobs out there for skilled people these days, the problem is too many prima donnas like these game devs who want to live their dream and then also be treated well. When everyone and their brother is clamoring to work in a particular niche industry, producing a huge oversupply, this is what you get. Go work in an industry where there's a shortage of qualified people instead.
      • davidcbc 8y ago
        Maybe, and hear me out I know this is a crazy idea, but maybe everyone should be treated well.
        • magduf 8y ago
          Sorry, I don't believe that. I believe people who don't have a good choice should be treated well, but if people are happily signing up to be treated poorly, and they KNOW they are going to be treated poorly there, (and they have plenty of far better alternatives, and they're only signing up for this because it's "cool") then I don't have any sympathy for them whatsoever. If you want to be treated well, then stop flocking to people and places that treat you like crap.
      • zjaffee 8y ago
        The TV and Film industry is one of the most heavily unionized industries there is, so there's precedent for unionization in these types of fields.
    • fucking_tragedy 8y ago
• chasingthewind 8y ago
  Unions would very likely increase game prices. I will happily pay more for games in exchange for better conditions for game developers.
  • cazum 8y ago
    Game prices are going to increase anyway. Last year, EA made over a billion dollars in profits. If they aren't using that money to improve the working conditions of developers, what makes you think the solution is to give them more money?
    • Rebelgecko 8y ago
      When you look at the prices of the games themselves, they're fairly cheap today. For the last couple console generations, the cost of a new AAA game has been consistently around $60. A NES game 30 years ago could cost $50, but when you take into account inflation that's about $100 in today's money. Companies like EA seem to make up for that by selling more copies of games, having deluxe editions, and jamming in microtransactions.
      • falcolas 8y ago
        Only the most bare-bones version of a AAA quality title will cost you $60; the absolute minimum of content which could still be called a game. To get access to all of the content (frequently including story content), you're looking at a $100 starting point ($70-$90 for the "deluxe" edition, $30 for a "season pass"), going ever-upwards with the more in-game content and physical ephemera you want. And that doesn't include any in-game transactions.
        • maccard 8y ago
          >Only the most bare-bones version of a AAA quality title will cost you $60; the absolute minimum of content which could still be called a game That's fairly disingenuous - the last game I bought at full price was Spiderman. A quick Google says the the average user on the default difficulty clears the story in about 20 hours. Sper metroid came out in 1994 (25 years ago), and the same quick search says that most people will clear it in 8 hours or so. Single player games today are also regularly putting out free balance patches (nioh), large free content updates(Gran Turismo) and smaller chunks of paid content that rival the size of other games for very reasonable amounts (Witcher 3).
• lenticular 8y ago
  I never understand employees who don't want to unionize. It just shows what a sorry state the labor movement is in.
  • lettergram 8y ago
    There is very little incentive for someone in the tech industry to unionize. Well paid, safe environment, adjustable hours, often free food and unlimited vacation(s). Why should I go through the extra effort, financial loss, etc. Typically to help support engineers less productive than I to keep their jobs? No thanks.
    • tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
      afaik, the game industry is kind of an oddity. I don't fully understand it, but from what I hear, game devs are overworked and underpaid.
      • giggles_giggles 8y ago
        I've heard a number of horror stories about the game dev industry that would be unheard of in the larger tech community. I've always thought this was because there was a less restricted labor supply among game developers. I knew a LOT of guys in University who got into CS because they "wanted to make games." That increases competition for the available positions, which creates unfavorable conditions for the labor pool and an easily exploitable market for employers who know there's always another eager kid lining up to "make games."
        • tenaciousDaniel 8y ago
          Yep. Weird that it doesn't restrict the labor pool though. I would love to work in games. But I'm not putting in 80 hour weeks for 75K a year. No thank you.
