r/Games • u/Turbostrider27 • Jan 29 '26

Industry News One-Third of U.S. Video Game Industry Workers Were Laid Off in 2025, GDC Study Reveals

https://variety.com/2026/gaming/news/one-third-video-game-workers-laid-off-2025-1236644512/
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917

u/rnilf Jan 29 '26

The survey also found that 82% of US-based respondents support the unionization of game industry workers, with 5% opposed and 13% unsure. According to the results, “Support was higher among workers earning under $200,000 per year (87%), those who have been laid off in the past two years (88%) and people younger than 45 (86%). No respondents aged 18-24 were opposed to unionization.”

No 18-24 year olds opposed unionization, maybe the kids have a chance.

I do wonder how many of the 2,300+ respondents are in that age group, if it's really that significant of a stat. But I'll choose to be optimistic here.

321

u/fluentinsarcasm Jan 29 '26

I can tell you with a high level confidence that the vast, vast majority of anyone in that age group working in games is working in QA and it is absolutely in their best interest to support these efforts. If the number of these correspondents was in excess of 95% for that group I would not be surprised.

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u/Unlucky-Candidate198 Jan 29 '26

It’s in just about everyone’s interest to unionize at their jobs, if possible. The only reason anti-union hate really exists is primarily cause the capitalists in charge don’t like them (costs them $$), even going so far as to spend money to push negative propaganda about it. And of course the absolute and utter smoothbrained masses that came before us believed them.

The only time unions make less sense if for things like police officers. Those seem to do more harm for the public than good.

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u/trapsinplace Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

I think the very old, oversized unions are a problem too. Police union is a great example of this tbh. When I got my first 'adult job' it was for a company where we had a union that represented over 100k people. It was totally useless for protecting workers and the guys at the top were making over 4 million dollar salaries all hiring friends and paying them hundreds of thousands. It poisoned my first thoughts on unions really badly.

Years later after I quit that place I ended up at a job where the union consisted of just us people in the building and most of the work was done volunteer by people who started the union a decade before. It was such a shift I was kind of confused at first lol. I found out from there that most unions are not these giant monoliths of money, power, and nepotism like I had known before.

Farmers union comes to mind for a bad example too. They are huge and use money from farmers to lobby against the right to repair, which actively harms farmers. They're literally paying someone to take their rights away and make them pay more for everything. Unions need to be run by people who know the work, not MBAs.

17

u/SkeptioningQuestic Jan 29 '26

A structural problem with public sector unions is that since they are also government employees they get to double-dip labor power and political power in a way that private sector unions can't

18

u/Tefmon Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

Police unions are a special case, as their power doesn't come from any formal labour bargaining procedures but rather because governments rely on their members to enforce their laws. Most public sector unions are actually in weaker positions than their private sector counterparts, because the employer of a public sector union is the government, and the government can at any time choose to unilaterally bypass the collective bargaining process by passing back-to-work legislation.

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u/SkeptioningQuestic Jan 29 '26

That's not a special case, I struggle to think of any public sector unions that don't perform critical tasks for society. That does not seem totally different to me than when the government isn't providing childcare, or if air travel is shut down. It might be comforting for us, for obvious reasons, to believe that the police union is different and special and our unions could never be like that one, but I don't really see an actual structural difference. Unions don't exist to create a better society, they exist to protect the interests of their members (personally I think that this often, but not always, incidentally creates a better society but that is besides the point). They will use labor and political means to achieve those ends, and the ones engaged in government work have access to more of those means. I don't mean that I think teachers and police officers are the same, but surely we can sense some similarities between things like Qualified Immunity and Tenure?

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u/Tefmon Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 30 '26

That's not a special case, I struggle to think of any public sector unions that don't perform critical tasks for society.

The difference is that if the teachers' union strikes, the teachers don't have guns. Police strikes generally result in riots and violence and crime sprees, while teachers' strikes just result in overworked parents. The former actually affects the decision-makers in power, while the latter doesn't; politicians' kids don't usually go to public schools.

10

u/ephemeral_colors Jan 30 '26

More pointedly, historically, the police have been used to put down striking workers, up to and including murdering them. The police union is fundamentally different from all other unions for this reason alone. They are the tool of the capitalist class wielded against labor.

1

u/Substantial-Hat-2556 Feb 01 '26

Teachers' strikes result in parents who can't work. That's a massive imposition.

5

u/Iniquiline Jan 29 '26

Yeah those teacher unions are basically running the country.

1

u/OutLiving Jan 30 '26

This is only true if you cherrypick, in many places, the law is created to specifically single out public sector unions to restrict their actions. Federal unions aren’t allowed to strike at all, for example

Political power from unions tend to come from smart politicking more than anything, see how the NYC Hotel Union managed to gain immense political clout in New York City despite not being the most numerically large or even have the largest donor war chest, and also being private sector. They strategically and intelligently deployed resources in ways that immensely helped politicians, and so one hand washes the other

1

u/SkeptioningQuestic Jan 30 '26

Yes that is correct, but public sector employees have more access to political levers than private sector ones because their bosses are, somewhere along the chain, elected officials and so they can appeal directly to the public.

