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

https://gtaforums.com/topic/1004182-rockstar-games-alleged-union-busting/

by mrzool • 9 months ago

526 333 9 months ago

metadat• 9 months ago

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.

wahnfrieden4• 9 months ago

Businesses desire growth, not conservation or charity. And that desire is frequently achieved through illegal means. Wage theft for instance is a far greater sum than the total of robbery in the US. The criminality is rampant!

Meta is also in the news today for making 10% of its revenue from scams, as well as for having codified policy that scammers representing at least 0.15% of their revenue must be protected from any moderation.

Business thrives on illegality.

saubeidl3• 9 months ago

It's almost as if capitalism was a deeply messed up system that brings out and celebrates the very worst in humanity.

zaptheimpaler2• 9 months ago

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

fn-mote• 9 months ago

That’s a very reductionist take on what happened here. I don’t think increased profit is likely to result from these firings. How would it?

appreciatorBus3• 9 months ago

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?

t-writescode3• 9 months ago

And yet Costco still does just fine.

burnt-resistor2• 9 months ago

They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat their employees like human beings?

That's not how human nature works. Greed doesn't lead to idealism or altruism, it invariably leads to entitlement and more greed. The rich are never satisfied with hundreds of billions, they insist upon trillions.

immibis5• 9 months ago

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

kevin_thibedeau• 9 months ago

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

tbrockman3• 9 months ago

Valve is a "flat" organization, where your compensation is determined based on peer review.

Rockstar, and owner Take-Two (largely owned by institutional investors--well known for their historical championing of workers rights and fondness of unions), both seem to have your typical corporate hierarchies, where executives are fairly and correctly compensated for being more productive than over 200 software engineers combined.

tkel• 9 months ago

If you think one person can be as productive as 200, you're sniffing glue, my friend.

Executives make more money because they are the only ones with the power to set wages. Workers do not have the power to set wages.

lotsofpulp3• 9 months ago

They make so much money

Their 10-Ks show they lost a lot of money.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/TTWO/take-two-inte...

2025 $-4.479B

2024 $-3.744B

2023 $-1.125B

The meager earnings in years previous to that are beyond wiped out. In fact, expect a lot more squeeze if you work at Take Two or a lot more rent seeking if you are a customer, because based on the stock price movement, the market is expecting a lot more net income.

Edit: looks like they set a ton of money on fire by overpaying for Zynga a few years ago. Customers and employees are going to be paying for that bad decision for a long time.

kg• 9 months ago

It's true that Take Two lost money but it's also true that Rockstar makes them tremendous amounts of money. Lifetime revenues from GTA5 are estimated to be near or exceeding 10 billion USD.

Managing to lose money on those kinds of profits is arguably further evidence that leadership there is overpaid.

tick_tock_tick• 9 months ago

They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat their employees like human beings?

Because they want to make great games. It's sad but we've never figure out how to replicate the creative output that crunch and stress triggers. I don't understand it and frankly I couldn't stand it so I left the industry but I won't pretend that we have a solution too the problem.

Draiken2• 9 months ago

I call BS.

There's a big difference between people putting extra effort due to real external factors (e.g. company running out of money) and artificial pressure while executives enjoy their yachts.

This is a myth and plenty of amazing games were made without treating people like trash.

epolanski• 9 months ago

They make so much money, why can't they play nice and treat their employees like human beings?

Because they can.

In the gaming industry the biggest studios get away with running sweat shops because there's endless hordes of brilliant engineers and artists who had always dreamed to make videogames and need a huge name on the CV to move to better places.

burnt-resistor2• 9 months ago

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.

dude250711• 9 months ago

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!

sonu27• 9 months ago

Definitely one for the courts

pera2• 9 months ago

There is a fundraising for that organised by their union (IWGB Game Workers):

https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/support-rockstar-worke...

