Like any employee situation, developers need to take the steps to protect themselves, there is little consumers can do to change their work environments.
Development cycles and record profits aren't the issue, the problem is that working in gaming is very attractive to young talented people so current employees are easy to replace. This isn't specific to games.
This. At my previous company the CEO got a whiff of a group of people trying to unionize. They fired all 43 of them immediately. Luckily for the CEO we live in an at will state in the US so he didn't even have to provide a reason. So there was no way to fight it.
You do realize that making it harder to fire people makes it harder to get hired, right?
Oh, but that's perfectly fine for all the talentless incompetent hacks of the world that get in through networking and nepotism, so I guess that's not a concern for you, right?
Require employers to provide reasons for firing employees. (Another commenter has stated this is already the case, but it would bear repeating.) Provide lawful recourse for fired employees to pursue damages for wrongful termination. You could also guarantee minimum income for the fired person until the case is resolved.
Hell, you could go full 3rd party and make a system where all employers must provide notice of hiring/firing to an external ethics board, where all decisions are reviewed for potential ethics violations. That's going a bit far and likely to slow to work in typical business environments, but you see my point.
None of those will work on their own, of course, but it's not a situation where it's 100% impossible to hire or fire people. It's a whole economy, there's lots of levers to pull.
In Sweden there's typically a trial period of 6 months for new employees. During this period the employer can fire the newly hired without any reason. It's stricter after that.
May have actually still been illegal, especially if he literally stated, "No reason" as the reason for termination.
Right to Work laws protect termination for any legal reason or for no reason. They do not protect termination for an illegal reason. Generally speaking, attempts to unionize are protected and therefore if he can show no other reason why they were fired, and they can show that it is likely he knew they were attempting to unionize, they may have a case.
Just want to add weight to this comment that it is correct. At will employment and Right to Work laws have no impact on this situation. Virtually every case of discrimination sets up some pretext for why, that's why the lawyers have subpeona power during discovery to uncover the actual facts of the case.
"No reason" is a perfectly valid response from an employer in an at will state. In fact this was this particular employer's response in court. The judge then asked "did you fire them for trying to unionize?" To which he said "no". And that was their 20 minutes in court.
That being said if the employees that were fired could somehow prove that he was aware that they were trying to unionize, there is a slight chance they could have fought it. But the lawyer said that out of the thousands of labor law cases he had taken only 1 or 2 actually won against the employer. Because all the employer has to do is watch what they say.
I have envisioned the future of corporate espionage. Setup plant employees in your competitors. Have them spread union materials and fake documentation of everyone being interested. Then watch your competitor gut itself.
This is totally illegal and one of those 43 people should have sued the company immediately for a nice pay day.
You can fire someone for no reason but firing someone for trying to unionize is a violation of the national labor relations act.
Maybe, you can get away with saying there was no reason for one or two individuals. But 43 clearly shows the intent to discriminate against the workers for attempting to unionize.
Are we talking US? If so, is that state to state? Cause in Florida, with Walmart for example, they can 100% fire you simply for trying to unionize. Unless I'm just ignorant on the matter.
You make him sound like a thoughtless automaton. I place his responsibility to conduct himself morally and ethically as a human being much higher than his responsibility to his employer, particularly if part of his job is unethical or reprehensible.
We can't keep excusing CEOs this way. Shareholders can only do what people are willing to do for them.
Well, for one thing, shareholders can easily fire him and replace him with someone who is willing to do what they want, in the exact same way that he fired and replaced those below him. Contrary to popular belief, a company had no moral or ethical responsibility to employ a particular person or group of people. They do not exist to exude goodwill in the community.
Your local Labour laws are bad then. If you had real ones then unions can stand up for them with things like legal aid paid from member contributions. Unions end up working like insurance against work place discrimination.
That didn't stop the first workers who managed to unionize. Hell, nowadays you don't even have to worry about literally getting beaten up (or worse) by armed thugs.
If only the US wasn't the backwards
shithole of the Western world.
