4 ms·

The industry has had roughly 4 decades to make those self-regulating adjustments, how much longer should we wait?

by jgon 7y ago

friendlybus 7y ago
Who is waiting? Most people I know that didn't like the conditions got better jobs in other industries. Finance pays well and is cushy in comparison. Architecture visualizations, media jobs, programming roles are easier to find after obtaining the ability to outperform the norms for other industries. For most of gaming's history it has been a niche product without mainstream appeal. Do you unionize every fledgling industry? No. It hasn't been four decades in the making. The majority of bad sentiment has come in the past five years, exacerbated by a goldrush mentality and kickstarter burns. The goldrush is over, the big projects are paying out massively to employees. Star Citizen has spent hundred of millions on staff and capital and needs to raise more. Epic is pouring cash back into the industry rewarding workers. There are more people employed in the industry than ever and some see the collective as a route to personal power. I can't agree with that.
- unapologetic 7y ago
  > The majority of bad sentiment has come in the past five years Literally the first 3rd party gaming company was because workers were unsatisfied with Atari.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    The key engineers who left Ferrari in '61 became the key engineers that lifted Lamborghini into existence. They didn't start a union and stepped away from deaths of Ferrari drivers and verbal abuse to start something new with Lamborghini. Both companies survived and no unions were started. https://www.gptoday.net/en/news/f1/207607/history-ferrari-and-the-great-walkout-of-1961 https://www.gptoday.net/en/news/f1/207607/history-ferrari-an... Disgruntled employees are the birth of something new, not a call to clamp down. Who is calling for tech & gaming unionization because of the first 3rd party gaming company? It's not the majority of bad sentiment. It's not even news.
    - unapologetic 7y ago
      I was pointing out that the claim this sort of thing is new is complete and total bullshit.
      - friendlybus 7y ago
        Nobody claimed it was new. The majority of this is recent.
        unapologetic 7y ago
        https://boards.fool.com/letter-from-an-ea-spouse-long-21588406.aspx?sort=recommendations https://boards.fool.com/letter-from-an-ea-spouse-long-215884... Not new. Not recent.
    - midnightclubbed 7y ago
      Both Ferrari and Lamborghini are unionized. Indeed the financing that helped start Lamborghini in 1963 was contingent on there being a workers union. I don't understand your point.
      - friendlybus 7y ago
        Lamborghini wouldn't exist had those five engineers unionized at Ferrari instead of leaving.
- midnightclubbed 7y ago
  > For most of gaming's history it has been a niche product without mainstream appeal Really? So the Atari boom was niche? 500,000 arcade machines sold in 1982 was niche? 30 million Nintendo Entertainment systems in American homes was niche? It hasn't been a fledgling industry by any reasonable measure for at least 25 years if not much longer. How many artists, testers and game designers do you know that moved into finance, media jobs, or architectural visualization (very much a niche industry). At least 75% of people working in the video game industry doing skilled and professional work can't easily transfer to a different field in the same way as an electrician cant move in to plumbing.
  - friendlybus 7y ago
    I know one in finance and one in arch viz. There are interviews of Bethesda artists looking for work on the side and quoting generous and lazy deadlines for the work. The customer is amazed they can do in two weeks what takes other people a month or more. Games is not in a position of minimizing all risk. What industry is? If you want a safe job get into defense contracting. Go back to university and retrain like everybody else does. It's baffling to see this attitude on Hackernews, famous for tech entrepreneurs who have more pivots in their career than a pirouetting ice skater. Are comic books mainstream? They sold millions of copies, they are still a niche interest. Not until the Wii did games open up to a 'casual' market. With phones it's truly everywhere now.
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      Hacker News is not immune to the vicissitudes of society at large, and there is similar discontent against tech employers in non-game industry as well. There has been both sentiment in support of unionization at large tech megacorps like Google [0], and (non-union-related) sentiment against predatory startups that give misleading promises while forcing employees to assume both greater risk and lesser reward. [1] Not to mention there seems to be less hero worship of founders than there was in the past. [2] There is a generalized dissatisfaction that the wealth generated by tech is not adequately being reached by its workers. Union advocacy is only a component of it. Tech might pay better than other industries, but its workers are just as affected by costs in housing and healthcare, just as everyone else. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923085 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21865065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21865065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868022 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21973333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21973333

The industry has had roughly 4 decades to make those self-regulating adjustments, how much longer should we wait?

by jgon 7y ago

The industry has had roughly 4 decades to make those self-regulating adjustments, how much longer should we wait?