Ekaros3• 9 months ago

Why does this look horribly wrong to me. Why does a union need a fundraiser? Shouldn't they have hold tight belt and have significant war chest for this? Or take extra fees from the new members?

rwmj• 9 months ago

(Employment Tribunal, but yes.) If even half the stuff in the posting is true, it should be an easy win. Unfortunately Legal Aid for Employment Tribunals has been cut to the bone, but their union should be able to help here by taking the case up on their behalf.

monospacegames2• 9 months ago

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.

ml-anon• 9 months ago

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

lawlessone• 9 months ago

Is there a cut off? at some point the stuff they made / wrote when they started working must be becoming dated.

esskay• 9 months ago

What makes you think Dan would've handled it any differently? Rockstars got a long well known track record of being in crunch mode with obscene hours, that didn't suddenly start after Dan left.

bespokedevelopr• 9 months ago

On another note, heard on Bloomberg today that they've been working on GTA 6 for 10 years at this point.

It’s incredible to think about what else has happened during these past 10 years of development. Or think about other decade long stretches and what was accomplished.

Not cutting short what the undertaking of this is, just that the scale of this project spanning a decade is fascinating.

elephanlemon• 9 months ago

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.

immibis5• 9 months ago

Gabe is the Apple of PC gaming, taking a 30% tax on all transactions. It's not this particular kind of evil, but it is a different kind of evil.

samiwami• 9 months ago

There is nothing forcing developers to release on steam, they can sell directly through a website. It’s not Valve’s fault no other competitor has gotten close to the quality of Steam. Epic Games could have made a dent, but they decided to try to bribe customers instead of making a functioning store.

daedrdev4• 9 months ago

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

duxup• 9 months ago

PCs are plenty accessible to developers without Steam.

zer00eyz• 9 months ago

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.

Meanwhile, AWS has a 30+ percent margin and I dont see CTO's lining up to run hardware...

acedTrex• 9 months ago

This is in no way true because there is no requirement to use steam for PC releases.

Apple is a firm technical gatekeeper to their ecosystem. Steam is not at all analogous to that for PCs.

al_borland• 9 months ago

Are you of the opinion that these marketplaces shouldn’t exist, that they should take a smaller percentage, that they should be entirely ad-supported, or something else?

How can user have an optional one-stop-shop that is sustainable for the long-term while not being “evil”.

robhlt• 9 months ago

Valve allows developers to generate activation keys for their games and sell them on other platforms, where Valve gets a 0% cut. This is how you're able to buy games from places like the Humble Store and activate them on Steam. Their agreement does technically require that you don't sell at a lower price on other platforms, but as far as I know it's never been enforced.

axus• 9 months ago

Can a Steam Deck install games without using Steam? If so, big advantage over Google Play and the App Store.

preisschild• 9 months ago

That is bullshit, you are not even locked to using Steam on the Steam Deck. 30% is completely fair for the amount of infrastructure Steam provides to your game.

Definitely not comparable to Apple, which is forcing all iPhone users to use their own app store.

daedrdev4• 9 months ago

Its definitely the ones that sell. There are plenty of small studios run by founders, but often once they sell they start burning consumer trust and goodwill as if those things don't exist and have an actual cost

Loughla2• 9 months ago

Once you have an IP that's massive and you know people will buy regardless of if you're a trash monster or not, there's zero incentive to do the right thing.

Until people stop buying games from these places nothing will change.

monospacegames2• 9 months ago

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

bak3y• 9 months ago

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

worldfoodgood12• 9 months ago

Valve makes a significant amount of their money from the gambling they've attached to their games, and profits immensely from the culture of farming loot boxes to gamble on for skins and such.

They also take an absurd cut of developer income and saddle devs with costs that they don't always want. (Selling on Steam? Valve takes 30% and forces you to moderate the forums on your listing page that you cannot opt out of.)

They also have an internal culture that's been fairly regularly criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women and minorities.

Valve has done some cool stuff, but let's not lionize them too much. They are probably better than an average company, for sure, but it's important to remember that they are also sketchy in some very gross ways as well.

umvi• 9 months ago

I'm happier to pay Valve's 30% than Apple's. With Valve you could always switch to Itch or something if you didn't want to pay, but with Apple you have no alternative. Valve gives you access to a huge player base and lots of useful marketing tools and such.

xinayder3• 9 months ago

They also have an internal culture that's been fairly regularly criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women and minorities.

