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Game Industry Workers Get Voice

Posted by Zonk on

Shodan writes "eToychest writes that a new game union of sorts has been formed to both recruit new industry talent, as well as give them a unified voice when it comes to maintaining a work/life balance. PEER (Professional Electronic Entertainment Recruiters) was created to establish and maintain ethical work standards and optimum recruiting service for game industry developers, publishers, and related industry companies." From the article: "The part that catches my eye is 'ethical work standards', which I cannot help but think was established, at least in part, due to all of the fervor surrounding EA and the treatment of its employees. The group seems to be a sort of 'worker's union', as they say that in an era where quality of life and rapid growth are chief concerns, PEER gives its members 'a representative voice.'" It will be interesting to see where this leads.

6 of 48 comments (clear)

  1. Unions... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...the best way to get your job outsourced!

    Unions are bred out of necessity, don't get me wrong. They are a great way for truly oppressed workers to force a change for the better. But, the problem is, once they get up a head a steam they become unstoppable juggernauts. Eventually, they run their own business into the ground. They first use their power to lift themselves up to some necessary minimum standards, then they force things, slowly but steadily, more and more in their favor. Until, eventually, they are getting guaranteed easy work at excellent pay from which it's nearly impossible to fire them. With costs so high, The Man to whom they just Stuck It To hemmorhages to death.

    With some notable exceptions, game industry workers have it pretty good over all. You hear lots of talk about EA in particular, but nobody ever mentions their nice benefits packages. Last I checked -- this may not be true any more -- salaried professionals there get stock options and bonuses, along with PPO medical coverage (that includes drugs, pretty standard dental, and even a little for vision as well), and respectable paid time off. I worked there five years, and while I was called on to put in long weeks every now and again, those were the exception rather than the rule. Mostly they were 50-hour "crunch" time weeks, with a couple 60-hour ones thrown in, maybe 5-10 weeks out of the year. The rest of the time it was 8x5, with the occasional company-provided beer party starting on a Friday afternoon (during business hours) thrown in to help everybody unwind after meeting a milestone.

    The game industry doesn't need a union. We're not the underpaid, overworked, downtrodden masses people want to think we are.

    1. Re:Unions... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Great republican attack line, but generally not true, just FUD.

      Chances are that if you are working at a place where they will try to get rid of you when you unionize (i.e. Wal*Mart), you have a piss poor job anyway and no other choice.

      Next you will claim they outsourced, lets say production of The Simpsons to Asia because the artists doing it where unionized.

    2. Re:Unions... by mad.frog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Glad to hear you had an OK experience there. Many others at EA didn't share that experience.

      Had a reputable union been available during my stint at EA, I would have joined in a heartbeat. I don't know if the game *industry* needs a union, but EA (when I was there) absolutely did.

    3. Re:Unions... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I would have to say the opposite of what you just said. I worked for EA for over 3 years and although the permanent full time employees do get nice benefits there aren't that many permanent full time employees. EA had a bad habit of keeping people in a temporary or probationary position for multiple years before finally giving them a permanent position and those nice benefits. But that is just health coverage; the majority of permanent employees no longer get bonuses. They were phased out for stock options that you must retain employment as a permanent employee for a minimum of a year in order to take part of. So I would say you would have to be working for EA for a minimum of 2 years before you get to enjoy most of their benefits.

      Also the hours you described were far from the norm of what I experienced. Although there are some employees that get the luxury of 50-hour weeks, 5-10 weeks out of the year those are the people that actually are on a project from conception to completion (executives, some management and a few produces and programmers) the majority were being shifted from project to project working the crunch hours on every project that went though the studio.

      EA has a lot of nice benefits. But they have a lot of ways to avoid them being given out to their employees in mass. Those benefits are reserved for the most senior employees only.

      With that in mind I don't think that unions are a good idea either. The game industry is unstable enough with so many studios collapsing every month adding a thing like unions would just solidify even more that only the big game studios can make it.

    4. Re:Unions... by CastrTroy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I have the same opinion of unions. They sprout up when they need to, when things are really bad, but they stay around even when things are good, pushing the company for more and more. I'd have to even wonder if there is a need for unions in first world countries. Most of the things that unions originally fought for are now in law, so that employees aren't working in dangerous conditions, or aren't working 80 hours a week without proper compensation. There are still a few places where unions could help when employees aren't getting quite as much money as they should. Most of the examples i've seen lately of unions are people getting more than they deserve for a job, or businesses staffing everyone as "temporary part time" even if they've been there for 3 years, working 30 hours a week, because it costs 3 times as much once someone is in the union.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    5. Re:Unions... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem is that unions, like standing armies, have to be around in order to be unnecessary.