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"Don't try to make the world better" is a pretty shitty attitude to have. No, try to make it better! Fight like hell to make it better! That is how we progress

"Don't try to make the world better" is a pretty shitty attitude to have. No, try to make it better! Fight like hell to make it better! That is how we progress. That is how we got the worker's protections we have now. They weren't given magnanimously. We fought long and hard for every single one, and it made everyone's life better. Demand better. Always demand better.

newsbinator 5y ago
Being more charitable to GP's point, I didn't read it as "don't try to improve conditions". I read it as "vote with your feet".
- user-the-name 5y ago
  "Voting with your feet" might work if it was hard to find people to replace you, but it's not. And it means giving up on what you want to do because of oppression. You should not need to give up on what you want to do because of shitty bosses.
  - sokoloff 5y ago
    If what you want most is to work on games, you don’t have to give up on that. You just have to realize that the supply of people who also want that exceeds the demand by some amount large enough to give employers a lot of relative bargaining power. Unionizing may be a sensible response to that. I’d expect the company to make a sensible response as well.
  - gruez 5y ago
    >"Voting with your feet" might work if it was hard to find people to replace you, but it's not. If that's true, how would "Fight like hell to make it better" (presumably by threatening to withhold labor) work? They'll just replace you with the next batch of starry eyed graduates.
repsilat 5y ago
Working in games isn't courageous. As GP said, there's a glut of people who want to do it. It's oversupplied, and the lower wages reflect the lower marginal utility to society for engineers to work in games over other kinds of software.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  And that is exactly why we need to fight like hell for better conditions.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    It's why more people should quit. Then the supply will go down until management offers better working conditions. Choosing to work there despite poor working conditions and the availability of work you're qualified to do with better working conditions is the thing that causes the poor working conditions.
    - scrollaway 5y ago
      Why should supply go down for this particular field? Just make more games then demand will go up? Wtf is wrong with people here asking thousands of people to quit their job? Would you quit your beloved job to improve other peoples working conditions?
      - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
        > Why should supply go down for this particular field? Because it's too high, enabling employers to offer poor working conditions. The poor working conditions then drive away prospective employees, lowering supply until working conditions improve. Unless you for some reason volunteer to suffer the poor working conditions unnecessarily. > Just make more games then demand will go up? Making more games doesn't cause demand for games to go up. It causes the price of games to go down. Then each game maker has less to pay workers with. What you need is for the industry to make fewer games, so they cost more (or at least have higher sales volumes at the same price), allowing workers to be paid more. But fewer games means fewer employees and some of them have to go do something else. > Would you quit your beloved job to improve other peoples working conditions? You can't have it both ways. Either your working conditions are bad, in which case quit, or your working conditions are "beloved," in which case what are you complaining about?

newsbinator 5y ago

Being more charitable to GP's point, I didn't read it as "don't try to improve conditions". I read it as "vote with your feet".

user-the-name 5y ago
"Voting with your feet" might work if it was hard to find people to replace you, but it's not. And it means giving up on what you want to do because of oppression. You should not need to give up on what you want to do because of shitty bosses.
- sokoloff 5y ago
  If what you want most is to work on games, you don’t have to give up on that. You just have to realize that the supply of people who also want that exceeds the demand by some amount large enough to give employers a lot of relative bargaining power. Unionizing may be a sensible response to that. I’d expect the company to make a sensible response as well.
- gruez 5y ago
  >"Voting with your feet" might work if it was hard to find people to replace you, but it's not. If that's true, how would "Fight like hell to make it better" (presumably by threatening to withhold labor) work? They'll just replace you with the next batch of starry eyed graduates.

repsilat 5y ago

Working in games isn't courageous. As GP said, there's a glut of people who want to do it. It's oversupplied, and the lower wages reflect the lower marginal utility to society for engineers to work in games over other kinds of software.

user-the-name 5y ago
And that is exactly why we need to fight like hell for better conditions.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  It's why more people should quit. Then the supply will go down until management offers better working conditions. Choosing to work there despite poor working conditions and the availability of work you're qualified to do with better working conditions is the thing that causes the poor working conditions.
  - scrollaway 5y ago
    Why should supply go down for this particular field? Just make more games then demand will go up? Wtf is wrong with people here asking thousands of people to quit their job? Would you quit your beloved job to improve other peoples working conditions?
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      > Why should supply go down for this particular field? Because it's too high, enabling employers to offer poor working conditions. The poor working conditions then drive away prospective employees, lowering supply until working conditions improve. Unless you for some reason volunteer to suffer the poor working conditions unnecessarily. > Just make more games then demand will go up? Making more games doesn't cause demand for games to go up. It causes the price of games to go down. Then each game maker has less to pay workers with. What you need is for the industry to make fewer games, so they cost more (or at least have higher sales volumes at the same price), allowing workers to be paid more. But fewer games means fewer employees and some of them have to go do something else. > Would you quit your beloved job to improve other peoples working conditions? You can't have it both ways. Either your working conditions are bad, in which case quit, or your working conditions are "beloved," in which case what are you complaining about?