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Pros, Cons And Consequences Of Unionization

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Game developers look to unions to fix the industry’s exploitative workplace culture. It was coordinated by the International Game Developers Association (IDGA), a nonprofit membership group that formed in the ‘90s amid conversations about violence in video games, and it was moderated by IGDA president Jen MacLean with the pointed title, “Pros, Cons, and Consequences of Unionization.” From start to finish, it was a tense affair, filled with passionate voices but punctuated at times by MacLean’s pronounced skepticism — mirrored in a telling interview she gave to Kotaku earlier this week— toward the benefits of unionization. The topic of labor organizing is top of mind for game makers at GDC 2018 The topic of game industry labor organizing has …show more content…
Studios exist all over the world, subject to disparate labor laws, and game designers work often in wildly different contexts and conditions. As Kotaku’s Jason Schreier, who’s written at length about game industry working conditions, has often pointed out, it may be impossible to produce big-budget video games without driving the human beings tasked with doing the day-to-day work to the point of mental, physical, and emotional collapse. Earlier this week, The Verge published an in-depth investigation into Telltale Games, the creator of popular narrative titles based on big tentpole TV franchises like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, and how the studio’s working conditions and accelerated growth pushed it to the breaking point in ways that echo the experience of many in the industry. Many attendees spoke of grueling working hours, little to no job stability, lack of overtime compensation, burn out and aggressive employee churn, and various other physical and emotional tolls of modern game …show more content…
Employees of The Verge parent company Vox Media are among those in the digital media industry now in the process of trying to unionize. Our brothers and sisters in France are striking because it took a year and a half to reach agreement that their employers didn’t take in good faith, so they had to take the nuclear option,” Kaplan told the crowd, referring to the ongoing game developer strike at French studio Eugen Systems, “Negotiations rarely are one-sided, both parties have to agree.” Kaplan, easily one of the most experienced and knowledgeable in the room about unionization, had reasoned and pragmatic advice for developers. “It’s an important thing to unionize the industry, but it starts with a small step,” Kaplan said, adding it was very unlikely the entire industry would be unionized without first starting at specific studios. It also feels painfully unlikely that companies as large as Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, and Take-Two Interactive will be supportive of any attempt of its employees to

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