Unionization of Game Developers

[MaceVanHoffen]

Gamasutra has a new article on the possibility of unionization of game developers.  I've excerpted two passages I found especially noteworthy.

"What you saw in Hollywood's studio era was a lot of independent producers who slowly consolidated into a few key players - we call them the Five Majors - who gained a monopolistic control over distribution," describes Tara McPherson, chair of the University of Southern California Cinema School, Critical Studies division.

"They pretty much set the policy within the industry, decided what kind of product would be made, the rates that would be paid, and whether you'd have the opportunity to get your movie distributed to theaters," she says. "I see that being replayed pretty dramatically in the game industry. In just the last few years, the number of small, independent game production companies in Los Angeles alone has plummeted. The possibility of distributing an independently-produced game without connection to some bigger player is almost nil."

snip

McPherson believes the same is true of the game industry - that the big game publishers aren't going to "benevolently change today's abysmal work conditions without pressure. They will make small changes, but not much else, if the threat of unionization seems real."

And this guy just hits the nail on the head, multiple times, with a freaking sledgehammer.

But Tom Buscaglia, who calls himself "The Game Attorney," begs to differ. The only thing he believes is "inevitable" is the unionization of the games industry.

"I'm just not sure there's a way around it," admits Buscaglia, a principal at Miami-based T.H. Buscaglia and Associates, who once specialized in labor law but now represents independent game developers. "The problem is that the crunch scenario has been built into the equation; in a real sense, the publishers' backs are against the wall. If they currently need their people to work 60 or 80 or 100 hours a week in order to build a game that sells for X number of dollars, there's no way they can now tell everybody, 'It's okay, we're only going to have you work 40 hours a week,' because then their production costs will double. They can't be magnanimous because they ultimately have to answer to their shareholders. And so, in a way, having a union come in might take the heat off of them. It might be a win-win situation."

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly when crunch "got built into the equation." Certainly, it hasn't always been so. At one time, the game industry consisted of small groups of game enthusiasts working together feverishly and endlessly to build a title they believed in. They worked long hours because they were driven by passion. But over the last 10 years, that model has pretty much changed to a commercially-driven industry inhabited by big, publicly-traded companies.

"What you've got now aren't games emerging from the passion of individual developers but repetitive products driven by economic considerations," notes Buscaglia. "We've got an assembly line of people working on the fifth iteration of a football game that comes out every year like clockwork and the passion is gone. They may like what they're doing, but it's culturally inappropriate to continue the same model."

Anytime big business gets involved with anything remotely new and exciting, it commoditizes, markets, and streamlines it into a prisonbitch of not-fun-anymore.  Nothing new there, but I'm also not sure that unionization will help all that much.  There are always loopholes.  Factory workers (and, tech workers nowadays) found themselves "outsourced" when they got too uppity.  Exhibit A is the textile industry.  Here's hoping that doesn't happen to game development.

[HaemishM]

Unionization is not the fucking answer. Unionization did very little to help the automobile industry in this country. Sure, unions have gotten us worker types some good things, like 40-hour work weeks. But they almost always end up causing just as many problems as they might solve.

No, what needs to happen to game industry workers is to get some testicular fortitude, nut up and say "Fuck you" to working 60-100 hour work weeks. That shit's not right. The fact that ANYONE works for people like EA willingly just feeds into that mentality. You know what? If you are decent enough to be getting a programming job at some place like EA, you can take the same skills to a non-game company and make fucking twice that without mandated retardation built into the plan. You won't be making games, but you also won't be shortening your life by years just for the pride of having your name on Madden 2008.

Respect your goddamn selves. Only fucking slaves work at wages and hours the game industry mandates.

[Evangolis]

The increased production costs are going to be less than might be expected, since one developer working 80hrs in one week is less productive than two equivalent developers working 40hrs each in one week which in turn is less productive than one developer working 40hrs for two weeks.

However, this is an extremely outsourceable industry, although production issues could make outsourcing less attractive.

However, I think none of this is the real answer, I think the answer lies in the stuff Will Wright has highlighted about reducing the cost of content, and the issues raised at GDC in the 'Rant' panel, and replied to by Matt Mihaly on Terra Nova.  I don't think the current system will survive over the long term without some pretty major changes.

[Roac]

The increased production costs are going to be less than might be expected, since one developer working 80hrs in one week is less productive than two equivalent developers working 40hrs each in one week which in turn is less productive than one developer working 40hrs for two weeks.

Yes.  Lots of studies show that long term, working more than 40 hours a week is counter-productive.  It's going to be neccessary for a culture change though; it's not just evil managers, but also young idealistic devs who want so badly to get into this one, very small, industry.

