GTA 6 Developers Unionize

AndrewKemendo

On Thursday, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) and Rockstar staff members announced the Rockstar Game Workers Union. This union will be part of the IWGB. The reveal came in the form of an informative video which delves into their motives and what we should be looking out for in the future.

Refreeze5224

Solidarity forever! Game devs eat a a lot of crap, so I'm glad they are banding together to bargain collectively.

WarmWash

Can anyone comment on why "big video game" dev pay has lagged "big tech" pay so badly? Ostensibly they are doing remarkably similar engineering problem solving, so why is there such a disparity?

HugoTea

This is great news, unions not only improve working conditions, but also improve the final product by not having underpaid stressed staff with high turn-over. It's a good sign for the future product quality of any company to see workers unionise.

ShinyLeftPad

Who would have thought we'll get programmer unions before GTA 6!

yieldcrv

I always see the same thing: “employer seen as blocking union effort” I’m wondering if that’s simply a rational thing available to do as opposed to an actual opinion about collective representation whether thats bargaining or something else “hey, here’s this regulatory overhead you can completely avoid by merely being present, unless people interested in the regulatory overhead are more persistent. just don't fire them though”

dude250711

If companies do not like this, paying a percent of profit instead of salaries is always an option. (ah s** here we go again by the way).

seydor

They should call it a cartel

sgarrity

One of these days I'm going to see an article here about how the sex worker characters in GTA 6 have unionized.

chasd00

What is the career ladder like for game devs? In a union, the only way up is seniority or, in other words, the amount of money you've paid in dues over the years. A great developer isn't going to get rewarded with higher pay or a better role unless they've spent enough time/money as a union member.

ionwake

Isnt management at Rockstar the same poeple who: A) Allowed a bug in the code make all GTA5 Load times on every single copy on every platform take exponential times longer to load, for YEARS, unchecked or investigated, until some random kid FIXED IT by reverse engineering compiled code? B) The bug was a simple and unneeded look up for SHOP items C) The never rewarded the kid, with say a job or something worthwhile for him like 100k ( when they earn billions ). I mean even this decision ALONE is such terrible optics clearly mgmt were AFK. D) They then came onto HN to argue with me in the comments about how " its not nice to say mgmt responsible should have been fired over this" I mean Ive had my share of almost blinding incompetence, but the one that really bothers my crumpet, is when they come on here and start denying things. Im for the union, Rockstar North made one of the greatest games of all time. It will probably result in an inferior product but crunch is unethical and always due to poor management. Ironically it was probably mgmts' own incompetent hiring policies that resulted in a union being formed. PS - I got a bit heated and have edited this comment so its readable apologies. PS - All of this can be verified in previous posts on HN regarding both the bug and replies PS - And to whoever is downvoting me, feel free to reply and tell me what I am wrong about

standardly

happy for them but uh.. 2028 release confirmed lol

wonkyfruit

At this point, we get everything before GTA6. Unions, AGI, Life on Mars.

whywhywhywhy

Don’t expect any sympathy from the general public or your customers when the 1 year late game devs are complaining about crunch, ultimately they’re gonna get dragged for this and the gaming community will cheer if they manage to remove the union individuals. That’s the industry you’re in unfortunately.

vortegne

Any and all discussions about unions on HN sadly just shows how the supposedly smart people can be extremely misinformed and propagandized. Not even really worth engaging in the discussions when it seems like any compassion has been beaten out of the (mostly USA-based, which explains a lot) audience here. Happy for the devs, more power to them! For the sake of workers everywhere, I hope the US also catches up one day in empathy and rational thinking, when it comes to labor laws and rights.

rolifromhermes

Damn we had unionized GTA6 devs before we have GTA6. Wild.

aubanel

Cheat code to get >5 stars in GTA6 instantly: type "sizes the means of production" in chat

dyauspitr

Seems like a bad time for rockstar for this to happen. Can’t fire everyone now.

__natty__

> Together, we are organising around the things we want to change. Starting with: Pay transparency Flexible working An end to crunch That’s a lot of demands, what next? Competitive salary?! /sarcasm I hope more people will start fighting together for better work conditions. Company owners have money and lawyers so workers must unite to fight them back. I’m saying this as employer.