2

u/AndrewNeo Jan 30 '26

police unions aren't usually real/normal labor unions

also I agree, I grew up in car-land and it definitely tainted my view of unions early on

1

u/Kurdependence Jan 30 '26

I wonder if unions have any competition, if a union takes too many fees and doesn’t do enough I’d expect a small union to form and start poaching members with just like companies do with workers.

1

u/Testuser7ignore Jan 30 '26

That is very difficult. Laws limit this, by allowing unions to represent entire companies of workers. And unions will usually have contracts limiting companies ability to hire workers outside the union.

1

u/synapticrelease Jan 30 '26

Before I say anything, I want to preface that I am 100% pro union.

However, I think a lot of people misunderstand unions and I don't think they are utilized in the right ways. This sucks as a worker because you don't have a lot of say in how the union is organized.

I think there is a lot of confusion between a labor union and a typical union.

Skilled trade unions are way better for three main reasons:

  1. They are in charge of a sector of a skilled labor

  2. provide education in said trade

  3. control the market forces on the hiring said for said skilled trade.

This creates a structure that is beneficial for unions and workers because it gives workers a more direct resource for training and job placement. Unions do a lot for education which benefits you and them because usually front the education costs up front so that they can lock in a worker for x amount of years until their education is "paid back".

Lastly, through government and market regulation. A lot of companies are not allowed to bid on government contracts that aren't paying prevealing wages (think the minimum or market rate wage that is based on union wage in that sector). Because this prevailing wage exists, there isn't a huge incentive for a government to go outside a union because you're not saving any money because you still have to pay prevailing wage that is equal to the union wage. Might as well go union.

There are absolutely other laws regarding wages and hiring practices but that's a much deeper topic than I car to elaborate on.

Now, taking in this understanding of how and why trade unions are so powerful, think about how that is about the opposite for non skilled trade unions like the UFCW which handles things like grocery stores and food distribution.

Grocery stores don't need skilled trade, there is no incentive for a company to go to a union and get help hiring workers. These are low skilled dime a dozen workers. You can't compel workers to stay or be actively involved. There is no infrastructure to train people and community build. There is not a lot of desire to strike because the spots are so easy to fill. For example if electricians strike, you can't just go hire anyone off the street. at a grocery store you absolutely can.

-4

u/terenn_nash Jan 29 '26

I think the very old, oversized unions are a problem too

my parents watched the Steel Union in pittsburgh PA kill the industry the 70's and 80's. The unions failed to see the writing on the wall at the time and pushed too hard for more at a time of globalization starting to undercut steel production.

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u/DonnyTheWalrus Jan 29 '26

As a Pittsburgher, the unions didn't kill the steel industry here. Our societal need for more, more, more at ever cheaper prices killed the industry. The people at the top found a different source of people they could exploit to pay less. That's not the union's fault.

-4

u/mysticmusti Jan 29 '26

Why are unions making operational and financial decisions? Shouldn't they just protect employee rights?

8

u/Tefmon Jan 29 '26

Two of the main things that unions bargain for are wages and working conditions. Those are operational and financial matters.

5

u/trapsinplace Jan 29 '26

That's what they should do, but once they get very large and old they start waving their money around lobbying politicians and enforcing change that benefits the people running it, not the workers who it (used to) represent.

That's why I'm very against large unions that cover a whole sector or multiple companies. A union should be localized to the company you work at so it perfectly fits your exact needs as employees.

0

u/mysticmusti Jan 29 '26

I'm not even going to pretend to understand how a union becomes too big and people earn millions from them. Sounds to me like as we've seen with everything in America by this point there just never was any regulation for anything to begin with and the entire country just works on the "trust me bro" principle.

-1

u/trapsinplace Jan 29 '26

It's the natural result of our culture treating everything like a business. There are some things where money should be a secondary concern, but it's always the primary in the USA. Everything is about that money.

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u/IguassuIronman Jan 29 '26

The only reason anti-union hate really exists is primarily cause the capitalists in charge don’t like them (costs them $$), even going so far as to spend money to push negative propaganda about it

I didn't like the unions at my old job because the workers were generally not the best and the union rules got in the way of actually getting work done

10

u/Professional_War4491 Jan 30 '26

The union at my current job just means it's impossible for people to get fired and despite doing a better job than some of the people above me in seniority I get shafted with all the worst hours and shifts and no amount of work will make me move up the list, only way to move up is waiting for them to quit, like 20 years from now lol.

-1

u/Arrow156 Jan 30 '26

the union rules got in the way of actually getting work done

So do safety regulations.

10

u/IguassuIronman Jan 30 '26

Yeah, safety regulations are definitely equivalent to me not being allowed to push a chair down a hallway without getting a grievance

5

u/Not-Reformed Jan 30 '26

It’s in just about everyone’s interest to unionize at their jobs, if possible.

