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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

#311

Post by [deleted] »

mjr00 wrote: post #257
0xbadcafebee wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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,…

Except in this example, there is nothing preventing other companies from building new roads. And in fact other companies have attempted to build new roads, competing by lowering the 30% fee to 10%, and even paying trucking companies to start using their roads. Except their roads are so poorly maintained that trucking companies choose to continue using the existing roads despite the higher fee. Also EA made some roads…

[deleted]

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

#312

Post by array_key_first »

LMYahooTFY wrote: post #283
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.

Having been a member of the Teamsters union, I completely agree. It seems likely the vast majority of HN has never been a member of a union themselves given the audience, so the obsession feels like a savior complex IMO. Yeah, unions accomplished a lot of good things many decades ago. But if you think they haven't morphed over those decades and are still automatically a net positive for all workers, I could probably…

I just don't buy the narrative that if you don't threaten employee's and "whip them into shape" that then there's no incentive to do good. I refuse to believe that not firing people is, somehow, causing them to coast.

Pretty much everyone I know who works hard does so in spite of their circumstances. Not because of them.

Of the engineers I've worked with, the cooks I've worked with, the waiters I've worked with... the hard working ones don't win. They get taken advantage of and run into the ground. They perform, and perform more, and more, and that exclusively works against them.

And, as you go up the ladder, you can very clearly see the hard work and competence thin out more and more. The people who are successful aren't smart, or hard working, they're just good at maintaining a status quo.

These are not unionized places. So, maybe it's a capitalism thing.

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

#313

Post by NekkoDroid »

nullify88 wrote: post #222
mjr00 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Lets not forget Ubisofts uPlay which was absolutely shambolic. Blizzard's / Activision launcher was alright though. It did the job but no where to the likes of Steam which is really feature rich.

> Blizzard's / Activision launcher was alright though.

I'd personally say it was better as a launcher. Launching Steam itself takes relatively long and when its just in the background its just there idling with ~400Mb of RAM (specifically its WebHelper), which aren't a problem with Battle.net since it idles at 170MB or you can just close it since it launches way faster.

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

#314

Post by omnimus »

mrguyorama wrote: post #286
caconym_ wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what I always say about Valve. They are not morally unimpeachable, but at the end of the day I've been a regular customer for over 20 years and they've never fucked me over. I don't think I can say the same about any other software company.

And most importantly, the moment they show any indication of doing otherwise, I will happily drop them. I keep giving Valve my money because they keep giving me good value for that money and a trustworthy environment to spend that money in. I have no loyalty. I also buy games from Humble Bundle and GOG. I'm not excited about the prospect of losing my 4000 games but the literal only options available for consumers rig…

I am not sure why GOG is bad. Then again i am not sure why Cyberpunk is bad - i played it recently for the first time and its pretty fine game.

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

#315

Post by inquirerGeneral »

worldfoodgood wrote: post #160
sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They also have an internal culture that's been fairly regularly criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women and minorities. If they don't like the culture, then they should work elsewhere. I hear Google is hiring. Nothing worse than joining a company you contributed zero to building from the ground up, then unilaterally deciding the culture needs to change according to your whims, right now . You might feel…

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.

[dead]

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

#316

Post by bigyabai »

ceejayoz wrote: post #153
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.

Apple's price definitely gets affected by competition. https://9to5mac.com/2025/05/19/apple-may-lower-app-store-com... https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/11/apple-announces-app-s...

I didn't say "affected" though, I said set. Valve plays by common rules, Apple does not.

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

#317

Post by ndriscoll »

ElevenLathe wrote: post #250
annexrichmond wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you aware of any resources for how to combat colleagues aiming to start a union? I am personally opposed to being part of a union.

Just don't join. Closed shops are already illegal in the US so nobody can make you.

Only about half of US states have right-to-work laws.

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

#318

Post by anordin95 »

I'm an American who was retaliated against in the past for collective bargaining efforts. Luckily, that's illegal here as codified by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (it probably is in the UK too, I'm just not as familiar with their laws). I filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and eventually won my case, receiving compensation with interest; the Company also had to inform all employees of their collective bargaining rights digitally and physically.

Once the government shutdown ends, I highly recommend the affected American individuals file a complaint with the NLRB via their website: https://www.nlrb.gov/

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

#319

Post by vlovich123 »

jjulius wrote: post #309
vlovich123 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No but one step further than OP went making unsubstantiated claims that actually contradicts the actual research that paints a much more complicated picture.

>... the actual research that paints a much more complicated picture. Given that ChatGPT is still very much in a "trust, but verify" state (on a daily basis it confidently states falsehoods about subject matter I'm highly familiar with, for instance), I'm wondering if you followed up to confirm that the data at the sources provided by ChatGPT accurately reflected what it told you. If you're going to insist that other…

I did actually check some of the sources and they seemed solid.

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

#320

Post by 000ooo000 »

annexrichmond wrote: post #238
ElevenLathe wrote: post #186

I would encourage anyone in tech that is interested in forming a union at their workplace to sign up for CWA's CODE (Campaign to Organize Digital Employees) training: https://code-cwa.org/ CWA is a big, traditional, national union (think phone company employees, health care workers, flight attendants) that has voted to set aside a portion of their dues to help organize us, their fellow workers in the tech sector, whi…

Are you aware of any resources for how to combat colleagues aiming to start a union? I am personally opposed to being part of a union.

Are you required to be part of this union, if it forms?
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