> This is a direct-join union, meaning that workers can sign up on their own. This allows folks to bypass traditional unionization processes like elections and employer consent.
Good reminder that the word "union" is overloaded and doesn't always mean what you might assume.
People who join a union like this don't have union representation or union contracts with companies. They rely on individual members to take action in various forms within there own companies. In theory they could call for a strike and ask everyone who is a member to strike from their respective companies, but in practice it's more about raising awareness and making noise in hopes of driving change.
So while technically it's a union, it's not comparable to what most people think of as a union in the United States.
Most people in the united states think of unions as some kind of entrenched bureaucratic entity that's not capable of effecting change. Typically we say "the union" as if there can only be one, and once it's corrupt, there's no recourse. Often our laws reflect this, striking as part of a "wildcat" union can be illegal. It leads to this feeling that you have to know the right people to unionize.
It's a problematic perspective. "The" union might be an impotent lost cause, but "A" union can appear suddenly, strike hard, and dissipate once the need for it has gone. This seems more like the latter.
As you correctly point out on a fundamental level unions are just workers of a particular skill organizing to address issues these workers want to see adressed, and by them bekng many they strengthen their bargaining position. Unions can devolve into dysfunctional bureaucratic entities, but so can literally everything else where people come together for a cause — so that is no argument against unions.
Every employee is replaceable, banding together with others that might replace you instead of letting them play you like a fool is a power move.
In some countries/industries you have to be a member of an union by the law. Just by working in industry, union is forced upon you by law, and you have to pay their fees. The only way out, is to form your own union, with all paperwork. It really sucks for self employed folks.
The word is extremely overloaded. China has a lot of “unions” that exist to protect companies, avoid strikes, and stifle complaints not represent workers.
That doesn’t have any relevance for American unions, but people seems to think any issue they ever had with a union applies to every union.
It’s crazy how the definition of a union varies so much across contexts, contries/indus. Some prioritize bargaining power, while others focus more on advocacy and awareness.
Just by working in industry, union is forced upon you by law, and you have to pay their fees. The only way out, is to form your own union, with all paperwork. It really sucks for self employed folks.
The first statement is true in a few industries, but the second statements are false in any industry in which the first statement applies. If union membership is mandated, you don't get a choice in the union you join.
And for the last bit about self-employed folks: the only industries which mandate union membership in which it is also possible to be self-employed are the Hollywood guilds, which set compensation minimums. Hollywood union members are free to negotiate higher compensation, and many do.
The worst thing about all the anti-union FUD that gets spread on HN is that they assume that tech workers would be in the same kind of union as janitors, when the most similar structure would be the Hollywood guilds.
How do you think unions start? Yes, an entire workplace can just up and decide some day to unionize but more often unions start as non-bargaining unions and then at some point get enough support to bargain with the companies.
> more often unions start as non-bargaining unions
Source? I'd guess most unions start as collective-bargaining unions because if they can't colletively bargain I'm struggling to see their point over, like, a conference or subreddit.
uhhh you should really look into how that works. The union playbook is to organize in secret because retaliation is in the HR playbook. All sorts of fun and completely (not)illegal retaliation like firing organizers.
This is fantastic news and something we need very much!
When my studio was closed and 36 of us fired without notice 7 months ago, I poked around at union options and was shocked to find they were only inside individual studios, not even across whole companies, much less across the industry.
The games industry is 100 years behind film and music in standardizing contracts, roles, and rights (including IP rights for failed projects). This initiative gives us a chance to fix it!
The churn rate in the gaming studios is usually abnormally high. Most key talent often breaks off into their own indie studios, and while budgets wont be spectacular AAA level... the content usually offers better quality fun, and the artists aren't burned out in 6 months.
The film and TV production situation is nothing to aspire toward... especially if you are a contractor. It never lead to more stable work for the crews, and became a feast or famine type seasonal working arrangement for many.
Unions are better than none, as at least your crew actually gets paid by some rat-fink production manager that often disappeared on wrap.
Best of luck, and some of the best talent I've met was shafted by a AAA studio at least once in their career (often for some really bizarre reasons.) =3
How is this fantastic news in an industry that is on fire and collapsing?