Source?

xhrpost• 9 months ago

If you were a dev selling a game years ago when physical distribution was the only method, you'd likely end up with a lot less than 70% after both the publisher and retailer take their cut.

https://www.latimes.com/archives/blogs/company-town-blog/sto...

Forgeties79• 9 months ago

10% if it’s a Linux copy ;)

sugarpimpdorsey3• 9 months ago

They also have an internal culture that's been fairly regularly criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women and minorities.

If they don't like the culture, then they should work elsewhere.

I hear Google is hiring.

Nothing worse than joining a company you contributed zero to building from the ground up, then unilaterally deciding the culture needs to change according to your whims, right now.

You might feel uncomfortable working in a black barber shop. Or a cat cafe with pet allergies. You've contributed nothing to their business, they shouldn't have to change for you.

kotaKat• 9 months ago

They also take an absurd cut of developer income and saddle devs with costs that they don't always want.

Fun fact: Nintendo's revenue split on WiiWare was 60/40, and required minimum downloads to even get your revenue out of Big N.

vkou2• 9 months ago

Valve charges 30% for access to their marketplace, and allows you to sell Steam keys for your game at whatever price you want through your own sales channels, without paying Valve a cent.

I'm not sure how any of that is sketchy or gross. As far as marketplaces and platforms go, this is quite reasonable, and there are many successful games which are either not on Steam, or are cross-listed on multiple platforms, or are cross-listed on both Steam and the developer's own distribution channel.

I'll give you lootboxes, they are pretty shitty.

eckmLJE• 9 months ago

I appreciate what you've posted here. Valve fanboyism is widespread (I'm guilty of it too) and while they are shoulders above the alternatives, it's a good reminder that no one's perfect and I'll be sure to take a closer look at the company in the future.

Bombthecat• 9 months ago

How much money do they make through counter strike loot boxes and selling games etc?

abtinf• 9 months ago

but it's important to remember that ... as well

Hello LLM.

throw109203• 9 months ago

The only thing absurd is this comment.

They also take an absurd cut of developer income

30%-20% is by no means "absurd", given the incredible value that Steam provides to developers: content delivery, payment processing, cloud saves, ratings, game tags, social integration, wishlisting and sale notification, search indexing, game discovery, a bunch of incredibly useful APIs including networking and input, Linux compatibility, and many, many other things.

In fact, 30% of revenue is well under what it would cost me to implement all of the features that I want from Steam as a developer, unless I somehow won the jackpot and ended up selling millions of copies (in which case I would end up only paying 20% of revenue anyway).

and saddle devs with costs that they don't always want. (Selling on Steam? Valve takes 30%

Which you already mentioned, while somehow conveniently omitting the fact that the cut decreases to 20% if your revenue is high enough.

and forces you to moderate the forums on your listing page that you cannot opt out of

This is the single possibly objectionable thing here.

They also have an internal culture that's been fairly regularly criticized as being pretty uncomfortable for women and minorities.

~~Allegations~~ mean nothing. Are there successful lawsuits?

Valve has done some cool stuff, but let's not lionize them too much.

Valve is incomparably better than every other major game distribution platform, which is the comparison that we're making. You are very intentionally making manipulative and dishonest points to try to paint Valve as worst than it is. Which makes sense, because you're a throwaway account.

John23832• 9 months ago

Valve is basically the only one that didn’t…

Lol Valve is taking a cut of a ridiculous amount of video game sales while releasing no games.

I like some of their work on the linux support side, but they have sold out as much as Apple has if anything.

jsheard6• 9 months ago

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.

pphysch• 9 months ago

HL3 is under active development though. If that's a success I'm sure they'd try a Portal 3 as well.

saintfire3• 9 months ago

Allegedly HL3 is in active development.

No official announcement yet.

