During the movement against a planned pension reform in 2019/2020, the STJV joined the strike and ended up, after several weeks, using the inter-union strike fund held by the CGT Info’com (which we thank again warmly) to provide compensation to its members who needed it. For the 2023 movement, we plan to get organised earlier and create our own internal strike fund.

What is it for?

Strike hours and days are not paid. This restricts the number of people who can join strike movements and, for those who can afford it, it can quickly represent a significant financial cost.

To limit these problems and allow workers to mobilise widely, we appeal to solidarity and collective action by creating strike funds, which are distributed among strikers who need it the most.

How can I donate?

The STJV’s strike fund is constituted in part by money from an internal strike budget, fed by a small part of the members’ dues, but it remains mainly dependent on donations.

To contribute to the STJV’s strike fund, all you have to do is make a transfer to the STJV’s account dedicated to strike funds, the details of which are as follows:
IBAN : FR76 1027 8060 3100 0207 2930 259
BIC : CMCIFR2A

To simplify tracking and identification of donations to the strike fund, please remember to mention “caisse de grève” in the description of your transfer.

You can also give through the Caisse de solidarité here: https://caisse-solidarite.fr/c/stjv/

We will regularly make public updates on the amount of the strike fund, and its distribution.

How does it work?

At regular intervals throughout the strike movement, the STJV will survey strikers internally and in companies where it has union sections, in order to assess compensation needs, and collect the information necessary to make these compensations.

After each survey, the declared strikers are invited to decide collectively and democratically on the distribution of the available funds, taking into account the information at their disposal, everyone’s own needs and the future of the movement.

What do we do with the remaining funds, if there are any at the end?

The same way, if there is a surplus in the strike fund, members of the STJV decide collectively what to do with it: transfer all or part of it to other strike funds, to the STJV internal strike budget for future movements, to charities, etc.

In an effort to ensure transparency, these decisions will be made public.

---

Redistribution for the 19 to 26 January period

On 8 February, the STJV strikes fund had 6626 €. For the 19 to 26 January strike, an assembly of striking workers redistributed 1280 € to people who requested compensation. The 5346 € left will be kept in the fund for the future developments of the movement.

Striking workers will meet again in early March to allocate the strike fund for the 31 January to 28 February period.

Redistribution for the 31 January to 16 February period

On 28 February, the STJV strikes fund had 5946 €. For the 31 January to 16 February strike, an assembly of striking workers redistributed 5800 € to people who requested compensation. The 146 € left will be kept in the fund for the future developments of the movement.

Striking workers will meet again in late March to allocate the strike fund for the 1st to 31st March period.

Redistribution for the 7 to 31 March period

On 7 Apris, the STJV strikes fund had 13 501 €. For the 7 to 31 March strike, an assembly of striking workers redistributed 14 250 € to people who requested compensation. The missing 749 € will be donated by the union.

Striking workers will meet again in early May to allocate the strike fund for the 1st to 30 April period.

On 10 January 2023, the government revealed its plan to raise the legal retirement age to 64, with an accelerated increase in the minimum working period.

This reform would hit all workers hard, especially those who started working early, the most precarious, whose life expectancy is lower than the rest of the population, and those whose jobs are not recognised as strenuous. It would worsen the precariousness of those who are no longer employed before their retirement, and would reinforce gender inequalities.

The current pension system is not at risk financially. Nothing justifies such a brutal reform.

Its actual motive is the government’s stubborn refusal to tax companies, and on the contrary to maintain its policy of reducing these taxes and handing out public money with nothing in return: subsidies to companies represent the largest item of state expenditure, one third of the French budget.

Rather than working more, we demand to work less: each week, by introducing the 4-day / 28-hour working week, and throughout our lives by restoring retirement at 60.

The Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo is joining the labour movement by calling for a strike from 19 to 26 January 2023. We call workers, unemployed people, pensioners and students in video games to mobilise in their companies, at general assemblies and in the demonstrations that will take place across France. The STJV will be officially present in several of these demonstrations.

This call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore applies to any person employed by a publishing, distribution, services and/or creation company for video games, whatever their position or status and whatever their company’s area of activity (games, consoles, mobile, serious games, VR/AR, game engines, marketing services, streaming, spin-off products, esport, online content creation, etc.), as well as to all teachers working in private schools on video game-related courses.

For all these people, and since this is a national call to strike, no action is necessary to go on strike: you just have to not come to work on the day you want to strike.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

We were on strike on September 29:

• Against the governmental policy of welfare cuts and general impoverishment of the population, and in particular making the Active Solidarity Income (RSA) dependent on the completion of working hours, the counter-reform project of pensions, and the serious endangerment of social benefits like unemployment insurance.
• To force companies to put in place long-term measures against the impoverishment of workers, such as automatic wage increases above inflation and the transition of precarious workers to permanent contracts.
• For a redistribution of the wealth accumulated by the upper classes, especially since the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis, going against the policies of tax cuts and credits granted to companies, and especially in the video game industry, an industry that has seen a jump in sales.
• For the implementation of our proposals to make work fairer and more democratic, both in our industry and in all others, such as the reduction of working time to 4 days, a basic measure to fight against unemployment and work-related illnesses.

