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Testers at Activision-owned Raven Software have voted to form the U.S. video game industry's first major union.
StateofMajora
Banned
Good luck.
VolticArchangel
Member
Holy shit. This is fucking huge, because of Activision.
mckmas8808
Mckmaster uses MasterCard to buy Slave drives
Why? Because of a union for game testers?
ManaByte
Gold Member
20 people.
ManaByte
Gold Member
GHG
Member
1.58 dozens in favor to be precise. Literally.
Jaybe
Member
This is likely literally the happiest day ever in Jason’s life at least until he gets laid.
ManaByte
Gold Member
This is likely literally the happiest day ever in Jason’s life at least until he gets laid.
Wait for the Hoeg Law video. He loves knocking down the little Kotaku reject.
ChuckeRearmed
Member
Personally don't like unions but interesting to see the further development.
StateofMajora
Banned
Fuz
Banned
It's a start.
Nah they're safe. No one would ever dare cross a 19 person strong picket line for the chance to get paid to find bugs in videogames.
Fuz
Banned
Muricans.
But this time they're not totally wrong. In Italy unions played a huge part in defending workers' rights after the war. They really did a lot. Then they become political, and now they're as corrupt as it gets. They're just lackeys of big industrialists.
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HoofHearted
Member
Ghost of Caelid
Banned
Companies are good at convincing americans to vote against their interest.
In my country (Brazil) workers and bosses were forced to pay union dues by law, everyone hated it, never saw any benefit and the money was entirely dedicated to union bosses and their political goals, nothing was ever done for employees. We have (or had) the highest number of unions because they wanted to get that free money.
StateofMajora
Banned
It seems like a really stressful job, honestly. And thankless.Nah they're safe. No one would ever dare cross a 19 person strong picket line for the chance to get paid to find bugs in videogames.
But now the question is how does Activision plan to get around this, as they definitely don't want this setting a precedent.
jm89
Member
mofos will accept being slapped around by a sleazeball like kotick then want anything to do with a union.
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Adopting a policy of using only 3rd party contract labor as needed for testing is my serious guess.
My not serious guess would be to copy "other" publishers and use pre-orders for bug testing. Or maybe this is my serious guess?
StateofMajora
Banned
That was my thinking as well.
Reallink
Member
LOL. They'll all be fired by tomorrow. Hope flipping burgers all day is better than trying to break Call of Duty all day.
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Kdad
Member
AFAIK the Union of Desperate Hoes has said they are not interested...so his chances are...low?This is likely literally the happiest day ever in Jason’s life at least until he gets laid.
Kdad
Member
As MS has done over and over in the past...this will end no differently.
cormack12
Gold Member
Hmmmm, can see it dragging out for 18 months at least. At which point the company will probably say '...as part of our new strategy we will be outsourcing the QA, given the success of WFH'.
Or they can let them strike, not pay them and get contractors. Fuelling point 1.
QA is not the 'talent' in the studio, nor scarce in resource sadly. Some jobs are just thankless and have a low ceiling of entry.
Or they can let them strike, not pay them and get contractors. Fuelling point 1.
QA is not the 'talent' in the studio, nor scarce in resource sadly. Some jobs are just thankless and have a low ceiling of entry.
Of course unions are a thing in this country.
Unions in "Murica" are some of the strongest bodies in this country and are ubiquitous with numerous industries (including the all levels of gubment). That a small group of people were able to stand up against what was almost surely withering pushback (relative to their numbers) from management, is pretty impressive.
skit_data
Member
I’m not so uncivilised to think unions aren’t a thing in America but the games industry is going on 30-40 years at this point. I expected unions to have popped up at least in the mid 00s.
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Jose92
[Membe
They are testers of course they want to unionize probably overworked and underpaid, but you won't see alot of developers complaining because they get paid well
Daytonabot
Banned
Supply and demand are the only things that determine whether someone is underpaid, and potential testers are not even remotely in short supply.
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You have to unionize first; it's like the bit with Amazon - short of illegal union busting, they did everything possible to keep their workers from unionizing. And failed (at least at one warehouse). It is easy for that spark of rebellion to get snuffed out though so it's not that surprising to me that it took this long to hit video games.
The real interesting question is whether or not it will actually lead to other workers pushing back (and putting their necks on the line) and agreeing to this.
ChuckeRearmed
Member
The whole idea about unions is about underpaid mass labor.
IT usually has higher salary and you can negotiate even more, or switch company for even more pay and benefits. So no point for union as most people can find a better offer. Unions in general does not work that great for jobs like IT because it supposed to be skill based, but with unionization it boils down to union negotiation power rather than skil.
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HoodWinked
Member
this is only because of the leverage they have in the current environment.
record job openings, Activision lawsuits, pending Microsoft acquisition
i'd imagine management doesn't care until the acquisition is done. then they'll make a decision.
record job openings, Activision lawsuits, pending Microsoft acquisition
i'd imagine management doesn't care until the acquisition is done. then they'll make a decision.
PhaseJump
Banned
Seems like this is just making hay.
