Im still shocked the industry doesn't have a union. Do employees them self not want a union?
I've had this discussion from time to time. Usually when I was annoyed, so my arguments at the time might not have been the most coherent... but they would at least have been loud.
My impression from my time in the AAA industry is that there's an underlying feeling that the whole edifice only really *works* through being able to overwork people; that is, a feeling that giving people reasonable benefits would have a disastrous effect on the already-bloated budgets.
I'm sceptical how true this is, but there's a problem here that
everyone's too scared to find out. Make the change and turn out to be wrong, and everyone's out of a job. The status quo works - for some value of works - and is the safer option.
And, of course, the industry as a whole benefits from the idea that game development is in some way desirable. There's
always fresh-faced kids out of university who are anxious to get involved with the hobby they love. In a sense being driven by passion is a good thing, but it's absolutely finite as we age and other life priorities take over, and when the passion goes, problems arise, developers burn out, and become less useful. But hey, there's always a new fresh-faced youth you can replace them with!
I think we'd have a better industry as a whole, if we worked on nurturing and encouraging that passion, rather than treating it as fuel to meet unrealistic demands. I get a strong impression that some companies do (Valve. Maybe Blizzard). But one thing we *wouldn't* have as much of is bleeding-edge product; budgets would not stretch as far as they're used more towards treating people better.
Ultimately, devs want to make a good game. And in the absence of a budget that respects the work needed to do that properly, the passionate ones will put more of themselves into it instead.
So, in short: There is a
perception, I believe, that unionisation would
get in the way of being able to make games. For people passionate about their art - even to their own detriment - that can inspire opposition.
