6 ms·

I am usually against unions in tech because the free market tends to allow a proper balance of supply and demand. However, gaming might just be the perfect sub-

by screye 5y ago

I am usually against unions in tech because the free market tends to allow a proper balance of supply and demand. However, gaming might just be the perfect sub-domain of tech to benefit from unionization. The supply is massively saturated, with dreamy eyed programmers ready to give their lives to work in gaming. On the other hand, a very small group actually gets to make any of the creative decisions that every gamer has dreamt of making. The wages are below what the market pays, hours are exploitative and the companies are making massive profits. It is really difficult to compete with the AAA studios, because Indie games take years to make and working without a wage for a decade isn't possible for many. On the other hand, medium sized and successful indie studios get acquired before they can grow to a decent enough size to serve as any real competition. There is also a lot of shady practices with monetization, where the employees do not get a say if the company should or shouldn't indulge in said practices. We've already seen soft-unionization of this type in a similar industry : media production. It works. AAA game development in the US has been quite stale for the last decade. The big EA-Blizzard-Activision-Ubisoft have not come up with a single quality game in this time. Even Bethesda, Bioware seems to be on a decline. Rockstar,Valve and Id software seem to be doing fine, but no where close to the hit-after-hit that certain japanese studios are producing. Naughty Dog and Super giant would be the only 2 American studios creating 10/10s consistently, but both have an order of magnitude fewer employees than standard AAA studios. The industry is in dire need of shake up. I hope this goes the employee's way this time around. It's about time.

nynx 5y ago
What exactly do you mean by proper balance? What you said later in the comment basically applies to all large companies: > The wages are below what the market pays, hours are exploitative and the companies are making massive profits
- barry-cotter 5y ago
  It is impossible for the wages at all large companies to be below what large companies pay. What large companies pay is what defines the market rate because most people work for large companies.
  - gknoy 5y ago
    I think they mean the wages at large [game studios] are below the average for large [software companies in general].
    - barry-cotter 5y ago
      No, nynx said all large companies. They did not restrict themselves to game developers or software companies.
- screye 5y ago
  If I am unhappy with how Google/big-N tech company works, there are other options. If I feel exploited, I can start my own consultancy and consult with just a couple of clients. I can start a startup and raise money quite easily in this VC market. I can built small POCs for a few customers within a few months and scale up from there. I can switch companies and go to a competitor. Hell, switching is almost always the more lucrative option. I do not need a huge amount of money to enter or move around in the market, and even if I do, it is readily available. That's a 'free-ish' market. Getting funding for an unmade indie game is substantially harder. The first demo takes years instead of months. The employee has zero leverage, because their access to the market is artificially limited through only a few hyper competitive AAA channels. There are many such broken markets, gaming is just an extreme case of it in our tech world. SpaceX worked in almost exactly the same manner. The free market doesn't work, because the market is not free. In such a non-free market, the one who controls the supply (AA dev) can easily set up an almost ponzi scheme-esque revolving door of hyper exploitative setups. (modern academia with post-doctoral adjunct revolving doors is a similar example). The AAA studio is taking advantage of information asymmetry, and massively profiting from this use-n-throw setup. Unions are a way for the demand side to combat the latent asymmetry of information and power in the non-free market. AAA studios make big promises to starry eyed new-grads who have served their purpose by the time they realize they were lied to and are disillusioned. (ie. Contract workers don't get made permanent. Crunch, hire-n-fire, lack of upwards mobility in the structure are endemic and permanent afflictions in the industry) Unions can force companies to enforce the promises they make. No more than x% crunch. No un/under-paid interns. Path from contract-> fulltime. Some level of ethical standard for exploitation of school children using gambling techniques. Profit sharing ? If the union's demands are too unreasonable or not reflective of their leverage in the industry, they will get left to die. (see the political unions at Google) If this was truly an information asymmetry situation, where game devs were paid lower than they were worth, then the union will flourish and sustain itself in the interest of the employees. The realities of the unfree-market do not change, but the union makes sure that demand side (people who want jobs) can negotiate in a manner that actually reflects the cards they hold. My opposition to unions in general comes from my general opposition to unnecessary bureaucracy. Bureaucracy should be avoided in don't fix what's not broken situations. Big Tech's free market looks healthy. Don't need unions. Gaming does not. Maybe Unions will help. Simple as that.
Frondo 5y ago
Unions are a part of the free market, unless you'd like to remove people's freedom to associate just because they all happen to work at the same place.
okhuman 5y ago
> media production. It works. Does it work? Wasn't it medium (or someone) who when faced with unionization pivoted the company (left severance packages) to a substack like model?
- cmorgan31 5y ago
  Media production such as film, tv, etc. The online world is not indicative of the benefits brought by the media guilds. I am no expert on their benefits but thought it would help to clarify what media has historically had soft power unions.
elicash 5y ago
Collective bargaining is not at all incompatible with a "free market." It's just a smarter way to negotiate (more power collectively) and the end result is a contract between a company and a group of workers. It's not like, say, a minimum wage where government sets a price.
- mbostleman 5y ago
  >>Collective bargaining is not at all incompatible with a "free market.">> For what it's worth, collective bargaining is, from an economic perspective, a monopoly. In anti trust terms it would constitute an illegal combination in trade if it weren't for statutory exemptions that explicitly give it a pass.
  - danaris 5y ago
    It's not really any more a monopoly than the business itself is. The business/management is a group of people acting under a common umbrella seeking (naïvely, and oversimplifiedly) to trade the least money possible for the most production possible. The employees/union are a group of people acting under a common umbrella seeking (naïvely, and oversimplifiedly) to trade the least production possible for the most money possible. A union seeks to even the playing field between management and labor. It's not a monopoly unless the local union is affiliated with a global union that includes the vast majority of all workers in that particular field.
    - golergka 5y ago
      If I cannot work for a company without joining a union, it is a monopoly. What if I'm a junior worker on a labour market that is saturated by more experienced and skilled workers, and lowering my rate is the only chance to make it in the industry that I have? Existing union and it's members are my natural competitors.
      - danaris 5y ago
        If you're a junior worker in a field dominated by unions, I'm not sure how you can have "rate" to lower that hasn't already been set based on the market rate—which is already taking those unions into account. And the evidence is overwhelming that unionized workers make more than non-union workers of equivalent skills/qualifications. So it sounds like this boils down, once again, to the argument, "I am amazing and exceptional, and I'm afraid that if there were unions, I wouldn't be able to get more money for being amazing and exceptional." First of all, this argument cannot be true for the majority of workers—by definition, most people in any given field are not exceptional. So even if it would benefit you to not have a union, it would not benefit most people. Second of all, there is absolutely no requirement for unions to prevent compensation from being increased based on actual performance. Some unions may have strict seniority-based pay schedules, but not all that currently exist do, and if we were to create a brand new union for tech workers (or just for game devs), then the people actually forming that union would be the ones to decide what its priorities would be.
Manuel_D 5y ago
The supply being massively saturated is also what makes a union impossible to form. The over-saturation of supply means there's plenty of people willing to work a non-union game dev job because the alternative is no job. Also the EA-Blizzard-Activision-Ubisoft studios do consistently deliver quality games: COD, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, etc. Formulaic, perhaps, but it's tough to claim that these aren't quality and popular games. Valve, on the other hand, have only produced Half Life: Alyx in the last decade (you could include Artifact, but it flopped).
- screye 5y ago
  Dota 2 has been in continuous development since 2011. The players have been kept quite happy.
- VRay 5y ago
  the alternative isn't "no job", it's a higher-paying but perceived-as-boring web dev job
  - Manuel_D 5y ago
    For programmers, sure. But for artists, QA, animators, and game designers (which collectively make up a far greater proportion of game development than programmers) not really. There are other jobs in these fields, but often with about the same compensation and without the allure of working on video games.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  > The supply being massively saturated is also what makes a union impossible to form. The over-saturation of supply means there's plenty of people willing to work a non-union game dev job because the alternative is no job. Wait until you hear about the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.

