Video game workers in North America now have an industry-wide union

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.

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.

Could you please point me to which countries/industries those are? Just a link is fine. Googling isn't helping :(

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.

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> 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.

Not quite, this is what themselves say about the structure:

> A direct-join union means that UVW-CWA does not represent a single workplace, but rather, anyone in the video game industry. This differs from other union models, which organize workers in a single company or even a specific department or office. This means UVW-CWA seeks to make change directly through worker power and public leverage against the companies of our industry without the limitations of traditional labor law and collective bargaining rights.

> Historically, workers in the U.S. and Canada organized their unions this way until their efforts resulted in the codified labor law we know today in the United States. Other countries also utilize direct-join unionism! [...] By being direct-join, UVW-CWA is able to grow more easily, have a wider base of membership, and is not limited to the constraints of the certification process.

https://uvw-cwa.org/faq

So while it's true it doesn't have the typical benefits of another form of union, it doesn't seem useless at all. Biggest benefit is that exploited people get used to organizing together for a common cause, this will have a far wider impact than just in the video game industry.

Collective lobbying and PR has plenty of power, which is why companies do it so much.

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.

Europe seems to be doing alright with the likes of Warhorse, CDPR, Rockstar North, Paradox Interactive etc.

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.

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.

Can a union force a company to continue a project if the company decides to cancel it?

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.

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.

[0] https://www.gamedevmap.com

[1] https://drive.google.com/file/d/19_NC1ZskeN47LHaYJziotbA0sqL...

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.

"Record Revenue"

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.

I mean, historically speaking you are not wrong, but you lose some points over broadcasting information. That already has been and is being done now so, the argument goes, why not at least be well compensated in the process?