Joachim ✊️ UVW-CWA

👋 indies 🚨 The STJV, the game workers union, needs your help! they’re organizing a bundle to raise funds to provide legal advice to workers involved in court with employers. they defend industry employees against illegal practices. help them by submitting your game: itch.io/jam/stjv-bun... #gamedev

even the industry figures on the fringes calling for an indie game revolution in the 00's were just hoping for another market to spring up and offer a new path. there has never been a serious sustained attempt to look at videogames beyond their existence as consumer product, and that has to change.

As someone who still prefers to make games in a custom engine I wrote, the code is kind of an inseparable part of a game's character, decisions about engine structure and every little bit of code have ripples that can absolutely be felt in the end product, even if hard to pick out specifics

We're proud to share that in a few weeks' time, Rockstar staff will get to have their own say over union recognition. From pay and pensions to parental leave and overtime, this recognition agreement is a chance for workers to be involved in the decisions that shape their lives.

Rockstar workers set to officially vote on union just as GTA VI comes out aftermath.site/rockstar-games...

November is a HUGE month for Rockstar and its workforce: - Nov 12 - Union recognition vote opens - Nov 17/18 - Closing submissions of union-busting trial - Nov 19 - GTA VI touches down - Nov 26 - Union recognition vote closes

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That's not because of AI. That's a company eating an upfront cost to 'Right Size' their company for an incoming Recession.

Hexagonal growth in a black olive tree.

ONE BRAZILLION YEARS LULAG

kids can tell real games from all that compiler slop

when you hear startups constantly talking about their "moats", what they are talking about is a structural factor which will delay this from happening. they know it's inevitable, but the hypothesized reasons for the delay is often the thing that forms the basis for the company's value.

The top two frames of the slop comic are pretty much the first part of how Marx explains technological innovation to work under capitalism. But it's missing the stage where once everyone is using the same technology, you end up back at 1-year development and only breaking even again.

rangedtouch.com/game-studies...

Saw a movie where the ending really didn't make any sense to me, and I made a mental note of searching for an explanation online later. Then I woke up and couldn't even remember the name of the movie :(

If you can see why this argument makes no sense and is just trying to trick people, I recommend keeping an eye out for other such "how will the struggling small business pay the bills?" arguments about other things. This rhetoric is everywhere and just as dishonest and manipulative as in this case

hell yeah

not the point and i feel the same way as OP, but if you scrolling are in this position I would love to talk to you about starting a worker co-op instead of being a boss.

A government could also just seize the studio and do that, no need to give any more dollars to the house of Saud. In fact a government could do this for every studio and transfer it to be collectively owned and governed by the workers. For every business even, not just game studios! O:

Motherfucking Eurolibs are saying to the Irish, "Imagine if Russia occupied 20% of your land," when the United is already occupying almost 19% of Irish land in the North!

Key figures behind EA buyout accused of exchanging billions for political favours

there should be something like a fantasy console like pico 8 but for the internet, like a fantasy internet

Thank you to the driver of this Ford Explorer for making my day.

I know it’s sorta cheesy but someone posted this from Paris on Reddit and I felt this immediate rush of hope

I hope workers in other game studios see WoTC unionizing, and see the mass layoffs and BioWare closing and decide it's time to put their foot down. What do we have to lose by unionizing? A job that you're afraid every day you'll be laid off from anyway? UNIONIZE THE GAME INDUSTRY!

BioWare was not closed because their games were queer, or bad, or rushed, or too ambitious or anything else. They were closed because EA is trying to raise their bottom line by a couple percentage points and that always comes at the expense of the people who's labour is already being exploited.

there's something i've experienced at several companies, but not in freelance work (thankfully), that i would like to find a concise name for, so i'll try to outline it here:

I don't think it's an accident that @ko-op.com is committed to being AI free due to its democratic structure. The workers have made their stances very clear and their power to impact policy and workflows gives them the opportunity to define the workspace how they see fit.

Get real! The nostalgic idea of indie games that you're trying to defend and protect was always fake! It was just commodity fetishism. It's 2026, we're putting aside our comfortable illusions and facing with sober senses our real conditions of life.