Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale • Hacker News Board

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#51

Post by happytoexplain » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:51 PM UTC

seany wrote: post #8

I've never understood why people are confused or upset by these kinds of things. It's almost literally not in the companies best interest to just "let it happen" so why wouldn't they fight it?

Not trying to be smart by using your words: I legitimately have never understood why this comment is so common, considering how apparently obvious the fallacy of it is. You didn't imply "the company must do X", you implied "people shouldn't be upset that the company did X". The former is a totally reasonable argument to be made. The latter makes absolutely no sense (without extenuating context). You're not really confused as to why people are upset about something a company does that negatively affects people, either in actuality or only in perception, simply because it is in the company's best interests, are you? It's pretty normal for a human not to care about the hazy future consequences of a company hurting itself by embracing some external morality over its own interests as a company, and, depending on the specifics of the case, it can even be pretty reasonable not to care.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#52

Post by tinus_hn » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

tapoxi wrote: post #47

unyttigfjelltol wrote: post #9

WilmerHale is not a notorious union-busting firm. The older set might know their work from A Civil Action, and their grandparents might remember the phrase that turned the red scare, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"[1] The marketing material is unfortunate, though, and the connection with Amazon labor work is notable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Cutler_Pickering_Hale...

Also, what is this news source? Who are its writers? I am by no means taking Activision's side here, but this website is sketchy.

The website ‘Wikipedia’ is sketchy? Or who is?

edit I guess you mean the news site this article is on, that is pretty sketchy indeed.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#53

Post by screye » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

I am usually against unions in tech because the free market tends to allow a proper balance of supply and demand. However, gaming might just be the perfect sub-domain of tech to benefit from unionization.

The supply is massively saturated, with dreamy eyed programmers ready to give their lives to work in gaming. On the other hand, a very small group actually gets to make any of the creative decisions that every gamer has dreamt of making. The wages are below what the market pays, hours are exploitative and the companies are making massive profits. It is really difficult to compete with the AAA studios, because Indie games take years to make and working without a wage for a decade isn't possible for many. On the other hand, medium sized and successful indie studios get acquired before they can grow to a decent enough size to serve as any real competition. There is also a lot of shady practices with monetization, where the employees do not get a say if the company should or shouldn't indulge in said practices.

We've already seen soft-unionization of this type in a similar industry : media production. It works.

AAA game development in the US has been quite stale for the last decade. The big EA-Blizzard-Activision-Ubisoft have not come up with a single quality game in this time. Even Bethesda, Bioware seems to be on a decline. Rockstar,Valve and Id software seem to be doing fine, but no where close to the hit-after-hit that certain japanese studios are producing. Naughty Dog and Super giant would be the only 2 American studios creating 10/10s consistently, but both have an order of magnitude fewer employees than standard AAA studios.

The industry is in dire need of shake up. I hope this goes the employee's way this time around. It's about time.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#54

Post by boromi » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:52 PM UTC

a1pulley wrote: post #38

> "At WilmerHale 1st year counsel makes $350,000. The 24 year old 1st year summer associate still in law school walks into the office in a $1,500 Burberry suit and makes $202,500 that year. Those Amazon workers they swindled out of higher wages make less than $30,000 a year." The 200k figure is for a first-year associate who has graduated and passed the bar exam [1]. It's interesting to me that you can only hope to c…

Those FAANG are also in HCOL locations. SWE roles in smaller towns and other states then the coasts don't command nearly as high a salary.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#55

Post by noptd » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:53 PM UTC

ashtonkem wrote: post #29

minikites wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not enough people are going to unsubscribe from WoW for it to make a difference, enough of the public is anti-union and many of the rest don't care.

I’m actually seeing a lot of rage directed at them from the gaming forums I interact on, including a lot of people claiming that they’ve canceled. Completely anecdotal, I know, but it was not what I expected at all. I think this one is going to hurt more than usual.

There's a decently sized cohort that hasn't forgiven ActiBlizzard for what they did to Warcraft III as well. Nothing like ruining a 20 year old game by forceably replacing it with a broken, partial reimplementation.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#56

Post by nynx » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #53

I am usually against unions in tech because the free market tends to allow a proper balance of supply and demand. However, gaming might just be the perfect sub-domain of tech to benefit from unionization. The supply is massively saturated, with dreamy eyed programmers ready to give their lives to work in gaming. On the other hand, a very small group actually gets to make any of the creative decisions that every gamer…

What exactly do you mean by proper balance? What you said later in the comment basically applies to all large companies:

> The wages are below what the market pays, hours are exploitative and the companies are making massive profits

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#57

Post by Frondo » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #53

I am usually against unions in tech because the free market tends to allow a proper balance of supply and demand. However, gaming might just be the perfect sub-domain of tech to benefit from unionization. The supply is massively saturated, with dreamy eyed programmers ready to give their lives to work in gaming. On the other hand, a very small group actually gets to make any of the creative decisions that every gamer…

Unions are a part of the free market, unless you'd like to remove people's freedom to associate just because they all happen to work at the same place.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#58

Post by biryani_chicken » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:54 PM UTC

runawaybottle wrote: post #39

brainfish wrote: post #26

I cut my teeth on Diablo, and played Diablo II for probably fifteen years after its release off and on as a way to stay connected with a friend who loved it similarly. More recently, I have consistently played Starcraft II since its release and enjoy a sense of mastery over that game unparalleled by my experience in any other. I haven't purchased new Blizzard products since the Hong Kong censorship debacle[1] and qui…

They don’t really care that much about the American market anymore really. Something like 90% of League of Legends players are in China. The mobile gaming market is massive over there, hence Diablo Immortal. China does not care about the West’s uproar over most things. Blizzard does not care if you buy Diablo 4, they care if the East buys Diablo 4 and Diablo Immortal.

It's dystopian to see Chinese people consume American products at the expense of American workers.

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#59

Post by okhuman » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

screye wrote: post #53

I am usually against unions in tech because the free market tends to allow a proper balance of supply and demand. However, gaming might just be the perfect sub-domain of tech to benefit from unionization. The supply is massively saturated, with dreamy eyed programmers ready to give their lives to work in gaming. On the other hand, a very small group actually gets to make any of the creative decisions that every gamer…

> media production. It works.

Does it work? Wasn't it medium (or someone) who when faced with unionization pivoted the company (left severance packages) to a substack like model?

Re: Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale

#60

Post by zamalek » Thu, Jul 29, 2021, 5:55 PM UTC

post_break wrote: post #2

The problem I see with them is the brain drain if the influential people leave. They have options at other companies, and if enough people leave Blizzard they may be stuck. But this is just me looking from the outside in. This also signals they are scared of them unionizing.

I'm really interested to see what happens here. Amazon busted the efforts of people with few options, people who could be threatened with bullshit/propaganda. I wonder if big law is sufficiently aware of the substantial impact that the recent years of ethical discussion have had on the gamer and game dev psyche. No matter the individual ethical stance of an employee, this sub-culture has had practice critiquing words and ideas.

It looks like the employees are almost universally on the equality end of the ethical spectrum (given how widespread the walkout was), which is even worse news for union busting.