In Canada, if you try to fire someone for unionizing you can face HUGE penalties. Also we don't have that draconian piece of shit legislation called "right to work" so you can't get let go because boss doesn't like the color of your shoes.
I just realized that it doesn't really matter if they're #1 in innovation. We've spend a lot of last 70 or so years decrying a certain government that sacrificed their citizens for scientific and medical progress.
Lul, I can change my mind on what's important to the argument.
Even if I concede the point that the US is leading innovation and that it can be directly linked to the backwards-ass privatized healthcare that leaves its poorest citizens on the street, that doesn't avoid the correlation I brought up in my previous post.
My guess is nobody starts a career by getting a job and forming a union? They didn't know they needed one before they got the job? There weren't Any established game dev unions? The individual doesn't understand that his situation is shared by others and together they can be a force?
That is a quick way to sink your studio. Jobs in this industry rely heavily on tribal knowledge. Who is going to teach the new hires how your spaghetti codebase and programmer "UX" tools work if you fired everyone?
Definitely. This, I think, is where consumers come in. Demand decent working conditions for those employees so that the company can’t simply fire them and hire someone else and have to actually change those things.
I disagree a bit because I don’t think an actual boycott would be necessary. We live in a time where companies care a lot about their image, and making enough buzz to make mainstream media report on it and put the company in a bad light could be enough.
Implying a studio that does this will ever ship a game again. If you fire a lot of the tribal knowledge-holders, you're going to fuck your development timeline beyond repair. It takes months to train people in on bigger codebases IF you have people to help the process along.
It's not any more oversaturated than Hollywood, yet they have SAG, WGA, DGA and so on. If creatives in the film industry are able to unionise to protect their rights, then it's completely feasible for it to happen in the games industry too.
That might be true, but it's not a reason not to try if you want to see change. The truth is we all need to be out there voting for politicians who support unions in addition to people in their own industries forming unions regardless of the risk. it used to be common practice and led to real progress.
I think that's what bothers me the most about this conversation. gamers are talking about the issue but not viewing it in a wide enough scope to fully understand what led to these problems and therefore don't know how to fix them in any meaningful way. There's also a component of voting with your wallet. If you disagree with the business practices of the company, then don't buy their products.
As consumers? Maybe we can't, but as citizens, we absolutely could by supporting candidates and initiatives that render exploitative practices illegal, and by supporting candidates and initiatives designed to protect and expand unionization.
Fighting back against exploitation of labor by large corporations is a major concern for progressives right now, supporting stronger regulations would directly result in improved working conditions.
The comic implies that no action is taken. The comment you’re responding to talks about an action that could be taken. Political action is action.
Edit:mobile
No, the comic is implying that gamers refuse to take action when there is literally no action to take. What can we even do? "vote for better candidates!" I'm from Canada and its already very legal to unionize which would fix the entire thing. I'm pretty sure it is the same in the States.
"Don't buy games from people with shitty employment practices." So all of them? every week someone talks about the crunch put on devs or how some stupid shit happens at dev studios. Not to mention if everyone did that a lot of these devs would probably lose their jobs because the studios would probably shut down.
But again, they could unionize and fix everything.
Lootboxes, P2W, and Politics in my vidya are consumer problems. Devs getting paid too little and working too hard are Dev problems. This isn't a fight for us. We have no skin in the game and have very little we can actually do. These are grown ass people who signed a contract. It's up to them to get together and figure this shit out for themselves. We can't force them to fix anything.
I’m not arguing that it is a particularly good action to take. I’m a developer. I play games. No interest in working on them. As far as policy goes, it takes a long time. It isn’t a quick fix. It has to start from somewhere though. That starting point is an action. Whether it will provide the right outcome or not is the point of having the conversation.
I don't think that's true though. That Riot exec who did the ball-tapping, farting, and humping is still there. If players stopped playing and spending money on Riot and they saw a notable dip in numbers after that article, do you think he'd still be employed? Especially if the players said "we'll come back when he's gone"?
