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GTA 6 Developers Unionize

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Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#411

Post by abcde666777 »

ziofill wrote: post #408
Animats wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> First off let me get on my high horse and say the engineering in video gaming is generally more complex than the engineering I've done working in big tech. Yes. Having done everything from mainframe OS internals to proof of correctness to autonomous vehicles, video games are the most difficult. At the beginning, game dev looks easy, because the tools are good and modern hardware is very capable. But as you approach…

This is very interesting, what makes video game engineering so difficult?

The amount of things you're trying to simulate within the the performance contraints (games push computers to their absolute limits).

An example - a 3d humanoid character. You need code to manage the mesh, the animation (probably skeletal), the animations themselves, all the blending logic, probably specialised code and data for facial animations, and then you need to make sure all of that can mesh with both input driven locomotion and AI driven locomotion - and that's just one problem domain.

And I'm grossly oversimplifying what's involved even in that particular area.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#412

Post by leovander »

sonzohan wrote: post #258
RobRivera wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your route to teaching like? I kinda am considering putting my hat in a similar ring on a part time, evening class type basis if I can get away with it.

I graduated in 2011, went straight to work at Blizzard entertainment. At the same time I had gotten accepted into graduate school so I opted for an internship at Blizzard to try both. I went back to Blizzard in 2012, but quickly realized I wanted to do my PhD. So I left Blizzard and went full-time as a student. I didn't have funding so I TAd classes. Eventually my advisor and I scored a big NSF grant, so she used the…

Not to downplay your experience, but from your prior students' comments, they aren't wrong to question your industry credentials? You had maybe less than two years of "gaming" industry experience 14 years ago before going into academics?

Seems like you found an opportunity that you really wanted to pursue, but unfortunately at the same time sort of became a stat of those that can't do, teach.

I had plenty of professors along the way that touted their credentials, but they were so stale in what they were teaching. I know I know, a Computer Science degree doesn't match industry expectations, but so many professors definitely did not keep up with what was going on outside of their bubble.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#413

Post by psychoslave »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #261
__natty__ wrote: post #237

> Together, we are organising around the things we want to change. Starting with: Pay transparency Flexible working An end to crunch That’s a lot of demands, what next? Competitive salary?! /sarcasm I hope more people will start fighting together for better work conditions. Company owners have money and lawyers so workers must unite to fight them back. I’m saying this as employer.

Unions are the only legal way for workers to improve their situation around compensation and working conditions. Support for them is at a historical high, especially amongst younger cohorts. https://news.gallup.com/poll/694472/labor-union-approval-rel... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/27/majoritie... https://www.epi.org/blog/americans-favor-labor-unions-over-b...

What about cooperatives?

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#414

Post by saghm »

saltyoldman wrote: post #317
ernesto905 wrote: post #308

> An end to crunch I was unaware of the crunch concept: "In the video game industry, crunch (or crunch culture) is compulsory overtime during the development of a game. Crunch is common in the industry and can lead to work weeks of 65–80 hours for extended periods of time, often uncompensated beyond the normal working hours" -- wikipedia Needless to say this seems extremely predatory.

who is in hn these days, remember like 10/15 years ago everyone was just willingly working 65+ hours. now it's "extremely predatory".

"Willingly" is basically just peer/manager pressure. "Everyone else is doing it, why aren't you?" "Do you want to be the reason we fail to meet our deadline?" My experience in tech outside of video games is that although there's an offer letter with terms and a bunch of stuff like signing invention agreements and non-compete clauses, it's also pretty much always "at-will" on both sides without any sort of contract. The actual job is basically just "do what we ask", with the conditions that each side is wiling to ask for or tolerate being a game of chicken (that tends to favor the employer, since most employees can't survive without a paycheck/health insurance, but an individual employee is likely expendable for the company as a whole).

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#415

Post by justinhj »

WarmWash wrote: post #4

Can anyone comment on why "big video game" dev pay has lagged "big tech" pay so badly? Ostensibly they are doing remarkably similar engineering problem solving, so why is there such a disparity?

