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Game Developers Unionize?
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."
Don't want to totally diss this idea, but I wanted to point out a couple of problems I see with it: Unions have the potential to stifle creativity. If union rules require that everything gets made with union workers, suddenly it becomes a lot harder for low-budget, independent studios to operate. There's also the fact that unions tend to enforce seniority a little too much. I realize it might seem silly to talk about at a time when people are quitting before they get old enough to be fired for being paid too much, but if that were to change, you suddenly have the issue of age being weighted over merit in company hierarchies.
They're probably more likely screaming "OOOOUUUTSOURCING!!!".
As an artist in the industry, this is both scary and sad.
People have come to this comclusion many times before, it's time somebody actually starts acting.
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.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Unions are formed to bludgeon your employer into doing business the way you want him to do business. It is incomprehensible to me why people consider this a good thing. If you don't like how your company is treating you, leave and form your own. Talk to your coworkers and you'll find that if your employer is so evil they will love the idea. So get together and write a game. You all already know how to do it; it's the same thing you are doing now! Except that instead of paying slavedriver managers and the CEO, you get to keep all that money for yourselves. And nobody will be forcing you to work 200 hours a week either.
Unions are an anachronism. The bloated contracts that most unions have send companies into a vicious downward spiral. Look at the auto industry.
The industry I work in sees people who by contract cannot be laid-off, virtually cannot be fired, cannot have benefits or pay reduced, must be relocated, and cannot be retrained if the company decides to close a facility. I personally know 3 people who work in this industry, do absolutely nothing and collect 40 hour paychecks and full benefits. This is insane. As a non-union employee, it is MY responsibility to take care of myself.
If you don't like the company you are working for, here is a clue, LEAVE. Nothing is stopping you. It's not like we force 12 year-olds to work 90 hours a week in the US anymore. Unionization does nothing but stifle industries and raise prices for everyone involved.
I'm a huge fan of unionizing in many areas but this doesn't seem like one of them.
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.
- 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.)
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Sure, lets have the unions do for software industry what they did for the American auto, steel, & textile industries.
Aren't we outsourcing enough jobs?
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.
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.
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With all due respect, you're talking about the shift to create a one-person indy computer game, which is a world of difference from what is produced by a full game dev team making a console game (which is more the kind of thing the article is talking about, and the kind of workers it muses about unionizing.)
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.
I'm laughing my ass off at all the posters who claim Unionization would destroy the creative industries.
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.
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 keeping the company in businesses just as much as the company". Union greed has brought many companies to ruin, or near ruin. This is the obvious result when labor costs spiral out of control and have nothing to do with value of the work being done.
This happens because unions are too powerful. Many of them, such as the AFL-CIO and UAW, operate with stolen money. Most members are forced to join. Workers are forced to join and pay against their will. If union membership was the choice of each worker, only then would unions be any sort of legitimate representative.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.