PetitPrince• 9 months ago

HL3 kinda happened though, but it was called Half-Life Alyx. And while it wasn't a conventional FPS like HL1 and 2, there's absolutely no trace of GaaS in it.

wlesieutre• 9 months ago

Didn't Valve just deliberately tank the Counter Strike cosmetics market?

manjalyc• 9 months ago

What does the G in GaaS mean?

shadowgovt• 9 months ago

Valve never sold out because they became the "out" other companies sell out to. They successfully built a revenue-capturing money-printer in the form of the Steam store and service and now they don't have to make games at all to keep their bottom line strong. Not to imply they shouldn't have; get that gold ring and all.

(But I may also argue the point they never sold out in terms of being a game studio as opposed to a publisher.... "So when's Half Life 3 releasing?")

jayd16• 9 months ago

I wouldn't call this selling out, exactly. If the issue is endless crunch, its more a matter of having enough money to support it endlessly and an aging workforce that knows their worth and can push back.

The issue is trying to force (or likely, continue) bad practices when they're clearly not working and then lacking the leadership to realize that a retaliatory layoff is only going to make things worse.

haunter• 9 months ago

Wish more people would resist the payday and keep what’s theirs.

Ah yeah unregulated illegal underage gambling, the great resistance. Gabe could shutdown the whole thing with 1 click, all the sites are using the Steam API, but they don't and you know why.

Valve did a lot of things good but they are also the original source of a lot of bad things from lootboxes to skin gambling to the FOMO battle pass cancer of modern gaming.

Aunche• 9 months ago

Smaller studios can maintain a small team of highly passionate people that will happily work 60+ hours a week or achieve similar productivity. As a studio grows, this becomes harder to maintain. You're pressured to either become a slave driver or dilute your product and make more money through derivative content or micro transactions. For example, I heard that EA is actually a relatively chill company. What sometimes works at keeping employees and customers both happy is fostering a cult-like environment, but that can easily lead to exploitation.

guywithahat• 9 months ago

But union "busting" isn't selling out, if anything it's keeping to their true cause. Companies don't function well with adversarial units within them, and companies don't start out with unions.

Case and point: Valve doesn't have a union.

NoraCodes• 9 months ago

The phrase is "case in point", and unionized companies often do quite well.

ab5tract• 9 months ago

It’s a privately owned company. This leads to an entirely different relationship between employees and the top layer of management.

You have to be very misguided to believe that the c suite in most companies is not engaged in n adversarial relationship with its employees, whether those employees are unionized or not.

array_key_first2• 9 months ago

Companies don't function well with adversarial units within them

This isn't a given, this is just an opinion, and one you didn't bother trying to argue for.

Many systems do function much better with adversarial units in them. Governments have the adversarial units of checks and balances. Companies have the adversarial forces of the market. A news paper has the adversarial units of editors to their writers.

righthand3• 9 months ago

They definitely get a free pass from people. Valve is plenty evil.

shaky-carrousel• 9 months ago

Well, there goes GTA 6. Better for my wallet, I guess. Don't want to finance some thugs.

pixelpoet8• 9 months ago

I'll probably end up buying GTA 6, once it's on sale or something; good people worked on it too I would imagine, and helped make it a good game.

Also, with apologies for the whataboutism, we unfortunately finance thugs all day every day (my internet provider, German government and pension, Deutsche Bahn, etc are massive extortionists); it's not really black and white.

martin-t3• 9 months ago

And this is why "vote with your wallet" does not work. As a consumer there's no way to decide who gets the money.

In fact, even the people who made the game (did the actual work, not managers, advertisers, etc.) don't get to decide.

Correct me if I am wrong but the programmers, designers, artists have already been paid and any money from sales goes to the company and its execs/shareholders.

(And yes, employees can also be shareholders but they almost always own such a tiny share it does not really matter. In a just world, ownership would be distributed automatically according to time_worked * skill_level.)

