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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

#71

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…

> 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 understand it, but once you know what they said you can play that sound back and yeah, that's what they said, you just couldn't understand the accent e.g..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs-rgvkRfwc

Indeed the joke is that people keep repeating what the hard-to-understand bloke said even when it's perfectly obvious what he said, because if you can understand it then you can't tell whether it was hard to understand.

That's not even Scottish, the bloke in that scene is from Somerset, which is the far side of the country but exactly like Scotland most people in Somerset don't talk like that most of the time, but some of them do, some of the time and to them it's normal, that's just how you say words.

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

#72
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.

Because no amount of profit is ever enough for the stock market, everything must perpetually grow.

This is also true if humans in general, at all stations in life, including union members and union leaders. Is there any offer a union would refuse on the grounds that’s too much?

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

#73
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.

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!

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

#74

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.

[deleted]

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

#75

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…

My stepdad is Glaswegian :) Funny that you immediately assume I'm having difficulty understanding the accent (I can do a pretty good Scottish accent, along with several others BTW!), and conflating that with the average level of English writing you see on the internet.

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

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because no amount of profit is ever enough for the stock market, everything must perpetually grow.

This is also true if humans in general, at all stations in life, including union members and union leaders. Is there any offer a union would refuse on the grounds that’s too much?

Is that true? Feels like you are begging a huge question and also assuming everyone has to exist in a capitalist society forever.

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

#78
* I want to keep liking GTA, and to keep giving Rockstar more money, for each new chapter and new console/device. If it turns out that Rockstar was union-busting and defaming, then I really hope that they soon have a we-messed-up moment, and genuine corrective action for whatever went wrong.

* Has anyone heard of game-buying consumers voting en masse with their pocketbooks over ethical/social concerns about a game/publisher/studio?

(I absolutely don't mean something like the Gamergate psychosis, though that was the first very loosely related event that came to mind. I mean respectable commercial boycotts, for admirable reasons.)

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

#79

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…

If they were careful, which I'm sure they were, the flawless English is the result of a round of LLM proofreading.

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

#80

The accusations of "IP theft" are already flying. Creative people, technical people, and everyone must stop working for megacorps and form their own, civilized worker-owned co-ops. Corporations will never respect those who perform labor, and will never ensure sustainable work environments.

Good news is that, especially given the modern distribution methods, they are already very free to raise capital or take their life savings and make courageous bets on their creativity!
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