        • NorthOf33rd 8y ago
          And this is almost certainly coming to the rest of the industry- there is currently another front page article about the difficulty of getting into classes/programs because they are so full. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18987996 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18987996
• vvanders 8y ago
  Been that way for more than a decade(at least since I was looking to get into the industry around '00 or so). Problem is there's a thousand young devs out there trying to bang down the doors to get in. In that situation I don't see how you have effective leverage. With things as it stands today there's a good ~50-60% churn in the industry and things seem to keep rolling on(although I wonder what improvements we'd see with better working hours and improved pay WRT other dev domains).
  • smacktoward 8y ago
    > Problem is there's a thousand young devs out there trying to bang down the doors to get in. The same could be said of acting and professional athletics, and actors and pro athletes have strong, effective unions. So this hurdle is not insurmountable.
    • icelancer 8y ago
      > pro athletes have strong, effective unions Absolutely false. MLBPA is a joke and NFLPA stands idle while its employees are killed and subjected to brain damage while ineffectively signing agreements that discharge liability by management.
    • rjf72 8y ago
      In every field you just listed the workers are seen as valuable part of the product. In the games industry, they're just seen as a resource.
    • dver 8y ago
      Better analogy is the MiLB minor leagues, lots of eager desperate players who make little to nothing and have no bargaining power.
• 51lver 8y ago
  Wouldn't it be cool if "American" implied some standard of living worth being proud of?
  • icelancer 8y ago
    Judging on our net immigration into the country, it seems like it does to a hell of a lot of people.
  • ChrisLomont 8y ago
    What standard of living would you be proud of? The US has the world's highest median (middle income) household disposable (after taxes and services paid for) income in the world. [1] This correlates pretty highly with standard of living measurements, which is much more vague. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disposable_household_and_per_c...
    • pimmen 8y ago
      Yes, but the reason the rest of us in the other parts of the developed world has lower salaries is because we use our taxes to buy lots of stuff we will need later on for situations you can't really plan for. When an American household gets two kids, one of whom develops a disease and the other one needs to go to day care because both parents have to work, it's not exactly cheap but in Sweden ending up in a situation like that wouldn't make nearly as much of a difference to what's left after taxes and bills. Same thing if the other provider in the household gets sick, even if that disease is rare and expensive to manage.
      • ChrisLomont 8y ago
        > we use our taxes to ... sick ... disease The US pays as much in tax for nationally provided healthcare as % of GDP as does most of the OECD. The difference is healthcare costs twice as much here, so the govt ends up paying about half the cost through taxes. For example, Sweden pays ~$5500 (PPP) per capita. US spends ~$10,209. US Medicare and Medicaid paid out about $1.3T, private healthcare paid about $1.2T. So we're paying the same tax towards healthcare as most of the OECD. The healthcare angle is not the difference in taxation between the countries. The underlying costs are the difference, represented at every level here, from nurse and doctor salaries to drug costs to administrative costs to legislative costs.
• zozbot123 8y ago
  As I've said before-- game development is the sort of industry that everyone thinks they'll want to work in, only to change their minds very quickly once they see how the sausage is made. Never mind unionizing, even just raising awareness about the work conditions in the industry - and making it clear that they're not representative of "tech" more generally - would help a lot!
  • Tistel 8y ago
    this. When I was a little kid I wanted to make games. Worked in the industry for 13 years. It's pretty brutal. 10AM to 10PM for months on end (this was when games were deployed on disks so there was a hard deadline, hence brutal crunch). The basic (but unsaid) feeling inside was that there are a ton of people who would be happy to replace you, so don't complain. Its an art form (visuals, audio, story, mechanics, math etc) so maybe suffering is innate. :). I don't miss it, but, I have always wanted to flesh out some ideas that have bouncing around for years.
• hesdeadjim 8y ago
  I've been in the game industry going on a decade now and I have zero interest in unionizing. I do not want my future in any way controlled by yet another external entity that I have little control over and promises nebulous results. As an employer I want to be able to fire toxic or under-performing employees at will without jumping through a hundred hoops to make sure I am not breaking any union rules. As an employee, I want to be free to negotiate my own wages based on my merit. If there is one thing I would want a union to do it would be to collectively enforce some kind of profit sharing plan. The interests of the employees and the employer align -- make a great game that sells well. Anything else, no thanks.