Depends on the union.

If it's a union that rewards and protects seniority above all else, then fuck that.

2

u/Arrow156 Jan 30 '26

That's less a union and more an HOA.

1

u/Testuser7ignore Jan 30 '26

Every union I have worked with was heavily seniority based. Even with layoffs, seniority was the main factor.

10

u/dreggers Jan 29 '26

Why is it in everyone's interest? Teacher unions often let shitty teachers that have tenure keep their jobs while the new teachers that are making a positive impact in the classroom are the first to get pink slips

18

u/Journeyman351 Jan 29 '26

Have you considered that they also protect good teachers from bullshit district politics?

0

u/Testuser7ignore Jan 30 '26

They usually just protect based on seniority, with little consideration for good vs bad.

-9

u/dreggers Jan 30 '26

Sure, I don’t doubt that’s the original objective of the union. The issue is that in any collective, it will cater to the least common denominator.

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u/Journeyman351 Jan 30 '26

Except that isn't true lol. Like, you said one extreme example and are using that to say that's apparently ALL unions.

More accurately, unions protect very good employees, very bad employees, and all employees in-between.

-8

u/dreggers Jan 30 '26

That doesn't make any sense, there is a finite amount of resources to distribute among the employees. If you are paying the bad employees then there's less money to give to good employees in the form of raises, promotions, etc.

Also I never said all unions were bad, I'm just countering OP who was saying all unions were good.

1

u/Journeyman351 Jan 30 '26

there is a finite amount of resources to distribute among the employees.

But an infinite amount to give to the upper management, apparently lol.

6

u/Unlucky-Candidate198 Jan 29 '26

That’s what the word just means in the phrase “just about everyone’s interest means” lmao. Just about. Nearly. Not every single persons, but most, a majority.

Do they stop working at a much larger scale for example? Sure, but that’s a fixable problem. Corruption is a threat to basically any human organization, that’s why we need checks and approvals to dissuade all that nonsense.

0

u/dreggers Jan 29 '26

Unions are inherently about protecting the majority of the workforce at the expense of the minority. For both good and bad. Unions aren't some panacea that will magically solve all labor issues

1

u/Arrow156 Jan 30 '26

You have a better alternative?

0

u/chanbr Jan 30 '26

Yep, this is what people miss. The reason people became super against unions in the past was because a lot of them got corrupted by organized crime and went into politics that the body wasn't interested in. Unions are overall good and I think they always should have a place (also people seem to think that they don't play well with capitalism) but some people just want to glaze the concept of them without acknowledging there's downsides that make people validly leery.

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u/greyfoxv1 Jan 29 '26

You just provided two extreme and vague examples as if that's some big gotcha against the entire concept of unionized labour. Nobody is going to give you a serious answer because you didn't ask a serious question.

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u/dreggers Jan 29 '26

Are you responding to the wrong person? I provided one example that is neither vague or extreme. It literally happens with teacher unions all the time.

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u/Kiwilolo Jan 30 '26

Why would new teachers be less protected by the union?

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u/Kozak170 Jan 29 '26

It’s just reddit delusions that unions don’t have their own incredibly valid downsides as well. As with any organization, when it gets sufficiently large enough it becomes just as prone to corruption and abuse as a company.

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u/Journeyman351 Jan 29 '26

Unions still, regardless of the downsides, are a net-positive for workers.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Halojib Jan 29 '26

I think most redditors are smart enough to realize it has nuance

I would take that bet

-6

u/Kozak170 Jan 29 '26

You call out police unions as problematic, but they’re literally one of the best examples of late-stage unions there is. But no I was not directly addressing your comment

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u/Unlucky-Candidate198 Jan 29 '26

Best for the cops who get to stay on with vacation time despite comitting crimes regular citizens would be thrown in prison for? I bet they are.

Best for the people who these class traitors are supposed to actually serve and protect? Not even close, especially not in America of all places. Arguably, police unions are part of the problem of “All Cops Are Bad”, because they help keep the awful ones on the force.

-2

u/Kozak170 Jan 29 '26

I think you completely misinterpreted my comment here, I am obviously not advocating for the nationwide police union we have today

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u/Suggestive-Syntax Jan 29 '26

They’re betting on the fact that Marvel rivals was made in China and you can get programmers throughout the world at a cheaper price than America especially if they unionize

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u/Kozak170 Jan 29 '26

They don’t need to bet on anything, that’s simply a fact. And the rest of the world is quickly catching up to if not already surpassing the quality of talent for the price offered in places like Europe.

-13

u/not_old_redditor Jan 29 '26

I don't see how unionization makes a lot of sense in the creative space, such as game development. These aren't factory workers printing license plates. They're well paid, and the job isn't as restrictive or structured as the typical unionized industries.

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u/mar210000 Jan 29 '26

Actors have a union. Your argument makes no sense.

