I don't work in games, but I am a software developer and a member of the Communications Workers of America. I've also taken leave to help workers in games organize.
I'm seeing a lot of ideological takes that are disconnected from the reality of unions with software developer members today. If anyone has questions about the CWA or game worker organizing campaigns, I'll do my best to answer.
https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/everything-you-nee...
>We've created an all-new Games Rules Engine (GRE) that uses sophisticated machine learning that can read any card we can dream up for Magic. That means the shackles are off for our industry-leading designers to build and create cards and in-depth gameplay around new mechanics and unexpected but widly fun concepts, all of which can be adapted for MTG Arena thanks to the new GRE under the hood.
At the time, this claim of using "sophisticated machine learning" to (apparently?) translate natural language card text into code that a rules engine could enforce struck me as obviously fake. Now nearly ten years later, AI is starting to reach a level where this is plausible.
In their letter, the union writes:
>Over the past few years, pressure has ramped up from leadership to adopt LLMs and Gen AI tools in various aspects of our work at WOTC, often over the explicit concerns of impacted employees
I'm curious if this would include fighting against turning WotC's old fanciful claim into a reality as the technology matures?
It's a parser + (de)compiler and rules engine which I'm trying to get to 100% coverage over all Standard/Modern/Vintage/Commander legal cards. About 23000 of them are partially supported, while 15k currently work in full (~3k more than what MTGA currently supports, IIRC). It also allows for P2P 4-way multiplayer which Arena unfortunately does not :/
What are you planning on doing with this? Where should I follow along?
I assume the wording in this letter is referring to using LLMs to generate slop as creative assets like images and music.
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.
It answers a lot of the questions I see being asked in this thread.
The bigger the company is, the more power they have typically.
If you want to make more money or get better benefits or otherwise negotiate a better contract, you need more leverage.
Unionizing is one way to gain more negotiation power by negotiating together with your co-workers instead of individually.
It also makes it easier to address cross cutting concerns like safety and fairness.
Eg, that they necessitated so called "rubber rooms" like these in the NYC public schools, where teachers got paid to do nothing while waiting on arbitration.
That's in a country with a median household income of $84k [2]
I think it's understandable why someone would feel they were doing well at bargaining and negotiating if they were taking home 4.7x as much as their neighbours and loved ones.
Folks in the games industry by all accounts have really shitty pay and working conditions so I can 110% understand why they'd unionise.
[1] https://www.levels.fyi/?tab=levels&compare=Google%2CMeta%2CA... [2] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
If they're not, then you're just caught between two powerful, unaccountable entities. You have to join the Union, after all. I see a lot of folks in Education who feel that the Union simply Exists and does not really help them (their employers being rather sympathetic as well).
When they are, of course the Worker benefits. Healthcare and Airline employees seem to fall into this camp.
All of my friends that are teachers do admit their union has flaws, but also are very grateful to have strong contracts, benefits, and people willing to fight for them when the school system tries to screw them over.
Uh, how? This might be a country thing but you don't have to join any union in my country. You do, if they represent your interests. Big companies have multiple, competing unions, and the anarchists (which refuse state subsidies and are fully self-funded) are pretty good at what they do.
If you have to join a union isn't that essentially a racket?
Having a union (assuming that the union is run well),
- ensures a better product for customers
- ensures better working conditions for workers
- ensures better pay and benefits from workers (at least in programming roles, the games industry is generally underpaid compared to developers in other industries)
- provides protections against undue firings and layoffs
I would be curious to know why you don't think a union would be good for these people.
There's not a lot I can say that isn't covered in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trade_union
2) There is already a major labor surplus for video games. It's famously hard to get into and low paying because of it. There is no doubt someone else is willing to step in.
It’s the leverage that the nascent union has over the company owners and management, who presumably still want to make money.
That being said the video game industry does have a deluge of naive young people willing to sell their bodies and souls for their dream, so I don’t have high hopes for this group.
Oh, they definitely deserve a union.
>unstable and poorly paid, low status job. Abused and exploited often.