EDIT: I might have overstated by saying it doesn't work but it definitely doesn't have the same level of effect as people collectively saying "this behavior is wrong and you will be punished for it, regardless if I buy the product" (for example by editing laws). It also doesn't allow any control over how the money is distributed among those who worked on it (compared to for example adding a law that limits absolute/relative spending on marketing - whether you think it's a good idea or not).

righthand3• 9 months ago

It’s so nice to be guilted into supporting awful people, because a bunch of nice people were abused by the awful people but at least the art will keep one entertained and the corpos keep on abusing.

beepbooptheory• 9 months ago

Perhaps we can all hope one falls off the back of a truck for each of us.

Animats• 9 months ago

GTA 6 just slipped to late 2026. At least.[1]

[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/gta-6-delayed-once-again-to...

fracus2• 9 months ago

I think the offline gameplay of GTA is becoming dated. Playing GTAV just felt like cut scene, then chores, cut scene, then chores, rinse, repeat. To be fair, I don't understand the purpose of GTA online but it was wildly popular.

MYEUHD• 9 months ago

the offline gameplay of GTA is becoming dated.

GTA V is dated. It's 12+ years old.

moneywoes• 9 months ago

how are games today different

jrflowers• 9 months ago

I’m also kind of concerned about the game itself suffering. If they’re shedding institutional knowledge to avoid unions we could end up with a vibe coded GTA 6.

Like imagine if MindsEye had thirteen years of anticipation before it came out.

lingrush4• 9 months ago

I am aware of one employee who had a panic attack at this moment, and HR hung up on them during this panic attack not caring at all about their wellbeing.

One can only hope this employee survived.

Permit• 9 months ago

How many people die each year from panic attacks?

joshe• 9 months ago

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.

kelseyfrog• 9 months ago

The alternative to every company is to proactively repair the conditions incentivizing the formation of a union. It continues to amaze me that those in charge of making those decisions choose decline over alternatives.

hiddencost• 9 months ago

Baseless claims can be dismissed without evidence. Happy employees are more efficient.

exabrial3• 9 months ago

happy employees doesn't imply the need for a union

blasphemers3• 9 months ago

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.

tclancy2• 9 months ago

Next thing you know, people want to not work on weekends!

tharne3• 9 months ago

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.

This is a nice summary of the central issue with unions in the U.S. A rational person can quickly see why people are clamoring for unions in the U.S. and also why American companies are so resistant.

dymk2• 9 months ago

What power do they have too much of?

worik4• 9 months ago

unionizing will accelerate whatever the decline of the company is causing the dissatisfaction

That is not a fact.

Unionising can be good for everybody

What ruins organisations is greed, or hidden agendas

pixelpoet8• 9 months ago

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 Edinburgh at his recommendation. But then I remembered how gamedev burnt me out at age 19 (my first job, at Lionhead), and how I've never been burnt out since, and decided against it. Been in offline rendering since then and never looked back.

flumpcakes2• 9 months ago

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?

pixelpoet8• 9 months ago

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.

tialaramex2• 9 months ago

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.

bartread• 9 months ago

Even discounting this, and despite everyone bleating on about its (very real) flaws, ChatGPT and other LLMs do quite a good job of proofreading and suggesting improvements to written English text[0]. I find it works best if you keep them on quite a tight leash but it's certainly within the compass of their capabilities to take badly written English and turn it into well written English, and even adopting a particular style to do so.

[0] Performance in other languages... well, I suspect it's still going to be quite variable, which is another valid criticism that has been levelled at the more popular mainstream models over the past year or two.

bowmessage• 9 months ago

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

pixelpoet8• 9 months ago

Yeah I was thinking about that, these days you just run whatever text you want to anonymise through an LLM with some instructions for style.

martin-t3• 9 months ago

That's what I am thinking.

I'd use a local LLM too to make sure the original prompt does not leak and can't be connected to the published output.

m463• 9 months ago

I've never been burnt out since

Why can't this style of management just take hold at a game company?