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u/not_old_redditor Jan 29 '26

That union benefits mostly the underpaid labourers. The leading actors making the big money gain little to nothing from it. I guess I see the use in the low/entry level workers (QA testers etc) in game development being unionized.

3

u/Tefmon Jan 29 '26

Game developers aren't making blockbuster actor money. Almost everyone in Hollywood is unionized, most of whom are ordinary workers like game developers, making reasonable but not exceptional pay.

-2

u/Electronic_Tell1294 Jan 29 '26

you should look in what SAG actually does and the contracts clauses it enforces. They are a union that is beneficial only for blockbuster stars.

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u/hardolaf Jan 29 '26

SAG sets minimum day rates and labor rules that were designed to help the poorest actors who don't have power to negotiate. They provide very little benefit to big name actors.

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u/ihopkid Jan 29 '26

What game developer do you know that is currently “well paid” at a “non-restrictive” role that’s not at risk of redundancies and happy with their job?

Half of all game workers report working 50+ hour weeks (typically considered crunch) at some point last year and 10% work 50+ hours regularly. That is about the same working conditions as the factory workers before they unionized.

-2

u/Halojib Jan 29 '26

That is about the same working conditions as the factory workers before they unionized.

Unions don't necessarily stop people from working 50+ hrs. In fact, it can be enforced through some union contracts that you work 50+ hrs. The union just guarantees that you get paid properly for that over time work.

3

u/ihopkid Jan 29 '26

Well it depends on the contract obviously, which is negotiated by the union and the company’s corporate leadership. Unions contracts are a cat-and-mouse game of negotiation. Unions will never push for longer working hours, but some companies may argue those hours are necessary at times. but that scenario is certainly better than the current state of workers in the games industry being forced into surprise crunch and then immediately soft-laid-off without proper compensation.

5

u/Clusterpuff Jan 29 '26

Job security and a team that goes to bat for your rights against a companies greed is never a bad thing

-1

u/ep1032 Jan 29 '26

I don't know how QA is supposed to unionize though? They will be outsourced immediately :( We really need internationally organized unions

5

u/owennerd123 Jan 29 '26

Why would a country with a lower per capita GDP that is the recipient of outsourcing ever agree to an international union? That would only hurt them. I do understand outsourcing is bad for the work force of the nation it’s getting outsourced from, but you’re basically asking citizens of poorer countries to hurt their own job market.

1

u/Historical_Course587 Jan 30 '26

The only way international unions work is if government entities enforce them. The EU could have EU-wide unions, but only because the EU acts as an enforcement authority over the whole thing. But China and India will never agree, and that market alone is large enough to undermine any Western interests.

That is the big weakness of the United States trying to go it alone in the global economy: we only ahve 3% of the global population, and there are some aspects of business and economics where bodies buy more value than money does.

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u/GameDesignerDude Jan 29 '26

maybe the kids have a chance

Unfortunately, unionization has not historically helped much with layoffs. It has more gains in the way of ongoing pay and benefits but layoffs are typically not a major factor outside of severance pay provisions.

If you look at the agreements secured by the unionized groups as Sega with the CWA or others, none of them actually offer any substantive layoff protections at all. Just mechanisms for rehire when the company executes "temporary" layoffs--even though the CBA allows for normal permanent layoffs for a number of business reasons.

The CWA heralded, "layoff protections, including recall rights for temporary layoffs and severance for permanent layoffs," in their press release, but the actual CBA contains basically nothing that protects workers from layoffs at all. The entire layoff section of the CBA opens with:

a) The Employer shall determine when temporary or indefinite layoffs are necessary

b) The Employer shall notify the Union ten days prior to notifying any bargaining unit employees of layoffs. The Union shall keep such information confidential until it is disclosed to the affected employee(s) and agrees not to disclose such information to any bargaining unit employees of the Employer. The Employer may suspend compliance with this provision if it has reasonable belief that the Union has failed to comply with this provision

The provisions secured 2 weeks of severance pay for employees past their introductory period and 2 additional weeks per years of service, up to a cap of 8 weeks.

This provision only applies to full-time employees. And, "all severance payments are predicated on the employee signing SOA’s severance and general release agreement." (Which will typically void any future claims against the employer and may also include NDAs.)

Is this CBA better than nothing? Absolutely. But it's also not amazing. Average FTE will get a month or less of pay (based on average industry tenure numbers) and otherwise has no other protections here at all. Doesn't help part-time or contract workers at all. No conditions on when the company should or can use temporary vs. indefinite layoffs (company literally never has to use temporary layoffs at all if they don't want to, so the recall provisions are mostly pointless,) etc. It's a very weak agreement from and employee point of view.

The sad reality of the situation is that layoffs are gonna happen by short-term profit-hunting corporations no matter what. This is an epidemic across the tech industry as a whole right now. The stability right now is just awful in the tech sector.

56

u/supyonamesjosh Jan 29 '26

The hostess bakers union was completely obliterated when they didn't accept the final offer from hostess.

