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Nearly Half of Game Developers Want To Unionize (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Engadget: Unionization isn't a new idea for the game development industry, but it is a particularly hot and contentious topic right now. A handful of events in 2018 thrust the unionization conversation to the forefront, including Rockstar boss Dan Houser's comments about developers working 100-hour weeks to finish Red Dead Redemption 2, and the tragic implosion and bitter residue of Telltale Games. Groups like Game Workers Unite have been pounding the pavement (physically and digitally) and gathering support for unionization across the globe, with a goal to "bring hope to and empower those suffering in this industry." In December, a UK chapter of Game Workers Unite became a legal trade union.
With all of this conversation swirling around studio life, the folks behind the Game Developers Conference added new questions to the seventh annual State of the Industry Survey, which included responses from nearly 4,000 developers. The questions were broad: should the games industry unionize, and will the games industry unionize? Forty-seven percent of respondents said yes, game developers should unionize, while 16 percent said no and 26 percent said maybe. However, developers weren't exactly hopeful about unionization efforts. Just 21 percent of respondents said they thought the industry would unionize, and 39 percent said maybe. Twenty-four percent said it simply wasn't going to happen. The survey also found that 44 percent of developers worked more than 40 hours per week on average. Just over 1 percent said they worked more than 110 hours in a week, while 6 percent reported working 76 to 80 hours, "suggesting that deadline-related crunch can go far beyond normal working hours," according to the survey.
With all of this conversation swirling around studio life, the folks behind the Game Developers Conference added new questions to the seventh annual State of the Industry Survey, which included responses from nearly 4,000 developers. The questions were broad: should the games industry unionize, and will the games industry unionize? Forty-seven percent of respondents said yes, game developers should unionize, while 16 percent said no and 26 percent said maybe. However, developers weren't exactly hopeful about unionization efforts. Just 21 percent of respondents said they thought the industry would unionize, and 39 percent said maybe. Twenty-four percent said it simply wasn't going to happen. The survey also found that 44 percent of developers worked more than 40 hours per week on average. Just over 1 percent said they worked more than 110 hours in a week, while 6 percent reported working 76 to 80 hours, "suggesting that deadline-related crunch can go far beyond normal working hours," according to the survey.
As a self employed software developer still going, but long in years. I am not going to say anything pro or con either way.
;)
So go for it! Good Luck and Best wishes!
Just my 2 cents
But I do twice the work of the old fart over there making 155k.
Sure you do. Because you have any idea how much work he actually does, and what value that work has for the company.
"But looking at hours spent physically located in the office at one's desk is a good measure of value to the company!!"
You have a career ahead of you being a terrible manager.
Real developers are proud to work crunch time to get a game out on time. They know it makes for a better product.
Given the enormous numbers of bugs that are shipped in virtually every title these days, I'm gonna put a [Citation Required] on this one.
They put out 3/4ths done crap, and hope they can patch it fast enough to quell the uproar.
Game development is the coal mines of the software industry, these people must be masochists.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Real developers are proud to work crunch time to get a game out on time. They know it makes for a better product.
Long work weeks make developers exhausted. Exhausted workers make mistakes. Mistakes cause bugs down the line, i.e. more work, causing an ever increasing need for longer work weeks. The death march takes its toll, and the end result may very well be worse for it. I have seen it happen, and the solution is rarely to increase hours, but for management to show actual leadership and reduce the scope to something manageable.
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside your head
Maybe if developers stop looking at their coworkers old and young as competitors, but as brothers and sisters fighting over scraps their master gives them, then they will both share a fair proportion of the profit that they generate for the owners.
For a week or two. After that, they are crispy and progressively more useless.
The best business reason to limit hours is so the crew has enough in the tank to handle a real emergency. That means you can't be in constant emergency mode.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Yes. Your anecdote carries much less weight as a factual source than an historical article that cites many sources.
Do you not know how factual sources even work, dude?:
You are welcome on my lawn.
...If the majority of workers of this important area of economy feel unionizing (that means *standing together* and *fighting for your collective rights*) is the same as becoming lazy bums unable to care about the job they produce, then the system has won. Welcome to the Stalinist States of America. You won't oppose the system, because the system already owns you.
The only thing that saves individual persons from losing their work conditions, their freedom, their right to have a family and actually get to spend some time with them... Is standing together and stopping abusive bosses from demanding to put the company ahead of their own life and health.
One of the things I find fascinating about the MAGA crowd who want to bring jobs back paying $50 / hour building refrigerators is the degree to which many of them are anti-union - Because SOCIALISM.
...yet when did America enjoy some of its strongest economic growth? The '50s - The period it seems many MAGA folk want to return to - When union membership peaked at 35%.
I bet many of the people on this thread who are anti-union voted for Trump.
Today it's sitting at around 11%.
It's going to be amusing watching you slowly develop a clue about what's actually going on. And then understanding it. And then watch you react to a younger developer say exactly the same things to you.
And I've been hired several times to replace all the young contractors who couldn't deliver anything that was in their contract. Turns out some people are just bad, whether or not they're a contractor or in a union.