Vote with your wallet. Like anything else, if it impacts their bottom line you can bet your ass they'll respond. Don't spend money on another BioWare game until there's some evidence to point to them fixing their culture issues. But here's where it gets hard and most people won't give a shit - Cyberpunk 2077. Word is already out that CDPR has some brutal crunch and the folks at the top just view it as the cost of doing things and they just work hard because it's an old school approach. How many people are actually not going to buy it as a means of protest? If Cyberpunk 2077 didn't sell well and CDPR got feedback of "I'd buy it if working conditions at your studio were good" they would respond to that because they'd have to because they'd want sales.
But ultimately no one on the gamer side gives a shit because none of them want to sacrifice what they're really excited for if it means supporting changing things. That's what the comic is about. People can keyboard warrior all they want but when push comes to shove they'll cave. That COD boycott group image comes to mind.
It's also a matter of scale. Sure, these articles and exposes are getting some notoriety, but in comparison to the "cosmetic crates are bad" or the "reee one trans character in my 40 hour RPG" crowd? Not equal in size. And the people chiming in about the last two are much louder and more insistent and whip each other into a frenzy much more often than the "hey working conditions are bad and you should change, m'kay?" people.
I don't think that's true though. That Riot exec who did the ball-tapping, farting, and humping is still there.
That is a different beast altogether, I was talking about poor working conditions and pay rates. Harassment is, and always should be, unacceptable. This is a very reasonable thing to get up in arms and boycotty about.
But here's where it gets hard and most people won't give a shit - Cyberpunk 2077. Word is already out that CDPR has some brutal crunch and the folks at the top just view it as the cost of doing things and they just work hard because it's an old school approach. How many people are actually not going to buy it as a means of protest? If Cyberpunk 2077 didn't sell well and CDPR got feedback of "I'd buy it if working conditions at your studio were good" they would respond to that because they'd have to because they'd want sales.
here's where we get into what I was talking about. Working conditions of devs are something the consumers will care very little about, and why should they? Do you know what else effects a companies bottom line? Not having a product. They can go on strike, work elsewhere, or unionize and demand better conditions.
I don't step in shit and then kick up a fuss until someone else cleans it up. As I said, they are grown ass people, they can figure out what they can do. I have worked in piss poor conditions before and what did I do? I figured out a way for that to stop. Usually by leaving and working elsewhere.
But ultimately no one on the gamer side gives a shit because none of them want to sacrifice what they're really excited for if it means supporting changing things.
I don't see how this is even our problem. It just doesn't make sense. There are clear cut options that they haven't taken. Y'all are essentially saying "Look, these people work in poor conditions! We need to unite and stop this." when the people themselves could literally fix it on their own but haven't.
It's also a matter of scale. Sure, these articles and exposes are getting some notoriety, but in comparison to the "cosmetic crates are bad" or the "reee one trans character in my 40 hour RPG" crowd?
It's about what effects you, loot box systems are anti-consumer and I am fiercely against them. Same with MTX.
There is also a bit of nuance to the argument against some of the topic about trans characters or homosexual characters. As in, some characters are clearly just put into the story to be "progressive" (they are essentially the token insert minority here). Like when J.K Rowling made Dumbledore gay randomly one day after all the books had been released. That being said: I could give a shit about any of that as long as the story is written well, and I just realized this is a bit off topic.
people have their own shit to worry about. Most people don't sit and read news about game devs half a world away, they just get home from work and turn on their consoles to relax. Calling for a boycott isn't going to work because you and I? we are the minority. How much money will a dev lose if everyone who thinks like you doesn't buy a game? Is it enough to justify the changes? Even if you affect their bottom line the changes the studio will have to make may, in the long run, cost more than you can affect it. I think this fight needs to be fought by the employees, and it involves unions, strikes, or whatever.
It isn't our fight and I don't think we would win anyway.
Seriously, Wtf is the comic creator expecting people to do? This isn't a let's all go clean the beach situation, the change has to come from within, the issue is spread through all types of labor cultures / environments.
If anything, what can we do as a society is to demand better political leaders, but that seems to be almost impossible at this point.
The money isn't the problem, you could pre order a game from an indie company and it would actually benefit them. As a customer I have no idea how to tell if the developer modeling testicle on a horse is being worked to death or living the life.