  • jahaja 8y ago
    Emphasis on the "As an employer": > I run a very small indie game studio in Boulder, CO.
    • hesdeadjim 8y ago
      I've been an employee for 80% of my game development career.
      • jahaja 8y ago
        Doesn't change the current "conflict-of-interests" situation that I wanted to highlight.
        • notSupplied 8y ago
          Hmm, if being in management makes him conflicted from making anti-union statements, does being an employee also conflict someone from making pro-uniom statements?
  • JohnJamesRambo 8y ago
    These are all very old problems brought up when workers want protection from abusive employers by forming a union and is not unique to the video games industry at all. Even railroads and textile mills didn’t ask their employees to work 80 hour work weeks.
• stcredzero 8y ago
  Game testers should unionize. I've met some game testers who are as dense as a box of hammers. I've also met some game testers who are valuable, awesome people who know things and who I'd be glad to work with. Unfortunately, the game industry seems programmed to treat them all like trash. I think this is another form of bigotry obscuring real human value. If one could find the really good testers, pay them well, and retain them, it might just pay off in increased quality and productivity.
• SubiculumCode 8y ago
  I neither think there should be impediments on unions nor should union dues malndatory, nor that there should be restrictions on the number of unions active in a workplace or industry. People should be able to go it alone and suffer/benefit from the consequences, or form a union spontaneously consisting of just a couple of fellow workers with shared demands. Let unions compete in their own marketplace to achieve both better and flexible representation of labor. And to those that will ojext that this puts a heavy burden on business by having to negotiate with multiple parties, well too bad.
• username223 8y ago
  People who make comfortable livings sitting at desks near company cafeterias, then disparage unions, need to remember that unions brought them labor laws and weekends, and paid in blood: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
  • ChrisLomont 8y ago
    Capitalism and productivity had significant impact on giving us more leisure time, not demanding it. This pattern has been repeated in many places with or without strong labor. Making more with less lets people work less over time.
    • username223 8y ago
      I think power and politics matter more than you believe. The two graphs on page 12 here (sorry, giant PDF), suggest that things have worked out very differently for the US and Western Europe, two similarly wealthy areas: https://wir2018.wid.world/files/download/wir2018-full-report-english.pdf https://wir2018.wid.world/files/download/wir2018-full-report... You rarely get more money if you don't or can't demand it, e.g. salary negotiation.
      • ChrisLomont 8y ago
        Share of income can hide much more important items, like absolute income. Most people care less about what share of national income they make and care more about what total income they make. It's easier to have low inequality when everyone is poor. It's harder to keep inequality low when people as a whole, including median, get richer. It's also harder to keep inequality (say, by Gini) for larger populations. (As neat evidence of this last fact, 45 US States last I checked had Gini below the aggregate US Gini - it's how the math works, hiding nuances). For example, from your graphs: US median wage is higher than Western Europe (very few countries higher, most decently lower) - so they have lower inequality, but the people have less income. [1] https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/average-wages.htm https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/average-wages.htm
    • 8y ago
• egypturnash 8y ago
  I hope that the folks at the forefront of trying to unionize the game industry are talking to existing entertainment unions. I suspect there's a lot of similarities, especially when you get into absurdly huge projects like a sprawling open-world game or an animated feature. (And by 'animated' I include pretty much every effects-laden action film. IIRC there is not currently an effects worker union in Hollywood, while there is an animators union - guess which craft sucks less to be in?)
• Farradfahren 8y ago
  Nearly half of GD is always on the way out of the industry to be replaced with idealist, young Developers with a passion for working 100 h shifts and sacrificing themselves to implement lewdboxes. You can unionize the gamdevelopment industry as much as you could unionize the actors or the model industry. There is always somebody new, who is willing to give anything to keep this emotional distorted market place going, effectively dropping labour costs to zero. Union protests against having to nibble on the Weinstein to make progress? Fire all the actors, replace them with new ones. Gamedesigners strike in the midst of death march? Well, they shall be replaced after the march with "motivated" personal anyway. In a distorted market, participation equals loosing the game.