by screye 5y ago

nynx 5y ago

What exactly do you mean by proper balance? What you said later in the comment basically applies to all large companies: > The wages are below what the market pays, hours are exploitative and the companies are making massive profits

barry-cotter 5y ago
It is impossible for the wages at all large companies to be below what large companies pay. What large companies pay is what defines the market rate because most people work for large companies.
- gknoy 5y ago
  I think they mean the wages at large [game studios] are below the average for large [software companies in general].
  - barry-cotter 5y ago
    No, nynx said all large companies. They did not restrict themselves to game developers or software companies.
screye 5y ago
If I am unhappy with how Google/big-N tech company works, there are other options. If I feel exploited, I can start my own consultancy and consult with just a couple of clients. I can start a startup and raise money quite easily in this VC market. I can built small POCs for a few customers within a few months and scale up from there. I can switch companies and go to a competitor. Hell, switching is almost always the more lucrative option. I do not need a huge amount of money to enter or move around in the market, and even if I do, it is readily available. That's a 'free-ish' market. Getting funding for an unmade indie game is substantially harder. The first demo takes years instead of months. The employee has zero leverage, because their access to the market is artificially limited through only a few hyper competitive AAA channels. There are many such broken markets, gaming is just an extreme case of it in our tech world. SpaceX worked in almost exactly the same manner. The free market doesn't work, because the market is not free. In such a non-free market, the one who controls the supply (AA dev) can easily set up an almost ponzi scheme-esque revolving door of hyper exploitative setups. (modern academia with post-doctoral adjunct revolving doors is a similar example). The AAA studio is taking advantage of information asymmetry, and massively profiting from this use-n-throw setup. Unions are a way for the demand side to combat the latent asymmetry of information and power in the non-free market. AAA studios make big promises to starry eyed new-grads who have served their purpose by the time they realize they were lied to and are disillusioned. (ie. Contract workers don't get made permanent. Crunch, hire-n-fire, lack of upwards mobility in the structure are endemic and permanent afflictions in the industry) Unions can force companies to enforce the promises they make. No more than x% crunch. No un/under-paid interns. Path from contract-> fulltime. Some level of ethical standard for exploitation of school children using gambling techniques. Profit sharing ? If the union's demands are too unreasonable or not reflective of their leverage in the industry, they will get left to die. (see the political unions at Google) If this was truly an information asymmetry situation, where game devs were paid lower than they were worth, then the union will flourish and sustain itself in the interest of the employees. The realities of the unfree-market do not change, but the union makes sure that demand side (people who want jobs) can negotiate in a manner that actually reflects the cards they hold. My opposition to unions in general comes from my general opposition to unnecessary bureaucracy. Bureaucracy should be avoided in don't fix what's not broken situations. Big Tech's free market looks healthy. Don't need unions. Gaming does not. Maybe Unions will help. Simple as that.

