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Game companies need this. It’s one of the “software engineering” adjacent subfields that is extremely exploited. The salaries are low, the work is stressful, crunch is high. The reason for this dangerous combo? You’re working your dream job.

This is good, I hope the employees at ActivisionBlizzard can finalize their union if they’re purchased by Microsoft.

I try to work in the game industry when possible.

Unions on the game industry would never work, reason why game industry is so abusive is two fold:

1. A lot of young people believe working with games is only fun, providing endless bodies to be hired and replace the previous young that realized how much it suck that they quit.

2. Games market follow a very strong winner takes all model, a few games have all profits, literally thousands games are released yearly that nobody ever heard of or bought.

As such here is the situation:

1. Very few companies (because of previous point 2) can afford to pay good wages and benefits.

2. The few companies that actually are wealthy, get so much applicants that every year starry eyed talented newbies will join for shit pay. Hell, when I had my own company people wanted to work for free even!

3. If a union starts to form, the company will just get rid of it somehow, even if is extremely bad PR, because people will still willingly throw themselves at such jobs thinking "EA Spouse" description of crunch time is a dream, not a nightmare.

Note: currently unemployed again. I am in love enough with games to want to brave all its shittyness, but I don't have my hopes up that I will get a game job, because my wife is pregnant and I need wages that allow me to take care of 3 people now, and I know in the game industry this is very unlikely. When I first finished university nongames companies offered me usually at least 3x what game industry did for same positions. My first job ended with me getting 5x the highest offer I got from game industry. I accepted it because the game industry offer was lower than my student debt repayments for my Game Design and Production degree...

> 1. A lot of young people believe working with games is only fun, providing endless bodies to be hired and replace the previous young that realized how much it suck that they quit.

> 2. Games market follow a very strong winner takes all model, a few games have all profits, literally thousands games are released yearly that nobody ever heard of or bought.

These are both true of movies, but that is a heavily unionized industry.

I live in Los Angeles, surrounded by people who work in entertainment. There's also a very heavy gaming company presence here. A lot of the companies will cross-hire, in fact, because there's a lot of overlap (voice-work, art, cgi+vfx, post-production, editing, etc).

Every time, if someone in gaming has the opportunity to take a gig in entertainment, they will choose the entertainment gig.

The industries are very similar, but due to how they evolved they are each a mirror image of the other had each taken a different path to labor organizing. Hollywood was (and in many ways still is) THE most exploitative industry when it came to profit sharing, dangerous+stressful+long working conditions, etc. But at least the unions guarantee certain things like breaks and time off, healthy pay floors (e.g. an entry level writer on a tv show will make $120k that year if they work 8 months, $70k if they work 6 months, etc), health insurance between gigs, a pension, etc, even to their minimum wage workers. Gaming workers can have this too if they realize the profitable game studios literally cannot make a profit without their labor, and organize en masse accordingly.

Perhaps we need a different revenue model for games.

Book publishing was pretty winner-take-all, until Kindle Unlimited (and its close relative, the many serial-fiction "unlock new chapters with coins" websites and apps) came along, and basically changed everything for many indie authors.

Before, you needed to woo a publisher, because you needed to be in bookstores, because you needed a certain threshold of word-of-mouth to be stirred up around your releases, in order to get sales that would let you make enough to cover your own advances.

But with the Kindle Unlimited model (users pay a flat subscription fee; authors get paid per page read) it's now practical to earn a living just by writing and maybe talking your book up on your own personal social media — no need to find a publisher, no need to make it into bookstores, no need to advertise heavily, no need to make big-hit releases, etc. Just pump out a constant stream of stuff that some people like enough, and you get money.

Could there be a Kindle Unlimited for games? All games are free under subscription; devs get paid proportional to play time?

A quick Google suggests that Apple Arcade might actually be doing this, but Apple Arcade devs are apparently under NDA not to talk about the revenue model. (Maybe because Apple doesn't want the other bigcorps realizing this is working well and being a fast-follower?)

I work in the slot gaming industry. A lot of ex-video game developers end up coming over. May be worth looking into.
>Very few companies (because of previous point 2) can afford to pay good wages and benefits.

Well, it's not ideal, but it's fine if only a few companies can afford to operate in a given field.

> The reason for this dangerous combo? You’re working your dream job.

Doesn't that make it a fair trade? Musicians generally don't make a killing either.

I’m not sure it’s fair if the product ends up making a boat loads of money. Games are high risk but a very lucrative industry.

Just look at how successful football players were in getting a slice of the pie. I’d still consider that a dream job.

