4 ms·

Just my opinion. I have no experience working in the industry _for someone else_. I am, however, working on my own game (3+ years). I'm not a believer in poor w

by YesBox 2y ago

Just my opinion. I have no experience working in the industry _for someone else_. I am, however, working on my own game (3+ years). I'm not a believer in poor work environments, as I don't think that environment maximizes creative output. I know what it's like working with less than 7 hours of sleep, or sitting in front of a screen hours on end. It dulls the mind. It's like being half alive. All that said: A hit based industry is not one that provides stability. I cant think of how slapping a union on top of an unstable foundation is going to solve anything. I've heard a couple people who crossed over from the film industry say it's just going to turn most roles into contracts (just like the film industry), and will quickly filter out the unskilled and less driven people. There isn't really a solution to this. Market pressure keep the prices of games down. Funding gets a better bang for buck by investing in up and coming countries (e.g. Poland). Most qualified[1] games don't even break a million. Hitting [just!] $150,000 in revenue is when Steam starts seriously promoting your game[2]. $150K is not even enough to live in a coastal city (after dev. costs), never mind hiring people. [1] The dev had the intent to market _and_ sell a legitimate product, which is the minority of games on steam. [2] howtomarketagame.com

jmyeet 2y ago
> I cant think of how slapping a union on top of an already unstable foundation is going to solve anything You mean like the entire television and film industry? Any production over a certain (small) size is completely unionized. It's so massively successful the American cultural exports dominate in almost every corner of the world. I'm not sure where the idea that unions can't work for the games industry comes from since it's almost identical to the film and TV industry. Unions exist so workers don't get exploited and to provide stability. What about Nintendo? They famously have very limited layoffs. They see value in providing stability and maintaing culture and institutional memory. If anything, it's short-term profit-seeking that destroys industries. You see this in the world of original content production for streamers. They cut the size of writers rooms. They tried to no longer have writers on set. There's a push for "mini writing rooms". Why? Because it cuts costs on a very short term basis. In doing so, Netflix (etc) are intentionally throwing away the model that created billion dollar properties like Friends, Seinfeld, ER, MASH, Cheers, etc that, to this day, generate massive profits. Seinfeld was known for getting over a million viewers when it was running in syndication. Long-term it creates problems. Future products and showrunners are writers who need to get experience on set. Shortsighted cost-reudction is literally killing the future of the industry. As for the price of video games, there are several aspects to this: 1. AAA publishers like to complain that games still cost $60 after years. That's true but also the distribution is significantly higher than it was 20 years ago. You're selling way more games; 2. The marginal cost of producing a game via download is essentially zero; and 3. Games eventaully get much cheaper on Steam. That's a good thing. Early experiments with this showed that selling a game cheap on Steam could generate significantly more revenue than the original release. And because the marginal cost is zero, it's all profit.
- maxglute 2y ago
  The entertainment industry isn't doing well right now. Nor gaming. US film+TV grew by 5x thanks to streaming money in last 20 years. Gaming sector also exploded. But everyone is competing for attention with each other and decades of backlog. Netflix has milked the game to the point where they're competing against sleep - there's only so demand for the occasional hit properties. IMO it's not the same supply/demand enviroment anymore that can support unions everywhere. Very few companies are Nintendos who has a few golden goose franchise and an entire hardware ecosystem to support long term vision. And of course if most of the industry doesn't unionize, the few that could likely won't, even if the should.
  - SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
    Video game voice actors at the intersection of entertainment and gaming, but they're unionized and have maintained a strike for about 8 months now, forcing multiple major companies to start releasing content without English voicelines. It's very doable if employees want to.
    - maxglute 2y ago
      >forcing multiple major companies to start releasing content without English voicelines. But not forcing suits to concede. Premature to assume voice actors will win in the end. On the continuum of "indispensible", "rainmaker" talent to easily replacable, screen talent has leverage to unionize because their faces sell tickets/subscriptions. My understanding is voice actors are bluntly not valued as much, hence the long strike, they don't have comparable leverage, especially with AI on horizon. Least valuable / most fungible are production, which is why the situation is increasingly shit for even existing unionized talent in entertainment and extra worse for non unionized sectors like vfx, or most of video games - they're replacable by neverending supply of talent willing to work for less, not just in US but abroad.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        if companies would rather release worse content than pay labor, that's a cost in and of itself. The writer's guild had similar impact in the 2010's. I don't know who will win, but it's not like these choices are not without consequence. These moves definitely slow down their plans.
nitwit005 2y ago
Being a contractor isn't inherently bad. If you work at a company that is contracted to work on games or films, you're more insulated from the financial risks. You will normally get paid either way.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
If a studio dies, it dies. Unions don't nor are trying to fix that. it happens. But that's not the situation right now. It's companies making record revenue but choosing to do mass layoffs to make numbers look good. That's what unions fix. These companies aren't going broke from retaining existing talent. Those west coast studios are making hundreds of billions to compensate, so I'm not worried about them neither. >I've heard a couple people who crossed over from the film industry say it's just going to turn most roles into contracts (just like the film industry), and will quickly filter out the unskilled and less driven people. sure, they can, have, and will try to. Issue is that games are much harder to plan than film (or perhaps the executives simply can't plan as well). So a lot of those principles that "worked" in film go out the door. In addition, with service games on the rise you can't just rush something out to make day 1 revenue and tear everything down.
- YesBox 2y ago
  "Record Revenue" While there are some success, there are also some failures--all across the cost scale. WB games were making $XXX,XXX,XXX games, and just had to shut down 3 studios and cancel a game. Lots of other examples (Anthem, Concord, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin to name a few) That record revenue is used to fund the next game, which is almost always more expensive than the last.

by YesBox 2y ago

jmyeet 2y ago

> I cant think of how slapping a union on top of an already unstable foundation is going to solve anything You mean like the entire television and film industry? Any production over a certain (small) size is completely unionized. It's so massively successful the American cultural exports dominate in almost every corner of the world. I'm not sure where the idea that unions can't work for the games industry comes from since it's almost identical to the film and TV industry. Unions exist so workers don't get exploited and to provide stability. What about Nintendo? They famously have very limited layoffs. They see value in providing stability and maintaing culture and institutional memory. If anything, it's short-term profit-seeking that destroys industries. You see this in the world of original content production for streamers. They cut the size of writers rooms. They tried to no longer have writers on set. There's a push for "mini writing rooms". Why? Because it cuts costs on a very short term basis. In doing so, Netflix (etc) are intentionally throwing away the model that created billion dollar properties like Friends, Seinfeld, ER, MASH, Cheers, etc that, to this day, generate massive profits. Seinfeld was known for getting over a million viewers when it was running in syndication. Long-term it creates problems. Future products and showrunners are writers who need to get experience on set. Shortsighted cost-reudction is literally killing the future of the industry. As for the price of video games, there are several aspects to this: 1. AAA publishers like to complain that games still cost $60 after years. That's true but also the distribution is significantly higher than it was 20 years ago. You're selling way more games; 2. The marginal cost of producing a game via download is essentially zero; and 3. Games eventaully get much cheaper on Steam. That's a good thing. Early experiments with this showed that selling a game cheap on Steam could generate significantly more revenue than the original release. And because the marginal cost is zero, it's all profit.

maxglute 2y ago
The entertainment industry isn't doing well right now. Nor gaming. US film+TV grew by 5x thanks to streaming money in last 20 years. Gaming sector also exploded. But everyone is competing for attention with each other and decades of backlog. Netflix has milked the game to the point where they're competing against sleep - there's only so demand for the occasional hit properties. IMO it's not the same supply/demand enviroment anymore that can support unions everywhere. Very few companies are Nintendos who has a few golden goose franchise and an entire hardware ecosystem to support long term vision. And of course if most of the industry doesn't unionize, the few that could likely won't, even if the should.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  Video game voice actors at the intersection of entertainment and gaming, but they're unionized and have maintained a strike for about 8 months now, forcing multiple major companies to start releasing content without English voicelines. It's very doable if employees want to.
  - maxglute 2y ago
    >forcing multiple major companies to start releasing content without English voicelines. But not forcing suits to concede. Premature to assume voice actors will win in the end. On the continuum of "indispensible", "rainmaker" talent to easily replacable, screen talent has leverage to unionize because their faces sell tickets/subscriptions. My understanding is voice actors are bluntly not valued as much, hence the long strike, they don't have comparable leverage, especially with AI on horizon. Least valuable / most fungible are production, which is why the situation is increasingly shit for even existing unionized talent in entertainment and extra worse for non unionized sectors like vfx, or most of video games - they're replacable by neverending supply of talent willing to work for less, not just in US but abroad.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      if companies would rather release worse content than pay labor, that's a cost in and of itself. The writer's guild had similar impact in the 2010's. I don't know who will win, but it's not like these choices are not without consequence. These moves definitely slow down their plans.

nitwit005 2y ago

Being a contractor isn't inherently bad. If you work at a company that is contracted to work on games or films, you're more insulated from the financial risks. You will normally get paid either way.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

If a studio dies, it dies. Unions don't nor are trying to fix that. it happens. But that's not the situation right now. It's companies making record revenue but choosing to do mass layoffs to make numbers look good. That's what unions fix. These companies aren't going broke from retaining existing talent. Those west coast studios are making hundreds of billions to compensate, so I'm not worried about them neither. >I've heard a couple people who crossed over from the film industry say it's just going to turn most roles into contracts (just like the film industry), and will quickly filter out the unskilled and less driven people. sure, they can, have, and will try to. Issue is that games are much harder to plan than film (or perhaps the executives simply can't plan as well). So a lot of those principles that "worked" in film go out the door. In addition, with service games on the rise you can't just rush something out to make day 1 revenue and tear everything down.

YesBox 2y ago
"Record Revenue" While there are some success, there are also some failures--all across the cost scale. WB games were making $XXX,XXX,XXX games, and just had to shut down 3 studios and cancel a game. Lots of other examples (Anthem, Concord, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin to name a few) That record revenue is used to fund the next game, which is almost always more expensive than the last.