The US (and more generally Western) gaming industry is getting obliterated by Asian studios. I doubt a union (pre-supposing this is a union, which it is not) would help US studios be more competitive.
A union doesn't help you if your company, or entire industry, goes bankrupt.
The big studios aren't suffering in the same way the laid off employees are. Their numbers aren't rising at pandemic level and they decide to panic. They aren't shuttering anytime soon.
Asia isn't really booming either. At least if you compare to western studios. Japan had decades of a stangant economy and are coming out of a recession. Any kind of growth is a gold mine for them. China is a minefield as well economically.
> I doubt a union (pre-supposing this is a union, which it is not) would help US studios be more competitive.
It's not about competition, it's about protecting your livliehood so you don't get sacked to make an earnings call look a smidgen better.
The US game industry seems to be collapsing because they do not offer the customers what they want.
Treating employees in the industry fair might not change this, but should be beneficial to them regardless, unless it would make the misalignment of the product offer even worse which is entirely possible.
Ideally the union wants to deal with the larger entity that controls the studio. Presumably, the studio did not go out of business; rather, it was shut down by its parent company.
One of the benefits to having a labor representative in top-level planning is as a sanity check. Harder to tank your own company if you have feedback loops in place.
That does depend on laws in your particular country.
In the UK, you can be join the national union even if you are the only one in your workplace. Typically union recognition within a particular workplace comes later after sufficient numbers join.
companies with unions are a hundred years behind companies that run efficiently and do what they are supposed to instead of acting as a playing piece in the game of politics and union corruption. nobody ever talks about the fact that unions in america are corrupt… unions in germany aren't corrupt and germans can build bridges still. we can barely manage it without hiring foreign firms… stop worshiping unions its part of the problem
Unions and the labor laws they helped create save American lives. Unfortunately American companies have been upset about this for decades and fight it at every level. Including lobbying laws into places preventing industry strikes. Thus leaving us far behind countries with properly working unions like Germany as you mentioned.
America talks often about union corruption. In fact, it does this to the point of crowding out any productive discussion - because Americans are often quite resistant to looking at other countries and understanding what approaches they take to certain social issues.
Just my opinion. I have no experience working in the industry _for someone else_. I am, however, working on my own game (3+ years). I'm not a believer in poor work environments, as I don't think that environment maximizes creative output. I know what it's like working with less than 7 hours of sleep, or sitting in front of a screen hours on end. It dulls the mind. It's like being half alive.
All that said: A hit based industry is not one that provides stability. I cant think of how slapping a union on top of an unstable foundation is going to solve anything. I've heard a couple people who crossed over from the film industry say it's just going to turn most roles into contracts (just like the film industry), and will quickly filter out the unskilled and less driven people.
There isn't really a solution to this. Market pressure keep the prices of games down. Funding gets a better bang for buck by investing in up and coming countries (e.g. Poland). Most qualified[1] games don't even break a million. Hitting [just!] $150,000 in revenue is when Steam starts seriously promoting your game[2]. $150K is not even enough to live in a coastal city (after dev. costs), never mind hiring people.
[1] The dev had the intent to market _and_ sell a legitimate product, which is the minority of games on steam.
> I cant think of how slapping a union on top of an already unstable foundation is going to solve anything
You mean like the entire television and film industry? Any production over a certain (small) size is completely unionized. It's so massively successful the American cultural exports dominate in almost every corner of the world.
I'm not sure where the idea that unions can't work for the games industry comes from since it's almost identical to the film and TV industry. Unions exist so workers don't get exploited and to provide stability.
What about Nintendo? They famously have very limited layoffs. They see value in providing stability and maintaing culture and institutional memory.
If anything, it's short-term profit-seeking that destroys industries. You see this in the world of original content production for streamers. They cut the size of writers rooms. They tried to no longer have writers on set. There's a push for "mini writing rooms". Why? Because it cuts costs on a very short term basis.
In doing so, Netflix (etc) are intentionally throwing away the model that created billion dollar properties like Friends, Seinfeld, ER, MASH, Cheers, etc that, to this day, generate massive profits. Seinfeld was known for getting over a million viewers when it was running in syndication.
Long-term it creates problems. Future products and showrunners are writers who need to get experience on set. Shortsighted cost-reudction is literally killing the future of the industry.