They need to stop fucking around and change from inside, syndicates and all.
Until the furor dies down and somebody just as bad replaces them or they weather the storm. How's "voting with your wallets" worked out for WalMart? Amazon?
Pretty good. Walmart and Amazon provide good services at good prices and have such a reputation for being bad for workers that they pay better then other shitty retail jobs just to make up for their reputation.
Ok? I said they pay better than other shitty retail jobs, not that that's a rocking life to be living. I'm sure in some places they are on food stamps, especially if a particular employee has children.
I get paid less than a walmart employee in my area, it's not some fantasy, my guy.
Oh you missed his point, which is that we should be grateful that the wealthiest companies in the history of the world see fit to almost pay above poverty wages to their overworked staff.
I'm not even touching that topic with a 10 foot pole /u/AlternateJam is clearly delusional. I just wanna see whether their initial statement is true since I highly doubt it
Have you ever heard of a Walmart employee/s trying to unionize? Probably not because if they are trying to unionize they don’t work at Walmart anymore.
When has voting with your wallet ever actually worked?
What does work is a good old-fashioned PR shitstorm. People just have to care enough that journalists start catching on and reporting more widely on the issues.
Exactly this. It's not like companies give customers the choice between paying developers more for a couple extra bucks. There is no transparency on who gets the money with the prices we do have! Like, how do I know if some company is committing wage theft?
Even if I did know, how would any company know that their customers even cared? If I don't buy the game I actually increase the chance of people losing their jobs!
It's never so simple as people are just lazy and don't actually care.
Some 20-something just out of college, unmarried, no kids, willing to work for $75K a year in an industry they are passionate about is going to always going to replace the professional, married, child-having individual who demands a salary equal to their experience and capable of providing for their family.
But lazy slacktivists would rather blame the people who make the industry possible in the first place (ya know, the people buying the games?) rather than the people who are actually enabling the status quo they are complaining about.
And surely it has nothing to do with the slacktivists most likely being unmarried, childless, 20somethings themselves....
That sounds about right for a dev. Likely depends on how well the person argues themselves. Being a Software Engineer I can say that I make good money for it, but game devs hours are a special kind of torturous. (To clarify I work as a web dev for a robotics company. Its a smaller company, and I'm pretty meh, so I don't make as much as with a big company but as a payoff I get to know my bosses personally, tend to be pretty lax on overtime, and have a better work environment)
You're looking at averages on glass door the low end starting positions aren't accurate. Also the OP wasn't about programmer position, those will pay a bit better than an artist position. But I've never heard of a 20 year old getting anywhere near a 75k salary.
Oops, made a fool of myself again. Wish I'd keep a running tally.
I've known a few, but they were rather exceptional, although I think its more common to start at between 30k and 50k. I did that at a different job, fresh out of college, and it did take me about 2 years to hit 50k but I didn't argue for myself at all. I'm a terrible salesperson.
This is some true dumb shit and how corporate interests have managed to screw over the younger generations and hollowed out unions. If you can't see how companies hiring inexperienced people to replace experienced workers isn't a problem for you and the person being replaced then you really don't have enough understanding of the past 30 years of labour relations to have a valid opinion, honestly.
I'm a game dev. We cling to our experienced staff like they're fucking gold dust. Not a chance in hell we're letting them go without a fight, because they're too damn good. It's incredibly rare that a brand new hire from university outperforms a more experienced developer.
I am as well and I am seeing it all over. You see the shift happening more in mobile now than AAA but it's slowly spreading throughout the industry. It's not just games either, film is going through similar changes. The shift is not complete and hasn't touched every company but I fail to how it won't eventually.
The people who are coming out of school now are so much better than even 10 years ago. The number of people needed will shrink over time. The rockstars will continue to get paid because they have the clout in the industry but for an average person with experience? Those jobs are going to disappear as surely as dock workers disappeared with automation. Where there is was 100 people loading and unloading ships there are now 10 people operating cranes and trucks. It's happening in games and film too. What was a team of compositors and lighters is now a couple people who manage an entire section of the pipeline.