Hmm… their job doesn’t really seem “cool enough” to have a union. They should just take it and shut up. I mean, they’re losers after all.
I’m sort of joking but it’s interesting how so many people “gatekeep” unions when people in unglamorous lines of work need unions more than almost anyone else.
I can't speak to this particular group, but Hasbro (parent company of WOTC) has been a horribly short-sighted steward of Magic and DND, so perhaps this will encourage other WOTC divisions to unionize as well.
> Our Free Time is Our Own: Currently, if an employee makes anything creative in their free time, with their own resources, Hasbro may claim ownership. What we do in our free time should not be dictated by the company; neither should what we make in our free time be owned by the company.
How common is this in creative fields?
From my perspective this seems outlandish. Imagine doing FOSS work or a side project on your personal computer and your company tries to claim it. Odd...
For tech, it's largely a different set of reasons, like high wages, no real grievances per se, and the ease of transferring to other companies, plus the work is all virtual so there is no reason why companies cannot outsource to another area where the union has no power, if the workers are just on their computers for work anyway. This latter reason is actually exactly why Netflix is investing heavily in South Korean productions.
My naive view: in the US, unions are all about creating another set of assholes to counterbalance the existing assholes. In the EU, there's at least some thought towards "hey, maybe we shouldn't all be assholes?" (Or at least, not all of the time.)
That doesn't address your question of why it doesn't happen in the tech sector, but perhaps my anecdotal opinion is widespread enough to be added to your (already good) set of hypotheses?
As I said for tech workers it's a different set of reasons.
In Canada, unions are often shop-wide with no mechanism to opt out, which makes them very sticky and allows them to grow predatory if they can maintain enough corruption or apathy. I'm led to believe that many US states have similar problems, but that's only based on how American unions are portrayed in news and fiction.
Also, flip the hierarchy: a business that puts employees first and profits for owners last can often have a shit ton of profits for owners. Executing isn't easy and requires wisdom and work - but that's why owners are paid the big bucks.
If owners can't hack it... Then it's a skill issue. Get gud.
Owners can make 100x that shit ton if they put profits for owners first, so why wouldn’t they do that instead? Out of the goodness of their own hearts?
Why do you hate them, when you recognize that they are general the result of abuse? I'll cop to unions not always being great; the rules can be counterproductive, or sometimes limiting, but they are up to the union members, so at the end of the day there is some kind of reason for them.
And the second paragraph - barring ESOP or employee-owned co-ops a union is pretty much the only game in town other than crossing your fingers and hoping the company owners, or board, or stock market are capable of pulling their head out of their ass. this can be a big lift.
In the short term all the franchises have proved incredibly popular (just like in Fortnight), but in the long run I think it means the death of the game (just like where Fortnight is headed).
The game(s) are more popular than ever, especially D&D
Also: Yes, Hasbro did some shit, but they also had to relent and CC their SRD. This all happened years ago.
I say this as a committed Pathfinder player who hasn't seen a good reason to return to D&D (PF2e is good enough). D&D is doing numbers and no one cares that us nerds moved on because of weak tea from the previous decade.
It's their house now, and it's fine.
Several of the top D&D people who were advocating for players resigned around this time.
WOTC/Hasbro since relented under this pressure, but the bridge was already burned. My group hasn't played a D&D campaign since. We switched to Pathfinder 2e and found that it was a better system altogether.
Popularity is not a reliable metric.
Every year seems to be the best-selling year so far. Magic: the Gathering is Hasbro's primary revenue source.
And look, I don't like the sheer amount of product they're pumping out every year now. But I realize I'm clearly in the minority opinion based on sales.
EDIT: it is incredible how hostile HN is now to ant-union sentiment. None of the would-be founders here would support unionization at their companies. :)
>Layoff Protections
Businesses need the ability to layoff employees when markets change and projects are no longer viable.
>Remote Work Protections
Data has shown proven benefits of in person time and in a competitive environment such as gaming every advantage matters.
>Generative AI Protections
AI is revolutionizing all industries. If you refuse to use it to disrupt yourself someone else will.
These demands are very dangerous to the company and should not be considered.
