They're making a video games union lol

It should be filled with mes. Why do not-mes even exist?

Not to mention gamergate/woke bullshit also dictates that most of these companies are ideological enemies, and ergo, sympathy for them is poison for myself.

Maybe if their jobs were better, these game devs would go full boomer and not care about ideologies anymore. They'd be more relaxed and think about all the stuff they can buy than enacting the communism that'll never come

Unfortunately, they chose to be communists, so I choose to spit on them.

Japan has tons of unions.
Just because American unions broadly suck, doesn't mean the concept of unions is bad.

if their jobs were better

Maybe they shouldn't be working in a industry they clearly don't understand. The vast majority of workers in the wester game industry don't even know how to use the fucking tools that the vets used in the 2000s let alone earlier. You have nobody on staff that knows how to make a game because a leftist fired them all due to them being toxic. Maybe you should do your fucking job Brenda instead gossiping about how much you hate trump in the fucking break room.

None of this will happen and I don't know why you said Epic games in the end

cannot think of any product where the consumer is more insulated from the effects of a strike than that of video games

ever heard of that "online gaming" thing? Apparently it's the next big thing

we're done playing

same

From what I understand Japanese unions are temporary. They exist to get the job done. Change what needs to be changed and then go away. While western Unions stay around.
Never actually fix the problem. Become a middle man that obfuscates and ruins shit for everyone. Union workers included.

publishers making record profits year after year

whoops sorry we have no money left after CEO raises and shareholder dividends, we have to do some massive layoffs :((

honestly if the developers don't unionize at this point they are actually retarded

That's a gross simplication. There are many ever present unions in Japan.

Wonder if those unions require their workers to pay a fee to join and remain a part of it.

The VA unions have not disappeared and do not seem like they're disappearing.

Problem with that is Those Publishers will just hire Jeets. Make shitty products. still make bank off sheep and not pay the jeets.
Publishers in their entirety need to just no exist.

Indie gaems.

Change what needs to be changed and then go away.

if american unions tried that the employer would just change it back right after they dissolve.
unions are persistent because they have to fight clawbacks every single contract negotiation.

Problem with that is Those Publishers will just hire Jeets

a good union would hold publishers accountable and not let that work be outsourced.
WFH might be a problem but publishers hate WFH anyway, so.

it's as much a mystery as it is a tragedy, me

Normally that shit is in contract and would lead to a lawsuit ruining the company immediately.

You assume The publisher would continue hiring union workers while they hired the jeets. Not replace all of them entirely. What can a Union accomplish if the company just fires the union workers?

contracts expire and have to be re-negotiated regularly.

feel bad for the people working in a career where the median salary is 2x higher than the national average

workload includes: typing, attending meetings and meeting goals

air conditioned office, Health, vision, dental insurance, vacation time, PTO, work from home, elevated status in certain communities, d level fame if you're sweaty enough

Oh nooooooooo!

But this is bad for Nintendo so FUCK THEM

firing the union to replace it with scab workers is illegal.
usually it's also in the contract that all new hires must be union.

And that's when a union pops up again. Don't need a union happening 24/7. Forcing people to be on protest for every little thing the union wasn't even made for let alone siphoning funds from all the people sucker enough to pay them to do that.

Do you identify as non-play-nary now?

In the west. Sure. But as you said. "contracts expire".

Forcing people to be on protest for every little thing

employers must be held accountable even between contract negotiations. they will act in bad faith and find loopholes. the union also organizes events to be used as teambuilding exercises and maintain solidarity.

let alone siphoning funds from all the people sucker enough to pay them to do that.

the primary purpose of those funds is to have a warchest in the event of a prolonged strike action. it's easier to maintain a picket line when you still have a bit of cash on hand for food for your family.
although i will grant you there is a lot of waste and mismanagement that happens with these funds, too. it is important to keep bad actors out of leadership.

But as you said. "contracts expire".

yeah. and taking a stipulation like that out of the contract would be a hard no.

The thing is about wester unions is they unionize over one thing. Never get that one thing fixed and continue unionizing and asking for more and more shit they weren't made for in the first place.

The primary purpose of those funds is to have a warchest in the event of a prolonged strike action.

sure sure sure. Except when it fucks over your own union workers because they can't work for prolonged periods of time and end up having to leave the union because they can't afford paying the union. Then the union settling on a topic and the vast majority that got dropped don't benefit.

Well this is perfect then. If they didn't have work conditions to bitch about you wouldn't have to hear about it. You'd just get videogames with no drama. Glad to have you on our side.

We live in the current society where someone can get everything that they want and continue to bitch about other shit.
We will always hear someone bitching. It's never going to stop because a certain group of people are never happy and are in all intents and purposes the problem to begin with.

The thing is about wester unions is they unionize over one thing.

if one thing acts as a catalyst to form a union, that's great. unions aren't single issue political parties though, and should not be used as such.

fucks over your own union workers because they can't work for prolonged periods of time

that sounds like an issue with seasonal work, which isn't game development, or layoffs, which a union would fight to prevent.
we all saw how Iwata cut his own pay in half instead of laying off workers. that's the sort of thing western CEOs would never do without being forced.

Waste of time. I've worked both at a big studio and as an indie and the latter is definitely the way to go. Just do your own shit out of your garage, that's the only way to make proper videogames now.
At big studios you spend way too much time seething at stupid decisions, and now they also want to butt heads over unions. Ridiculous. Anyone who still works at an AAA studio just wants a cushy job in a big system where responsibility can be offloaded - or they are retarded techbros.

that sounds like an issue with seasonal work,

No. They can't work because they strike constantly. Constantly not working because the Union demands they strike.

union leadership cannot demand a strike. they can deliberate among themselves whether a grievance is strikeworthy, and decide that striking is an option, but they put it to a vote. if you don't want to strike, vote no.

most recently in vidya, voice actors were on strike because their work is being stolen to train machine learning models that will put them out of work. that is certainly a strikeworthy grievance.

they cannot demand a strike

Tell that to all the people who are kicked from the union and harassed for not doing so or all the non-workers not striking being harassed for not striking.

all the non-workers not striking being harassed for not striking.

you mean management? the people that are being striked against?

Marx was not a marxist, despite his own flaws he gave much insithts in terms of methodology and critical critical thinking, and developed economics even further. Most of the so-called marxists that came later really fucked up, and leninism went to shit pretty quickly.

Nowadays all that was absorbed by neoloberalism, ended up becoming another commodity. So now you have "leftist" mutts talking about unions for virtual toys development

You’re not wrong about the frustrations in AAA, but going indie isn’t some magical escape either. You trade office politics and bureaucracy for instability, funding headaches, and burnout from wearing every hat. Not everyone has the safety net to just go full garage dev. Unions at least start to shift some of the power back toward the workforce—even in AAA—so those dumb decisions get checked. It's not about choosing indie or AAA, it's about making either sustainable without killing yourself in the process.

Sure but you need money, not every indie goes viral and gets funded by big bucks

Game development time and money go through the roof in a recession

Western devs close their doors and go overseas because its easier and far cheaper than dealing with entitled men that think they are women

Sounds like a death knell sweetie. Good luck with your union though, I sure do hope it goes well for you!