Slashdot Log In
Game Developers Unionize?
Posted by
Zonk
on Wed Mar 23, 2005 02:19 PM
from the power-to-the-pixel-pushers dept.
from the power-to-the-pixel-pushers dept.
Gamasutra.com has a look at the reasons, both pro and con, for unionization of the folks behind the entertainment software industry. From the article: "Many industry observers see close parallels between the gripes of today's game developers and those of workers in the movie industry in the 1930s and '40s, particularly in the animation segment. The difference is that Hollywood unionized, and the game industry is still only talking about it."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Unionize... benefits?? (Score:2, Funny)
Actually (Score:2, Insightful)
As an artist in the industry, this is both scary and sad.
Re:Actually (Score:4, Informative)
Parent
Outsourcing. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Outsourcing. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Outsourcing. (Score:3, Interesting)
You are right. (Score:2)
Re:Outsourcing. (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Outsourcing. (Score:5, Insightful)
- Are written in collaborative languages like COBOL, C#, and Java
- Require little or optimization
- Require no imagination or development of new ideas. Games are usually simple black boxes, easily spec'd, with no unusual programming techniques required
- Require no specialized art beyond simple UI icons and existing corporate logos
- Whoever heard of a game with audio? Only programmers need to be involved in the development of new games
- Require similar skillsets amongst all developers. A programmer working on one aspect of a game's design is almost certainly suited to developing every other part. So different programmers can be swapped in and out of development as needed, and to increase development speed, all you have to do is throw in more programmers
I've used a wide variety of games in my time. Most, of course, were bespoke, developed for specific giant corporations, to manage their payrolls for example, or online ordering systems. Just because greedy people like John Carmack have made their millions through automated bank statement printers (thanks Carmack's "Quake 3 Arena" for our outrageous banking fees!) and supermarket inventory control systems, doesn't mean we need people like them developing the next generationSo don't tell me that you can't out-source games development! It's just a matter of firing everyone and sending the specs of any new games you need developed to an outside agency.
(Yes, it's sarcasm)
(Yes, I'm aware there's probably a lot of talented people all over the world. But that's not what outsourcing is. Outsourcing is about making use of shared pools of programmers operating according to specs that have travelled half way around the world, who can program more cheaply than the people they're replacing. If a job requires talent, that's not possible. You can, obviously, open an EA office in India and headhunt the best hardware hackers, artists, etc, but that's not exactly something you can do overnight.)
Parent
The future (Score:3, Funny)
Actually (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
A couple cons (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:A couple cons (Score:2, Insightful)
Err -- as opposed to the veritable explosion of low-budget, independent gaming that we see today?
Re:A couple cons (Score:3, Insightful)
Sound logic...
Good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
But the backlash is that although outsourcing can stem rising wage costs, you need to keep that group in jobs to buy the shit your company churns out. As a whole, the greed is simply going to voerpower the likes of EA, etc., .
Now, I'm not even in America so my knowledge of US workers is based solely on Slashdot and The Onion, but even I can see that perhaps nationally agreed minimum contracts negotitated by unions for various professions like games programmers, etc., would help.
They can outsource some of the people some of the time, but they can't outsource *all* the people *all* the time. WOuld they simply be prepared to shut up shop and move base to Mumbai? I don't think the corporate big wigs would appreciate that one bit.
Re:Good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is unions, like almost any other body, looks after itself first. Extra clauses get included in the contract negotiations, things like:
* Artificial Requirements - a union programmer must have a degree from a 4 year university with a 2 year apprenticeship, to limit the available workforce to artificially increase wages.
* Artificial job titles - Only a person with 15 years of experience can be a senior programmer, to keep older union guys employed
* Artificial Work Requirements - Any released product (no matter if it is an expansion pack, port, or an entirely new game) must have at least - 1 Sr. Level editor, 1 Sr. Artist, 1 Artist, 1 Sr. Game Designers, 1 Sr. Engine Developer, 2 Sr. Programmers, etc. to ensure continued employment of the union workers.
