Every game you like is built on the backs of workers. ‘Video Game Creators burned and desperate for change

Spending on video games and related equipment reached an all-time high last year with US $42 billion dive bombing off in virtual worlds where they can steal cars, cowboy shoot and fight the Nazis with the body and the soul. But when tens of thousands of Los Angeles gamers and creators gather this week for the Electronic Entertainment Expo, known as E3, a difficult truth of the gaming industry is emerging: what is seen as a joke by strangers, creative activity is psychologically and financially prohibitive for those. to them, “Every game that you have built on the backs of workers as”, says Nathan Allen Ortega, 34, who thought he had found his dream job when Telltale Games a position as a community and the video manager offered to him in 2015 . Ortega as Telltale fans was that he used to participate in practices cosplay dress as a certain character to the events-like Rhys Strongfork, one of the main heroes of the society from the border stories. So it was an easy decision to pack up and move to Texas near the company’s headquarters in San Rafael, Calif. But soon it became so stressed out from work, he developed an ulcer and began coughing blood. Part of the problem, says Ortega, was that managers would order the game at the last minute changes up, sending developers in Overdrive, which then led to inferior products. This made Ortega’s task more difficult the marketing game. “I was done with the game weakened to work on the part of people to kill the door each month for the month off,” he says. Both your doctor and therapist advised him to stop, but he remained until Telltale from 25 percent of its employees laid off, including Ortega, in 2017 Telltale permanently closed down in October 2018 and with 250 employees o set after he failed to secure more funds. The company was then sued by both its founders and one of its former employees. (Records for the first lawsuit lawyers have been sealed to protect confidential information, and the second case was rejected in early February. For Telltale did not return requests for time to comment.) The nightmarish hours and job insecurity in Telltale are by no means unique to the -Industry Games, who spoke to TIME after 10 games of workers. “There is a belief in the games industry which is a privilege in it, and should be willing to do that, you need to stay there,” says Emily Grace Buck, a former narrative designer at Telltale. “The most important thing to remember is that not every single game studio that has worked well, but that is the vast majority, this is normal for this area.” In fact, I’m the CEO of Rockstar Games, the publisher of the popular Red Dead Redemption 2, boasted in an interview last year that people are working 100 hours weeks, ready in time for the scheduled match for her date output. Another top gaming company, Activision Blizzard, said in February it cut 800 jobs, as well as records in 2018 reported sales of $7.5 billion. Games creator than other serious challenges, too. In early May were 150 workers at Riot Games, which League of Legends published and said it did not respond enough, the company has made repeated claims of sexism. A developer for Mortal Kombat 11 recently told gaming site Kotaku that he was diagnosed with PTSD after work on lavish fierce and bloody fighting game. Riot said in a statement that supports the workers who belonged to his voice during the strike, and that as soon as the active litigation is resolved, “continued rioters regarding all things to hear, including their thoughts on arbitration. “the employees of companies that choose to give up a compulsory arbitration for claims of sexual harassment indicate, a spokesman said. Activision has offered a statement that he had shared when they announced their layoffs in February, and said that they had not met their growth targets and its biggest investment increased franchise. Neither Rockstar nor Mortal Kombat Netherrealm who makes the comment restitution claims. As the software industry in a broader sense, the game world is known for the “crisis” to pay the period shortly before the start, when workers should put in weeks 100 hours at no extra charge. In recent decades, especially for console games, the crisis is usually limited to the first weeks of a release date of the game. But the conditions in part deteriorate because the underlying technology is changing turning video games, player changes the expectations – and the industry in general – in the process. A decade ago, a company, a video game would be released in a box, the players go to the store and buy it, and there would be any updates or changes, if there was a sequel. But today, more than 90 percent of video game consoles connected to the Internet, the Piscatella carpet, a video game analyst for NPD Group market research industry. That has steadily game allows you to upgrade Studio and upgrade their existing games, in part, as “DLC” or downloadable content, such as new weapons or levels that players can buy. The players now expected and required that content, can benefit from the great studies – even more pressure on workers for months or even years after a match the release date. “Now, live games, breathing worlds, and can get updates for years,” says Piscatella. Take-Two Interactive board games, for example, he said in its annual report in May that digital sales remain 63 percent of sales in the last financial year, compared to 52 percent in 2017. Meanwhile, in because the studios are so focused player pocket money interests and their games, which often ask for last-minute changes by workers on the feedback of the players from pre-beta-test release or based preview material. This leads to even closer. “All the players based on video games is like King Joffrey the entire industry losses in Game of Thrones, and [the players] afraid, because there are so many other options,” said Jermaine Davis, a military veteran ranging in household video games for 12 hours a day for work and play for six more hours of fun especially crunching comedy leavened his point of view. These changes have been painful for the game industry workers, but lucrative for gaming companies. Total spending in the US video game market in 2018 is 38 percent more than in 2016, according to the NPD Group. The games are back because of new