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.
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.
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.
>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.
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
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.
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.
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?")
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.
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.
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.
> 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?
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?)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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/
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.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
* 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.)
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.
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.
A rational person would agree that unions, like anything else, have pros and cons. They can do good, but also can do harm. It's the commenters here seem to fly off on emotional rants that derail the conversations. The thinking is capital takes less risk than labor; and that model of thinking makes it easy to ascribe faults to capital, but not to labor. You can't argue your way out of that. When you have to manage a bunch of employees and run payroll, bonuses, benefits, increments, that is when you'll know who takes more risk.
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 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.
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!
> 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.
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.
“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?
Some comments were deferred for faster rendering.
ElevenLathe|3 months ago
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.
dontlaugh|3 months ago
annexrichmond|3 months ago
elephanlemon|3 months ago
jsheard|3 months ago
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.
monospacegames|3 months ago
John23832|3 months ago
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.
haunter|3 months ago
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.
daedrdev|3 months ago
jayd16|3 months ago
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.
Aunche|3 months ago
shadowgovt|3 months ago
(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?")
worldfoodgood|3 months ago
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.
righthand|3 months ago
immibis|3 months ago
guywithahat|3 months ago
Case and point: Valve doesn't have a union.
pixelpoet|3 months ago
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.
flumpcakes|3 months ago
Rockstar North is based in Edinburgh as you say, why wouldn't English be at a high level?
bowmessage|3 months ago
m463|3 months ago
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?)
shaky-carrousel|3 months ago
fracus|3 months ago
jrflowers|3 months ago
Like imagine if MindsEye had thirteen years of anticipation before it came out.
Animats|3 months ago
[1] https://www.cnet.com/tech/gaming/gta-6-delayed-once-again-to...
beepbooptheory|3 months ago
pixelpoet|3 months ago
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.
nfriedly|3 months ago
(And, the very next post is the forum admin confirming that the poster is indeed a rockstar employee.)
metadat|3 months ago
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.
tbrockman|3 months ago
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.
zaptheimpaler|3 months ago
epolanski|3 months ago
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.
lotsofpulp|3 months ago
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.
wahnfrieden|3 months ago
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.
tick_tock_tick|3 months ago
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.
rayiner|3 months ago
[deleted]
immibis|3 months ago
burnt-resistor|3 months ago
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.
monospacegames|3 months ago
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.
esskay|3 months ago
ml-anon|3 months ago
bespokedevelopr|3 months ago
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.
lawlessone|3 months ago
anordin95|3 months ago
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/
anordin95|3 months ago
mmooss|3 months ago
https://gtaforums.com/topic/1004182-rockstar-games-alleged-u...
sonu27|3 months ago
pera|3 months ago
https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/support-rockstar-worke...
rwmj|3 months ago
codeduck|3 months ago
motbus3|3 months ago
exabrial|3 months ago
mrkpdl|3 months ago
Just because some unions aren’t as good as others is not a reason to dismiss unions.
hn_acc1|3 months ago
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.
tialaramex|3 months ago
Indeed that's par for the course, there's plenty to dislike about democracy, but the alternatives we've tried are worse for example.
ProllyInfamous|3 months ago
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.
mlrtime|3 months ago
whamlastxmas|3 months ago
Tryk|3 months ago
LMYahooTFY|3 months ago
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.
rburhum|3 months ago
newfriend|3 months ago
benzible|3 months ago
worik|3 months ago
https://gtaforums.com/topic/1004182-rockstar-games-alleged-u...
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
sam345|3 months ago
neilv|3 months ago
* 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.)
Night_Thastus|3 months ago
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.
saintfire|3 months ago
Also, I may be misremembering, but there was something pertaining to esports supressing the hong Kong riots.
fracus|3 months ago
gorbachev|3 months ago
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.
ChrisArchitect|3 months ago
hnthrowaway0315|3 months ago
marknutter|3 months ago
lazzlazzlazz|3 months ago
[deleted]
arcosdev|3 months ago
Citation?
liquid_thyme|3 months ago
vlovich123|3 months ago
daedrdev|3 months ago
joshe|3 months ago
The chances of a company turning around are super low, adding a union makes it harder. Just run.
kelseyfrog|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]
worik|3 months ago
That is not a fact.
Unionising can be good for everybody
What ruins organisations is greed, or hidden agendas
hiddencost|3 months ago
blasphemers|3 months ago
burnt-resistor|3 months ago
dude250711|3 months ago
lingrush4|3 months ago
One can only hope this employee survived.
Permit|3 months ago
physarum_salad|3 months ago
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-writescode|3 months ago
unknown|3 months ago
[deleted]