Unions work to the benifit of their members, sometimes at the expense of the industry itself.
Parent
Re:Yet, they lose political rights. (Score:4, Insightful)
BTW, the laziness you cite is common throughout the industry, it's just anti-union kooks notice it more with unionized companies. One of the most absurdly anti-union companies in the US at the moment is Wal*Mart.
Tell us what you think about the average Wal*Mart employee's attitude to work.
Parent
Re:Yet, they lose political rights. (Score:2)
Unless the state is "right to work" (which protects workers' rights regardless of whether they join political organizations), such a store is a lost cause. To keep it open, Wal-Mart would have to force the workers into the union whether it was in their interest or not. If I ran that company, I would not be proud to have such a store in the chain. Do you what states these stores were in?
"Thanks to bad labor law, the union vote at th
About time (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't fear outsourcing. Saying "we can't demand better work conditions because they'd outsource us" makes you a slave at the mercy of your master. Fact is that your work conditions are so bad they almost violate international right, if you believe you'll lose your job if you try to improve them you'll work at those inhuman conditions until you die or get outsourced anyway. The whole fear thing is exploited by companies which is a reason I demand anyone who wants to abolish job security is considered a public enemy. Job security is the only thing stopping corporations from blackmailing their employees into working inhuman hours in order to keep their jobs (or even falsify timesheets!). Unions provide job security since they counteract the idea that you can replace anyone demanding humane treatment with a new drone that won't complain for a few years.
As long as someone is willing to do the job there will be work. Even if all dev houses outsource to India or Russia you'll see new devs using local devs pop up. Since the big studios would no longer be siphoning up the best workers and the smaller companies will more likely attemp to fight with innovative ideas and fresh games instead of trying to make graphics that can compete with some 200MUSD game we might even see the rebirth of the industry. But seriously, it won't come that far.
Unions go against job security (Score:5, Interesting)
In real practice, however, unions reduce job security. When the company has to pay everyone more, they have to get rid of workers to make up for it (the money has to come from somewhere), and the company's workforce undergoes reduction.
A good example of this is the famous Teamster's strike at UPS just a few years ago. The Teamsters won their wage demands, and the size of the UPS workforce was reduced in order to pay it.
Parent
Re:About time (Score:2)
Not only that, but outsourcing in this particular field isn't all that practical. If it were, why wouldn't EA just do that instead of over-demanding from their employees?
There's value in having an employee in the building. There's value in natively speaking the same language. There's value in not having a 12 hour time difference. There's value in having y
Wrong solution. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Wrong solution. (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not an easy thing, as a relatively unknown quantity, to get financial support to run your own game studio and produce a quality game. If you can do it, likely you'll be beholden to a game publisher, and the deadlines and restrictions they're going to impose put you back in a boat pr
Re:Wrong solution. (Score:3, Insightful)
If you haven't already saved enough money to feed your family while you endure the hardships of startup, or don't have some property with a lot of equity that you can mortgage, it's YOUR moral failing.
Oh, don't forget that something like 9 of 10 businesses fail within 5 years, but I guess that's due to moral failing, especially if through their previous moral fail
You know what's scary? (Score:2)
Wage slave is an oxymoron (Score:2)
"Wage slave" is an oxymoron. There is no slavery in freely trading, including the free trade of work for compensation equal to the value of the work.
Re:Wrong solution. (Score:2)
You are thinking in terms of capital, which obviously makes it sound expensive. You have to realize that this figure is how much you'd need to hire all the people who'll write your game, lease office space, purchase computers and video equipment, hire lawyers to write the EULA, and furnish a pretty CEO office.
The picture changes dramatically if all you are trying to do is write the game. You already have the computer; you already have the pro
Re:Wrong solution. (Score:2)
Well, let's see how much a married couple with a kid really needs. I'll assume you are living in a cheap area, where you have your own house. You'd need about $2000/year for food (all meals made at home, no eating out), $1000 for the property taxes on the house (which you should own by now; we're not talking about a kid fresh out of college), $1000 on the electric bill (with heating), $600 for water and garbage. You should be able t
Apples and Oranges (Score:4, Insightful)
The start of the discussion you proposed was about talking to your fellow game dev team and convincing them to jump ship to do it independently. That's not really what you're crunching the financials of.
Putting aside that, if you're in that industry, you almost certainly don't live in a low cost area, despite there being a couple exceptions to that rule...
A game as put out by a solo effort isn't really the same kind of thing that is put out by a team of mixed team of thirty or so game designers, creative designers, programmers, and so on. Telling someone they should give up the latter in favor of the former is like telling a guy who isn't happy working as an architect building houses that he should give it up and build doghouses in his backyard. It's just a totally different scale.
The one-man effort also requires that one person be able to wear ALL hats in the game development process. They need to be able to dream up a great idea for the game. They need to be able to do all involved artwork. They need to be able to do all of the programming. If they're not great at all of these things and more, they're probably not going to put out something people will want to play. They're definitely not going to be able to put out a console game that will get past Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft's approval process.
A game of this scope isn't made in a year and it's not made by one person. It generally requires an investment of piles of money and years of time before ANY profit is seen. These things aren't practical to do without financial backing.
I don't deny one person can go off and make a game and possibly make it good, but it's not the same kind of product as a professional console game is these days. That's not to say that it couldn't possibly be more fun or draw more players, but it's not the same kind of product. It's just not. There is always going to be the demand for the polish and depth of the professional version despite some indy game successes, and while that's true, there are going to be people doing it for a living.
Parent
That is the problem: overhigh wages. (Score:3, Insightful)
That is a big part of the problem. The wage should be for the real value of the work. Not for some arbitrary amount that someone has defined as a "living wage" which has nothing to do with the value of the work. If the unions want to keep the company in business, they would not encourage wasting money on paying "living wages" for those jobs that are worth less than the arbitrary value.
Besides, it is not generally true that "Unions are interested in k
How about a game PLAYERS union? (Score:5, Funny)
I say we all go on strike until these demands are met. Gamers of the world, UNITE!
Re:How about a game PLAYERS union? (Score:2)
Stigma attached to the word "Union" (Score:2)
Re:Stigma attached to the word "Union" (Score:2)
You mean the ones from 100 or so years ago that were not above actually murdering people for the "crime" of crossing picket lines in order to work for a living?
Earning the stigma. (Score:2)
It is the unions that assault, harass, and insult those who dare to work at the jobs the union members quit and gave away (by going on strike) that also draw negative stereotypes.
Re:Earning the stigma. (Score:2)
Why? (Score:3, Insightful)
The young artists releasing their first game from their basement and moving on to become their own boss seems much more plausible.
Trying to start a game company becomes much more difficult when you have to hire unionized labour instead of going directly online and searching for people with common interest.
Once you get artists moving from title to title non-stop with no care about the product yea you'll need unions and publishers but I'd rather not see the "industry" go that direction.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
Stay Away... (Score:4, Insightful)
Aren't we outsourcing enough jobs?
Jumping the Gun (Score:2, Interesting)
The level of graphical detail that is expected out of development studios has progressed far faster than the video game industry has matured. We can partially thank ATI and nVidia's competition for t
Mixed feelings (Score:3, Interesting)
There are undoubtedly some positives. Unions can be pretty tenacious in defending individuals who have been genuinely wronged by their employer or their immediate manager. In cases of disputes between individual employees (eg. grievance proceedings), the Union can provide a decent independent arbiter. Where Unions have good relationships with management, they can genuinely help improve an organisations effectiveness, by identifying and helping to resolve issues that are having a significant negative impact on morale.
However, these are matched by, and perhaps even outweighed by, a significant number of negatives. The biggest problem is that a lot of Unions tend to get hijacked very quickly by radical left-wingers of often uncertain sanity, whose goal often seems to be nothing more than to ruin generally benevolent employers. There are some Unions which understand the give and take of negotiations with management and there are others which see strike action as the first and only resort whenever management try to stake out some principles of their own. When this happens, it's not just management who lose out. Employees often suffer the most serious privitations. Business partners of the employer are also affected, as are their employees. Customers likewise suffer and if the employer is providing an essential service, the consequences can be very serious indeed. We've seen where this leads fairly recently in the UK, when the Fire Brigade union walked out on Strike. The general public support for the employees evaporated overnight once the strike started and the employees ended up significantly worse off then they would have been with sane representatives, who were more interested in employee wellbeing than advancing a political agenda.
Unions can also highly divisive and discriminatory among the workforce. Fortunately, the worst excesses of the Unions in this area were curbed during the 80s, so the situation is a lot better than it once was, but the most insular unions can really make life hell for their non-union co-workers.
Finally, there is the risk of out-sourcing. This isn't necessarily an inevitable consequence of Unionisation. However, it IS an inevitable consequence of combatative, militant, confrontational Unionisation in fields like IT. Most employers are actually more reasonable that slashdot readers are generally willing to give them credit for. I've only ever met one or two employers (out of dozens), who were not willing to entertain talks with Trade Union representatives and make reasonable adjustments to working practices where a business case could be demonstrated. However, if the Union plays it wrong and takes an overly aggressive line, Management are likely to panic and reach for the big Outsourcing Stick.
In short, Unionisation isn't necessarily the wrong decision here, but games developers need to be damned careful over who they let run their union if they decide to go for it.
You missed this (Score:2)
Northwest Airline baggage handlers intentionally smashing fragile packages against the walls and floors as a part of a "game". This one was in the news.
School bus driver caught abusing handicappped children on the bus. Was fired. Un
Re:You missed this (Score:2)
Re:You missed this (Score:2)
Re:You missed this (Score:2)
Not every Union is bad. The problem is that it's the bad unions (who are probably the majority) who tend to attract the press. I've noticed time and time again that the quality of the outputs from a Trade Union are directly linked the quality of the candidates chosen to act as officers. Unions with a lot of full-time officers are alm
LOL OMG (Score:4, Insightful)
There are few industries as unionized as the Motion Picture Business. Yet, it seems to be responsive to market demands and changing technology, profitable, and a world leader in its field. And it remains headquartered in California.
Any by Unionized, I mean UNIONIZED. Pick any major Hollywood release at random. I would wager that:
- The writer is a union member (Writers Guild of America).
- The director is a union worker (Director's Guild of America).
- The stars and most of the actors are union members (Screen Actors Guild).
- The cinematographer is a union member (American Society of Cinematographers).
- All the electricians, carpenters, truckers, and other construction and transportation personnel are unionized.
- Stunt personnel are unionized.
Are there non-union productions? Yes, sometimes. But the understanding in the industry is that the majority of work goes to union members. The major players all deal with the unions.
BTW, guess which country has the strongest Auto Worker union. Yeah, Japan. Perhaps American auto companies are less competitive for other reasons.
Should be interesting... (Score:2)
I don't know about Quebec (Score:2)
Re:I don't know about Quebec (Score:3, Informative)
However, in Québec, it's much easier to implement an union than elsewhere in North-America (that's because we're mostly french, and have been thoroughly screwed in the past by english companies so we eventually started to elect governments that would listen to the people rather than rich fuckers).
Re:Terrible Idea (Score:3)
I've got news for you. Most larger companies either have their own lobbying group or band together to have enough clout to afford one. That, and less legal things, is their way to influence congressmen, governors, etc in order to get laws that are beneficial to the company.
Please tell me that you didn't think the legislators made those laws because they were bored.
It's about bloody well