FOR THE TRANSITION TO A 4-DAY/28-HOUR WORKING WEEK

FOR AN AUTOMATIC WAGE INCREASE ABOVE INFLATION

These demands are still valid and worth fighting for. But, now that a movement is building up in various industries across France to effectively demand a sharing of the wealth, the state is responding harshly by going so far as to challenge the (constitutional!) right to strike by illegally requisitioning workers.

The Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV) is joining the unions’ mobilisation by calling for a strike on October 18, 2022, and calls on workers, unemployed people, pensioners and students of the video game industry to mobilise in their companies, in general assemblies and in the demonstrations that will take place throughout France. The STJV will be officially present in several demonstrations in France.

This call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore applies to any person employed by a company that publishes, distributes, provides services and/or creates video games or video game equipment, whatever their position or status and whatever the type of production of their company (console, PC, mobile, serious games, VR/AR experiences, game engines, marketing services, game consoles, streaming, etc. ), as well as all the teachers working in private schools in courses related to video game production. For all these people, and since this is a national call to strike, no action is necessary to go on strike: you just have to not come to work on the day you want to strike.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

After last spring’s elections, new reforms further undermining social rights were announced. Meanwhile, inflation continues to soar, forests continue to burn, temperatures continue to rise. At a time when we fear upcoming food shortages, the government’s only aim is to continue to increase inequalities.

Among other things, it proposes :

• the generalisation of forced labour by making the Revenu de Solidarité Active (RSA) subject to the completion of work hours.
• the impoverishment of retirees with the revival of the pensions reform. If it does not raise the retirement age to 65 anymore, this is only a PR move, as other measures will drag pensions down no matter what.
• threatening social benefits such as unemployment insurance.

Despite making successive promises to fight against homelessness, then against sexism and now for the environment, the French government is satisfied with public communication and refuses, since it is its policy, to take concrete action.

The years ahead appear to be a continuation of previous policies, in favour of the richest, against the poor and against all marginalised people.

If the French economy has not collapsed despite the crisis we have been going through since 2020, it is only, as everywhere in the world, thanks to the dedication and efforts of millions of workers. These people, who are truly essential in our society, are still poorly treated and poorly paid, even before their rights are slashed any further. If large French companies were able to generate 44 billion euros in dividends alone in the 2nd quarter of 2022, it is only because of the value created by workers. This reality also applies to the video game industry.

In addition to increasing wages above inflation and introducing the 4-day week, both minimum measures to minimise the mess and actually reduce unemployment, we demand the implementation of our proposals to make work fairer, both in our industry and in all others.

The Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV) is joining the labour movement by calling for strike actions on September 29, 2022, and calls on video game workers, unemployed people, retirees and students to organise themselves in their companies, in general assemblies and in the demonstrations that will take place throughout France. The STJV will be officially present in several demonstrations across France.

This call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore applies to any person employed by a company that publishes, distributes, provides services and/or creates video games or video game equipment, whatever their position or status and whatever the type of production of their company (console, PC, mobile, serious games, VR/AR experiences, game engines, marketing services, game consoles, streaming, etc. ), as well as all the teachers working in private schools in courses related to video game production. For all these people, and since this is a national call to strike, no action is necessary to go on strike: you just have to not come to work on the day you want to strike.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

Each year, June is Pride Month, a time of celebration, struggle and remembrance for LGBT+ people. It is made necessary to oppose the stigma, discrimination and violence we face, to fight for our freedom and our living conditions.

Although it seems that the rights of LGBT+ people are progressing over the years, it is important to remember that these improvements are still, for the time being, merely hiding a wealth of existing discrimination. They are not evenly distributed, politically, economically and socially: laws and personal circumstances can vary enormously, and the upper classes have greater access to healthcare and safe environments. Violence against us is real, and it can kill. Every year members of our diverse communities die, either assassinated outright, driven to suicide, or left to die in poverty.

These oppressions do not only exist at the level of interpersonal interactions: they are systemic. And work, which dominates our lives, is a major factor in these oppressions. Companies, and the employers who run them, are directly responsible. Through malice, neglect or lack of interest, corporate executives turn a blind eye to the harassment we face, block our gender transitions and the use of our gender identity, allow the wage gap to widen and our precarity to grow…

By creating obstacles and fighting against employee representatives and trade unions, company administrations are directly responsible for the deterioration of our working and living conditions. They contribute to ruining our lives, exploit us for our labour power, and use us for their marketing.