Why would you think that's fair? We don't choose our talents nor our passions. You should get a decent share of however much value you create. How much you like your job doesn't come into it because it's random.
Nope. If I cannot live comfortably with a dream job, I'll work on something else unfortunately. And work on whatever dream I have with whatever time and energy remains, if any.

Otherwise, I'd already be working on the exact things I want to work on, and earn almost nothing (for maybe a long time).

I think of it like this:

It's the company's job to maximize shareholder value.

It's the worker's job to maximize worker value.

It's the market's job to push profit to zero.

So the union is like a new force in the equation: they put pressure on the company to give the workers more value.

Which could actually be good for business: if treating workers results in better work product, the shareholders might not push for that (typically markets optimize for quarterly earnings). But the union can secure better conditions for the workers, which might lead to moving to a better local maxima.

Musicians and people associated with film media also have collective bargaining via unions.

For example the musicians have the AFM which helped force labels and radio stations to pay royalties to artists.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Federation_of_Music...

Musicians are generally exploited, too. I don't really see the argument against forming a union just because you enjoy your job. More worker power is a good thing.
Musicians are not the ones raking in all the money - the record companies are the ones doing that. There are plenty of articles about how artists would have made more money working at McDonalds while the record company brought in 8-9 digits of revenue. In TLC's case, their 2 albums sold over $100,000,000 yet the 3 artists each received less than $50k. The studio and management companies made bank.

Samples: 0 - https://www.salon.com/2000/06/14/love_7/

1 - http://www.nytimes.com/1996/11/25/business/tlc-settles-suit-...

> The group later revealed that the owner of Pebbitone made them pay $3 million to own the rights to their name.

2 - https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/tlcs-crazysexycool-...

that's not a fair trade off. plenty of other "dream jobs" like athlete, lawyer, doctor, etc. pay gangbusters if you "make it". I'd add the most musicians "don't make it" either

it also goes beyond that, working conditions for game devs are truly abysmal. low wages are just the tip of the iceberg; add it abusive managers, long working hours, etc

> Doesn't that make it a fair trade? Musicians generally don't make a killing either.

What are giving me to make it fair?

My feeling of internal satisfaction is genersted in my body, they are not supplying me drugs and cocaine.

Some musicians make a killing and get royalties - who in gane industry gets millions in royalties?

No one else generally makes a killing off musicians that aren't also making a killing.
I always try to see into the eyes of all those "stars", "project-managers" and "pr"-talkers, as they try to entice the next generation to wreck themselves, to keep the scam going. Hollywood, Paris, Gamer-town, the beast hungers for fresh flesh and minds. And even if you make it, it will be due to feeding the next generation into the grinder.
You left out Broadway and most professional sports leagues
I am curious about the use of the word "adjacent"

Do you think people writing game software are not software engineers?

A lot of game development roles don't involve writing software but are just as exploited, like artists and designers.
They also used the term "subfield".
The Activision/Microsoft merger may get blocked by the FTC[1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/08/us-agency-bl...

> The salaries are low, the work is stressful, crunch is high.

Is this because of supply & demand is different from other sectors? Say, people really love building games so they flock to the game industry? I'd imagine that developing games require highly specialized skills: great artistic sense, complex tool chains, deep understanding of maths and physics, and of course excellent programming and engineering skills. Case in point, my friends in the gaming industry routinely reads and implements SIGRAPH papers, or show me cool optimizations they did to all kinds of physics simulations with the NS equation, the constrained particle systems, and etc. It's hard to fathom that such talents get worse work condition that those who build CRUD apps.

Have you ever worked in a company with a union?

Look what just happened to the railroad workers. The US government forced them back to work and gave everything to the companies.

Unions are effectively a corporation running labor. So you go from working for the company to working for your union rep. They then pimp you out and get kick backs. Wanna leave your job for another company or role? Good luck, you drop in seniority and will have your hours and pay cut. When layoffs come, the highest rank in the union decides who gets cut. His golf buddies obviously keep their jobs.

Then you end up like GE or Boeing in a zombie company. Poor management, poor senior engineers, and good, but underpaid low level engineers.

That’s not to say you can’t collaborate and organize. Ive organized my coworkers to make changes before, no union involved.

"MS workers" here are 300 QA testers from MS's game division.

I was worried whether their core developers were unionizing or not.

Not yet. Not even the game developers.

Wouldn’t even say games division. They’re part of an acquired studio, Zenimax (parent company of Bethesda), that runs pretty independently.

While the headline is technically correct, it’s obviously clickbaity. Saying Zenimax QA engineers are unionizing doesn’t get as many clicks.

