Rockstar employee shares account of the company's union-busting efforts • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by Whoppertime » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:12 PM UTC

worldfoodgood wrote: post #67

umvi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happier to pay Valve's 30% than Apple's. With Valve you could always switch to Itch or something if you didn't want to pay, but with Apple you have no alternative. Valve gives you access to a huge player base and lots of useful marketing tools and such.

Ok! Happier is a fine place to be. They are both still too high. Not everything has to be binary -- I can think Valve is offering some utility and also think that Valve is charging too much for that utility. The fact that Gabe has a billion dollars worth of yachts probably suggests that maybe, just maaaaaybe, that 30% could be lower and Steam could still provide you the same level of marketing support and player base…

The only reason EpicGameStore was able to rise as a competitor to Steam was because of the Billions Fortnite was earning.

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

#102

Post by newfriend » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

exabrial wrote: post #99

Every union I've been a part of has been more of a pain than its worth, or has tried to keep individuals from become any more successful that others. I don't understand the obsession with them on HN.

It's a luxury belief held by those who aren't personally affected by any drawbacks. Many such cases.

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

#103

Post by jayd16 » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

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.

I wouldn't call this selling out, exactly. If the issue is endless crunch, its more a matter of having enough money to support it endlessly and an aging workforce that knows their worth and can push back.

The issue is trying to force (or likely, continue) bad practices when they're clearly not working and then lacking the leadership to realize that a retaliatory layoff is only going to make things worse.

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

#104

Post by exabrial » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

hiddencost wrote: post #42

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.

Baseless claims can be dismissed without evidence. Happy employees are more efficient.

happy employees doesn't imply the need for a union

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

#105

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #62

worldfoodgood wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)…

I'm happier to pay Valve's 30% than Apple's. With Valve you could always switch to Itch or something if you didn't want to pay, but with Apple you have no alternative. Valve gives you access to a huge player base and lots of useful marketing tools and such.

> Valve gives you access to a huge player base and lots of useful marketing tools and such.

So does Apple. Despite this, they are both engaged in rent-seeking (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking), which has a harmful effect on everyone but them.

Imagine if roads weren't public, but were built by a single private company. You have a business that moves goods by truck. You can use the private company's roads, but only if you pay 30% of the profit of your goods to the company that owns the roads. It only takes 2% of the profit to maintain the roads; the other 28% is profit (rent) for the road-owning company.

You could choose not to use the roads. But then the only way to deliver the goods is by parachute (which may be possible, but isn't practical). So you use the roads. But this means you have to jack up your prices to make any profit for yourself. Competing is much harder (tighter margins), and your customers are paying more than necessary. Everyone's life is harder, except for the road company.

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

#106

Post by saintfire » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:13 PM UTC

jsheard wrote: post #41

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 They kind of did, with their sudden pivot from primarily making singleplayer games to almost exclusively making F2P GaaS titles the instant they got a taste of lootbox money. Half-Life 3 and Portal 3 will never happen because Valve makes 100x as much money with 1/100th of the effort by peddling Counter Strike skins.

Allegedly HL3 is in active development.

No official announcement yet.

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

#107

Post by jhatemyjob » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:14 PM UTC

worldfoodgood wrote: post #67

umvi wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm happier to pay Valve's 30% than Apple's. With Valve you could always switch to Itch or something if you didn't want to pay, but with Apple you have no alternative. Valve gives you access to a huge player base and lots of useful marketing tools and such.

Ok! Happier is a fine place to be. They are both still too high. Not everything has to be binary -- I can think Valve is offering some utility and also think that Valve is charging too much for that utility. The fact that Gabe has a billion dollars worth of yachts probably suggests that maybe, just maaaaaybe, that 30% could be lower and Steam could still provide you the same level of marketing support and player base…

I think Gabe is doing a great job. If he wants to have a billion dollars worth of yachts, that's fine by me.

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

#108

Post by xhrpost » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:14 PM UTC

worldfoodgood wrote: post #38

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.)…

If you were a dev selling a game years ago when physical distribution was the only method, you'd likely end up with a lot less than 70% after both the publisher and retailer take their cut.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/company-town-blog/sto...

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

#109

Post by physarum_salad » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:14 PM UTC

I love GTA/Red Dead but Rockstar really is just another monopoly (in terms of creativity) at this stage. More mid sized studios, like Rockstar when it started/midway, would be better.

Also the narrative and dialogue is ever so slightly overated in Rockstar games because the competition is quite nerdy/square in that department as are most of the audience. The ending of Red Dead II was actually quite trite, especially in terms of dialogue and narrative (in my opinion) even though the game is incredible overall. It is honestly still very far from a Tarantino script.

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

#110

Post by martin-t » Fri, Nov 07, 2025, 8:14 PM UTC

pixelpoet wrote: post #57

shaky-carrousel wrote: post #9

Well, there goes GTA 6. Better for my wallet, I guess. Don't want to finance some thugs.

I'll probably end up buying GTA 6, once it's on sale or something; good people worked on it too I would imagine, and helped make it a good game. Also, with apologies for the whataboutism, we unfortunately finance thugs all day every day (my internet provider, German government and pension, Deutsche Bahn, etc are massive extortionists); it's not really black and white.

And this is why "vote with your wallet" does not work. As a consumer there's no way to decide who gets the money.

In fact, even the people who made the game (did the actual work, not managers, advertisers, etc.) don't get to decide.

Correct me if I am wrong but the programmers, designers, artists have already been paid and any money from sales goes to the company and its execs/shareholders.

(And yes, employees can also be shareholders but they almost always own such a tiny share it does not really matter. In a just world, ownership would be distributed automatically according to time_worked * skill_level.)

EDIT: I might have overstated by saying it doesn't work but it definitely doesn't have the same level of effect as people collectively saying "this behavior is wrong and you will be punished for it, regardless if I buy the product" (for example by editing laws). It also doesn't allow any control over how the money is distributed among those who worked on it (compared to for example adding a law that limits absolute/relative spending on marketing - whether you think it's a good idea or not).