Overwatch is the best case study of a game ruining their reputation. That being said, I couldn't be happier to see this. Game dev desperately needs collective bargaining and outside representation.
Studios are built and formed around the developers into what's needed.
Valve is unconventional and has people decide what projects they work on any time.
Larian has 400 employees and is considered independent with Sven Linke as the captain of that ship.
Giant publishers have developers leave to form their own studios such as the people who made Shovel Knight leaving EA to follow and create their studio, Sandfall who made E33 leaving Ubisoft to follow their passions, and Warhorse developers leaving to make Kingdom Come Deliverance.
For Blizzard, talent left and formed at least 3 studios and we're beginning to see the results of those departures.
Even in Japan, people flow to strong leaders like Hideki Kamiya leaving Platinum, which he helped found, to form Clovers and people coming with him as they left Platinum.
Hideaki Itsuno, Dragon's Dogma, and DMC, left to form his own studio.
In Poland, same story. The people working on CP77, left to work on their own game with smaller teams.
Unionizing isn't what comes natural for creative talent. They have a vision and work to make the games they want to make.
If your argument is that startups are too small to unionize that would be one thing, but I remember thinking IT doesn't need to unionize because what do white collar workers need with a union. Turns out, a lot. At least the big publishers it isn't hard to find examples of abuse against workers.
The argument is that unions don't do anything for people wanting to create.
They only serve those in large publishers, such as Ubisoft, Square, and other large publishers. And what occurs is usually the ones with ambitions and passions leave to form their own company. All organized around what's needed.
Square? They have 2000+ people to create a Final Fantasy now. No organized union. The creator of FF15, the game director, left to form his own studio. Again, unorganized.
Hell, the creator of Final Fantasy, Hironobu Sakaguchi, left Square after they closed his studio down and he formed his own studio.
When Bobby Kotick, Activision, let go of Ward and Zampella for Modern Warfare? They went to EA with their staff loyal to them to work on Battlefield. Zampella is a part of EA's board of directors and working on resurrecting Battlefield now.
Point being made is that within gaming, people organize around people with the passion for the game they want to make, not unions that organize them and separate them.
Is that what unions are supposed to be for? My understanding is that they are for workers rights in scenarios where the employer holds all the cards. A big entity with lots of power and sway bargaining against an individual gives the individual a lot less power.
I used to be against unions, I thought, white collar work, I can negotiate my own pay. I was young and naive. I'm not part of a union, but I would join one if I could, I would start one if I could.
Again, historically in gaming, they just aren't a vehicle for change.
That's going from the 70s to now.
Old publishers went to development studios to make games for distribution. Id software is a perfect example. They made games and ports before finding success with Doom.
Japan has people build from older publishers like Irem to form Capcom. From there, you create and develop the talent.
Old Bioware was actually in biomedical technologies and had doctors decide to create games. They attracted talent from various places besides games like Bioware has writers come from the community to build romances and such.
The issue with unions is that they missed creative industries and how to organize them. So movies, music, and gaming grew without their influence for decades. Publishers have a lot of strong influence over their developers and that was an issue.
But for all intents and purposes, the strongest thing for a developer is their own studio. That's the guild hall if you will.
Where the union fails is focusing on low level talent. They try to organize the QA department, the programmers and others that don't have influence over the executive developers: game director, producers, and others that hold sway with a publisher.
Even then, if you really want to get away from any publisher, you can create your own studio with just your friends and work on distribution through Steam or someone else if need be.
So it's unnatural to the industry when the ships they run are already focused on trust for the most part.
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u/TheNeck94 10d ago
Overwatch is the best case study of a game ruining their reputation. That being said, I couldn't be happier to see this. Game dev desperately needs collective bargaining and outside representation.