I suspect that hollywood has a pretty similar release cycle, and I've never heard of the dysfunctional management in that industry. (maybe it is normalized? maybe people don't expect a job after a movie is done?)

mrkpdl3• 9 months ago

The crunch culture in the film industry is legendary, particularly in visual effects, where many studios go out of business. There has recently been mass layoffs in the industry and much of the employment is temporary from film to film.

motbus3• 9 months ago

Not that they did on purpose or anything, but the delay was at a very convenient time

mmooss• 9 months ago

For the full post, see here:

https://gtaforums.com/topic/1004182-rockstar-games-alleged-u...

neilv2• 9 months ago

* 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.)

saintfire3• 9 months ago

There was a big deal made over Blizzard's policy and behaviour.

Also, I may be misremembering, but there was something pertaining to esports supressing the hong Kong riots.

neilv2• 9 months ago

Thanks:

/r/gaming post that wasn't only about product: https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/154ko01/why_is_bliz...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_Entertainment#Hearths...

Night_Thastus2• 9 months ago

Rockstar has historically always had anti-worker practices baked in, with crunch culture being the obvious one. They aren't your or their workers friend.

They're in it to make boatloads of cash and will do whatever to whoever is needed.

And no, consumers have never really cared in the gaming space. They won't do anything differently because of this.

tharne3• 9 months ago

And no, consumers have never really cared in the gaming space. They won't do anything differently because of this.

Consumers almost never care outside of isolated causes du jour or when it directly affects someone they know. Look at all the self-proclaimed socialists and progressives walking around with iPhones manufactured by Foxconn, a company known for treating its employees so badly there were inquiries into the suicide rates of their workers at one point.

While I have my concerns about unions, they are absolutely necessary in many cases. Companies are not your friend, nor are your fellow consumers most of the time.

fracus2• 9 months ago

Didn't the gaming community essentially kill Star Wars Battlefront 2 for EA because of the microtransaction PR fumble?

ChrisArchitect• 9 months ago

Could have kept the Rockstar Games in the title for clarity

exabrial3• 9 months ago

Every union I've been a part of has been more of a pain than its worth, or has tried to keep individuals from become any more successful that others. I don't understand the obsession with them on HN.

newfriend• 9 months ago

It's a luxury belief held by those who aren't personally affected by any drawbacks. Many such cases.

tialaramex2• 9 months ago

I am an individual who doesn't like just being one of a group, so I have never joined a union, but I support some union actions at my employer and so I too go on strike (and thus don't get paid) if I agree with the cause of their action. It can be simultaneously true that unions aren't perfect and that unionisation is better than not.

Indeed that's par for the course, there's plenty to dislike about democracy, but the alternatives we've tried are worse for example.

mlrtime2• 9 months ago

I'm guessing 90%+ of HN posters are not in a union. They idealize what it could be, not what it actually is.

hn_acc1• 9 months ago

Which unions have you been part of?

I used to work at a university that was NON-union, but basically ensured our benefits/raises were always at LEAST as good as the unionized university across town negotiated. THAT's a way to avoid unionizing efforts.

I have a teacher in the family - it's been an unequivocal necessity for them - otherwise the city / schoolboard would run roughshod over them - like 1% raises over 5 years, while their coffers are full.

And there's always a few (*&@#$ parents who think they're "all that" who would try to have individual teachers fired just because their 1st grader only got a "B" when they're clearly a generational prodigy... Unions really help with that.

exabrial3• 9 months ago

I worked for Chance Coach and I don't remember the exact Union they were all a member of. I was worked as a contract employee for Volt Technical Services. I was told I was required to pay dues even though I wasn't a permanent employee, which was an absolute fabrication of a lie told to me by union leaders on the job site I later learned (I was swindled out of a few hundred bucks, but as a teenager I didn't really know any better).

They had several (4 I think?) union-mandated breaks during the day, which I got in trouble for not taking several times. The reason given was if I didn't take my breaks than they could disappear for everyone. I also was willing to do any job given to me, and given that I had some shop and machining experience, was happy to help with any task given, which made me an asset to management as they cold put me in anywhere as needed to help production along, but angered old crotchety employees that didn't want me in their space and were happy doing the absolute minimum to collect their wage.