[Strazos]

"What you've got now aren't games emerging from the passion of individual developers but repetitive products driven by economic considerations," notes Buscaglia. "We've got an assembly line of people working on the fifth iteration of a football game that comes out every year like clockwork and the passion is gone. They may like what they're doing, but it's culturally inappropriate to continue the same model."

Where do I send my proposal of marriage? This man's genius makes me mentally shed a tear; someone who is not a gamer finally understands.

[Soln]

Unionization is not the fucking answer. Unionization did very little to help the automobile industry in this country. Sure, unions have gotten us worker types some good things, like 40-hour work weeks. But they almost always end up causing just as many problems as they might solve.

No, what needs to happen to game industry workers is to get some testicular fortitude, nut up and say "Fuck you" to working 60-100 hour work weeks. That shit's not right. The fact that ANYONE works for people like EA willingly just feeds into that mentality. You know what? If you are decent enough to be getting a programming job at some place like EA, you can take the same skills to a non-game company and make fucking twice that without mandated retardation built into the plan. You won't be making games, but you also won't be shortening your life by years just for the pride of having your name on Madden 2008.

Respect your goddamn selves. Only fucking slaves work at wages and hours the game industry mandates.

what Haemish said.  unions == mediocrity

the OT and other HR disasters publicized about EA aren't unique to game companies -- anyone that makes consumer software can expect to be pumelled occassionally because the products are following the "consumer" market and its seasons and fads.  You have to have serial releases and can't get a year+ to build something unless you're innovating and building new core components.  But it's a management failure when OT happens repeatedly.   Good tech managers know that and realize it costs a shitload more to replace someone good than to throw dozens of contractors at a problem.  What worries me a lot is outsourcers like (Indian) InfoSys who cater to these kind fucked up expectations and make it seem the norm.  That's why more people want some defence (unions).  But I don't think it's realistic

hello BTW :)

[schild]

Just reading the subject of this thread, here's my response:

Unionization will do nothing but hurt the industry. I don't need to back it up. It's just true. What a bunch of amateur assholes. This is why these fuckers need publishers. They know ZILCH about business. Morons.

We still love you all. Even if you're fucking retards.

[Yoru]

What always gets me about the arguments in favor of unionizing gaming shops is when people appeal to history; "Hollywood did it this way, games should do it too." Because, really, Hollywood's business and studio model is something everyone should want to emulate.

I expect it's all just a part of the maturation process of a young sector; managers in mainstream portions of the tech sector are still working on figuring out how to manage large-scale large-budget software projects and produce products that don't blow goat nuts. Game shops, from what I've seen and heard, tend not to have the discipline or superscalar architecture experience you can find in the better departments of major software companies. Q.E.D.

[SirBruce]

Wow, who knew all you liberals were so anti-union?

Bruce

[Strazos]

Game Quality >>>> Politics

I still don't know what the "answer" is to this problem. I know programmers shouldn't be working 80-hour weeks. They shouldn't put out shit either.

[schild]

I know programmers shouldn't be working 80-hour weeks. They shouldn't put out shit either.

I'd say any given programmer only actually codes about 15 hours a week. If you brought one into the office to do actual coding only 3 hours a day, MON-FRI, you'd probably get more done than an 8 hour a day marathon session 5 days a week.

No matter how hard publishers and managers try, the roman calendar isn't going to spawn another day inbetween tuesday and wednesday. It just isn't going to happen. For any given person, you need to find out how much they work per day, if their work is worth that much to the company, and whether they are a day or night person. If you've got a guy who does his best programming at 1am, let him come in at 1am. If he only does 3 hard hours of programming a day, whatever. Just keep these fuckers happy. If you don't, your game could be the next utter failure. ET for the Atari style.

[Strazos]

If he only does 3 hard hours of programming a day, whatever.

And while publishers are complaining about costs, if a guy only does 3 hours of work...pay him for only 3 hours of work. They're not copy boys, who are getting paid to "be there." They're being paud to come in and do a specific job.

[AOFanboi]

And while publishers are complaining about costs, if a guy only does 3 hours of work...pay him for only 3 hours of work. They're not copy boys, who are getting paid to "be there." They're being paud to come in and do a specific job.

Have you been in the software industry? Are you familiar with the amounts of useless meetings, thinking and discussion taking place? Start paying people for e.g. coding and none of that will take place.

Also, some think software is an art form: By reducing a software writer to a set of tasks to perform you effectively make them "copy boys", who will shun creativity or innovation because they don't get paid to do that.

The quality of a game is not measured in lines of code.

