I understand why workers in the video game industry want to unionize. They like the industry but the standards are shit. I do not see how unions will catch on in the video game industry.

The ability to unionize has very little to do with the ideology of the workforce and everything to do with the structure of the industry.

Unions tend to catch on when labor is irreplacable, workplace is large and centralized, if they can halt critical operations beyond their industry (ie railroads, ports, etc), there is low exposure to competition/off shoring, etc. The video game industry itself is not very ripe for unionizatoin.

▲

rhcom2 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not sure that's true. Surely doormen, janitors, and security guards are not "irreplaceable" and can't "halt critical operations beyond their industry".

▲

xienze 9 hours ago | parent [-]

That's all labor that can only be done "here and now." Can't just have Indians do it over the internet. And replacing the workers at a moment's notice is usually complicated by the striking workers harassing and attacking the replacements. Again, hard to do that when your replacement is on the other side of the globe.

▲

qq66 9 hours ago | parent [-]

You cannot simply transfer Magic the Gathering to overseas workers and expect any kind of usable result. It will be from an entirely different cultural framework.

▲

satvikpendem 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Hard but not impossible, whereas with something like a longshoremen union, it is literally impossible to move the work elsewhere.

▲

xienze 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> You cannot simply transfer Magic the Gathering to overseas workers and expect any kind of usable result.

If you fed all the lore into an LLM and trained diffusion models on all the artwork I bet you could keep the train running from India until the end of time. The only thing that would derail it is if customers _knew_ it wasn't "authentic."

	▲	AngryData 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't think LLMs are anywhere near careful enough with their wording to not break the game. Non-native speakers will have a similiar problem if they are extremely proficient.

▲

bluefirebrand 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think on the contrary somewhat

If everyone at a game developer goes on strike, there is basically no amount of outsourcing or scab labour that can replace them. This is actually probably true of basically all software

Just refusing to share passwords into key systems would be enough to significantly halt any attempt to bring on an entirely new development team

▲

nonethewiser 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yes but what happens? The video game is not maintained or released. Society doesnt care that much. It's not critical and there are millions of alternatives.

	▲	Lapra 10 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Most entertainment industries have very strong union presence.
	▲	darkwater 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Well, it happens that the company that has workers on strike at some point stops making money because of that.
	▲	cleversomething 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Magic: the Gathering is the only profitable arm of Hasbro. I don't have the specific revenue numbers, but Arena is a huge part of the ecosystem. Sure, society at large wouldn't care, but letting the Arena release schedule slip behind the "paper cards" product would be a huge embarrassment within the community of customers and content creators that fuel the MTG machine. I would be shocked if they let it happen lightly. I would be a lot less shocked if Hasbro sends in the Pinkertons to do some "persuasion" in the coming weeks and months: https://www.dicebreaker.com/categories/trading-card-game/new...
	▲	bluefirebrand 8 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		The point isn't about what society cares about. The company loses its investment entirely unless they bargain with the union
	▲	northern-lights 9 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		What has unionizing and society caring have got to do with each other?
	▲	9 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

▲

michaelt 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Some historically powerful unions have enjoyed their power because their strikes not only stop their employers making money, but also impose great inconvenience on many people downstream of them.

If truckers or dockworkers go on strike there's no food on the shelves, if coal miners go on strike the lights go out, and so on.

As a consequence of this, employers are motivated to make a deal not just by missed opportunities to make money, but also by politicians, other powerful capitalists, and public opinion.

Of course there are plenty of unions where this isn't the case; theatres and hollywood are unionised despite the fact nobody freezes or starves when they go on strike.

Game developers are, I think, closer to the hollywood position than the dockworkers position.

	▲	satvikpendem 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Well, the theater and Hollywood workers themselves starve, as seen in the last recent strike, with many not being able to make ends meet.

▲

charcircuit 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Doing that would nuke your career. What company wants to hire someone who sabotaged their previous employer?

	▲	bluefirebrand 8 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What worker wants to work for an employer that pays them bare minimum and treats them as a replaceable cog?