It’s not unique but the games industry is worse than most.
There’s a natural cycle to the development of a video game that’s very atypical for most software products, involving a long slow ramp up of workforce followed by (unless you’ve been very very careful) a total lack of anything productive for 95% of any of those people to do for the forseeable future. What to do? Toss 'em on the street, that’s what to do. Then couple that with it being a glitzy career that will attract lots of replacements for any of the hapless people you fired, which also applies to any way you want to abuse your employees or underpay them, and you have a recipe for lots and lots of abuse.
followed by (unless you’ve been very very careful) a total lack of anything productive for 95% of any of those people to do for the forseeable future
It amazes me these game companies putting out game after game don’t simply reassign these people to a future game. These are your seasoned veterans, they know how to do their job. Laying them off and picking up newbies just sets you up for a rocky future.
The problem is that there isn’t that much to do for these armies of people during the early stages, when it’s mostly a handful of programmers and designers fleshing out the core concept. Then, during the late stages, you need tons of QA people, grunt workers to create tons of art and fiddly little bits of implementation, localization and bug fixing, and whatever else. But, if you haven’t planned ahead so that there is another game perfectly in the pipeline to transition all the grunt-workers over to when the first one ships, they’ll all literally just be standing around doing nothing until the next game gets in shape that it’s ready for them, and usually the solution is to fire all the people who just made millions of dollars for you pouring their heart into something. It’s upsetting.
There are many things that game companies do consistently very very wrong, but this is one thing that isn’t completely “their fault.” It is possible to moderate the impacts but it’s very hard and it doesn’t really completely go away even if you work hard at it (which most of them don’t care enough to even try to.)
Unionization is also super uncommon at these game development companies. Would definitely help prevent layoffs. True for every industry again, but they are underrepresented here.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to imply that unionization NEVER prevents or at least helps to prevent spurious mass layoffs, since that would make you a total imbecile about how labor relations in general and collective bargaining in particular works or at best an otherwise rational victim of gaslighting disinformation campaigns carried out on behalf of the people doing the layoffs.
Yes, but the game industry has faced severe layoffs the last couple years while profits soar ever higher and higher and executives get bigger boats. So it’s relevant.
Almost none of this is unique to the gaming industry; it’s all symptoms of under-regulated capitalism.
It’s not unique but the games industry is worse than most.
There’s a natural cycle to the development of a video game that’s very atypical for most software products, involving a long slow ramp up of workforce followed by (unless you’ve been very very careful) a total lack of anything productive for 95% of any of those people to do for the forseeable future. What to do? Toss 'em on the street, that’s what to do. Then couple that with it being a glitzy career that will attract lots of replacements for any of the hapless people you fired, which also applies to any way you want to abuse your employees or underpay them, and you have a recipe for lots and lots of abuse.
It amazes me these game companies putting out game after game don’t simply reassign these people to a future game. These are your seasoned veterans, they know how to do their job. Laying them off and picking up newbies just sets you up for a rocky future.
The problem is that there isn’t that much to do for these armies of people during the early stages, when it’s mostly a handful of programmers and designers fleshing out the core concept. Then, during the late stages, you need tons of QA people, grunt workers to create tons of art and fiddly little bits of implementation, localization and bug fixing, and whatever else. But, if you haven’t planned ahead so that there is another game perfectly in the pipeline to transition all the grunt-workers over to when the first one ships, they’ll all literally just be standing around doing nothing until the next game gets in shape that it’s ready for them, and usually the solution is to fire all the people who just made millions of dollars for you pouring their heart into something. It’s upsetting.
There are many things that game companies do consistently very very wrong, but this is one thing that isn’t completely “their fault.” It is possible to moderate the impacts but it’s very hard and it doesn’t really completely go away even if you work hard at it (which most of them don’t care enough to even try to.)
Unionization is also super uncommon at these game development companies. Would definitely help prevent layoffs. True for every industry again, but they are underrepresented here.
Unionization doesn’t prevent layoffs. It’s clear you have never been in a union.
Fixed that for you.
I’m sure you didn’t mean to imply that unionization NEVER prevents or at least helps to prevent spurious mass layoffs, since that would make you a total imbecile about how labor relations in general and collective bargaining in particular works or at best an otherwise rational victim of gaslighting disinformation campaigns carried out on behalf of the people doing the layoffs.
It doesn’t always, but it can. I have been in a union. But thanks for assuming you know anything about me douchebag.
Their name is Teddie K. They’re a fascist who at best might have an eco in front.
It does not but the game industry has a lot of parallel to the movie industry l where some parts are very unionized.
Unions are important for gig/contract work or else workers get abused and its a race to the bottom.
Yes, but the game industry has faced severe layoffs the last couple years while profits soar ever higher and higher and executives get bigger boats. So it’s relevant.
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It absolutely is. I’m not denying that.
It currently applies most to the game and tech industries