[Samwise]

I vote in favor of cutting out the useless meetings, personally.  Brainstorming is good, but nothing of any worth ever gets accomplished in a meeting.

Grr.  Meetings.

[Yoru]

I'd say any given programmer only actually codes about 15 hours a week. If you brought one into the office to do actual coding only 3 hours a day, MON-FRI, you'd probably get more done than an 8 hour a day marathon session 5 days a week.

Actually, it depends a lot on the shop. I've worked in a small tech department (6 programmers) and damned if we weren't all banging away for at least half the day; most days, 5-7 hours of coding. The management there, though, was excessively clueful and realized that the best way to manage that team was to give us a problem, approve whatever best solution emerged from the "tech pit", and then get the hell out of the way. I currently work for a much larger shop, but the "hours of coding" are much the same -- when we're coding. We have extensive design and QA cycles built into the development plan, which cuts down on the need for excessive meetings during the coding phase.

Edit: To clarify, I don't work in game development. I work in information security. :)

[HaemishM]

Wow, who knew all you liberals were so anti-union?

Bruce

If unions could actually be something other than strongarm mafias for "teh common man," us liberals who can think beyond 2+2 != 5 might actually consider unions to be a good thing. However, the history of America has shown that unions become bureaucratic power leeches, holding down the worker as much as bending over the business interests.

The game industry doesn't need unions, it needs to learn how to run a fucking business without having to rely on slick shyster business investor types who wouldn't know game design if it bit their tiny little dicks off.

EDIT: Cus spelzin' is hard.

[Strazos]

Unions are quite a dilemma, like damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[schild]

Unions are quite a dilemma, like damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Unions aren't a dillemma. You just don't make one. They're stupid and the people in charge of them are ALWAYS fucking morons.

[Strazos]

Unions are quite a dilemma, like damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Unions aren't a dillemma. You just don't make one. They're stupid and the people in charge of them are ALWAYS fucking morons.

Correct, the heads of these things end up lining their pockets...BUT, they Do provide real benefits to their members. The alternative would be turning back the clock about 100 years, and I think we all realise how un-fun that would be for blue-collar workers.

[schild]

I think the clearer alternative is less legal bullshit and more reasonable practices among employers. If every upper level manager in the country wasn't such an asshat, things might work out for the geeks THAT MAKE THIS INDUSTRY WORK. Unfortunately they're all asshats. And there's no fixing it. They know how to suck cock just the right way to get the high paying axe-man job. And they get to control the money.

We're all doomed unless all the *actual important* people step up to the plate and slap some people in the face with their wang. I'm talking about the programmers, artists, and designers by the way.

[Strazos]

Come now schild, don't get all Utopian on us. I know perfectly well that you know how capitalism works.

And what happens if a few people, important or not, get uppity with the money men? They get thrown out on the street, with yes-men being hired in their place.

Business people, and all business majors everywhere ever, should just die. They just make life worse for all of the honest people.

[schild]

.And what happens if a few people, important or not, get uppity with the money men? They get thrown out on the street, with yes-men being hired in their place.

That's the best part about this situation.

The money-men can't afford to throw the artists of the field out on the street. The worker bees in game companies are the #1 reason games actually make it off the design docs and onto our computer. As much as I dislike Steam, I think a very large company somewhere needs to make an electronic store where you buy something, download the game, and input the key they send you via email. It can only be used once. If you reformat or whatever, you  log into the store, request a new key and verify like the last 4 digits of your credit card and a password or something. They give you another one time use key.

I mean, that's a rudimentary and easily exploited example. But I'd rather have that than publishers. Companies would probably make more money selling half the number of copies of a game  (with the other half being lost to pirates) if there were no publisher. It's depressing and probably true. I do wonder how much development studios actually make from a box sale. I suspect it's not much. $5? Maybe $8 a box? I'm guessing more like $3. Lame.

Oh, and DRM. That's going to help put the final nail in coffin of the current incarnation of the gaming industry.

[Strazos]

The money-men can't afford to throw the artists of the field out on the street.

By "artist" I am assuming you mean the people with decent skills. That being said, I believe the makers of "Enter the Matrix" and other such filth would disagree. There are tons of people just itching to get into the industry, who are not actually all that good. People like you and I may be the loudest types, but the mainstream plebians are the ones who keep the industry alive. They can release some slop, and while we may hate it, if the average n00bler picks it up, that's a success in the eyes of the business bastards.

But anyway, as usual, I agree with everything you said really....the state of the industry is really quite sad. Errors that fly by as "acceptable' in games wouldn't work in another industry, say the auto industry. The average person bitches a lot more about problems with their car than with their game. Until the average person consistently throws a fit over bad software, I don't see a lot of change on the horizon.

