7 years ago, the STJV was created to address video game workers’ problems.
Over the past 5 years, our activities in representing workers in companies and our work with freelance workers have intensified and, over the past 2 years, we have seen them multiply even further.
Today, despite our successes and ongoing efforts, working conditions in the industry have deteriorated to such an extent that all the alarm bells are ringing.
Our assessment of the situation has identified several major bottlenecks, associated with problems that will have to be corrected if the industry is to get back on the right track:
- Careers and discrimination
- Disorganisation and lack of strategy within companies
- Total disregard for workers’ health and safety.
Chaotic jobs and careers: an obstacle course
Severance agreements as a career goal
Problems start at school, with courses that are extremely expensive, inadequate and dangerous for students’ health. In these institutions where nepotism reigns supreme, we are taught the harmful culture of crunch, all of this with no proper training for entering a hyper-competitive working world where we will have to get by despite wages that are not always sustainable, and the lack of supervision and on-the-job training.
Why is there a majority of young workers in the video games industry? Because older workers have long since left the industry. Why? Low pay, unstable contracts, hidden work, lack of career progression, negative impact to family life… In other words, not only is it a real struggle at first, but working conditions don’t even improve with time and experience.
And that’s if you’re lucky enough not to suffer harassment and discrimination. From difficult recruitment processes to being forced to resign, as well as the routine hell endured in a culture of sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia and so on, the video games industry can become a self-esteem black hole.
Disarray is the norm, nothingness is the strategy
“I played a game last weekend”
From the earliest stages of development, games face many obstacles. They are made despite the incompetence of upper management. A lack of knowledge about the world of video games, a focus on profits and ever-increasing productivity demands, the invention of so-called ‘solutions’ without consulting experts, a permeability to the industry’s latest fads: these are just some of the characteristics that describe decision-makers in the video game industry.
As a result, ordinary workers have to deal with the fantasies of their hierarchy. Their expertise is not acknowledged, and they are not trusted, so they have no choice but to adapt to decisions that are at best clumsy, often completely stupid. They also have to deal with a host of top managers who waste precious time on inefficient processes, meetings and cumbersome, time-consuming micro-management. Unable to come up with realistic schedules and briefings, let alone effective supervision, they foster confusion at the expense of organisation.
As for creative directors, it’s the rule of silence. Despotic and untouchable, these people use their seniority and connections to do as they please, without any possible challenge from workers. This is how we end up wasting time, money and skills by restarting productions several times over, at a simple request from upper management, who are content to follow the latest trends blindly
Despite decades of history of this “young” industry, production targets are still totally distorted by a short-term vision based on inevitable crunch and the desire to impress executives or publishers. In addition, cost estimates are unrealistic and do not take into account the realities of producing a game. And when the results or financial estimates are not to their liking, production is further compromised by accounting schemes designed to mislead shareholders or executives, just to ensure bonuses and dividends.
This lack of communication and information also undermines the quality of games. Throughout all phases of development, the excessive division of labour isolates teams from each other. Not to mention the industry’s legendary paranoia, which obscures the strategies and overall vision of a project or a company. Everything is stretched thin, done in a vacuum, with no room for hindsight, benchmarking, self-criticism or experimentation. As a result, there is no room for innovation and creativity, which leads to mediocre games.
In smaller companies however, the ask for polyvalence can turn into a real balancing act. While it is understandable that smaller teams mean that boundaries are less defined, it often ends up means outright not having required skills available from team members (specifically when it comes to quality assurance or communications, but also by asking for separate specialties like going back and forth from 2D to 3D graphics) in the hope that someone within the team steps up and shoulders the burden.
Abandonment as a prevention policy
Burnouts, muscle pain, fruit baskets
Unfortunately, the problems described above affect not only the games themselves, but also those who make them. They are subjected to working conditions harmful to their health, but these problems are systematically downplayed and overlooked.
To begin with, companies refuse to acknowledge any problem as systemic. Everything is treated as individual responsibility in the neoliberal fantasy, making it impossible to genuinely tackle issues and implement appropriate policies.
Within companies, staff representatives are often blocked through a lack of documets, information, consultation…Another strategy is when some companies try to outright block the setup or basic functions of employee representatives (by avoiding speaking about it, or by organising elections too early where only the first employees are eligible). As for independent workers, they are subjected to the do-or-die doctrine, since the question of health in the workplace simply does not exist (no tracking, supervision, or laws).
In any event, we can never count on work-related accidents and illnesses being taken into account, let alone disabilities, which are denied and swept under the carpet. Only solidarity between workers can sometimes prevent the worst from happening.
Workstation and career adaptations, meanwhile, are subject to the whim of employers, who see them as unnecessary comfort. Ergonomic tools, part-time work and remote working, for example, are refused purely because of ideology and autoritarianism.
In short, workers have to fight constantly to achieve the legal minimum, and well-being at work is treated as an incidental luxury of which they should be lucky to get even the smallest crumb.
Faced with these problems, and faced with the current state of our industry, which employers seem to want to reduce to rubble, the STJV does not intend to remain inactive…
… see you in 2025.