As for the price of video games, there are several aspects to this:
1. AAA publishers like to complain that games still cost $60 after years. That's true but also the distribution is significantly higher than it was 20 years ago. You're selling way more games;
2. The marginal cost of producing a game via download is essentially zero; and
3. Games eventaully get much cheaper on Steam. That's a good thing. Early experiments with this showed that selling a game cheap on Steam could generate significantly more revenue than the original release. And because the marginal cost is zero, it's all profit.
The entertainment industry isn't doing well right now. Nor gaming. US film+TV grew by 5x thanks to streaming money in last 20 years. Gaming sector also exploded. But everyone is competing for attention with each other and decades of backlog. Netflix has milked the game to the point where they're competing against sleep - there's only so demand for the occasional hit properties. IMO it's not the same supply/demand enviroment anymore that can support unions everywhere. Very few companies are Nintendos who has a few golden goose franchise and an entire hardware ecosystem to support long term vision. And of course if most of the industry doesn't unionize, the few that could likely won't, even if the should.
It's not identical. Film and TV has one city where the vast majority of shows are produced: LA. Much easier to organize when everyone is located in the same place. Game studios are spread all over the US[0]
Nintendo isn't an American company, and Japanese have different cultural values (with tradeoffs)
> If anything, it's short-term profit-seeking that destroys industries
Im not so confident about that. For most games, you launch it once, and you get the vast majority of the revenue within one year of release. Then the next game has to be better (and cost more) than the last. I think it has less to do with short term profits (games take years to develop).
> AAA publishers like to complain that games still cost $60 after years. That's true but also the distribution is significantly higher than it was 20 years ago. You're selling way more games;
> The marginal cost of producing a game via download is essentially zero;
You lose 30% of that to the storefront, 30% on marketing, 10% on server, 5% on engine. (fun fact: the profit margin of games were higher in the 90s) [1]
> Games eventaully get much cheaper on Steam. That's a good thing. Early experiments with this showed that selling a game cheap on Steam could generate significantly more revenue than the original release. And because the marginal cost is zero, it's all profit.
No it isn't. Not when people's expectations continue to rise.
Not sure I Agree about the price of video games. It very much had adverse effects to devaluing games, not dissimilar to the streaming wars. It's really hard to bring up prices again once people are used to something costing a certain amount.
And as you expect it hurts indies the most. People spending years on a decent product and they are locked to selling at $10 because the market is so used to deep sales. At some point the next generation will scoff at the idea of paying for any game.
If a studio dies, it dies. Unions don't nor are trying to fix that. it happens.
But that's not the situation right now. It's companies making record revenue but choosing to do mass layoffs to make numbers look good. That's what unions fix. These companies aren't going broke from retaining existing talent. Those west coast studios are making hundreds of billions to compensate, so I'm not worried about them neither.
>I've heard a couple people who crossed over from the film industry say it's just going to turn most roles into contracts (just like the film industry), and will quickly filter out the unskilled and less driven people.
sure, they can, have, and will try to. Issue is that games are much harder to plan than film (or perhaps the executives simply can't plan as well). So a lot of those principles that "worked" in film go out the door. In addition, with service games on the rise you can't just rush something out to make day 1 revenue and tear everything down.
While there are some success, there are also some failures--all across the cost scale. WB games were making $XXX,XXX,XXX games, and just had to shut down 3 studios and cancel a game.
Lots of other examples (Anthem, Concord, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin to name a few)
That record revenue is used to fund the next game, which is almost always more expensive than the last.
Being a contractor isn't inherently bad. If you work at a company that is contracted to work on games or films, you're more insulated from the financial risks. You will normally get paid either way.
Sounds like an effort of the CWA, who is also behind the efforts to unionize Google, the Apple Stores, Mapbox, the NY Times, NPR, and the gaming companies mentioned at the bottom of the article:
This is the first I've heard of "direct-join union"s. DuckDuckGo only brings up variations of this article, or the pages to join individual, employer specific unions.
Where can I learn more about this type of union? Is there one for US IT workers?