Actual LGBT+ struggles, our struggles, are not about pandering to LGBT-phobic people to get them to ‹ tolerate › us. They seek to enable us to live normal, dignified and materially secure lives. They are intrinsically linked to the struggles of other marginalised groups and trade unions. This year, like all others, we will fight and organise collectively to support our comrades and hasten the fall of patriarchy and capitalism.

In the video game industry

Many of us are still speaking out against the discrimination we face in video game companies. Whether in big companies like Activision-Blizzard, Ubisoft, Quantic Dream, where high-profile cases have made serious problems visible, or in smaller companies that sometimes manage to escape media attention but are no less discriminating. And let’s not forget about schools which, long before we enter the workplace, are already hurting us.

All year long, but especially during the month of June, companies boast about their so-called inclusiveness: rainbow merch like at Ubisoft, big internal conferences to introduce half-measures to their employees, external communication about their LGBT+ employees, non-binding and therefore useless « diversity and inclusion » charters…

We are used as a banner, convenient to wave when useful for their recruitment or instrumentalized for their marketing campaigns, while suffering the hidden face of this « inclusiveness ». In reality, LGBT+ people are discriminated against at all levels: hired less easily, over-represented in the most precarious contracts, generally paid less than their colleagues, disproportionately fired.

As well as suffering LGBT-phobia on a daily basis in the workplace, we are also reduced to watching our stories exploited in the games we work on without being consulted or given the opportunity to speak out about them. At best, our opinions are ignored by a hierarchy that thinks it knows us better than we do. LGBT+ characters and relationships written by cisgender and heterosexual men, which don’t represent us but pander to their fantasies and fetishise us, become selling points for games and companies, but serve as reminders of the oppressions we LGBT+ workers face.

Our demands

To improve the working and living conditions of LGBT+ people, and those of all workers, we demand, among other things:

• an end to the use of fixed-term contracts, to fight against the precariousness affecting LGBT+ people;
• the mandatory introduction of publicly available salary grids in companies, to end wage discrimination that disproportionately affects minorities;
• full coverage of all medical care by company health insurance schemes, including transitioning procedures for transgender people;
• the use of preferred names and surnames at work upon request, without asking questions or requiring justifications;
• the introduction of equal and compulsory parental leave, including in case of adoption, for all couples;
• the inclusion of staff representatives and trade unions in the processes for reporting and managing discrimination and violence in the workplace, so that the voices of those affected can be heard;
• the inclusion of all workers in decision-making and creative processes, and their total transparency, so that each person concerned can be consulted and act on the company’s choices.

We know from experience that such changes will not be implemented willingly by our bosses simply by asking for it: we must organise together, as we do at the STJV, in order to build the necessary power to force them through.

Emmanuel Macron has been re-elected president. While we can be happy that the most immediate fascist threat has been averted, the losers of this election and its campaign are easily identified: all the oppressed and the exploited. For them, 5 more years under Macron will increase their distress and anger, and they may not have the opportunity to sit on their rights again until the next election.

Likewise, we also know its winners: employers, tax evaders, polluters, racists, those who use fear and contempt to crush those more precarious than themselves. Broadly speaking, it is the rich and the selfish who want to knowingly destroy the lives of the losers – if not end them.

Thus, the capitalist order will not only be perpetuated, it will be strengthened. While it may be tempting to give up in this situation, it is the opposite that must be done. Solidarity, liberty and equality are built through constant effort, all together, much more than they are written on schools’ and town halls’ facades.

More than ever, they must guide and support our actions and commitments. As a tool for empowerment, unionism must commit itself in this direction, defend workers and marginalized people, and conquer new rights.

The choice of syndicalism

In a capitalist economy where work is unfortunately central to our lives, it becomes the main battleground for neo-liberal, totalitarian and fascist ideologies. We have seen this clearly in this election campaign with candidates’ stated intentions to force people to work, even in the worst conditions and always more, to prevent people deemed “not French enough” from working and therefore earning a salary, to reduce all welfare protection…

For decades, repeated attacks on labour law and individual freedoms have given more and more power to employers, and have reduced workers’ options for action even further. We already know that the next five years will be at least as difficult as the ones we have just experienced.

Politics cannot be reduced to participating in a few elections: the fight for a fairer world is played out every day, and on scales much more diverse and complex than the few institutional moments of electoral deadlines.

The STJV, which will celebrate its 5th year of existence this year, has assisted hundreds of workers and continues to do so. In doing so, we have witnessed workers and students in distress, exhausted and crushed by corporate performance logics, harassed and belittled by bosses, administrations and HR. But in winning the majority of these cases, we have helped them improve their conditions, and thus seen them regain the freedom, dignity and pride that had been stolen from them.