A lot of game development is not technically sophisticated, especially when the engine is bought or developed already. The other factors are the hit driven nature of the business, meaning you can spend years building a game that flops, and the fact that many people want to make games which drives down salaries. In my opinion game developers should work like movie staff; mid level wages but the ability to earn residuals from all their games. It means a secure life if you have enough hits.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#416

Post by justinhj »

abcde666777 wrote: post #411
ziofill wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very interesting, what makes video game engineering so difficult?

The amount of things you're trying to simulate within the the performance contraints (games push computers to their absolute limits). An example - a 3d humanoid character. You need code to manage the mesh, the animation (probably skeletal), the animations themselves, all the blending logic, probably specialised code and data for facial animations, and then you need to make sure all of that can mesh with both input dr…

And many a game developer doesn't have to write any of this because it already is commodity software.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#417

Post by saghm »

jayceedenton wrote: post #264
__natty__ wrote: post #237

> Together, we are organising around the things we want to change. Starting with: Pay transparency Flexible working An end to crunch That’s a lot of demands, what next? Competitive salary?! /sarcasm I hope more people will start fighting together for better work conditions. Company owners have money and lawyers so workers must unite to fight them back. I’m saying this as employer.

How do you end crunch? Teams always work at a more relaxed pace when the deadlines are years out. You can't beat Parkinson's law no matter how generous you are with the estimates. We've all tried methodologies to counter this problem and create a continuous, sustainable pace. Unfortunately there's something deep in human nature that prevents us spreading that effort out evenly from day one.

I've spent the last 5 years or so (out of a career coming up on 11 years at the end of this summer) working on early development for products outside of the video game industry that hadn't yet been at release when I joined the team, and somehow none of them have ever made me crunch. The better question is why companies making video games so overwhelmingly make their devs crunch when it does not seem to happen anywhere close to as often anywhere else in tech even when the release timelines are similar. I'm sure some people might argue that there's something inherent in the economics of video games that forces it, but demands for more fair labor practices have historically always been met with protests that it would be impossible for companies to survive if they were adopted, and yet somehow we managed not to run into total economic collapse by banning child labor, mandating 40-hour workweek, etc. It seems far more likely that management does it because they've been able to get away with it so far, and unionizing is has generally been a pretty effective way for labor to stop letting them get away with unfair labor practices (hence why management is always so aggressively against it).

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#418

Post by zarzavat »

jjice wrote: post #84
zarzavat wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would happily pay extra money for GTA 6 if it goes to improving working conditions. It's only negative for the consumer if the consumer views life as a zero sum game.

I agree with you, but I think most people don't. People generally hate paying for software and the $60->$70 standard AAA game pricing got a lot of people (my well paid friends included) complaining. Even if it was very clearly said that it is the cost of a well paid and respected team behind the game, I think most people won't care.

That's fine though. The value of unions is that they can force consumers to pay for better working conditions and prevent a race to the bottom.

Consumers usually are workers themselves so they also benefit from raising the bar of working conditions. Even if they don't like paying more, they are still receiving the benefit of living in a better society.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#419

Post by TZubiri »

fourside wrote: post #350
brap wrote: post #315

This is wonderful news, congratulations to Anthropic, OpenAI and Google!

And to the developing industry of software consultants who specialize in fixing vibe coded slop that has grown out of control ;)

Brb, I need to file an expedited Delaware registration for UnSloppifiers Incorporated real quick.

Re: GTA 6 Developers Unionize

#420

Post by saghm »

shric wrote: post #331
toomuchtodo wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions are the only legal way for workers to improve their situation around compensation and working conditions. Support for them is at a historical high, especially amongst younger cohorts. https://news.gallup.com/poll/694472/labor-union-approval-rel... https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/08/27/majoritie... https://www.epi.org/blog/americans-favor-labor-unions-over-b...

> Unions are the only legal way for workers to improve their situation around compensation and working conditions. How about going to work somewhere with better compensation and working conditions?

That works when labor is higher enough in demand for that to be possible, and in practice management is most likely to try to get away with lower compensation and poor working conditions.
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