25 years in the game industry. This is worth a try. I would rather see individuals derisked more so they can be creative and happy. This may mean top performers make less and crappy workers don’t leave fast enough. It is worth the risk of that. The studios have been irresponsible since video games became an investment vehicle. Pendulum needs to swing back.
Fwiw I have been indie for 10 years so this would not benefit me.
Readit News
Good reminder that the word "union" is overloaded and doesn't always mean what you might assume.
People who join a union like this don't have union representation or union contracts with companies. They rely on individual members to take action in various forms within there own companies. In theory they could call for a strike and ask everyone who is a member to strike from their respective companies, but in practice it's more about raising awareness and making noise in hopes of driving change.
So while technically it's a union, it's not comparable to what most people think of as a union in the United States.
It's a problematic perspective. "The" union might be an impotent lost cause, but "A" union can appear suddenly, strike hard, and dissipate once the need for it has gone. This seems more like the latter.
Every employee is replaceable, banding together with others that might replace you instead of letting them play you like a fool is a power move.
In some countries/industries you have to be a member of an union by the law. Just by working in industry, union is forced upon you by law, and you have to pay their fees. The only way out, is to form your own union, with all paperwork. It really sucks for self employed folks.
That doesn’t have any relevance for American unions, but people seems to think any issue they ever had with a union applies to every union.
The first statement is true in a few industries, but the second statements are false in any industry in which the first statement applies. If union membership is mandated, you don't get a choice in the union you join.
And for the last bit about self-employed folks: the only industries which mandate union membership in which it is also possible to be self-employed are the Hollywood guilds, which set compensation minimums. Hollywood union members are free to negotiate higher compensation, and many do.
The worst thing about all the anti-union FUD that gets spread on HN is that they assume that tech workers would be in the same kind of union as janitors, when the most similar structure would be the Hollywood guilds.
Dead Comment
Source? I'd guess most unions start as collective-bargaining unions because if they can't colletively bargain I'm struggling to see their point over, like, a conference or subreddit.
Dead Comment
When my studio was closed and 36 of us fired without notice 7 months ago, I poked around at union options and was shocked to find they were only inside individual studios, not even across whole companies, much less across the industry.
The games industry is 100 years behind film and music in standardizing contracts, roles, and rights (including IP rights for failed projects). This initiative gives us a chance to fix it!
The film and TV production situation is nothing to aspire toward... especially if you are a contractor. It never lead to more stable work for the crews, and became a feast or famine type seasonal working arrangement for many.
Unions are better than none, as at least your crew actually gets paid by some rat-fink production manager that often disappeared on wrap.
Best of luck, and some of the best talent I've met was shafted by a AAA studio at least once in their career (often for some really bizarre reasons.) =3
The US (and more generally Western) gaming industry is getting obliterated by Asian studios. I doubt a union (pre-supposing this is a union, which it is not) would help US studios be more competitive.
A union doesn't help you if your company, or entire industry, goes bankrupt.
Asia isn't really booming either. At least if you compare to western studios. Japan had decades of a stangant economy and are coming out of a recession. Any kind of growth is a gold mine for them. China is a minefield as well economically.
> I doubt a union (pre-supposing this is a union, which it is not) would help US studios be more competitive.
It's not about competition, it's about protecting your livliehood so you don't get sacked to make an earnings call look a smidgen better.
Treating employees in the industry fair might not change this, but should be beneficial to them regardless, unless it would make the misalignment of the product offer even worse which is entirely possible.
The salaries here are far lower than in the USA which probably helps a bit, that's not good for the workers though of course.
In the UK, you can be join the national union even if you are the only one in your workplace. Typically union recognition within a particular workplace comes later after sufficient numbers join.
All that said: A hit based industry is not one that provides stability. I cant think of how slapping a union on top of an unstable foundation is going to solve anything. I've heard a couple people who crossed over from the film industry say it's just going to turn most roles into contracts (just like the film industry), and will quickly filter out the unskilled and less driven people.
There isn't really a solution to this. Market pressure keep the prices of games down. Funding gets a better bang for buck by investing in up and coming countries (e.g. Poland). Most qualified[1] games don't even break a million. Hitting [just!] $150,000 in revenue is when Steam starts seriously promoting your game[2]. $150K is not even enough to live in a coastal city (after dev. costs), never mind hiring people.