So yeah, my experience with Unions is they breed mediocracy and pull everyone down that wants to set themselves apart to management. Wages were standardized rather than based on individual accomplishments so there was no incentive to excel.

I'm certainly not "anti-union" but my original comment is that HN thinks Unions are this utopia and in a sober reality they often aren't.

rburhum• 9 months ago

Try to work at a place that has a union and decide to not be part of it... then you can see the true face of injustice. Don't want to be extorted out of union fees? Good luck, you are better off working somewhere else.

mrkpdl3• 9 months ago

This is not representative of all unions, and the union fees are generally small compared to the higher wages that wouldn’t exist were there not a union in place. Mathematically you give a little to get a lot.

ProllyInfamous• 9 months ago

Former IBEW; I'm forever grateful for the paid training and industry experience.

Had I any dependants, I'd definitely stay (just for the benefits! which cost nothing-more for one dude or an entire family).

Started my own residential shop, now-retired; life probably would have been easier had I stuck with commercial, instead.

mrkpdl3• 9 months ago

I work for a sector with a strong union and feel the benefits of collective bargaining every day. Higher wages, better job security, and many basic accomodations that are codified in an EBA that one might have to otherwise fight for (eg work from home at least two days a week is something that is protected in our eba thanks to our union).

Just because some unions aren’t as good as others is not a reason to dismiss unions.

whamlastxmas• 9 months ago

If I was trying to astroturf anti union sentiments this is the sort of stuff I'd post

Tryk• 9 months ago

Do you like not working on weekends?

LMYahooTFY2• 9 months ago

Having been a member of the Teamsters union, I completely agree.

It seems likely the vast majority of HN has never been a member of a union themselves given the audience, so the obsession feels like a savior complex IMO.

Yeah, unions accomplished a lot of good things many decades ago. But if you think they haven't morphed over those decades and are still automatically a net positive for all workers, I could probably sell you a bridge.

For my experience at Teamsters, there was zero incentive for employees to actually perform. Everything was done by senority across the board, and you're literally just aging and waiting your turn.

The insurance was good, the wages were average, and the incentive to do better was non-existent. And yes, firing people unless they did something egregious was much, much harder.

array_key_first2• 9 months ago

I just don't buy the narrative that if you don't threaten employee's and "whip them into shape" that then there's no incentive to do good. I refuse to believe that not firing people is, somehow, causing them to coast.

Pretty much everyone I know who works hard does so in spite of their circumstances. Not because of them.

Of the engineers I've worked with, the cooks I've worked with, the waiters I've worked with... the hard working ones don't win. They get taken advantage of and run into the ground. They perform, and perform more, and more, and that exclusively works against them.

And, as you go up the ladder, you can very clearly see the hard work and competence thin out more and more. The people who are successful aren't smart, or hard working, they're just good at maintaining a status quo.

These are not unionized places. So, maybe it's a capitalism thing.

physarum_salad2• 9 months ago

I love GTA/Red Dead but Rockstar really is just another monopoly (in terms of creativity) at this stage. More mid sized studios, like Rockstar when it started/midway, would be better.

Also the narrative and dialogue is ever so slightly overated in Rockstar games because the competition is quite nerdy/square in that department as are most of the audience. The ending of Red Dead II was actually quite trite, especially in terms of dialogue and narrative (in my opinion) even though the game is incredible overall. It is honestly still very far from a Tarantino script.

t-writescode3• 9 months ago

“Monopoly” has a particular meaning. Would you describe how Rockstar is one? Or is even one of a small list of “big dogs” / defacto choices in a specific industry?

physarum_salad2• 9 months ago

Yes, that's vague. I specifically mean a creative monopoly. Compare the writing and dialogue of a Paul Thomas Anderson or Tarantino movie to Rockstar. Most of their games don't come close. Because it's a game the standard for storyline and dialogue is slightly lower because you are like "wow I am almost literally a cowboy/Nico". I wonder if we will see a mix of games with genuinely Tarantino style writing and narrative + technical / design implementation. Small studios doing this faster and more ethically would be better. People who quit Rockstar are very talented with something to prove too.