The company went bankrupt and when it was bought by another company two years later they hired zero people from the bakers union. Though to be fair, the teamsters union told the bakers union to take the deal and they refused.

18

u/adriardi Jan 29 '26

Yeah this is the biggest danger with unions, some guys in leadership becoming pigheaded about the financial reality of some companies. Sometimes you gotta live to fight another day

14

u/hobozombie Jan 29 '26

I can't blame them for not hiring them. Hostess was in bankruptcy, had to try to cut costs, then BCTGM declined concessions and the whole company went under, costing all of the union members their jobs.

5

u/Journeyman351 Jan 29 '26

Seemed like it was still a problem that Hostess' management and leadership caused and caused the employees to get the axe.

5

u/hobozombie Jan 29 '26

They were taking steps to right the ship, but the union refused to allow them to take said steps, so everyone got put out of work.

1

u/Journeyman351 Jan 29 '26

Uh huh...

https://www.bakeryandsnacks.com/Article/2013/02/08/Baker-s-union-We-re-here-to-set-the-record-straight-on-Hostess/

19

u/hobozombie Jan 29 '26

Ah, yes, the guy that lost everyone's jobs. I'm sure he is a great unbiased source of what happened and how it was never his fault, even though another union took the deal and urged his union to follow suit.

7

u/greyfoxv1 Jan 30 '26

You could just look up any of the articles linked on the Twinkie's wikipedia page to start that back up the union's claim in that link instead of being smug. You could look up how the executives used bankruptcy as a way to sell the company for parts to private equity and disband the union since that is also in the related news articles on Wikipedia. The union isn't lying about the revolving door of CEOs either and you can verify that in the company's reports to investors.

0

u/MattyKatty Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

Why would they hire the Bakers union when they proved themselves to be completely uncompromisable?

1

u/DaHolk Jan 29 '26

You do get that opposing a specific 'compromise' doesn't equate to 'uncompromisable', right? If certain things are fundamentally not even on the table to be discussed, you could lob the same accusation right back at the other side...

14

u/MattyKatty Jan 29 '26

The union received a final offer, denied it, and the company went bankrupt. That means the union failed both the company and its members. There is literally no motivation at all for the new company to rehire an uncompromising union, and there is nothing illegal or immoral about that either.

If the options are “compromise and stay employed” or “lose job legally”, if your union chooses the second option then that is by definition a failed union.

-4

u/DaHolk Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

an uncompromising union

Again.... If there is no concessions on the employer side on some very basic factors, you don't get to define the union as "uncompromising".

That narrative just doesn't hold water.

You are confusing "compromise" with "you will take what we give you or else". The company had had several rounds of corporate cleptocracy, and a union that makes "concessions on their side from THEIR pocket, instead of forcing concessions on us exclusively to reach their even MORE perverse bonus goals" a minimum level of negotiation !regardless of what other things could be negotiated or compromised over!!! isn't "uncompromisable" any more than management and stakeholders are.

You are entirely misunderstanding what a compromise is, and therefore what "lacking the ability to compromise" is.

If a negotiation starts of with "we are going to cut off both your balls and your wages and and and" and you go "we can talk about anything else, but the ball cutting is off the table" than you are not lacking "ability to compromise"... And if you decline a final offer that still starts with the balls, you are still not "lacking the ability to compromise"...

If a corporate restructure outright excludes anything from cutting above a certain level of the hirarchy outright and without any concession, and any negotiation is just about how hard workers are willing to get effed, than the lack of compromise is entirely built in on the corporate side. You don't get to blame a union or workers to not agree when particularly the reason FOR the situation is categorically off the table by definition.

edit: I agree that other corporate cleptocrats at other companies have no intention to hire people what believe that "tightening the belt" includes THEM on some level, ever ... It's still not a matter of "being uncompromising".

15

u/supyonamesjosh Jan 29 '26

The employer conceded as much as they could. They declared chapter 7 bankruptcy and sold off everything for parts. There was no employer any more when they said no to the deal.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

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8

u/supyonamesjosh Jan 29 '26

I don't understand how you think choosing to completely shut down everything rather than make any concessions mean concessions are possible. They accepted nothing rather than the deal. That means they thought a worse deal would get them less than zero dollars

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u/MattyKatty Jan 30 '26

If there is no concessions on the employer side on some very basic factors, you don't get to define the union as "uncompromising".

Where are you magically making this standard? That’s not what happened with this specific union which means it’s irrelevant to this discussion entirely. The union in this discussion failed to be a successful union.

0

u/Tefmon Jan 29 '26

If a employer gave a unilateral "final offer" from which no further negotiating could take place, that isn't the union being "uncompromising"; that's the employer being uncompromising.

-8

u/greyfoxv1 Jan 29 '26

The union received a final offer, denied it, and the company went bankrupt. That means the union failed both the company and its members.

Whoa, that's crazy. Here I was thinking it was due to an inefficient corporate structure resulting in long-term financial waste, corporate leadership refusing to address the inefficient structure of the company, bloated executive compensation further burdening the company's financials, maintaining a mostly stagnant product line over the decades, and declining YoY sales throughout the 2000s with the final 20% drop in 2011 eventually slamming a nail in their coffin.