• ben509 8y ago
  I'll take a shot at how it could be successful. Unions can add value in industries that need vast numbers of highly specialized individuals. If you think of a film or a play, both unionized industries, a production works by hiring a mess of specialists who show up ready to go. Everyone knows what they're doing, why they're there, etc. There's a very good discussion (with a libertarian economist, no less) here[1] about it. There is a large part of game development, especially in the "blockbuster" game development that seems like it fits this model quite well. It might not apply to more specialized elements like game engine design, but for modern games that are designed more like movies than games, it could be highly effective. [1]: http://www.econtalk.org/mitch-weiss-on-the-business-of-broadway/ http://www.econtalk.org/mitch-weiss-on-the-business-of-broad...
• MarsAscendant 8y ago
  What would entering a union mean for the developer? I've read that it would increase their protection (legal, and sometimes financial, I suppose?), and that it's supposed to improve working conditions (because unionized workers will have a more solid foundation to push against as they demand those conditions). How deep does this go? Is there any other benefit? Something specific to the industry, perhaps?
  • vkou 8y ago
    The biggest problems that game developers face is working conditions (Demand for unpaid overtime), and lack of protection from capricious behaviour by management (Management promises not fulfilled, retaliatory firings, firing people so that you don't have to pay them a ship bonus). I can't really think of anything else.
• techslave 8y ago
  As a non-game developer, I'm surprised the numbers are so low. From the sounds of it, game dev is unnecessarily brutal and lives even get destroyed.
• prepend 8y ago
  Not to be pedantic, but this headline is not accurate. There’s nothing that makes me confident that respondents to the game dev conference survey are representative enough to say “nearly half of game developers.” This is a really important point as trying to represent a bunch of people’s opinion based on a single, limited survey is not productive.
  • criddell 8y ago
    I would think that conference attendees would be fairly representative of commercial game developers. I don't know enough about statistics to say how big the error bars would be here, but I'm constantly astonished by how well statistical methods can work with even seemingly small samples.
    • MCrekt 8y ago
      But considering how many developers don’t live where the conference takes place and/or can’t get there I have to agree with the top here and say this survey is severely limited.
      • walshemj 8y ago
        it would indicate the better paid ones who can afford to g to industry conferences
    • gizmo686 8y ago
      The issue isn't with sample size. It is with sample method. The population of gamedevs who go to a conference is probably not a random selection of gamedevs in general.
      • walshemj 8y ago
        Its a sample size of 4000 and electoral polls are smaller than that 1k or 3k
        • 8y ago
• tomohawk 8y ago
  Yes, I'm sure that 20 something dev would look forward to waiting for years to get on the game dev team due to union seniority rules. And I'm sure the junior devs on the team would feel great about not getting the choice vacation times because the senior devs would have first choice due to union rules. After all, its fairer if those people who have put the time in get the most benefits, right?
• evanmoran 8y ago
  As someone who's been in the game industry a while, I can see where this is coming from. This is not about software devs, it's a special challenge specific to game devs where the lower pay and higher overtime expectations really affect people's lives. This is then made worse as studios keep closing down, because people will put up with more bs than usual for job stability. No idea if unions are the solution, but this is definitely an issue specific to the game industry right now.
  • walshemj 8y ago
    And I suspect that having sfx and vfx unionised which game dev is closer to might help.
  • jsgo 8y ago
    I didn't go into game development, even though that's why I started to learn programming, precisely for this reason. While I hope that the issues you mention above plus the cycle of game launching after a massive deadline crunch leading to development teams searching for new jobs (ie less stability), I don't know that it will happen. Why? People buying games. Personally, I tend to buy the top tier of a game if for no other reason than they typically include the game/season pass (or whatever branding they go with) so that I don't have to manage it after the fact, of the games or expansions I bought recently, they've been the highest tier available: Assassin's Creed Odyssey, State of Decay 2, World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth, Tekken 7, Destiny 2 Forsaken (which I really haven't played. Still in the Osiris area. Eh, oh well), Ghost Recon Wildlands, The Division. To me, the fidelity of the graphics and scope of the games (in that most everyone is chasing epic stories now and if it isn't 30+ hours, it is too short) means the price should bump up beyond $60 so while the tiers of games seems like a dirty move, it seems to me that it is so they can sell you $60 worth* of a $100 game instead of you looking at a $100 game and scoffing entirely. So basically, until people purchasing games are willing to accept that a AAA game in 2019 takes more resources to create than a AAA game in 2009, I don't see this ever getting better. * the $60 version is a full game and not 60% of one though so in reality at that price point you're getting way more value.