I genuinely cringed at the end of RDII due to the dialogue just feel the need to mention that again...

codeduck• 9 months ago

Pretty sure this is illegal under UK employment law. I smell a very uncomfortable period for Rockstar's HR department

hnthrowaway0315• 9 months ago

This is but a small set back. I hope people recall what their ancestors did in the early days of unioning.

ElevenLathe2• 9 months ago

I would encourage anyone in tech that is interested in forming a union at their workplace to sign up for CWA's CODE (Campaign to Organize Digital Employees) training: https://code-cwa.org/

CWA is a big, traditional, national union (think phone company employees, health care workers, flight attendants) that has voted to set aside a portion of their dues to help organize us, their fellow workers in the tech sector, which I consider a truly beautiful act of solidarity. They are having some successes, which seem to be building.

Getting plugged in with the training and, almost as importantly, a CWA organizer, is a great first step if you know you'd like a union but don't know where to start.

annexrichmond• 9 months ago

Are you aware of any resources for how to combat colleagues aiming to start a union? I am personally opposed to being part of a union.

vkou2• 9 months ago

If you don't like the people you're working with, you could quit.

You could also vote no on a unionization vote, or just not join. I'm sure your loyalty will get a special consideration when the next round of arbitrary layoffs (coupled with record-breaking profits) happens.

nevon• 9 months ago

I have a simple solution for you: don't join a union if you don't want to be part of one.

ElevenLathe2• 9 months ago

Just don't join. Closed shops are already illegal in the US so nobody can make you.

toomuchtodo2• 9 months ago

Support for unions in the US is at record highs, so pick carefully where you work I suppose or work as a consultant with no labor protections.

https://www.marketplace.org/2023/01/03/gen-z-is-the-most-pro...

https://thehill.com/business/4854173-union-approval-surges-p...

https://news.gallup.com/poll/12751/labor-unions.aspx

https://news.gallup.com/poll/510281/unions-strengthening.asp...

000ooo000• 9 months ago

Are you required to be part of this union, if it forms?

dontlaugh• 9 months ago

And if you are in the UK working in the games industry, join the union currently fighting for these workers: https://www.gameworkers.co.uk/

marknutter• 9 months ago

Start your own company that supports unionization. Problem solved.

benzible• 9 months ago

https://archive.is/bDc8R

gorbachev• 9 months ago

They are going to get smacked down hard in the UK, if the post has the events described accurately.

What was done was blatantly illegal, EVEN IF the people weren't fired for union organizing, which Rockstar will have a hard time explaining away since they fired only people involved in union organizing.

The fired employees in the UK (not sure about Canada) will get back pay and penalties once the unavoidable legal process finishes.

I'm sure, however, Rockstar will consider all of the sanctions they'll receive as price of doing business.

Despicable.

nfriedly• 9 months ago

HN is currently linking to the start of the forum thread, but here is a direct link to the Rockstar employe's reply: https://gtaforums.com/topic/1004182-rockstar-games-alleged-u...

(And, the very next post is the forum admin confirming that the poster is indeed a rockstar employee.)

anordin952• 9 months ago

I'm an American who was retaliated against in the past for collective bargaining efforts. Luckily, that's illegal here as codified by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935 (it probably is in the UK too, I'm just not as familiar with their laws). I filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and eventually won my case, receiving compensation with interest; the Company also had to inform all employees of their collective bargaining rights digitally and physically.

Once the government shutdown ends, I highly recommend the affected American individuals file a complaint with the NLRB via their website: https://www.nlrb.gov/

anordin952• 8 months ago

I should have mentioned that the government foots the legal bill! That is, you don't need to hire your own costly lawyer. The case will eventually be USA vs. (your old company), and you're a potential beneficiary.

worik4• 9 months ago

This is relevant

https://gtaforums.com/topic/1004182-rockstar-games-alleged-u...

sam345• 9 months ago

If you want to destroy and beuracratize your relationship with your fellow employees and boss unionize your workplace. In Unions have been on a downnward slide for a reason.

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

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