digital content, and spend more common This commitment units within more than they had in earlier games, Piscatella said. Companies can do more with the addition of content than you can from the development of new games through the expensive process in motion, some of which may flop. While video game companies used to dozens of games a year, hitting with hopes of making gold once or twice, have a couple of big hits now focuses on making sure the players coming back for more waiting. “A game of great success Having more important now than ever,” said Piscatella. to consolidate business operations LED closed and some studies. Electronic Arts, for example, used to have 49 titles; It is to manage the company to about 10, according to Michael Pachter, Wedbush Securities Equity Research at the level of leaders. The company has laid off 350 employees in March. Pachter expects to continue the cuts. “It’s probably a really big year for layoffs,” he said. (A Twitter Account, @DaysWithoutLoss, the number of days since the last of the gaming industry layoffs followed ;. On June 10, the number six was) In the midst of this turmoil, dozens of game company workers to unionize called the industry. The turmoil that have both an opportunity and a challenge. On the one hand, the instability can make it difficult to talk about unionization. Jet Bougan, another former Telltale workers, said it would be difficult to ask colleagues to speak when they take the oatmeal out of the office to eat for dinner. Still, she found a recent survey of the industry group International Game Developers Association conducted that 47 percent of workers said they would be in favor of a union in their company, while 26 percent said they “could do.” In 2009, just said about a third of gaming workers who would be in favor of a union in their company. This work efforts started after a panel at a trade conference last year, the labor organization in a negative light, hundreds of workers have inspired the United Workers’ Group called match discussion on working conditions to join. The group, which is run by gaming workers, now has 30 chapters worldwide. Game UN workers U. K. said in December 2018 that had been connected a legal union and the Independent Trade Union of the United Kingdom. The unionization efforts come to push back against surveillance technology policies and arbitration at companies like Google and Amazon as technology workers in other fields band together with groups such as the Tech Workers Coalition. Some workers want player video games help companies push workers well treated. “I truly believe that when players began changing the mass demand for companies to start, how they treat their workers, which would have a major impact,” says Emily Grace Buck, which supported the unionization drive. Consumers could watch Studios also that specifically prevent crises or distribute evenly profits among workers, workers say. A French club is structured as a co-op, so that workers own and operate the company. Nick Defossez, another video game developers have recently started a list of companies compiled, make games without crunching, proof that you can find Studios with good working order. But without outside pressure, he said, existing businesses can not change voluntarily. “There really is no incentive or pressure to start crunching personal offer benefits,” said Defossez. There is precedent for creative types such as writers, animators and sound engineers union. Hollywood unions such as the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA-SAG), the International Alliance of Theater and Stage Employees (IATSE) and the writer Guild of America represent workers whose jobs are similar to those of video games workers (SAG-AFTRA also some speakers that occur at the time in video games). Both video games and Hollywood workers bring their creative talent of expensive short-term projects that could be hits or falls. Many of Hollywood unions since the early 1930s onwards, as workers, as is often sick with diseases layoffs, unilateral contracts and creative control exercised by the studies. Unionization is not negative for the studies, says Michael Kamper, a sound designer who has worked both in the video game industry and Hollywood. It could give workers more confidence that even if they lose their jobs, they would maintain their health and pensions that talented people can help keep the industry. The typical gaming industry workers is an old white man of 32 years a degree and without children, according to the study International Game Developers Association, and turnover is high; the majority of respondents said that developers will stay with their current employer for three years, intended or not. What’s more, workers and managers in the gaming industry is reluctant to take creative risks, said Kamper, because they know that an advantage of bankruptcy game for a closure in the studio, and then become unemployed. Kamper has both a manager and a worker, and his experience at all levels of the entertainment company convinced him that the unions may help workers feel supported in a more volatile sector. He spent a decade as a sound designer for movies and TV shows; he worked for a period of time on a project and then out of work when it ended. But because he was a member of the Motion Picture Editors Guild, still it has the health and pension insurance, even when he was not working. “It ‘only provides a level of protection that in the games, there are not,” he said. The gaming industry has Kamper offered a full time job with benefits in 2007, and was happy to make the leap to a job in a studio of Electronic Arts in Chicago. But the gaming industry has proven to be as elusive as Hollywood – 10 months after its inception, the studio closed and he was out of work. He quickly found another job, but it was still a shock – the one that would always revive. He worked for three studies that reported that it had repeatedly in the maneuver unemployment, without the same benefits and safety as a union member. Kamper loves the gaming industry, and decided to stay in it, instead of returning to Hollywood, despite the volatility. But he wants to help make it better. “You come from both worlds, it should be a situation that works,” he says. “What we have now is not healthy for the workers or their studies.”
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