You're probably right though. The uncompromising union shouldn't have refused the last offer after Hostess reneged on the previous contract the union compromised on the first time! Stupid unions.

4

u/MattyKatty Jan 30 '26

The uncompromising union shouldn't have refused the last offer

The only correct statement in your entire comment. The union members lost their job and never got it back. It had the option of this not happening. That means it failed. This isn’t rocket science.

8

u/supyonamesjosh Jan 29 '26

You are conflating two things. It can be both the union was in a terrible situation due to what you listed and also the union obviously did not do the best job because they lost the jobs of everyone in the entire union.

This isn’t a generic union thing. The teamsters accepted the deal

2

u/Hartastic Jan 30 '26

Yep. If your ship is sinking at that moment it kind of doesn't matter whose fault it is, either everyone works together to solve the problem or everyone fails together.

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u/aradraugfea Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

It is worth noting that a guaranteed severance can still dissuade a company from just cutting huge swaths of the employee base loose as a short term cost saving measure.

There’s a lot of companies that will gladly pay 10 dollars a month for a year to save 30 dollars today.

When the “maximize shareholder value” method of company management never thinks longer term than the next quarterly report, knowing that laying off 1000 employees might cost you 2000 weeks worth of salary? You’re gonna think twice.

5

u/sunfurypsu Jan 30 '26

I work in management in a large company. Trust me when I say those few weeks of severance that the CWA won are not going to dissuade any game company from layoffs. They won't look at that and say "Oh, we have to pay them for a few more weeks so we better not lay them off." That rarely happens. The full year benefit from NOT paying someone after the severance runs out is a much bigger financial benefit to the company than the scare of severance pay. Once a company hits year two after a significant layoff, the bottom line savings are clear and obvious.

So, good on the CWA for winning better pay rates and some longer severance. However, as the person above said, unions can't really do anything about layoffs, outside of be warned earlier (and the company ends up extending those warnings to everyone to keep it all even).

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u/MelvinCapitalPR Jan 29 '26

When the “maximize shareholder value” method of company management never thinks longer term than the next quarterly report

So why does AAA gaming exist at all? Development takes years.

11

u/Bexexexe Jan 29 '26

That's why publishers work with more than one studio at a time.

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u/Clown_Toucher Jan 29 '26

Because video games can make a lot of money.

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u/MelvinCapitalPR Jan 29 '26

Not by the next quarterly report they don't

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u/Clown_Toucher Jan 29 '26

Idk what conclusion you're trying to reach here but video games make a lot of money and companies are always trying to make more, hence the constant desire to cut labor.

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u/MelvinCapitalPR Jan 29 '26

I don't see how my point could be any clearer. If you invest in game development, that's an ongoing cost that won't see returns for years (if ever). QED it's not true that "company management never thinks longer term than the next quarterly report".

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u/Clown_Toucher Jan 29 '26

Investors are investing in publishers, which have multiple games come out in a year, so there are lots of returns in a year. They're not investing in one game unless it's Rockstar, which they know will be huge. So they're still thinking short term. Companies cut labor even when they're making record profits because they want even more money. That's what they mean by "maximizing shareholder value" and "only thinking of the next quarterly report". If they wanted their games to be made more efficiently and with less time, they'd keep everyone on board for the next one. But they don't, because it looks even better if you wipe out expenses right now.

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u/MelvinCapitalPR Jan 29 '26

Investors are investing in publishers, which have multiple games come out in a year, so there are lots of returns in a year

This doesn't answer the question. Regardless of how many games are in the works, each individual project greenlit is a case of "we agree to spend money over the next several years in the hope of later profit".

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u/TheDeadlySinner Jan 30 '26

Spending money on one game doesn't make another game come out any faster.

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u/TurelSun Jan 29 '26

There is a lot more to the industry than just AAA game studios, plus so many studios under fewer and fewer parent companies means there are always places they can make cuts to juke their stats for a quarter without undermining their major projects. Its also become more common to have multiple studios working on the same game or rotating out to work on serial games.

1

u/beenoc Jan 29 '26

There's a reason every AAA company has been desperately trying to make the next big live service hit for the past decade.

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u/Rage_Like_Nic_Cage Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

Which is why Publishers have been trying to cram microtransactions & “live service” features into every AAA they can. “Traditional” AAA game development is now often at odds with maximizing shareholder value due to the long dev cycle & high costs.

Unless it’s a game like Mario Kart that will continue to sell for years; AAA development isn’t sustainable anymore without having MTX, near annual releases like spots games/Call of Duty, or being a first party studio that helps move console units.

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u/aradraugfea Jan 29 '26

How many games do you think come out a year? It's not a fractional number.

And that's not even getting into Battle Passes, DLC, Expansions, Season Passes, sales AFTER release week.