    • toufiqbarhamov 8y ago
• cabaalis 8y ago
  As always: 100% support them wanting better situations, and they have a right to pursue it. I would just not want to end up with a situation where I want to put my own self-developed game up on itch.io or otherwise and they require me to send a copy of my union approval.
• tptacek 8y ago
  Ironically, despite the famously abysmal working conditions in the game industry, they might have a hard time organizing, because there is such an enormous supply of qualified people who want those jobs.
• Apocryphon 8y ago
  Here’s an alternative to unions, which many here seem to be skeptical of: How about promoting software companies being run as co-ops, where all workers have more ownership and are self-managed?
  • tivert 8y ago
    > How about promoting software companies being run as co-ops, where all workers have more ownership and are self-managed? That's a fantastic idea. In all honesty, unions are merely a mitigation for some of the worker-hostile aspects of the division between owners and workers. That split is also seems like it's the root cause of a lot of pathological union practices. I don't think you'd have those problems if businesses were worker-owned or if a worker union had a significant ownership stake.
• ryanmcbride 8y ago
  Unions can't solve everything, but considering the most prevalent complaints game devs seem to have is getting overworked, underpaid, and fired as soon as a project is done, unions seem like a perfect fit. At my last corporate job I was very vocal about the benefits that unions would have for software engineers. I still believe that.
• exabrial 8y ago
  Don't do it. The enemy of your enemy is not your friend. Unions are not a bucket of roses. You're exchanging one set of overlords for another. Literally sit down with anyone in their first 8-15 years of experience in a union and ask them what kind of influence they have on their industry, what sort of choices of work they get to work, who gets "the jobs" before you do, and about their fixed pay scale, and what are the consequences if they take non-union jobs.
• lordnacho 8y ago
  Since it's game programmers, why not apply some game theory? Aside from not wanting to be part of a union, people are reluctant to join a union if others do not do the same. Many people might actually join one if there was a big one, but a big one can't grow because nobody wants to be the first guy to raise his hand. So someone needs to make a website that manages this. Everyone pays a deposit, say $100 bucks, and signs onto some secure site that will keep details private. If you get more than some minimum, the money is sent to the new union. Otherwise send it back.
  • doctorRetro 8y ago
    So basically, you're suggesting a union Kickstarter. Makes sense.
    • gbasin 8y ago
      unionkickstarter.com is available!
      • raldi 8y ago
        Not according to international trademark law.
        • jchw 8y ago
          Do you suspect this would fall under trademark confusion? It's definitely towing a line but I don't think it's necessarily that clear-cut. It's not like they own the term 'kick starter,' they just used it in their trademarked brand.
    • lordnacho 8y ago
      You could even make it specific to each company. If x of everyone is in, but y of my company aren't, I'm out... But whatever the mechanism there's more than enough programmers who ought to be motivated to do this.
• unionta 8y ago
  Unions are formed, and are profitable for the members, when the work is the same for everyone and they are easily replaceable, since in that case, the workers can be easily exploited. The best engineers would not want to join a union since they'd have no reason to. Unions can help mediocre engineers who are replaceable code monkeys (Many of us are, including myself I think). But the thing is, why would I want to associate myself with that group? I'd rather try to be one of those awesome engineers. This dynamic doesn't exist in other well-unionized jobs. For example, all plumbers can do the same work in mostly similar way. So nobody is losing out by unionizing.
