221–230 of 383 posts
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.
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That's not the same as "terrible" though? Signal is basically "whatsapp but not facebook", but you wouldn't say it's "terrible". Same with lyft (which came after uber), or ubereats (which came after many food delivery startups).
Right but if there were a better platform than Steam for buying games it'd win out in the marketplace. It's not like anyone is locked into Steam really. Every online gaming platform other than Steam and GOG sucks. And in fact GOG competes very well with Steam precisely because it offers something Steam doesn't, which is DRM-free games. Steam didn't just beat the Epic Games Store and Origin and Games For Windows Live…
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The thing holding back unions in the U.S is the unions themselves and the laws around them. Once a union forms, they have entirely too much power.
Next thing you know, people want to not work on weekends!
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What nonsense. A decision about workplace should be a combination of factors -- workplace culture, products you can work on, compensation, skill fit, alignment with your interests, etc. You should feel empowered to have a voice in the products of your labor. And you should feel empowered to have a voice in the culture that produces those products.
They're a game company. They're not feeding the poor. Your employment is "at will". You are not entitled to any item in your list of demands. You are, however, free to leave at any time for something more suited to your tastes.
I don't have an opinion on Valve or allegations Valve is doing that. I just find it very strange to say it's entitled for a black to want to be treated as equally as a white.
Very brave of them to speak out, but TBH I'm not sure I'd do it if I were worried about anonymity - 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. In any case, a longtime friend of mine was senior graphics programmer on GTA5, and I was very close to interviewing with Rockstar in Edinbur…
> I've never been burnt out since Why can't this style of management just take hold at a game company? I suspect that hollywood has a pretty similar release cycle, and I've never heard of the dysfunctional management in that industry. (maybe it is normalized? maybe people don't expect a job after a movie is done?)
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.
Because they want to make great games. It's sad but we've never figure out how to replicate the creative output that crunch and stress triggers. I don't understand it and frankly I couldn't stand it so I left the industry but I won't pretend that we have a solution too the problem.
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> They also have an internal culture that's been fairly regularly criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women and minorities. Source?
A couple sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9aCwCKgkLo https://medium.com/dunia-media/the-nightmare-of-valves-self-...
The medium link says nothing about women and minorities specifically. It's a critique of flat management structures in general.
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.
But union "busting" isn't selling out, if anything it's keeping to their true cause. Companies don't function well with adversarial units within them, and companies don't start out with unions. Case and point: Valve doesn't have a union.
You have to be very misguided to believe that the c suite in most companies is not engaged in n adversarial relationship with its employees, whether those employees are unionized or not.
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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 al…
https://rollingout.com/2025/05/07/target-ceo-salary-drop-ami...
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dougmelville/2025/08/21/the-qui...
> The Quiet Part Out Loud: Target Ditching DEI Cost The CEO His Job And Investors $12 Billion
So, it would not be hard to impair Rockstar with a coordinated, sustained economic retaliation campaign against them. If it kills the company, we help workers find other jobs and shareholders learn a lesson about capital allocation. Poorly run companies die all the time, some just need to be helped along.
What was done was blatantly illegal, EVEN IF the people weren't fired for union organizing, which Rockstar will have a hard time explaining away since they fired only people involved in union organizing.
The fired employees in the UK (not sure about Canada) will get back pay and penalties once the unavoidable legal process finishes.
I'm sure, however, Rockstar will consider all of the sanctions they'll receive as price of doing business.
Despicable.