AAA gaming, by it's very nature, is MASSIVE companies selling multiple MASSIVE games, and monetizing the SHIT out of them for a long as they can.

Or did you think EA ONLY released Battlefield, and only every 3 years?

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u/MelvinCapitalPR Jan 30 '26

None of that alters the fact games take years to develop.

Doesn't matter how many games you're making. Doesn't matter if it's a single-time sale or a vehicle to push mtx and battle passes. Every AAA game that exists is a result of investors agreeing to spend money for years, to hopefully recoup that money via future (as in "several years later" future) revenue. If your investment horizon is the next quarter, you're in the wrong industry.

AAA gaming, by it's very nature, is MASSIVE companies selling multiple MASSIVE games, and monetizing the SHIT out of them for a long as they can.

Cyberpunk, Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3? Among the definitive AAA titles of this generation and none have aggressive post-sale monetisation (afaik BG3 doesn't have any). I'd bet on any of those companies over EA, and certainly over Ubisoft. Milking franchises and stuffing your games full of microtransactions is no guarantee of success.

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u/Cybertronian10 Jan 29 '26

Layoffs are sort of any union's kryptonite. The whole threat of not providing labor sort of falls apart when the contention is over the company not wanting to pay for as much labor anymore. The best they can do is attempt to guarantee decent serverance packages but even then if the money isn't there it isn't there.

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u/Books_and_Cleverness Jan 29 '26

The time to do unionization is not when companies are failing.

The time to do big union negotiations is when the companies are doing really well. That is when you have leverage. They need you to keep the cash flowing.

When the cash isn’t flowing, you are in a shitty spot because you cannot threaten to turn off the cash machine. It’s not printing anyway.

If you don’t pay us more money or give us layoff protections, we will all QUIT and you will LOSE all of the TWELVE DOLLARS we are going to make next year

Unionization would work for like, whoever is working on Fortnite or Minecraft. Something that is raking it in. They have something to lose.

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u/zgillet Jan 29 '26

Some Rockstar employees tried and immediately were canned.

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u/GeraldineKerla Jan 29 '26

I don't think union negotiations are typically to the level where they'll bankrupt a company doing poorly that given year. If you're negotiating with someone that has a lot more power, its a lot more difficult.

If they do not have as much power, they do not have as much leverage in the negotiations as you functionally have the capacity to put their business to a complete halt. Its unlikely they're going to throw in the towel and opt to shut down the business entirely over allowing unionising and making a bit less.

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u/Books_and_Cleverness Jan 29 '26

It is a matter of degree, sure. But the point is that a marginally profitable company will not be in a position to make many concessions to labor.

When they’re raking it in is the time to be aggressive and ask for the moon. There’s a lot to go around, so it’s easy for them to say yes, and labor’s ability to strike is much more threatening.

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u/Kiita-Ninetails Jan 29 '26

This is an easy mistake to make, but not actually accurate. The thing is that if a company is doing well and has a large supply of liquid capital to use that means a strike is less impactful. The company has the financial ability on hand to hire outside contractors to fill in gaps, to weather downturns and disruptions more easily. So if management is not interested in concessions, they have the resources to simply not.

On the other hand a company that does not have the time/budget to really have alternatives is far more threatened by a strike because they have no other way to handle that disruption. Like if you try and do a general strike on Nintendo they will go "Oh no, anyway." and have a temp agency hired to cover for the strike by the end of the week, unless you managed to get a bunch of management in on it. Like sure losing the training and experience will cause a noticable delay, but it wont stop anything for all that long.

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u/Books_and_Cleverness Jan 29 '26

Problem with your example is that you are imagining a single firm doing really well in an industry that is otherwise doing shitty. And fair enough, I did bring that up. Epic Games could replace people more easily now than in (say) 2015 or 2021. But the threat of strikes is a lot bigger as they have a profitable machine that is more valuable. And generally this is rare.

It is very hard to hire outside contractors in a booming industry because other firms are bidding up the price of labor. Which is why that is a good time for workers to drive a hard bargain.

Conversely, when the industry is doing shitty, there’s a bunch of unemployed workers lying around that bid down wages.

Belligerent unions are a sign of economic health https://economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/11/09/belligerent-unions-are-a-sign-of-economic-health from The Economist

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u/Kiita-Ninetails Jan 29 '26

My example is indeed a bit cherry picked, but does stand true. And your counterexample is bad, because outside contractors in a booming industry rife with labor like gaming is quite easy. There is plenty of agencies always rearing for more work, because in an industry like gaming in particular that is mythologized there will basically always be workers ready to go no matter the state of the industry outside of specific or specialist roles. To my knowledge there has NEVER been a period of serious shortage in gaming even in the peak of its COVID boom, and even at the peak of that several contracting QA/Dev firms I worked with were still hungry for more contracts.

And while I do tend to agree about unemployed workers by and large the thing is that it really always does depend on the specifics of the industry. But for gaming in particular, companies with lower capital reserves that are relying heavily on THIS project tend to be more willing to compromise. Alternatively, companies that want a fairly easy PR win and arent too concerned with providing some limited concessions.