[Margalis]

The second people get "uppity" they will get canned, and a new hire will come in and replace them. That's the whole point of unions really, strength in numbers. Otherwise it's a prisoner's dilemma. The best thing overall is for everyone to revolt, the best thing individually is let your coworker revolt so you can move up the food chain when his ass is fired.

Alternate distribution methods is one problem. People wanting to make games that cost 2 million plus is another problem - perhaps THE problem.

If you want to make a game that is going to cost in the millions and you aren't able to finance it yourself, you are going to get screwed, by publishers or by some other form of money men. You can't berate publishers on one hand and stick out the other hand begging for cash.

The days of direct distribution are almost here, you can already buy games on FilePlanet. The bigger issue is where does the money come from? Or alternately, how do you make something for less money?

[schild]

Let David Bowman, Marc "That French Dude" who designed Wish (laukien?), and Infinium labs show what happens when you toss money at morons.

The first few times it will be important people that need to get uppity. Then other people can chance getting uppity.

Point is: Of all the people on every development team, the lead designer is such a starving artist that he's willing to suck any amount of peen go get his game made. So to all of you lead designers:

You're hurting the industry.

[Margalis]

But helping themselves. That's what happens when people, you know, need jobs and stuff. "Hey honey, I lost my job, and am now blacklisted by the industry, but the good news is I've helped make the industry better overall for people that can still work in it."

It's silly to ask and expect people to take one for the team.

[Strazos]

I'm not saying I am for or aginast the unionization of industry....

But we might get some real, solid, good results from it. Sure, some management types are going to make out like bandits, but overall, the cogs in the machines will get better conditions, and heck, we might even see a decline in the number of products "thrown out the door" by publishers.

Just a thought.

[HaemishM]

No, the games industry, from top to bottom, from developers to programmers to games journalists to game players, need to learn some fucking self-respect.

Here's the problem. People who want to make games don't want to be bothered to learn how to run a fucking business. It's as simple as that. The only reason the industry is so parasitically-attached to these vapid, soulless, marketing-speak cockmeat business types is that the business types know how to run a fucking business well enough to keep it from totally tanking. They know how to play the system. Game developers don't want to learn all the ins and outs of that. They just want someone to automagically come and take those problems away from them. Then they get all pissy when they realize that THOSE FUCKERS NOW HAVE THE POWER THAT YOU GAVE THEM. They control the purse strings, so they control the game. They can tell your developer ass when by hell or highwater your game is going to be on store shelves, whether it formats every fucking hard drive it comes into contact with or not. They are the creators of the "release now, patch later" school of thought, but they couldn't do that if they didn't have the power given over by the developers.

No, I'm not saying that all publishers are TEH EVIIL!!!! or that indy game development is the only way to go. I AM saying that without taking some of that power AND responsibility on themselves, game developers are always going to find an unwanted publisher cock in their mouths.

Development houses need to recognize how much money is being generated by these games. And they need to stop signing away all sorts of control just to get their milestone checks. Steam is one way to do it, but there are others that might not have already been used. If your game is good enough, you don't have to sell 30% of your stock to EA. I'm looking at you dumb bastards, DICE.

Game players need to get some self-respect and not buy games they know are totally fucking broken. I'm looking at you, purchasers of Horizons, Ryzom and Matrix Online. Games journalists need to learn what paid journalism really means. Here's a hint, it's not being given free games and jerking off to Lara Croft pr0n the other 7 hours 58 minutes of the work day.

It's all about Respek.

[Roac]

I AM saying that without taking some of that power AND responsibility on themselves, game developers are always going to find an unwanted publisher cock in their mouths.

You misunderstand how much power dev houses do have, and the problems as to why they more often than not don't get more.  But it probably is easier to make sexual flames against an entire industry and show graphics than talk about issues.

[WayAbvPar]

It's all about Respek

I don't know what the FUCK you just said, Little Kid, but you're special man, you reached out, and you touched a brother's heart.

[HaemishM]

I AM saying that without taking some of that power AND responsibility on themselves, game developers are always going to find an unwanted publisher cock in their mouths.

You misunderstand how much power dev houses do have, and the problems as to why they more often than not don't get more.  But it probably is easier to make sexual flames against an entire industry and show graphics than talk about issues.

What power do the publishers have? A fucking checkbook. That's it. That's the power, and it's a whole helluva lot. But you know? Without a developer house who will sign over their first born to produce a game, that publisher just has money, not a game. Electronics Arts wouldn't be jack and shit if people like Chris Roberts and Garriot had not signed away all the good shit from Origin, or if Westwood had not signed over all the good shit from Westwood. These developers did it to themselves. There's a method and a madness to the EA mantra.