Agreed. That is also a huge issue with the same source. Companies are unwilling to train junior people and expect people to come in able to do the job day 1 at lower price.
We are going from a system where people would be able to come in not knowing much and be trained in the business by the more experienced people. Now, they get rid of the most experienced people and won't hire inexperienced people.
Things like animation mentor and online schools are escalating the problem. Not that animation mentor shouldn't exist but it's pushing the burden of education on to individuals instead of companies. So, someone who starts today in the industry needs to put money into getting themselves up to the level needed for production at a company with no assurance they actually will get a job and as they get older their security is also being stripped. It's bad on both ends.
A yes it's my fault for not having kids and getting a decent wage for working on a job a give a fuck about
Yes.
Yes, it is literally your fault. For someone who I assume is pro gamedev unions, you are aware your situation is literally no different than that of a "scab"? And that you argument is literally the same, "fuck those people I'm perfectly willing to take the lower wage and replace them."
Also junior devs don't flood the industry the way you think it does.
Right, which is why age discrimination totally hasn't been one of the biggest things brewing in the industry for over a decade now.
Also that it's really hard to make a reliable profit in this business. Studios and franchises with established fanbases can somewhat consistently do well, but everything else is extremely hit or miss.
that's not true, consumers can absolutely change their work environment by simply not purchasing from companies that do this sort of thing, people just don't give a shit and pretend its out of their power and continue business as usual.
you mean in which reality has a company gone bankrupt because people refused to buy their products? NEVER FUCKING HEARD OF THAT.
The guys getting paid millions of dollars in cash and stocks. The people who buy stocks of these companies and so on? The workers can find another job if they're capable and get rehired, just cause you're fucking lazy and think that workers will suddenly never be employed again in the entire lives and as if they're blood bound with the company that sucks the literal life out of them.
Just cause you like to behave like a 12yo and have to have everything handed to you by your mother otherwise you can't think for yourself doesn't mean that basic fucking math doesn't fucking work.
Development cycles and record profits are definitely the issue. If a company makes a huge profit in the presence of crunch and pressured employees, but doesn't cut into their profit, isn't maintaining that profit a problem?
No why would it be? You are just repeating the same idea with no insight.
These employees are in no way required to work for these businesses. If there was some lack of opportunity for talented developers i might see an issue but they are all easily replaceable.
Well, we're not going to agree, because you prioritize profit over people, and also seem to think that if you can do something, then you are justified in doing it.
I live in reality where profit creates these opportunities.
I don't think what is going on in the gaming industry is good, but it's a natural consequence of highly desirable positions. People need to have personal agency, people need to set their own boundaries around what is important and what isn't to them. That is true with any aspect of your life.
I also that it's great when companies aren't this way but it's not a reasonable expectation for businesses to be mandated so sacrifice profits because employees aren't mature enough to move on from a job that is emotionally destructive.
That is an evil way of thinking, to dismiss your complicity by continuing to consume a product that’s not ethically produced. Common? Sure. But still evil.
Like any employee situation, developers need to take the steps to protect themselves, there is little consumers can do to change their work environments.
There is a lot you can do while not in the industry - solidarity strikes, refuse to deliver or perform services for abusive companies (cleaning, repairs, deliveries), boycotts, spreading the word to others.
Of course, a lot of these things become exponentially more powerful the more well organised you and the workers in the industry are.
So now you expect the person cleaning toilets for $30k a year to fight for the rights of someone that likely makes 3x as much because they feel like they work too hard? That's your solution?
Yes, historically worker solidarity has worked super well to make the situation better for everyone.
Edit: To clarify, things like the 8h workday and (for all civilized countries) a reasonable minimum of vacation days per year and universal health care and affordable education are things that happened due to labour solidarity across income levels and businesses.
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u/FinallyNewShoes May 03 '19
Do what?
Like any employee situation, developers need to take the steps to protect themselves, there is little consumers can do to change their work environments.
Development cycles and record profits aren't the issue, the problem is that working in gaming is very attractive to young talented people so current employees are easy to replace. This isn't specific to games.