Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

gtaforums.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 383 posts

Re: Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

#31

Post by tbrockman »

metadat wrote: post #2

This makes me sad, R* has made some of my most favorite games, especially Red Dead Redemption 2. They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat their employees like human beings? I don't recall reports of Valve (Steam, also super profitable) stooping. Is Rockstar a genetic relative of GAFA, because this is more like what I've come to expect from Amazon.

Valve is a "flat" organization, where your compensation is determined based on peer review.

Rockstar, and owner Take-Two (largely owned by institutional investors--well known for their historical championing of workers rights and fondness of unions), both seem to have your typical corporate hierarchies, where executives are fairly and correctly compensated for being more productive than over 200 software engineers combined.

Re: Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

#32

Post by gruez »

daedrdev wrote: post #16
immibis wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gabe is the Apple of PC gaming, taking a 30% tax on all transactions. It's not this particular kind of evil, but it is a different kind of evil.

Plenty of companies have tried to compete with gabe, they’re all just terrible at it

No. First mover advantage is just that strong. How are the competitors to whatsapp or facebook doing? At best you have something like tiktok, which might be technically "social" media but is a totally different segment. You don't catch up with old high school buddies on tiktok, for instance.

Re: Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

#33

Post by wahnfrieden »

fn-mote wrote: post #20
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no amount of profit is ever enough for the stock market, everything must perpetually grow.

That’s a very reductionist take on what happened here. I don’t think increased profit is likely to result from these firings. How would it?

Firings in this case were for union busting. Illegal union busting is profitable - that's why business owners do it. Because it's illegal, they will make up a different excuse for why the workers were fired. They will never admit to illegal union busting. So you should not take their statements as good faith.

Re: Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

#34

Post by zaptheimpaler »

fn-mote wrote: post #20
zaptheimpaler wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no amount of profit is ever enough for the stock market, everything must perpetually grow.

That’s a very reductionist take on what happened here. I don’t think increased profit is likely to result from these firings. How would it?

It may sound simplistic but its the truth and there are plenty of other examples and history around this - Starbucks recently. 30 employees unionizing may not have any significant impact on their profits, but if they let that union grow it would have a lot more members demanding better working hours or wages over time. A strong union also generally leads to a loss of control by management where they have to negotiate more with workers which they don't like. Why do you think they were fired?

Re: Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

#36

Post by al_borland »

immibis wrote: post #11
elephanlemon wrote: post #8

As a kid I always lamented that every studio seemed to sell out as soon as they had the chance. Valve is basically the only one that didn’t… clearly it’s paid off very well for Gabe and the employees. Wish more people would resist the payday and keep what’s theirs.

Gabe is the Apple of PC gaming, taking a 30% tax on all transactions. It's not this particular kind of evil, but it is a different kind of evil.

Are you of the opinion that these marketplaces shouldn’t exist, that they should take a smaller percentage, that they should be entirely ad-supported, or something else?

How can user have an optional one-stop-shop that is sustainable for the long-term while not being “evil”.

Re: Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

#37

Post by lotsofpulp »

metadat wrote: post #2

This makes me sad, R* has made some of my most favorite games, especially Red Dead Redemption 2. They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat their employees like human beings? I don't recall reports of Valve (Steam, also super profitable) stooping. Is Rockstar a genetic relative of GAFA, because this is more like what I've come to expect from Amazon.

>They make so much money

Their 10-Ks show they lost a lot of money.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TTWO/take-two-inte...

2025 $-4.479B

2024 $-3.744B

2023 $-1.125B

The meager earnings in years previous to that are beyond wiped out. In fact, expect a lot more squeeze if you work at Take Two or a lot more rent seeking if you are a customer, because based on the stock price movement, the market is expecting a lot more net income.

Edit: looks like they set a ton of money on fire by overpaying for Zynga a few years ago. Customers and employees are going to be paying for that bad decision for a long time.

Re: Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

#38

Post by worldfoodgood »

elephanlemon wrote: post #8

As a kid I always lamented that every studio seemed to sell out as soon as they had the chance. Valve is basically the only one that didn’t… clearly it’s paid off very well for Gabe and the employees. Wish more people would resist the payday and keep what’s theirs.

Valve makes a significant amount of their money from the gambling they've attached to their games, and profits immensely from the culture of farming loot boxes to gamble on for skins and such.

They also take an absurd cut of developer income and saddle devs with costs that they don't always want. (Selling on Steam? Valve takes 30% and forces you to moderate the forums on your listing page that you cannot opt out of.)

They also have an internal culture that's been fairly regularly criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women and minorities.

Valve has done some cool stuff, but let's not lionize them too much. They are probably better than an average company, for sure, but it's important to remember that they are also sketchy in some very gross ways as well.

Re: Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

#39

Post by John23832 »

elephanlemon wrote: post #8

As a kid I always lamented that every studio seemed to sell out as soon as they had the chance. Valve is basically the only one that didn’t… clearly it’s paid off very well for Gabe and the employees. Wish more people would resist the payday and keep what’s theirs.

> Valve is basically the only one that didn’t…

Lol Valve is taking a cut of a ridiculous amount of video game sales while releasing no games.

I like some of their work on the linux support side, but they have sold out as much as Apple has if anything.

Re: Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts

#40

Post by kelseyfrog »

joshe wrote: post #22

What's sad is that unionizing will accelerate whatever the decline of the company is causing the dissatisfaction. Wiser for employees to just jump ship or found a new game studio when this kind of decline happens. The chances of a company turning around are super low, adding a union makes it harder. Just run.

The alternative to every company is to proactively repair the conditions incentivizing the formation of a union. It continues to amaze me that those in charge of making those decisions choose decline over alternatives.
Post reply on HN