See, most developers just want to do games. They don't want the added hassle. They take it as some kind of dream job to be creating games. As a result, they are blindsided when the industry wants to treat them and their games as a commodity. How could my darling little baby game be treated like cans of olive oil? How? Because you signed the rights away for you, and your entire development team when you signed the contract with the publisher. You know how I know this?

Because there are a shitton more development houses on the scrap heap than there are publishers. Because despite the vast majority of development houses ever bought by Electronic Arts having gone bankrupt, EA is now one of the monolithic profit machines in the industry. Which means those dev houses signed away entirely too much of their control just to be able to make games. In the entirety of the PC game industry, I can think of three development houses off the top of my head that have not signed away a significant portion of the control needed to make decent shit without being assimilated into a borg collective publisher: Blizzard, Valve and Bioware. Can you think of any others? That doesn't mean they don't have a publisher, but it does mean they have some control over how and when and in what form their products get published.

Yes, they also had hit games. Success is a powerful thing. But Origin had hit games before it signed up with EA. So did Westwood. But instead of making sure they retained the control needed to produce consistent quality, Origin and Westwood instead got borged. Tell me that Half-Life 2 in comparison to Half-Life 1 wasn't a better product than Command and Conquer 2 in comparison to Command and Conquer 1. What was the difference?

Publishers are a necessary evil in the game industry, but the development houses have to stop taking the creation of games as a privilege, and see it as a marketable entertainment commodity. That doesn't mean you develop with less artistry, but it does mean you don't knowlingly let someone slave-drive you and your entire team just so you don't have to program database software for a living.

[El Gallo]

It's all about Respek.

Man, after playing AC1 for the first few months, I will never play a game without respek again.  Preach on, brother.

[MaceVanHoffen]

You misunderstand how much power dev houses do have, and the problems as to why they more often than not don't get more.  But it probably is easier to make sexual flames against an entire industry and show graphics than talk about issues.

What power do the publishers have? A fucking checkbook....

Publishers have money (and thus power) because consumers gave them money.  Consumers gave them money because a huge number of consumers are sheep, easily misled in a society of disposable income and easily thrown away consumer goods.  You can see where I'm going:  I think consumers (gamers) are a huge part of the problem.

The tactic of "don't buy publisher X's games" doesn't work because the desire for the shiney coupled with excess income overwhelm the self-control of most gamers.  Gamers as a group don't really care what EA, for example,  is doing or the lack of self-respect that developers seem to have.  Bitching at it on a messageboard doesn't count.  EA's games still fly off the shelves, probably purchased by the same people who lament the state of the industry.

Then there's the problem of even horrible games selling enough to turn a small profit.  This removes any incentive for those controlling the money to invest in quality, since they can turn a profit with crap.  Again, gamers are a big part of the problem.  How many people do we all know personally who buy games they hate or never play?  How many MMOG gamers continue to pay monthly fees or continue to buy new MMOG's from the same publishers?  How many of us do that?  Welcome to being part of the problem.

Also, the motives of developers, designers mostly, are self-selecting for being taken by publishers and/or management.  Developers want to make games, and then get paid.  Publishers want to get paid, and oh there's this niggling issue of making games attached.  Unionization will never change that, but neither will developers growing a backbone.  Publishers at this point have a good ol' boy network in place that controls the distribution of product, so good luck distributing your game to stores if you don't play ball.  Hydraulic despotism, anyone?

The only way to solve the problem is to completely eliminate publishers altogether.  I just don't think the existing publisher structure is salvageable.  No union, self-respect notwithstanding, just make them completely unnecessary.  Barring showing up at corporate offices with an uzi and a manifesto, the best way to do this is to distribute games directly, outside of the retail channel.  Then this whole union idea goes away too.

[sinij]

Well if game developers get unionized we know where they will be spending time posting during their union breaks.

[Roac]

What power do the publishers have? A fucking checkbook. That's it.

No, they carry quite a bit more.  Publishing a game is much more involved than just writing checks.  Knowing the market, knowing how to price, how to package, having contacts, etc.  There is real work involved in putting any product to market, and bad moves at this stage can (and have) cost a good product to not turn profit. 

The other point is of course money, and it cannot be underrated.  Publishers take on a significant amount of risk when they fund development - risk the developers are declining to deal with.  When you surrender risk, you also surrender profit and control.  Certainly some devs fund their own products, but many of them have gone belly up as well.  When games cost a majority of your budget (sometimes even if you get backing), it only takes one mistake.