Who is waiting? Most people I know that didn't like the conditions got better jobs in other industries. Finance pays well and is cushy in comparison. Architecture visualizations, media jobs, programming roles are easier to find after obtaining the ability to outperform the norms for other industries. For most of gaming's history it has been a niche product without mainstream appeal. Do you unionize every fledgling industry? No. It hasn't been four decades in the making. The majority of bad sentiment has come in the past five years, exacerbated by a goldrush mentality and kickstarter burns. The goldrush is over, the big projects are paying out massively to employees. Star Citizen has spent hundred of millions on staff and capital and needs to raise more. Epic is pouring cash back into the industry rewarding workers. There are more people employed in the industry than ever and some see the collective as a route to personal power. I can't agree with that.

unapologetic 7y ago
> The majority of bad sentiment has come in the past five years Literally the first 3rd party gaming company was because workers were unsatisfied with Atari.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  The key engineers who left Ferrari in '61 became the key engineers that lifted Lamborghini into existence. They didn't start a union and stepped away from deaths of Ferrari drivers and verbal abuse to start something new with Lamborghini. Both companies survived and no unions were started. https://www.gptoday.net/en/news/f1/207607/history-ferrari-and-the-great-walkout-of-1961 https://www.gptoday.net/en/news/f1/207607/history-ferrari-an... Disgruntled employees are the birth of something new, not a call to clamp down. Who is calling for tech & gaming unionization because of the first 3rd party gaming company? It's not the majority of bad sentiment. It's not even news.
  - unapologetic 7y ago
    I was pointing out that the claim this sort of thing is new is complete and total bullshit.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      Nobody claimed it was new. The majority of this is recent.
      - unapologetic 7y ago
        https://boards.fool.com/letter-from-an-ea-spouse-long-21588406.aspx?sort=recommendations https://boards.fool.com/letter-from-an-ea-spouse-long-215884... Not new. Not recent.
  - midnightclubbed 7y ago
    Both Ferrari and Lamborghini are unionized. Indeed the financing that helped start Lamborghini in 1963 was contingent on there being a workers union. I don't understand your point.
    - friendlybus 7y ago
      Lamborghini wouldn't exist had those five engineers unionized at Ferrari instead of leaving.
midnightclubbed 7y ago
> For most of gaming's history it has been a niche product without mainstream appeal Really? So the Atari boom was niche? 500,000 arcade machines sold in 1982 was niche? 30 million Nintendo Entertainment systems in American homes was niche? It hasn't been a fledgling industry by any reasonable measure for at least 25 years if not much longer. How many artists, testers and game designers do you know that moved into finance, media jobs, or architectural visualization (very much a niche industry). At least 75% of people working in the video game industry doing skilled and professional work can't easily transfer to a different field in the same way as an electrician cant move in to plumbing.
- friendlybus 7y ago
  I know one in finance and one in arch viz. There are interviews of Bethesda artists looking for work on the side and quoting generous and lazy deadlines for the work. The customer is amazed they can do in two weeks what takes other people a month or more. Games is not in a position of minimizing all risk. What industry is? If you want a safe job get into defense contracting. Go back to university and retrain like everybody else does. It's baffling to see this attitude on Hackernews, famous for tech entrepreneurs who have more pivots in their career than a pirouetting ice skater. Are comic books mainstream? They sold millions of copies, they are still a niche interest. Not until the Wii did games open up to a 'casual' market. With phones it's truly everywhere now.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    Hacker News is not immune to the vicissitudes of society at large, and there is similar discontent against tech employers in non-game industry as well. There has been both sentiment in support of unionization at large tech megacorps like Google [0], and (non-union-related) sentiment against predatory startups that give misleading promises while forcing employees to assume both greater risk and lesser reward. [1] Not to mention there seems to be less hero worship of founders than there was in the past. [2] There is a generalized dissatisfaction that the wealth generated by tech is not adequately being reached by its workers. Union advocacy is only a component of it. Tech might pay better than other industries, but its workers are just as affected by costs in housing and healthcare, just as everyone else. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923085 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21923085 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21865065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21865065 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21868022 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21973333 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21973333