We have seen that whenever victory is possible, it is through collective struggle. We will carry on these battles together. By facing up to the employers’, governmental and state attacks every day, we can determine and try to build, together, the organisations that are best able to face them and to go on the counter-offensive.

All social progress is the result of the combined action of workers who, through strikes, demonstrations and occupations, have succeeded in establishing collective rights and protections. We are going to continue our struggle outside of electoral politics through collective action on the ground, in order to build a balance of power in favour of the people.

In the video game industry

As video game workers, we have everything to gain by defending our interests and those of our industry through union organisation. Our bosses don’t refrain from doing so, why should we? The end of capitalistic logics, of performance, crunch, but also the end of violence at work, sexist acts, harassment and discriminations of all kinds, this is what we have been fighting for at the STJV for almost 5 years.

In addition to the legal and social actions we support, we also work to reveal the shortcomings of the industry and of private/public video game schools, and assert our rights, for example by publishing propositions for a fairer industry.

Finally, and since video games play a significant role in shaping collective imagination and cultural, social and political spaces, we are fighting for video games to become a medium for positive change.

The lack of democracy in creative processes invariably leads to a tendency for our industry to become increasingly right-wing. Depoliticised themes in games, the use of our medium as a tool for military and nationalist propaganda, the lack of diversity in development teams, the industry’s passive attitude towards the proliferation of fascist groups online, the use of sexist and racist clichés in marketing campaigns… We, as video game workers, have better things to offer to the general public and to society as a whole, and to do this we must impose a balance of power in our favour.

This long-term work, from the creation of a union from scratch to our current strength, is made possible by our members. By pooling our volunteer work and dues, the union gives workers the means to undertake procedures and actions and to win them. Joining a union is part of this titanic work, made possible by the collective.

It’s time for us to take action.

While waiting for workers to have full control over their work, here, in the run-up to the 2022 presidential and legislative elections, are 8 proposals from the Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo to improve our industry.

1. Reduce working time: switch to a 4-day/28-hour work week with no income loss

Reducing working hours is a historical trend in the economic organisation, thanks to past struggles, which allows workers to gain time to live outside their jobs and to rest. This measure, which is perfectly suited to our industry, is spreading, as evidenced by its adoption by studios of all sizes such as Eidos-Montreal, Die Gute Fabrik, Young Horses and Armor Games, and must become the norm.

2. Effectively make permanent contracts (CDI) the norm, with no exceptions

Abusive uses of fixed-term contracts must be stopped once and for all, especially as a “disguised trial period”, a widespread practice, particularly in the largest French studios. Similarly, the use of other types of contracts and statuses, rarely justified in the video game industry, must be highly regulated and strictly limited to cases where they are explicitly requested by the relevant workers: companies must not propose them on their own.

It is also necessary to allow access to part-time work when workers request it, to take into account everyone’s needs.

3. Make paid and sick leave unlimited, abolish waiting periods and maintain 100% of the salary

As there are countless reasons for having to stop work temporarily to rest, care for oneself, one’s loved ones, etc., it is necessary that leave be unlimited as well, with a minimum annual number of days of leave to be taken. It is particularly crucial to remove the waiting period for sick leaves and compensate them 100%, in order to remove any obstacle to the needed use of these leaves.

In the absence of unlimited holidays, partial coverage of these needs can be achieved with: a 6th week of paid leave; longer, equal and compulsory maternity/paternity leave; the carry over of public holidays falling on a weekend to the previous Friday or the following Monday.

4. Strengthen the power of workers’ representatives, democracy and transparency in companies

Companies are anti-democratic environments by definition, and it is important to change this situation by involving workers in the life of the company and by strengthening the role of their elected representatives.

This includes granting a veto right for staff representatives on anything that already legally requires consultation, enabling workers to have their rights defended by their representatives.

This also requires a reform of the CSE elections to open them up to as many people as possible, by opening up the possibility of running for a CSE seat as soon as the trial period ends, and the possibility of voting in the CSE elections for anyone who has been working for the company for more than 3 months, whatever their status (thus including in particular freelancers, temps, contract workers…).

Since wages are a particular area of discrimination in companies, it is necessary to make the wage grids public, including their evolution with years of experience and inflation, and have them be voted by employees to put an end to it.

Democracy requires time to discuss, debate, and take decisions together, and therefore the allocation for all workers of part of the working time for life and democracy in the company, and the increase of delegation hours for staff representatives.

5. Give workers the power to choose the message and content of their work, and the technologies used

The video game industry, like all industries, loves secrecy and authoritarian power, and imposes choices on workers that go against their ideals or identities. In studios in particular, the design and pre-production phases are conducted behind closed doors or in small committees, with some workers considered “non-creative” or at the bottom of the ladder being systematically sidelined even though their work contributes just as much to the final result. All hierarchical levels and all professions must be involved in the pre-production of video games.

