On Thursday, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) and Rockstar staff members announced the Rockstar Game Workers Union. This union will be part of the IWGB. The reveal came in the form of an informative video which delves into their motives and what we should be looking out for in the future.
Refreeze5224•16m ago
Solidarity forever! Game devs eat a a lot of crap, so I'm glad they are banding together to bargain collectively.
WarmWash•9m ago
Can anyone comment on why "big video game" dev pay has lagged "big tech" pay so badly? Ostensibly they are doing remarkable similar engineering problem solving, so why is there such a disparity?
majorchord•7m ago
Because they put up with it.
bananabiscuit•7m ago
Passion tax.
basisword•6m ago
Has it? A lot of 'big tech pay' is based on US salaries which are astronomical compared with all of Western Europe. And big game companies are lot more spread out globally. For example, in this case they're in the UK so how do their salaries compare with UK dev salaries?
jrmeyer2•6m ago
Supply and demand would suggest that there's more supply of those willing to be paid less to work in entertainment 'on games' to meet the demand. Would be cool to see actual economics on it though.
ryandrake•5m ago
Is it as simple as supply/demand? People love games and game-loving developers are willing to take lower compensation to be in the industry? As a former obsessed gamer, I remember in my 20s I almost would have been willing to work at iD Software without pay if they let me.
HugoTea•5m ago
I think a never-ending pool of young, fresh, and naïve graduates happy to sell their soul to make video games has been a strong contributor for low wages for a while.
Any time someone gets too senior, just replace them with another graduate.
Naturally, the product quality and timescale suffers too.
HugoTea•8m ago
This is great news, unions not only improve working conditions, but also improve the final product by not having underpaid stressed staff with high turn-over.
It's a good sign for the future product quality of any company to see workers unionise.
AndrewKemendo•35m ago