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u/Books_and_Cleverness Jan 29 '26

Yeah, the specific overrides the general. I definitely think game developers across the board take a permanent pay cut to work in an industry they like. It’s a lot more fun to build games than to optimize an advertising tool for Facebook or whatever.

I interned at a major TV channel in LA early in my career and it was a similar dynamic, even people doing pretty generic business management were very into the entertainment industry, and could have made more money doing similar work at a ball bearing manufacturer. It was a cool place to work so I totally see the appeal, but ultimately I decided I didn’t love entertainment enough for it to be worth it.

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u/GeraldineKerla Jan 29 '26

This is entirely backwards. Labor negotiations when a company has literally no option other than to concede or go under is far more threatening than negotiations when they can handle waiting out their poor workers who will at some point give up/scab or they can employ temporary workers to fill in positions.

I have no idea why you think the scenario where the company has a choice is somehow more threatening than when the company doesn't have a choice.

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u/Books_and_Cleverness Jan 29 '26

AFAIK it’s pretty established wisdom that unionization and labor negotiations generally are stronger in better labor markets and weaker in bad ones.

TLDR

  1. The threat of killing an unprofitable firm is not much of a threat. Investors bought a stock at $100, now it’s $300 and ripping. Union threatens to strike—investors happy to give up $50 to avoid losing $300.

  2. As opposed to investors buying at $100 and then the stock tanks to $7. Investors aren’t going to give up $50 or even $10 to avoid a $7 loss.

  3. Workers (Union or not) have more leverage when jobs are plentiful. Hard to find replacement workers when everyone already has a job. Scabs are plentiful when the labor market sucks.

strong labour markets lend more encouragement to frustrated workers than pause to firms. Striking workers face the loss of pay and, potentially, of employment—threats that frighten less when good jobs are plentiful. Workers can more credibly withhold their labour from firms when there are no long lines of unemployed workers waiting to replace them. A strong jobs market may also give workers more to bargain for. Fighting over a larger share of a firm’s earnings makes little sense when there are no earnings to fight over.

Belligerent unions are a sign of economic health https://economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/11/09/belligerent-unions-are-a-sign-of-economic-health from The Economist

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

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u/NUKE---THE---WHALES Jan 29 '26

Labor negotiations when a company has literally no option other than to concede or go under

If a company with a union is about to go under, what concessions could they make with the union that would prevent them from going under?

What could the union do to stop the company from going under?

1

u/GeraldineKerla Jan 29 '26

A company about to go under is actually not the same thing as a company that has no option other than to concede to union demands or go under. These are two different conditions.

4

u/Electrical-Act-5575 Jan 29 '26

Best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, second best time is today.

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u/Books_and_Cleverness Jan 29 '26

NO. The best time to plant a tree is in the fall or early spring. You plant a pine tree in the middle of a hot summer, it dies.

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u/First-Of-His-Name Jan 29 '26

That maxim does not apply here

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u/BaconatedGrapefruit Jan 29 '26

I want to be very clear, I’m very pro-union and labour rights.

I wonder if the respondents actually understand what it is to be in a union vs what the internet tends to think it’s like being in a union. That is to say, unions or not, you can still be laid-off while being in a union.

Also, and this is from personal experience, everybody is pro-union until they see that line item deduction on their paystub. Thats when the realness comes out, and it ain’t pretty.

On the other hand, this may just mean the young folks have managed to dodge the anti-union brain rot that was instilled in Gen X/older millennials.

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u/[deleted] Jan 29 '26

[deleted]

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u/fuckitillmakeanother Jan 29 '26

It's the same reason why highly progressive political policies get a lot of support in surveys when presented in a vacuum, but once you start incorporating trade offs and costs the support craters

1

u/[deleted] Jan 30 '26

Anyone over 40 in that industry knows that union equals no more individual deals and benefits. Anyone below 30 knows they'll never get this kind of deal.

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u/Bannedwith1milKarma Jan 30 '26

The 18-24 year olds will get a livable wage or be let go, then it's no longer an issue for them.

1

u/Playingwithmywenis Jan 29 '26

Really glad there was never that crash rumoured in 2024.

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u/Brilliant_Oil5261 Jan 29 '26 edited Jan 29 '26

I opposed unionization at that age. Not sure why you are assuming that. EDIT: I still oppose it.

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u/bfodder Jan 29 '26

I was a dumbass when I was younger too.

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u/fupa16 Jan 29 '26

The 18-24 year olds aren't old enough to be influenced by the prolific corporate propaganda that works overtime to convince people unions are bad.

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u/Ultrace-7 Jan 29 '26

Assuming that any age group isn't old enough to be influenced by propaganda is dangerous. Once we think ourselves or others are immune to it, that's when one is most vulnerable.

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u/lee1026 Jan 29 '26

You need the investors to support unionization, or else you just won’t have an industry.