In the same way, it is necessary to impose a systematic consultation of workers on the content of games, on their economic mechanisms and technologies, on the games signed by publishers, and on clients and to attach to it a veto right for workers to be able to collectively reject a project, a feature, a technology or a particular client.

To make this effective, internal transparency on contracts passed with external actors and the relationship with publishers/groups/clients must be total.

6. Make hiring procedures transparent, accessible and non-discriminatory

In video games, hiring procedures are an excuse for all kinds of abuses. This must stop, in particular by ensuring that interviews and job tests must be carried out within a reasonable and very short time: no more tests that take days or weeks to complete. To prevent their exploitation as free labour, these hiring tests must be removed from the company’s final production, and a non-commercial exploitation agreement must be enforced.

To end wage discrimination in hiring, disclosure of the salary and status of the position sought should be made mandatory in job offers.

7. End the exploitation of freelancers and subcontractors through equal rights and working conditions

The video game industry largely relies on the exploitation of poor workers, and very often the improvement of working conditions in Western countries is done by subcontracting suffering abroad. This unacceptable situation must be countered: outsourcing contracts must guarantee that subcontracting workers are paid and treated in the same way as the workers of the contracting company.

Companies also engage in local social dumping by pitting freelancers in France against each other. Contracts of this type must become standardised and public, to ensure transparency and equality between the different freelancers hired.

8. Enforce and strengthen the control of public subsidies, integrate workers’ unions in the awarding commissions

From our direct experiences, it is clear that companies do not like to comply with rules so, in addition to imposing new ones, we need to ensure that they are enforced. The French video game industry is dependent on public funding, in particular from the CNC, to function. This funding, which is most welcome, already requires companies to comply with legislation and to fight against harassment, but without any control. In practice, the state therefore continues to subsidise companies that do not respect any of the eligibility criteria. The requirements for such subsidies must be systematically controlled before any money is paid out.

In addition to the effective deployment of controls, companies must be made more accountable through stronger sanctions in the event of non-compliance with the law. Any judgment against a company must lead to the reimbursement of subsidies received, and to the ineligibility for future subsidies. The law (especially labour law) is being violated across the board and this must stop.

To force companies to put an end to practices that are far too widespread in our industry and that disadvantage workers, contractual commitments must be extended to diversity in hiring, the limitation of turnover, compliance with labour relations and the improvement of working conditions throughout production.

Finally, workers must not be kept away from these transactions. Workers’ representatives must be consulted during controls and unions must be included in the subsidies’ awarding commissions.

March 8 is the international day of struggle for women’s rights. The date was chosen to commemorate the women’s strike of March 8, 1917 in Russia that sparked the Russian revolution, and it has always been a day dedicated to demanding equal rights for all genders and ending gender discrimination through action. In recent years, this day has developed into a massive strike day in many countries.

Feminist struggles in 2021

With the French presidential and parliamentary elections approaching, the climate remains as tense as it was last year: the far right is rampant, democracy is declining, police violence is on the rise, and the Covid-19 epidemic is leading to an increase in precariousness and sexual and gender-based violence. Access to abortion is under threat in many countries, or even in decline, as in the USA, Poland, Russia, Hungary and China. Women and gender minorities are under attack in France and throughout the world. In the workplace, we note that the equal rights theoretically acquired and enshrined in the law are in fact very limited, not applied or simply non-existent, due to a lack of controls, resources and political will.

But despite this alarming situation, we must not forget the victories achieved during the year, which show that the feminist struggle can still win, that it must always go on, everywhere, and never falter.

In France, we can mention:

• The Ibis Batignolles hotel chambermaids’ victory after 22 months of union struggle and strike action
• Extension of free contraception until the age of 25
• A ban on “conversion therapies”
• Access to abortion increased to 14 weeks

And in the world, this list being far from exhaustive:

• Progress on different scales on abortion in many countries: Japan, Gibraltar, Namibia, Saint-Martin, Colombia, Mexico…
• Implementation of measures to combat maternal mortality among African-American women in the USA
• Unmarried Saudi women can now choose where to live without the consent of their “guardian”
• Inclusion of pregnancy and maternity leave in the calculation of pensions for women in Argentina
• Inclusion of LGBTQIA+ history in the school curriculum in Scotland
• In Indonesia, progress and simplification of administrative procedures, allowing transgender people to obtain an identity card
• Creation of a domestic violence support scheme in Australia, allowing women to receive money to help them leave their partners

Equality for all is everyone’s business. Whether we are directly concerned by discriminations or not, they have an impact on our lives and fighting against them must be part of our common social goal. This is what we must constantly remind ourselves: our rights can never be taken for granted and it is more important than ever to fight, all of us together, to defend them and acquire new ones.

In the video game industry

Workers around the world are organising and fighting to hold their management and companies accountable, and to destroy sexism in the industry. This is particularly vivid and visible at Ubisoft and Activision-Blizzard, where workers have been fighting for over a year. The scandals revealed at these two industry giants are a particularly sordid example of the gap between theoretical rights and the material reality.

Gender-based violence and discriminations are widespread in the video game industry. Predominantly masculine, it combines in an exacerbated fashion capitalism, meaning the exploitation of workers by those who own the means of production, and patriarchy, the domination by men over people of other genders. This combination leads to situations in which marginalised people experience sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. violence and say nothing because the perpetrator has power over them at work, over their economic situation and over their careers. Very often, it is even the victims who suffer the wrath of their company when they speak out by being forced to resign, “put on the back burner”, suspended, etc.

A notable and telling fact to remember is that the percentage of women in the industry is lower than in video game schools, and their careers are on average much shorter than those of men. Women and other gender minorities are discriminated against in hiring and promotions, face harassment as early as their first internships and often even at school, and are on average paid less than their men colleagues.

Furthermore, practices such as crunch, the high frequency of burnouts and the industry’s incompatibility with family life, combined with the patriarchal division of labour and the predominance of men in the industry, mean that video game production relies on women’s work. These practices result in an overload of domestic work for women, which sadly already falls disproportionately on them in the current patriarchal social organisation.

The role of unions

This is why the syndicalist struggle is also a feminist one, and vice versa! As organisations created to defend workers in their relationship with the companies that exploit them, to improve their material conditions of existence and to empower them, trade unions are uniquely placed to fight for equal pay and against the discriminations, harassment, and harmful working conditions that plague gender minorities.

Trade unions are unique in their powers, as they can communicate directly at companies, represent and assist workers in disputes with their employers (both in court and in disciplinary interviews), negotiate with or pressure company management, etc. In short, by organising workers and reversing the balance of power in the workplace, trade unions are a powerful tool to lead the feminist struggle and ensure that not a single person remains isolated.

Everyone on strike on March 8, 2022!

The Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo is calling for a strike in the video game industry on Tuesday March 8, to fight against gender discrimination and inequality in our industry. We call on women and gender minorities to strike against reproductive work (housework, childcare, emotional work, …) for the whole week of March 8, and we invite everyone to come to the demonstrations on March 8, 2022.

This call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore applies to any person employed by a company that publishes, distributes, provides services and/or creates video games or video game equipment, whatever their position or status and whatever the type of production of their company (console, PC, mobile, serious games, VR/AR experiences, game engines, marketing services, game consoles, streaming, etc. ), as well as all the teachers working in private schools in courses related to video game production. For all these people, and since this is a national call to strike, no action is necessary to go on strike: you just have to not come to work on the days you want to strike.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

This article is a sub-section of a large report on French video game studies published by the STJV. You will find the table of contents of this dossier, and links to all its parts, here : https://www.stjv.fr/en/2021/09/report-on-french-video-game-studies/

Whatever the source of improvement in the situation – through global pressure at the society level, through sudden awareness of school administrations, or through internal activism – the actual changes will mostly target the hierarchical and political organisation of these companies. In the first place, the classes taught.

In many schools, especially private ones, there is an overabundance of technical classes, focused purely on practical applications, such as the use of a particular software program. Schools and companies have an agreement, more or less explicit, to train future employees to be docile and to be assigned to a simple, unjustified operational role. If they are not given insight into the creative, theoretical and technological world inside and outside of video games, they will be forced to remain at the mercy of companies. By only being considered, and sometimes by only considering oneself, as yet another person clicking on buttons, one locks themselves into a role that can theoretically be replaced at will by a multitude of candidates trained the same way. And by having learned only very specific technical tools, it becomes all the more difficult to sell one’s experience in places where they are not or no longer used.

It is therefore urgent to widen the field of disciplines taught, and to teach in the interest of students rather than companies. This will involve opening up to more “academic” and “theoretical” fields, often wrongly considered useless, especially when they are not directly related to “video games”.

To begin with, there is an imperative need for project management courses, one of the biggest gaps in the video game industry, and not to do it from a project manager or team leader point of view, since the majority of students will never be one. Some schools are already raising awareness about production planning and monitoring, in order to teach students to manage workloads and analyse their production capacities. This approach should be extended, in particular to teach students to detect any danger of going into crunch, and how to prevent it, but also so that future workers can understand the production processes at work in companies and identify the causes of organisational problems. Moreover, this would allow them to have an impact on it, and thus to improve their working conditions and no longer have to blindly trust their superiors and their abuse.

To move forward, it is crucial to enable students to develop critical thinking skills about video games, media and cultural products in general. Video games are one of the most significant media in the world, and it is necessary that those whose job it will be to create them have access to the knowledge that will enable them to handle its discourse and uses:

• Critical classes about the video game industry, its current state and future trends, will help them to better understand the important economic and social movements that run through it, and to position themselves within it.
• In addition, classes in art history, video game history, and even game history, could break down our industry’s exceptionalism myth, and expose its less glamorous sides (notably its links with the arms industry).
• Opening up to video game research would be an important starting point for breaking down the barriers between video game production and the fields that study them, and allowing a better circulation and valuation of the knowledge that shapes this medium.
• Analysis of mass media and their discourses would allow future creators to better understand their own role and place in the propagation of ideas to the public. Similarly, broad classes on sociology, philosophy, economics, politics, etc. could have a positive impact on video games as a medium. Understanding the social structures in which creators are embedded can only sharpen the understanding and design of the video game produced.

Finally, and this needs a paragraph of its own, it is crucial that students are taught about labour law. People graduating and entering the labour market, and this is unfortunately not limited to the video game industry, are unaware of their rights and the different employment regimes that exist. This makes them vulnerable when negotiating their contracts, and often delays their recourse to legal action when they are exposed to abuse, as we still experience all too often. Not informing them about these rights only serves the companies and reinforces predatory behaviour on young workers.

The STJV regularly gives talks in schools and universities to present the basics of labour law and provide information on how the industry works, but this is far from enough. In general, organisations and professionals that defend and represent workers (lawyers, workers’ representatives, unions, etc.) should have access to schools and give lectures there. Conversely, such classes should definitely not be given by entrepreneurs, speakers from employers’ unions, etc. whose material interests are diametrically opposed to those of workers.

For the same reason, it is also crucial that companies and their organisations no longer have a hold on schools, which must cease their partnerships with them. Representatives of employers’ lobbies and studios, who hijack presentations to advertise the industry and their companies, go so far as to lie, spread false information and cover up the disastrous working conditions that await entry-level workers there. They must no longer be tolerated. Even more necessary, partnerships between companies and schools for student projects must be eliminated. These must be pedagogical exercises, for the benefit of the students and not the companies! They must therefore be prepared by the school’s teaching staff. If the aim is to simulate a “customer order”, this can be done perfectly well without using companies. Making students work for an entity outside the school is at best a failure in the pedagogical process, at worst completely illegal and falls under concealed (“off the books”) work.

Finally, curricula that require the validation of numerous internships are detrimental to students, whether or not they follow said curriculum, and to the quality of their own teaching. When internships come to replace a third or even half of academic semesters, sometimes as early as the first year, the very point of pursuing these studies comes into question compared to directly seeking a job. The number of students looking for an internship each year makes this search so difficult, especially for short internships, that they are no longer done for any pedagogical or professional interest but with the sole purpose of validating grades, at any cost. Companies do not make the situation any better, the vast majority of them seeking to make interns profitable, not caring at all about the pedagogical aspect of the internship. This provides them with a weakened, abundant and almost free labour force to offload all sorts of tasks.

Schools must therefore reduce the number of compulsory internships in their curricula, in particular by eliminating short internships which are so difficult to obtain. While, given the amount of abuse it causes, we believe that the notion of internships as they currently exist in France should be abolished altogether, we understand that they are a real necessity for students in order to hope to land a job. In such a case, the STJV advocates keeping only an end-of-study internship, as a tool to validate and apply the knowledge acquired during the course of the studies in a professional environment. These long internships, which can sometimes lead to a job, are the only ones that can bring something to students that the school itself cannot. Reducing the number of internships also makes it easier for schools to set up a real educational project between students and host companies, and the monitoring that goes with it, which is currently lacking in the vast majority of internships.

A lot has been said about « crypto-currencies » and related technologies, and many have already done so, whether it is about the stability or the centralization of power (on a supposedly « decentralized » technology) of these systems. Also on NFTs to explain how, in general, this technology has no use. So, even if their environmental impact could magically be reduced by some imaginary new method of consensus, there is plenty to question about these technologies.

But let’s focus on the field of video games, which is what we are interested in here. There is a « virtual gold rush » by many video game companies on NFTs. Their announcements about NFTs are often hailed by investors and other « crypto-enthusiasts » who have very little to do with video games (and don’t seem to understand much about them). In video games as in other fields, the only reason people talk about NFTs is not for their intrinsic value, but for their market value. The parallels with the art market and its many, many abuses place this technology in an unfavourable light from the start.

Q: What do NFTs actually bring to games? A: Nothing

To summarise the content of the above links, blockchain and NFTs are technologies looking for problems to solve, rather than solving existing problems. This is a very bad starting point, going completely against the concepts of design and engineering. When all you have is a hammer, everything else looks like a nail.

This situation is all the more obvious and deplorable when the properties so touted by the promoters of NFTs in games are already feasible, and already exist, without blockchain nor NFTs. Unsurprisingly, these uses are already harmful even with « conventional » technologies.

