5 ms·

> 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 industr

by 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.
      - maxglute 2y ago
        IMO with voice talent it's pretty obvious the AI will eventually win, especially when it pertains to video games where projects can contain 1,000s hours of dialogue. There's disruption right now because studios are being nice / have talent locked into existing projects that's hard to recast/pivot from. IIRC the voice acting drama also has a transnational dimension, something about blacklisting international talent from union projects if they don't join/pay dues to a US guild, which sits wrong with me. Either way the consequences of ceding to unions is bad for consumers, at least in video games. I don't want smaller projects to pick between either having all union voice acting and no AI which may be prohibitively expensive / not possible depending on scope. I want amateur RPG makers able to make projects with accessible AI generated voices, especially with how fast they're improving etc.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
Not sure I Agree about the price of video games. It very much had adverse effects to devaluing games, not dissimilar to the streaming wars. It's really hard to bring up prices again once people are used to something costing a certain amount. And as you expect it hurts indies the most. People spending years on a decent product and they are locked to selling at $10 because the market is so used to deep sales. At some point the next generation will scoff at the idea of paying for any game.
YesBox 2y ago
It's not identical. Film and TV has one city where the vast majority of shows are produced: LA. Much easier to organize when everyone is located in the same place. Game studios are spread all over the US[0] Nintendo isn't an American company, and Japanese have different cultural values (with tradeoffs) > If anything, it's short-term profit-seeking that destroys industries Im not so confident about that. For most games, you launch it once, and you get the vast majority of the revenue within one year of release. Then the next game has to be better (and cost more) than the last. I think it has less to do with short term profits (games take years to develop). > 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; > The marginal cost of producing a game via download is essentially zero; You lose 30% of that to the storefront, 30% on marketing, 10% on server, 5% on engine. (fun fact: the profit margin of games were higher in the 90s) [1] > 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. No it isn't. Not when people's expectations continue to rise. [0] https://www.gamedevmap.com https://www.gamedevmap.com [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqLdjlgf/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqL...

by jmyeet 2y ago

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.
    - maxglute 2y ago
      IMO with voice talent it's pretty obvious the AI will eventually win, especially when it pertains to video games where projects can contain 1,000s hours of dialogue. There's disruption right now because studios are being nice / have talent locked into existing projects that's hard to recast/pivot from. IIRC the voice acting drama also has a transnational dimension, something about blacklisting international talent from union projects if they don't join/pay dues to a US guild, which sits wrong with me. Either way the consequences of ceding to unions is bad for consumers, at least in video games. I don't want smaller projects to pick between either having all union voice acting and no AI which may be prohibitively expensive / not possible depending on scope. I want amateur RPG makers able to make projects with accessible AI generated voices, especially with how fast they're improving etc.

johnnyanmac 2y ago

Not sure I Agree about the price of video games. It very much had adverse effects to devaluing games, not dissimilar to the streaming wars. It's really hard to bring up prices again once people are used to something costing a certain amount. And as you expect it hurts indies the most. People spending years on a decent product and they are locked to selling at $10 because the market is so used to deep sales. At some point the next generation will scoff at the idea of paying for any game.

YesBox 2y ago

It's not identical. Film and TV has one city where the vast majority of shows are produced: LA. Much easier to organize when everyone is located in the same place. Game studios are spread all over the US[0] Nintendo isn't an American company, and Japanese have different cultural values (with tradeoffs) > If anything, it's short-term profit-seeking that destroys industries Im not so confident about that. For most games, you launch it once, and you get the vast majority of the revenue within one year of release. Then the next game has to be better (and cost more) than the last. I think it has less to do with short term profits (games take years to develop). > 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; > The marginal cost of producing a game via download is essentially zero; You lose 30% of that to the storefront, 30% on marketing, 10% on server, 5% on engine. (fun fact: the profit margin of games were higher in the 90s) [1] > 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. No it isn't. Not when people's expectations continue to rise. [0] https://www.gamedevmap.com https://www.gamedevmap.com [1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqLdjlgf/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqL...