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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

#41

Post by jsheard »

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.

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

#42

Post by hiddencost »

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.

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

#44

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

immibis wrote: post #12
metadat wrote: post #2

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.

People who are nice and treat their employees like human beings are not allowed to become CEOs.

This would be less of an issue if game companies operated as co-ops.

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

#45

Post by stego-tech »

rayiner wrote: post #15
metadat wrote: post #2

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.

[flagged]

That’s not a Union thing, that’s a system thing. Anyone fiercely on either extreme of the spectrum is missing the forest for the trees and proudly waving their willful ignorance of the dynamics of power.

In an ideal scenario, Unions and Shareholders would cooperate to achieve suitable outcomes for both parties; in reality, the amount of power needed to even get a Union off the ground and keep it sustained against the onslaught of Capital means those who wield said power are inclined to use it often. It’s why the (debatably) smarter gamble has been more workers forming anti-Capital institutions: cooperatives, union-first enterprises, sustainable corporations with stringent, anti-Capital bylaws. By removing Capital’s power early, those who do come to the table are more likely to negotiate in good faith rather than scorched-earth tactics.

Don’t slight unions as a whole just because power dynamics in a Capitalist society dictate everything be a zero-sum game. Instead, focus on building a better game and fairer set of rules, and recognize Unions are part of that.

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

#46

Post by chacham15 »

gruez wrote: post #32
daedrdev wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of companies have tried to compete with gabe, they’re all just terrible at it

No. First mover advantage is just that strong. How are the competitors to whatsapp or facebook doing? At best you have something like tiktok, which might be technically "social" media but is a totally different segment. You don't catch up with old high school buddies on tiktok, for instance.

- Facebook was not first. Before it was friendster and myspace.

- Tiktok was not first. Before it was vine and youtube.

- Google was not first. Before it was yahoo and altavista.

Plenty of todays big companies were not the first in their area.

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

#47

Post by dartharva »

gruez wrote: post #26
zer00eyz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uhhh.... 11 percent. That is the charge back rate in gaming. The "overall" stat for all transactions is something like 3 percent. Card processing isnt free. There are fees, and supporting card processing still has more humans in the loop than one needs. Never mind all the technology that comes with running the dam platform. Is 30 percent a lot. It sure is. Valve isnt a charity, this is how they chose to make money. M…

>11 percent. That is the charge back rate in gaming. The "overall" stat for all transactions is something like 3 percent. 1. source? 2. How does that justify a 30% rate, when presumably it's clawed back from developers? >Card processing isnt free. There are fees, and supporting card processing still has more humans in the loop than one needs. Never mind all the technology that comes with running the dam platform. Aga…

Valve also hosts and maintains the game files for consumers to download, and the bandwidth/hardware needed to serve hundreds of GBs for each game to millions of customers across the globe is not trivial.

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

#49

Post by ml-anon »

monospacegames wrote: post #7

Wouldn't have happened under Dan Houser. R* made too much money for its own good. On another note, heard on Bloomberg today that they've been working on GTA 6 for 10 years at this point. Considering the size of their development teams it's possible that more manhours may have gone into this single title than all video games that were made until the PS1 era combined.

I’m sure it’ll be as good as Duke Nukem Forever and Daikatana put together.

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

#50

Post by jeffwask »

bak3y wrote: post #30
monospacegames wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Financially Valve exists in an incomparably different space compared to companies like Take Two that actually have to make games to make money.

And they were able to get there because they made good games.

I would rephrase this as they got there because they treat their customers with respect, they take feedback to improve their platform, they don't pack their launcher / store front with ads and trickery, and you can trust that your games will be there and not go away.

Yes, they are loot box whores but so is everyone else.

Steam is a community, social media, and a store. The community is what they built and that community is extremely loyal. That community is also what developers are paying for.

In Gaben, we trust. I have 20 years of experience saying Gabe won't fuck me over to increase EBIDA by .5%. Are they perfect? No, but they are lightyears better than most of their competitors except GOG in terms of putting consumers first.

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