• Unique objects with various properties? Team Fortress 2 has been doing this for over 10 years, with trading possible within the Steam platform.
• Items that can be exchanged for real money? Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has proven that this is possible, all while creating a money laundering system in the process.
• Obtaining items « in exchange » for playing time (play-to-earn)? MMORPGs and gacha games have made this their raison d’être, long before NFTs were even mentioned.
• Want to sell items? Diablo 3 did it, and since it caused all sorts of problems, Blizzard finally decided to remove this feature.
• Want to make money by offering a game experience on your favourite platform? Roblox does that without a blockchain either, provided you do’nt mind child exploitation and censorship…

It gets even worse: so far, we’ve been talking about NFTs « in theory ». But, in practice, video game companies don’t and never will have any incentive to provide « full » and free-to-use NFTs. For example, the terms of use for Quartz, Ubisoft’s take on NFTs, state that « you may not modify the Visual Representation [of the NFT] in any way […], use the Visual Representation [of the NFT] in videos or any other form of media ». Proof that, whatever the provider may claim, the use of these NFTs is not yours to decide.

As an aside, one may also note this extremely charitable formula: « Ubisoft is not liable to you or to any third party for any claim or damage that may arise from any use of the Tezos blockchain network, payments or transactions you make ». In other words, good luck if anything happens to you because Ubisoft will not help you.

An NFT is a reference to an object that can be used in a closed ecosystem, whose existence and usefulness (and therefore value) remain subordinate to the goodwill of the operator of said ecosystem (the company that publishes the game). For it to be usable anywhere else, it would not only require the agreement of the company publishing the NFT, but also the willingness of another company to integrate it into its games without any notable gain for it.

However, as we know, video game companies are the exact opposite of paragons of virtue or disinterested works; their executives’ pay is convincing enough. Have you complained about lootboxes, games sold piecemeal with dozens of DLC and other season passes? Don’t believe for a moment that these same companies will suddenly be generous on NFTs. They will just explain that you didn’t understand.

Why then is there such a rush to put NFTs in games?

The reasons for integrating this technology are varied, but let’s get the most obvious one out of the way right away: for some time now, there has been a speculative bubble completely unleashed around « blockchain » and NFTs. This is the reason why companies that have nothing to do with this technical field have found themselves boasting about having « their » NFTs, even if it means taking the occasional hit. This is primarily a promotional ploy by companies towards investment funds, a pathetic attempt to lure people who know even less technically than our executives (which is not always easy to find).

The second, more fundamentally vicious reason is a covert financialisation of games. Introducing NFTs into a video game allows monetised exchanges, in crypto-pretend-money, without having to assume the consequences. Indeed, in the event of a transaction problem, error, theft or scam, the video game’s publisher will be able to absolve itself of any responsibility by taking refuge behind the argument « everything is in the blockchain, the code does not lie! » This will in no way prevent these same publishers from promoting this « play-to-earn » model and the murky possibilities of making a financial profit from it.

If they were to assume their role as guarantors of this market, which they are in fact, these publishers would have to offer the same guarantees as banks, such as being able to give you back the money you store within the system, and ensuring the validity and traceability of transactions on their platforms. Surprisingly, companies are not rushing to the door when it comes to putting their responsibility at stake and deploying costly guarantees!

Artificial scarcity, illusory value

This subject of financialisation is crucial. Our daily lives are constantly affected by the impact of markets that are less and less correlated with the real world. Whether it’s the subprime crisis of 2008, the various speculative bubbles (of which crypto-currencies could very well be the next to burst), the lives sacrificed during the COVID-19 pandemic in the name of the sacrosanct economy: the carnage must end, in video games and elsewhere.

It is natural to see the way the economy works, the revolting profits made by the richest while many fall into poverty, and to conclude that there is something wrong with the system. But the answer and the solution is not to say « well, what’s missing is the possibility for me to exploit others too ». The solution is not to reproduce the scarcity of the « real world » in a purely artificial way in our digital spaces, but its exact opposite: to bring abundance for all in our physical societies.

Breaking our (block)chains

NFTs are not just a bad solution to a problem that does not exist and that no one has really raised, they are also another symbol of the harmful functioning of economies so greedy for profits that they seek to monetise the non-existent. Let’s not fall into this trap!

The STJV, one of whose goals is to extract video game production from the infernal capitalist circle in which it finds itself, is therefore opposed to the use of these technologies in video games. Video games should not be casinos that allow studios and publishers to exploit the most fragile and youngest among us. This is a demand that aims to protect our ability to produce quality works, as well as to protect the players who wish to enjoy them.

The STJV nevertheless supports the workers forced by their companies to work on these technologies, or their already existing equivalent such as lootboxes, and will support any struggle to stop their use. You are not responsible for the insatiable financial appetite of your bosses.