Skip to main content

Will Game Developers Unionize?

Microsoft Xbox video game controllers (Credit: THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Game development is a notoriously exploitative industry, with heavy use of contractors, low job security, and workers pulling 14-hour days for weeks on end during “crunch” periods. There has accordingly been talk of unionization in the industry for a long time now, particularly since the “EA Spouse” article exposed some of the industry’s worst aspects back in 2004. However, a new group called Game Workers Unite, which is not a union in itself, is now trying to revitalize that effort for 2018.

Recommended Videos

“We are currently forming an anonymous and horizontal organization of people dedicated to advocating for workers’ rights and the crafting of a unionized games industry,” it says on the GWU website. “We represent all workers in game development and we seek to increase the visibility of our cause through community building, sharing resources, and direct action. We seek to bring hope to and empower those suffering in this industry.”

Ars Technica reports that at this year’s Game Developers Conference, GWU “practically blanketed the Moscone Center with brochures and zines encouraging developers to band together against exploitative working conditions, uncertain project-based job security, and excessive, life-consuming crunch time.”

However, it will be an uphill climb for any unionization efforts. Representatives for the International Game Developers Association (IGDA), the world’s largest non-profit membership organization for game development professionals, didn’t seem too keen on the idea. According to Ars Technica‘s write-up, IGDA director Jen Maclean pushed back against unionization during a panel discussion on the topic: “Unions won’t do anything to ameliorate the exploding costs of launching a major new game, she argued, or prevent studios from being forced to shut down if those games fail to sell.”

In addition, the conditions of the games industry make it ripe for exploitation. For example, the games industry also often employs people as independent contractors, who don’t receive benefits and can be simply dropped at the end of their contract, in order to cut costs and avoid mass layoffs. “Game companies have learned that the boom and bust strategies of hiring when times are good, and then laying off large numbers of staff when the economy tightens, or when game sales dip, is bad publicity and damaging to internal morale,” summarized Colin Campbell at Polgyon. “Some states also levy taxes against companies that lay off large numbers of employees … Contractors who can be dropped without consequences help to alleviate this problem.”

Game development is also an industry that capitalizes on its employees’ love of the medium. Many video game developers simply love video games, and they’re willing to suffer through a lot in order to make them. Just as in other creative industries, the artistic passion of the employees is exploited by management. As Ian Williams wrote for Jacobin, “Again and again, when you read interviews or watch industry trade shows like E3, ‘passion’ is used as a word to describe the ideal employee. Translated, ‘passion’ means someone willing to buy into the dream of becoming a video game developer so much that sane hours and adequate compensation are willingly turned away. Constant harping on video game workers’ passion becomes the means by which management implicitly justifies extreme worker abuse.”

And passion can also be used to remind workers how “lucky” they are to toil under such conditions. “One of the problems is that if somebody leaves, there are a hundred people lined up to take their place,” MacLean told USGamer. “The reason that a smaller studio is laying people off is not the reason EA is shutting down Visceral, and a union is not going to help the smaller studio that says, ‘You know what, we only have money for payroll for three more months.'”

However, the same used to be said of journalism and other online writing, where the industry is also marked by a lack of capital on the part of its employers and passion and a huge supply of waiting writers on the part of its employees. And yet, organizations ranging from Slate to Vox Media to the Los Angeles Times to Gawker Media have all voted to unionize in the past few years. Admittedly, those groups could draw on existing unions like the Writers Guild, whereas the games industry doesn’t have a real equivalent that could encompass all its diverse roles. But it shows that this can be done.

“Unionization will have to happen on a local level,” said Emma, an activist with GWU, “which is why I’m really proud of how international our members are. Are you an exploited worker in Montreal? Do you need someone to meet up with in person? Do you need a little solidarity there? We have people for you.”

“We want to do this for the long haul,” Emma continued. “We’re not just a flash in the pan at GDC.”

(via Ars Technica and Polygon; image: THOMAS SAMSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Want more stories like this? Become a subscriber and support the site!

The Mary Sue has a strict comment policy that forbids, but is not limited to, personal insults toward anyone, hate speech, and trolling.—

Have a tip we should know? [email protected]

Filed Under:

Follow The Mary Sue: