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

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

#201

Post by flumpcakes »

tialaramex wrote: post #71
flumpcakes wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their written English is flawless, which is very uncommon. Unless they took considerable care to imitate a different writing style, it's probably trivial to identify who wrote it. Rockstar North is based in Edinburgh as you say, why wouldn't English be at a high level?

Right the fact you may not be able to understand some Scottish people because of their accent doesn't mean they're not competent English speakers, it just means the accent is difficult for you to understand, which isn't relevant when writing. There are a few famous movie scenes where somebody deliberately uses perfectly reasonable English sentences but with such a thick accent that most English users cannot understan…

It was written English, not spoken. I think that's why I was confused by the statement it might give away who they are...

I know plenty of people from the area this forum post is about and everyone has a high standard of English... even the people with thick local accents and non-native English speaking Europeans.

Does Rockstar hire lots of non-European people to work in Edinburgh or something?

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

#202

Post by dymk »

aquariusDue wrote: post #184
worldfoodgood wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Well yeah, but nobody stops you from doing what Notch did with Minecraft way back when you just bought it from the games website. itch.io and so on are still alternatives, you're not paying just for ease of digital distribution you're also paying for eyeballs.

Your publisher stops you from doing that because they require you to sell it on steam and other storefronts

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

#203

Post by jjulius »

vlovich123 wrote: post #59
vlovich123 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citations? I’m not aware of this strong a conclusion. In fact, my understanding is that generally wages go up.

Doing my own research, ChatGPT summarizes the state as generally unions improve wages and working conditions for employees much more than they pay in premiums. This has gone down since the 1970s but is still a noticeable effect. Indeed the 40 hour work week comes from unions. There is a negative effect on profitability, but that’s subject to interpretation: > The negative effect on profitability from unionization may…

>Doing my own research, ChatGPT summarizes...

One of these things is not like the other.

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

#204

Post by saubeidl »

m0llusk wrote: post #189
wahnfrieden wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crony capitalism is capitalism. How do you know it can be kept in balance if it is not?

We've been through this before. As recently as the 1930s the Capitalist economy tried to eat itself and had to be stopped. That is historical and everything changes, but the basic principles are the same. Find out where things are going wrong and address that with some basic controls and limits.

If a system leads to catastrophic failure on a regular basis, maybe it's just a bad system? See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit...

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

#205

Post by mlrtime »

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.

I'm guessing 90%+ of HN posters are not in a union. They idealize what it could be, not what it actually is.

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

#206

Post by DaSHacka »

worldfoodgood wrote: post #185
mathgeek wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much. If it weren’t for free games and exclusives there would be no Epic Store to speak of.

I don't understand. You think Steam exists without Half Life and Counterstrike?

Nowadays? Yes

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

#207

Post by knollimar »

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.

Don't they have a disgusting most favored nations clause that prohibits you from pricing anywhere else lower (e.g. you can't raise price X by 42% and sell on your site for X)?

I think they're being sued over delisting someone for this last I checked, even if their public policy might not interpret their MFN that way

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

#208

Post by kevinh »

robhlt wrote: post #51
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.

Valve allows developers to generate activation keys for their games and sell them on other platforms, where Valve gets a 0% cut. This is how you're able to buy games from places like the Humble Store and activate them on Steam. Their agreement does technically require that you don't sell at a lower price on other platforms, but as far as I know it's never been enforced.

There's a lawsuit ongoing about Valve threatening developers with delisting if they sell non-Steam copies of games (that's NOT Steam keys, but, say, a version on the Epic store) on other stores.

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

#209

Post by hamdingers »

pixelpoet wrote: post #58
flumpcakes wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> their written English is flawless, which is very uncommon. Unless they took considerable care to imitate a different writing style, it's probably trivial to identify who wrote it. Rockstar North is based in Edinburgh as you say, why wouldn't English be at a high level?

I'm going to get downvoted into a massive smoking hole in the ground for daring to state this opinion, but, as a lifelong enjoyer of the English language: native speakers butcher it the most.

In much the same way chess grand masters make moves that don't make sense to the novice.

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

#210

Post by DaSHacka »

rcxdude wrote: post #180
bigyabai wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are both still too high. You don't get to decide that. Apple's price is not set by free market competition, Valve's is.

Valve's price is still very strongly predicated on network effects which make it very hard to avoid.

Almost like they make the best game distribution platform around for customers, and thus customers flock to it.
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