It's still a good start!
The most interesting bit, IMHO, is this:

    > In June, Mi­crosoft said it was open to work­ing with any la­bor unions that want to or­ga­nize within its work­force, mak­ing it an out­lier in the tech in­dus­try. Last year Ama­zon.­com Inc. con­tested work­ers’ ef­forts to union­ize. Mi­crosoft has said it would sup­port work­ers at Ac­tivi­sion Bliz­zard Inc. who or­ga­nized last year should its $75 bil­lion deal for the “Call of Duty” de­vel­oper close.
What else are they going to say in public? "Our plan is to engage in union-busting as much as we can legally get away with"? And what one company said is then compared to what another company actually did? Come on! This statement doesn't make MS an outlier, it's simply devoid of information content.
Microsoft was required to say this by an agreement they made with CWA: https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/cwa-microsoft-announce-l...
At Zenimax, not Microsoft proper. Bit of a disingenuous headline.
https://archive.is/oy7YN
There are times I wish I had a union working for tech in finance. Although it seems like a real contract would fix most of the issues without unions.

These one page "we make the rules and can change them at any time" contracts are bogus. There's no accountability, no fairness. Things become arbitrary. There's no accountability when the company violates it's own policies.

> Although it seems like a real contract would fix most of the issues without unions.

It’s hard to disentangle these, unions are effectively the only way for non-executive[0] employees (in the US) to get an employment contract that isn’t one-sided in favor of the employer. The primary function of a union is to obtain a contract.

[0] I highly recommend reading the “Executive Severance Plan” section of any publicly traded tech company’s SEC filings, they are fascinating.

I tink unions in tech should be established while the industry is still in the gold rush. Sure, tech salaries are very high currently and tech workers tend to have more freedom in their jobs, but who knows for how long this will persist.

Better start building unions now, it's never too early for that.

Gold flowing and competition are what make salaries go up to the extent you're talking.
*Assuming the ATVI/MSFT merger goes through, which it might not. The title should really say Activision Blizzard's first union is formed in the US.
No, this news is about a group of Zenimax employees. Zenimax is already owned by Microsoft. This is not related to Ravensoft QA union under ABK that made the news earlier this year.
QA in gaming industry sounds ripe for AI/ML solutions ... Automated testing already exists, but couple AI/ML for QA with free beta testers or super fans, and you can prob eliminate QA departments, or at least cut them down sizably. From what I know, the QA folks in gaming get paid crappy anyway, so its prob not a huge priority for MSFT. This is just some feel good press.
The last time they tried the majority of their testing people were fired.
I'm ambivalent about unions. In general, they sound like a good idea to me, but in practice in the USA, they seem only a step above the mob.

For example, I was browsing /r/antiwork the other day and someone received a bill from their union after they chose to leave the job. The bill demanded the payment of $200 in union dues that were unpaid from their paychecks. The commenter did not have enough money to pay

To put it bluntly... this is exploitation. The responses were that the poster had two options (1) pay the due or (2) never work in any industry for which this is the union (and some other unions may not want you if you're out of date with the other union).

People have a right to work. No private organization, profit or non-profit, should be able to prevent you from doing that. I understand why a union may take a bit off the top of a paycheck, but to demand fixed sums after quitting under threat of never being able to work in that field again? That seems exploitative. We would never let a private for-profit business get away with threatening their employees as such.

Moreover, according to other unions I've interacted with, they claim that if you don't follow union policy, they can 'expel' you from the union after you go through 'trials'. Typically, tnis is if you cross a picket line. Now, I think it's usually in one's best interest to strike if the union is striking. However, this is a free country. No one should be able to prevent you from working. No private organization should be able to put you on trial with the consequence being that, if you lose, you cannot work. While organizations can expel members, that should be the extent of their punishment. Working is a necessity to earn an income. To deprive someone of that because they're not part of your club is morally wrong.

In my opinion, if we allow for closed shops, then unions should be obligated to represent any worker there, whether they have paid any dues or not. Union dues should primarily descend from paychecks. No worker should get a bill. No one should be able to be expelled from a profession simply for not following union labor policy (and realistically, there are only a handful of reasons a janitor ought to be expelled from the profession). Unions ought to be regulated like health insurance companies and be forced to advocate for anyone working in the field.

The 70s are back. We're approaching a period of strong unions, huge labor conflicts and eventually rampant inflation. At least in Europe.

I've been thinking that the USA would be affected less than Europe, due to weak unions in most sectors, but it's certainly possible for unions to form.

The 70s when one earner (even a factory worker) could still afford a house and kids and wealth gaps were way smaller? Better times for sure unless you're very rich.
I feel like this implication you're positing where unions and labour conflicts can only result in "rampant inflation" is untested.