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GTA 6 Developers Unionize

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Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#311

Post by karmakurtisaani »

dcrazy wrote: post #270
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Teacher's unions (hard to fire teachers, poor quality) Certainly you can quantify this poor quality and show it's due to unions and not, say, lack of resources? > Transit unions (mandating 2 drivers per subway car, crazy benefits, etc) 2 drivers per subway car sounds like (at least with old tech) a good thing for everyone's safety. > Auto industry fighting EVs. Sounds like this was more the companies themselves, bu…

Anecdotally, if increasing resources improved outcomes, California would have fantastic education results, as would every purely economic intervention in low-median-income school districts. Teachers may be underpaid on a time/effort basis compared to other jobs, but paying them more doesn’t actually improve outcomes. I am no expert—not even a parent—but my understanding is that curriculum choice and implementation ar…

I have exactly 0 knowledge of the situation in California, but I'd be curious if they have (on top of my head, might be missing many more factors)

- adequately paid and educated teachers

- small classroom sizes

- available support for special needs kids

If all of these are in place, are the bad outcomes explainable by poorer socioeconomic factors? And are there any forced learning policies like standardized tests that promote rote memorization?

It just seems so far fetched that a teacher's union would single handedly sabotage the whole education system. Even if they push for a certain kind of teaching, it would simply not tank the whole ship, so to speak.

(I know I'm talking slightly past your points, but I'm mostly interested in the point of how much does the union actually affect the learning outcomes, all the other factors considered)

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#312

Post by tpmoney »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #252
tpmoney wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a just so story that is trivially and obviously false and I don’t understand why it continues to persist. Paid public police forces in the US appear as early as the 1600s in Boston. The first what we might consider modern police departments were formed in the urban hubs of 1800s America where immigration tensions and the general increases in crime you expect when putting a lot of unconnected people into a con…

> formed in the urban hubs of 1800s America where immigration tensions and the general increases in crime you expect when putting a lot of unconnected people into a concentrated area were driving factors for changes to what laws were made and how they were enforced This is a dog whistle if I’ve ever seen one. I’m not going to let that slide and your citations are not supportive of the strength of your claim

How is it a dog whistle? What words would you like to put into my mouth?

Are you suggesting that “urban hubs” and “immigration tension” are code words for “black people” and “slavery”? Because I regret to inform you that when New York City established the first US police department in 1845 (per britanica) the “immigration tension” at the time would have been the influx of Irish immigrants. And while Cincinnati had indeed had a white on black race riot in 1841, when it established its own police department in 1852 the anti-catholic / anti-German immigrant riots in 1853 and 1855 were the more contemporary “immigration tensions” I was referring to. Boston too when it founded its police department in 1854 was in the middle of a surge of Irish immigrants. Certainly these northern state city centers weren’t simply giving uniforms and badges to “slave patrols” when they founded their police forces, regardless of what other racial tensions may or may not have played a hand in the demands for a police force.

All of which is to say if you recall your American history, we have a long and storied tradition of hating on our immigrant populations and having conflicts with them. Yes white vs black was a problem at the time. And so was “white vs Irish” and “white vs German”. Our history is littered with racial tensions across just about every set of ethnic lines you could care to draw.

Edit:

I note now that my britanica link in my first post was the wrong one, this would be the more appropriate for the topic at hand: https://www.britannica.com/topic/police/Early-police-in-the-...

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#314

Post by jakeydus »

Insanity wrote: post #275
sonzohan wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dissatisfaction yes, although it doesn't manifest how you'd expect. It comes in the form not so much in dropouts, but in bad course feedback and bad professor reviews. "The professor made the class unfun." "The professor said she's made games but clearly has never done that before with how she taught the class" I'm a woman so, unsurprisingly, I experience a fair amount of misogyny from students in the class who have…

I guess because they also learn there’s still plenty of money to be made in other engineering domains. And to be honest, I think games are a good stepping stone towards a career in software engineering / computer science. Especially back in the day when getting a game to run required you to mess around with the computer haha

My first real interaction with a computer in any technical way was trying to get Age of Mythology to work after I lost my activation key. I won't say that I miss those experiences, but they were foundational as h*ck for me.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#316

Post by jakeydus »

mikepurvis wrote: post #178
JadoJodo wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess a big part of this is because the art _itself_ is a form of compensation: Artists have a passion for the end result in a way that organizations (e.g., corporations, collectives, movements, etc.) harness and take advantage of in lieu of financial compensation.

This is usually framed in terms of greedy corporations cynically exploiting young workers, but having interviewed for a Sony studio myself a few years ago (and ultimately going back to my native robotics field for almost exactly double the pay), I think there is something tangible about the compensation that is working on something normal people encounter, especially in the leisure spaces of their lives. It may not p…

I've always said that being an engineer is a classic choose two out of three options situation. You can:

- be well compensated - work on something interesting - work on something ethical

Obviously there's the rare unicorn out there where you get all three, but those are the exception, not the rule.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#317

Post by saltyoldman »

ernesto905 wrote: post #308

> An end to crunch I was unaware of the crunch concept: "In the video game industry, crunch (or crunch culture) is compulsory overtime during the development of a game. Crunch is common in the industry and can lead to work weeks of 65–80 hours for extended periods of time, often uncompensated beyond the normal working hours" -- wikipedia Needless to say this seems extremely predatory.

who is in hn these days, remember like 10/15 years ago everyone was just willingly working 65+ hours. now it's "extremely predatory".

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#318

Post by unselect5917 »

I wish we had more (or maybe better yet one) software engineering union in America.

The trouble seems to be that it's so easy to scab (outsource) or hire foreign competition (H1b et al) which is a pretty broken program even according to some of the people whom I've talked to who are on it.

One multi-team architect I know working for a brand you've definitely heard of was making like $65K and doing a $250K job of it. Brilliant guy. The H1B program hurts everyone except employers' vast bank accounts and their shareholders.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#319

Post by Apocryphon »

matchbok3 wrote: post #204
Apocryphon wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it’s a matter of proof, these are all links already posted on this site: https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/union-effect-in-california-... https://www.epi.org/publication/unions-decline-inequality-ri... https://werd.io/unions-work/ https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-06-13/unions... https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/8/19/20727283/u...

Do you think Vox has ever written about how transit unions increase costs by mandating redundant workers and work against technology that could automate trains? Do you think Box has ever written about how Detroit unions fought EVs and AVs and automation that could result in cheaper cars? Why do you think that is?

So is that an ad hominem crossed with tu quoque, or an ad hominem crossed with a false equivalence?

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#320

Post by Jach »

cyberax wrote: post #273
jayceedenton wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you end crunch? Teams always work at a more relaxed pace when the deadlines are years out. You can't beat Parkinson's law no matter how generous you are with the estimates. We've all tried methodologies to counter this problem and create a continuous, sustainable pace. Unfortunately there's something deep in human nature that prevents us spreading that effort out evenly from day one.

> How do you end crunch? Two words: overtime pay. This makes crunches disappear as if by magic.

Many game studios have overtime pay and yet still crunch.
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