Frondo 5y ago

Unions are a part of the free market, unless you'd like to remove people's freedom to associate just because they all happen to work at the same place.

okhuman 5y ago

> media production. It works. Does it work? Wasn't it medium (or someone) who when faced with unionization pivoted the company (left severance packages) to a substack like model?

cmorgan31 5y ago
Media production such as film, tv, etc. The online world is not indicative of the benefits brought by the media guilds. I am no expert on their benefits but thought it would help to clarify what media has historically had soft power unions.

elicash 5y ago

Collective bargaining is not at all incompatible with a "free market." It's just a smarter way to negotiate (more power collectively) and the end result is a contract between a company and a group of workers. It's not like, say, a minimum wage where government sets a price.

mbostleman 5y ago
>>Collective bargaining is not at all incompatible with a "free market.">> For what it's worth, collective bargaining is, from an economic perspective, a monopoly. In anti trust terms it would constitute an illegal combination in trade if it weren't for statutory exemptions that explicitly give it a pass.
- danaris 5y ago
  It's not really any more a monopoly than the business itself is. The business/management is a group of people acting under a common umbrella seeking (naïvely, and oversimplifiedly) to trade the least money possible for the most production possible. The employees/union are a group of people acting under a common umbrella seeking (naïvely, and oversimplifiedly) to trade the least production possible for the most money possible. A union seeks to even the playing field between management and labor. It's not a monopoly unless the local union is affiliated with a global union that includes the vast majority of all workers in that particular field.
  - golergka 5y ago
    If I cannot work for a company without joining a union, it is a monopoly. What if I'm a junior worker on a labour market that is saturated by more experienced and skilled workers, and lowering my rate is the only chance to make it in the industry that I have? Existing union and it's members are my natural competitors.
    - danaris 5y ago
      If you're a junior worker in a field dominated by unions, I'm not sure how you can have "rate" to lower that hasn't already been set based on the market rate—which is already taking those unions into account. And the evidence is overwhelming that unionized workers make more than non-union workers of equivalent skills/qualifications. So it sounds like this boils down, once again, to the argument, "I am amazing and exceptional, and I'm afraid that if there were unions, I wouldn't be able to get more money for being amazing and exceptional." First of all, this argument cannot be true for the majority of workers—by definition, most people in any given field are not exceptional. So even if it would benefit you to not have a union, it would not benefit most people. Second of all, there is absolutely no requirement for unions to prevent compensation from being increased based on actual performance. Some unions may have strict seniority-based pay schedules, but not all that currently exist do, and if we were to create a brand new union for tech workers (or just for game devs), then the people actually forming that union would be the ones to decide what its priorities would be.

Manuel_D 5y ago

The supply being massively saturated is also what makes a union impossible to form. The over-saturation of supply means there's plenty of people willing to work a non-union game dev job because the alternative is no job. Also the EA-Blizzard-Activision-Ubisoft studios do consistently deliver quality games: COD, Battlefield, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, etc. Formulaic, perhaps, but it's tough to claim that these aren't quality and popular games. Valve, on the other hand, have only produced Half Life: Alyx in the last decade (you could include Artifact, but it flopped).

screye 5y ago
Dota 2 has been in continuous development since 2011. The players have been kept quite happy.
VRay 5y ago
the alternative isn't "no job", it's a higher-paying but perceived-as-boring web dev job
- Manuel_D 5y ago
  For programmers, sure. But for artists, QA, animators, and game designers (which collectively make up a far greater proportion of game development than programmers) not really. There are other jobs in these fields, but often with about the same compensation and without the allure of working on video games.
908B64B197 5y ago
> The supply being massively saturated is also what makes a union impossible to form. The over-saturation of supply means there's plenty of people willing to work a non-union game dev job because the alternative is no job. Wait until you hear about the Writers Guild of America and SAG-AFTRA.