[1] The dev had the intent to market _and_ sell a legitimate product, which is the minority of games on steam.
[2] howtomarketagame.com
You mean like the entire television and film industry? Any production over a certain (small) size is completely unionized. It's so massively successful the American cultural exports dominate in almost every corner of the world.
I'm not sure where the idea that unions can't work for the games industry comes from since it's almost identical to the film and TV industry. Unions exist so workers don't get exploited and to provide stability.
What about Nintendo? They famously have very limited layoffs. They see value in providing stability and maintaing culture and institutional memory.
If anything, it's short-term profit-seeking that destroys industries. You see this in the world of original content production for streamers. They cut the size of writers rooms. They tried to no longer have writers on set. There's a push for "mini writing rooms". Why? Because it cuts costs on a very short term basis.
In doing so, Netflix (etc) are intentionally throwing away the model that created billion dollar properties like Friends, Seinfeld, ER, MASH, Cheers, etc that, to this day, generate massive profits. Seinfeld was known for getting over a million viewers when it was running in syndication.
Long-term it creates problems. Future products and showrunners are writers who need to get experience on set. Shortsighted cost-reudction is literally killing the future of the industry.
As for the price of video games, there are several aspects to this:
1. AAA publishers like to complain that games still cost $60 after years. That's true but also the distribution is significantly higher than it was 20 years ago. You're selling way more games;
2. The marginal cost of producing a game via download is essentially zero; and
3. Games eventaully get much cheaper on Steam. That's a good thing. Early experiments with this showed that selling a game cheap on Steam could generate significantly more revenue than the original release. And because the marginal cost is zero, it's all profit.
Nintendo isn't an American company, and Japanese have different cultural values (with tradeoffs)
> If anything, it's short-term profit-seeking that destroys industries
Im not so confident about that. For most games, you launch it once, and you get the vast majority of the revenue within one year of release. Then the next game has to be better (and cost more) than the last. I think it has less to do with short term profits (games take years to develop).
> AAA publishers like to complain that games still cost $60 after years. That's true but also the distribution is significantly higher than it was 20 years ago. You're selling way more games;
> The marginal cost of producing a game via download is essentially zero;
You lose 30% of that to the storefront, 30% on marketing, 10% on server, 5% on engine. (fun fact: the profit margin of games were higher in the 90s) [1]
> Games eventaully get much cheaper on Steam. That's a good thing. Early experiments with this showed that selling a game cheap on Steam could generate significantly more revenue than the original release. And because the marginal cost is zero, it's all profit.
No it isn't. Not when people's expectations continue to rise.
[0] https://www.gamedevmap.com
[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqL...
And as you expect it hurts indies the most. People spending years on a decent product and they are locked to selling at $10 because the market is so used to deep sales. At some point the next generation will scoff at the idea of paying for any game.
But that's not the situation right now. It's companies making record revenue but choosing to do mass layoffs to make numbers look good. That's what unions fix. These companies aren't going broke from retaining existing talent. Those west coast studios are making hundreds of billions to compensate, so I'm not worried about them neither.
>I've heard a couple people who crossed over from the film industry say it's just going to turn most roles into contracts (just like the film industry), and will quickly filter out the unskilled and less driven people.
sure, they can, have, and will try to. Issue is that games are much harder to plan than film (or perhaps the executives simply can't plan as well). So a lot of those principles that "worked" in film go out the door. In addition, with service games on the rise you can't just rush something out to make day 1 revenue and tear everything down.
While there are some success, there are also some failures--all across the cost scale. WB games were making $XXX,XXX,XXX games, and just had to shut down 3 studios and cancel a game.
Lots of other examples (Anthem, Concord, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin to name a few)
That record revenue is used to fund the next game, which is almost always more expensive than the last.
https://cwa-union.org/news/releases/video-game-workers-launc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CODE-CWA
Dead Comment
Where can I learn more about this type of union? Is there one for US IT workers?
Look to who is benefiting. Do you see any names you recognize? Anybody you love to hear?
If you want to hear, see, mocap them more make sure they are on board before your declare a side.
Edit: typo
Fwiw I have been indie for 10 years so this would not benefit me.