It seems like every other week a game studio is massively laying off employees; sometimes after years of development. What I’m reading is that it’s a quick way to lower expenses and pad the investors’ pockets, flooding the market with developers and reducing their value, to then hire them back a few months later at lower salaries.
So, what’s holding back gamedevs from banding together to either unionize or start their own companies with better conditions that the purely money-driven studios? Why aren’t they trying to be better? Nobody willing to invest in them? Does starting a company together mean they will now be the bosses who have to answer to the investors, ensure returns, and fire employees? Is the world just an entire shit-cake?
Beyond just game studios, why aren’t there more employee owned companies?
When Starbucks was unionizing I made the comment that if I were the corporation I would just get out and let the employees run it. I got flamed for this attitude. What is so terrible about employee owned companies?
People literally buy into the idea that they wouldn’t know how to do anything if they weren’t being told what to do. They think that value comes from above.
They think that when a company sells them raspberries, that company invented the raspberry bush. They don’t realize that the raspberries were already there. They certainly don’t realize that they themselves are another kind of bush. Or that the labor bush operates without a company to own it and sell its labor berries.
What can be done to change this?
I think a lot of people need someone to blame for their own unhappiness, too. I would like to see this change, but I am not sure how it can be done.
Grow a bunch of labor bushes and make it incredibly clear that it’s not about them being owned, but about them being labor bushes.
To me the change from the current system doesn’t come by diving into the current system and trying to ask it nicely. It doesn’t come from asking permission at all. It comes from operating with zero concern or tolerance for capitalist bullshit.
Go help people who can’t afford to pay you. Make something beautiful and give it to the world in a way that gives them an opportunity to prop you up, but that also lets them enjoy it without having to be rich or emptying their wallet.
Internalize the idea that wealth is not a virtue, and poverty is not an ill. People who need help are an opportunity to help, and people who have value are in a position to use it to help, but holding onto that value and using it are mutually exclusive.
It’s not going to come from a politician or some big speaker or a revolution, it’s going to come from individual people in their own lives lives making different choices. Your choices matter.
This is kinda off the subject but do you live this life? Would you like to code something for no money that would help people?
That’s open-source software in a nutshell.
I drive a cab and get paid very little to basically drive around and help people. Like, the job is to drive people from point A to point B, but I try to do more than that, and help people who need it along the way. I carry a lot of stuff around that I’m not really paid for and I try to go the extra mile for people.
If the projects I’m working on pan out and I manage to get to a place where I have more resources, I plan to use that as a way of making other small steps. Setting up a coop instead of chasing money, releasing a game license that allows independent producers to do their own thing. Things like that. Literally just leaving the door open for people instead of slamming it shut.
I don’t really have any intent to code software outside of games, but I’d like to empower others to be able to make the things they want to make and not just feed some big parasitic company with it.
That is great! Thanks for all you do for others.
Probably because the owners want to take all of the profit and employees do not have the capital to make the investment.
It takes a certain benevolent capitalist to convert their business to employee owned (Bobs Red Mill intensifies). Such businesses only represent 12% of the private sector
That’s a much higher percentage than I expected.
Benevolent capital is out there, especially in the startup phase. I find it arrogant and ignorant, but available. It does require risk-sharing which I find doesn’t fit the vision of the borrower.
They don’t fulfill the fantasy of being a rent-seeking social parasite.
So you are saying employees in employee owned companies are rent seeking social parasites?
No? I said the opposite of that.
The question I was answering was “why aren’t there more employee owned companies?” And the answer is it’s a lot harder to get seed money for those, because the rent seeking parasites don’t want them to exist.
So what I am now hearing is it is hard for them to get seed money.
Hades II just dropped by SGG, which is basically what y’all are calling for. This system is viable once you’ve had your first quasi-successful game. That first game is the problem though - it’s a massive hurdle. So many groups seek bigger companies to support them. After that, you’re theirs. Especially if you make a hit.
There are also other factors such as running a studio means running a business. If you’re a developer, you might have very little interest in that. So you instead get hired by a company which enables you to get a paycheck as you do the thing you actually enjoy.
Additionally, there is marketing and distribution. Do not underestimate how much connections matter when marketing and distributing your game. And yes, everyone needs to market. Which means labor and cost you need to sort out.
The system literally disincentives and makes coops less competitive.
Opening a coop is harder, more expensive, have less subsidies or tax benefits, less opportunities for investments/loans etc.
And all of this makes running coops more expensive, thus less competitive, thus the ones that do manage to open either can’t grow or die.
To me the opposite appears true. Beyond economy -of-scale can you give me some examples?
Like the literal law. In most places it’s a much more involved and expensive process to even open a coop compared to a traditional private company. It takes more paperwork, more fees, more capital funds etc. Also, getting investors in (when they can’t own the coop, as they are not workers) or even loans from private or state banks/institutions is much harder. There are several programs incentivising people to open private companies, giving them tax credits, making the application and approval process easier, giving access to funds and education etc. How many there are for coops? In most places around the world there are 0. In what ways does it appear the opposite to you…? Like this all seems very self-evident to me.
I don’t know where you are located. I am in the US and a co-op is just a corporation so all the things that apply to a private corporation apply to a co-op. When applying for grants there are no differentiators that I can think of. One advantage for a co-op here is that there are no passive investors.
For my city, just for a very specific example, it takes less than one afternoon and 80 bucks total (no fees and almost no capital fund requirements) to open a corporation. It takes weeks if not months to open a coop and it costs 2500 bucks PER member.
I don’t know the specifics of all cities and states everywhere in the world. But the system is built to benefit private corporations much more, as it’s a capitalist system where owning capital equals power, and workers are a commodity.
Can you tell me what city this is? For me this would be reason enough to move.
Sorry I would rather not :/
Employee owned companies are more stable in economic downturns but they also require much more diversification to replace the owner/manager roles where there is actually shit to do. Big item being the book keeping it’s simple enough in theory but in practice even smaller companies can take hours just to understand where you’re starting from.
I’m not following on why manager roles are different from traditional companies.
The book keeping? You mean splitting the profit? Why wouldn’t you assume everyone has a % stake?
Not splitting the profits, tracking bills, making sure they’re all paid on time, making sure the company is getting paid on time depending on your business plan, tracking any special taxes you gotta pay, tracking price increases in long term contracts, list goes on
I’m a better bookkeeper than I am a coder. I would join.
So many roles can be fractionalized that it seems doable.
Strategic leadership and consensus might be difficult. Design by committee could be the biggest enemy.