This symbolic win will have no immediate or measurable impact on the industry, and only serves to shovel shit into the furnace that fuels the down-trodden narrative politically motivatedtweeters gaming journalists are chasing to get clicks from the overlap of unskilled/no-skill job lifers, and bleeding heart liberals. As if burning their money on union dues will somehow solve problems.
This is a world where software is patched in an easily accessible way, and quality assurance before shipping anything entertainment related, or even mainstream operating systems, is a bad joke. Entry level testers could be out of a job entirely.
Unless I'm wrong and I'm missing something here. I mean, it's not like I intentionally clicked on and read anything written by fuckface Schreier, or that I think he has the ability to sway my assessment of how the real world works.
This symbolic win will have no immediate or measurable impact on the industry, and only serves to shovel shit into the furnace that fuels the down-trodden narrative politically motivated
This is a world where software is patched in an easily accessible way, and quality assurance before shipping anything entertainment related, or even mainstream operating systems, is a bad joke. Entry level testers could be out of a job entirely.
Unless I'm wrong and I'm missing something here. I mean, it's not like I intentionally clicked on and read anything written by fuckface Schreier, or that I think he has the ability to sway my assessment of how the real world works.
Miyazaki’s Slave
Gold Member
Seems like a target for "consolidation" when MS takes control of the ACT/Blizz ship. They have enough QA groups that could easily cover the workload.
Remember kiddo's it is not considered retaliation if it is a company downsizing.
Remember kiddo's it is not considered retaliation if it is a company downsizing.
EverydayBeast
thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
If you can form a union you do it.
ReBurn
Gold Member
More like easily outsourced
In Cold Blood
Banned
As he is hiding in his closet watching the local high school football team run a train on his wife.Jason Schreier right now...
Grildon Tundy
Gold Member
I wish there was a reaction emoji I could pick that means, "I agree with your take, although I wish it wasn't the case." A thumbs up doesn't accurately convey ambivalence.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Forming a union means nothing. It all comes down to if a company recognizes it as part of employee relations.
I'd just fire them and find good workers who arent unionized. Unionized workers are entitled. The kind of worker that drops everything they do at 5 pm. The stories my brothers told me long time when they worked at the post office as PT summer students. You wouldnt believe the shit the vets did and how little they worked. Yet at the time, posties got paid pretty well.
It's a pretty simple concept if you want a good job at decent pay. Get a role which you arent lumped in with tons other drones all willing to work or $15/hour.
Lots of people out there make decent money. Cant be that hard. You dont have to be a doctor or lawyer to make good coin. The dev team and IT people the QA people work beside probably make 3x or more what they make.
Companies will pay you good money if you are worth it. The money is there. Let's not pretend here that every company pays all their workers $9/hr. If that's all you get offered, you got shit skills because aside from fast food and shopping mall kinds of jobs, nobody gets paid that low.
The lowets job at my company are probably marketing assistants and junior analysts. They get paid around $60,000/yr CDN. Not saying that will make you a millionaire, but getting paid the equivalent of $30/hr to do some basic spreadsheets and rudimentary analysis, it cant be that hard to get a job that pays ok. Most of these people are lousy (young grads who are learning or those stodgy 40 or 50 year olds who cant get better)..... but still getting $60,000. If they can get hired any white collar dude can.
If a company is willing to outsource your job to another country to save a couple bucks, it shows your not as great as you think if some guy half way around the world who can barely speak english and relies on Skype to talk to the boss can do an equally or better job than you.
I'd just fire them and find good workers who arent unionized. Unionized workers are entitled. The kind of worker that drops everything they do at 5 pm. The stories my brothers told me long time when they worked at the post office as PT summer students. You wouldnt believe the shit the vets did and how little they worked. Yet at the time, posties got paid pretty well.
It's a pretty simple concept if you want a good job at decent pay. Get a role which you arent lumped in with tons other drones all willing to work or $15/hour.
Lots of people out there make decent money. Cant be that hard. You dont have to be a doctor or lawyer to make good coin. The dev team and IT people the QA people work beside probably make 3x or more what they make.
Companies will pay you good money if you are worth it. The money is there. Let's not pretend here that every company pays all their workers $9/hr. If that's all you get offered, you got shit skills because aside from fast food and shopping mall kinds of jobs, nobody gets paid that low.
The lowets job at my company are probably marketing assistants and junior analysts. They get paid around $60,000/yr CDN. Not saying that will make you a millionaire, but getting paid the equivalent of $30/hr to do some basic spreadsheets and rudimentary analysis, it cant be that hard to get a job that pays ok. Most of these people are lousy (young grads who are learning or those stodgy 40 or 50 year olds who cant get better)..... but still getting $60,000. If they can get hired any white collar dude can.
If a company is willing to outsource your job to another country to save a couple bucks, it shows your not as great as you think if some guy half way around the world who can barely speak english and relies on Skype to talk to the boss can do an equally or better job than you.
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Dick Jones
Gold Member
It will be the only VAG Jason will get access to