  • sonnyblarney 8y ago
    I don't think the dynamic of 'stigma' as you allude to will be a concern - if a company 'goes union' effectively everyone will be a part of it anyhow. FYI - there is a vast difference in quality and talent between good and bad plumbers/carpenters.
  • Impossible 8y ago
    A game industry union might look like a Hollywood Guild (SAG-AFTRA, etc.) instead of a trade union. SAG-AFTRA already negotiates with the game industry in support of voice actors and performance capture actors. You can make the argument that actors are replaceable, but I'd argue that star performers are less replaceable than rockstar engineers. The majority of game industry workers are also not software engineers, so even if engineers don't unionize, because of their ability to get hired in other industries and the overlap between games and tech, it might benefit artists, animators, sound designers and game designers.
• mythrwy 8y ago
  This software developer union thing is not going to happen, no matter what people prefer. At least a union that has any real clout. It's not a situation like Detroit in 1954. It's a somewhat global marketplace with easily shifted capital and labor.
• jaredtn 8y ago
  There is a vast market of companies willing to scoop up talented software developers - many don't require the demanding work schedules that the gaming industry takes for granted. Especially in such a highly-skilled field, I don't see the need for unionization when switching industries can be done easily.
• randyrand 8y ago
  Unions work well if everyone can agree on the same wage, or the same wage increases over time, etc, or can agree on barriers to entry. Teachers unions, pilots unions, etc, generally agree on wage (usually some % increase per year of experience), and doctors which are harder to agree on wage because there is much more variation instead unionize with barriers to entry (stricter AMA requirements). I wonder which would be better for game developers. Barriers to entry or agreed wages.
• navinsylvester 8y ago
  With regard to crazy work hours, our platform is used by lot of VFX studios and freelancers. From our frequent interaction with them, we observed that the amount of work hours they put in are really insane. Its the same story but unlike game developers they get into that grind very often too. I don't think this scenario is unique to game developers alone and it exists in other domains - most prevalent when artistic expectation gets mingled with technology.
• willart4food 8y ago
  So, >50% of Game Developers Want to Unionize? I'd like to see how this >50% is distributed across various measures, especially in terms of salaries and lines of codes produced. My bet is that according to Pareto's distribution they fall in the bottom 50% in terms of headcount whose output and compensation is ~15% of the total.
• bb88 8y ago
  The tradition means of labor taking their control of a company is through a strike, and you really can't unionize unless 75% of all game developers are willing to strike to keep wages high. You'll find I think that most game developers would be willing to be paid pennies to be a part of the next big video game. And if that's the market you're trying to compete in, maybe you should be in a different market if you're worried about wages.
• rafiki6 8y ago
  I never understood the desire to work on games. Is it because many people get their introduction to software via games (legitimate question)? I remember many of my classmates in my college days were really about entering the gaming industry, and I just never understood why.
  • hacknat 8y ago
    IMHO, it’s also some of the least interesting dev work you can do. A few people might get lucky and work on physics engines, but for everyone else it is basically a gigantic UI project with a ton of control flow and throwaway code.
• Kiro 8y ago
  This is not at all reflected in the different game development groups on Facebook.
• kmlx 8y ago
  any industry that has unions and/or requires unions, is an industry that is ripe for automation.
  • jayd16 8y ago
    Go automate teachers and actors then.
    • kmlx 8y ago
      actors and teachers are so easy, they've been replaced by software programs. what's hard is replacing programmers, but we're getting there, no worries.
• jayd16 8y ago
  Whats lost in all this is how idiotic the extra hours are to begin with. Games aren't different than other tech. Burning out your employees is demonstrably counterproductive. There's some usefulness in short term crunch but some large studios crunch for a full year. But games are run like entertainment companies and a lot of the decisions are not fact based. Even if the only thing a union did was stop the exempt status for developers with regard to wage law we'd see a huge quality of life increase without much of a real impact on worker output.
• csense 8y ago
  As soon as they do, those jobs will move overseas. Unless there's some kind of legal / regulatory block to prevent it (e.g. tariffs)