Are there any unionized game studios that continue to produce highly acclaimed games?
Bethesda used to make great games, but the last great game they made was Skyrim in 2011, they unionized in 2022, and just recently they had some big layoffs.
CD Projekt made the highly acclaimed Witcher 3 in 2015, Cyberpunk disappointed on it's release in 2020, although it's reviews are mixed. CD Projekt unionized in 2023.
Blizzard have been in decline for a long time, they mostly focus on maintaining the cash cows games WoW and hearthstone. Although Diablo has is mostly well regarded(ignoring immortal). They haven't made any new ambitious game for a while. Their last attempt at making something ambitious was Titan, a cancelled MMO that they worked on for 6 years and supposedly spent $80 million on, cancelled in 2013.
The decline seems to begin well before the unionization, so I wouldn't say it's causal, it's more of a symptom of the company no longer being a place that can foster high functioning teams, where people feel like they are valued and working on something important.
Use to be a huge Blizzard fan back in the day. Can't get behind basically anything they are doing today. Time will tell if something like this just reinforces whatever is broken or results in real improvement. I'm cynical on the matter.
Would be crazy to work for a company where you had confidence that like half your colleagues would be "laid off" after successfully delivering a project.
in australia workers seem to have more rights. they have industry awards that specify minimum wage and safety conditions etc, they have the legal right to strike and the legal right for union/collective bargaining if they choose it, aka freedom of association. when i look at employment conditions in the US, it boggles my mind how workers there basically have zero safety net. its an extreme example of giving all the power to the employer.
Spectacular. Many people have been disappointed with moves by Blizz in the last 5-10 years and anything that improves livability for those that make what used to be great games is a huge win
I don’t necessarily think meta complaints about the HN crowd are productive, but…
Worker proportion of total company profits is at a historic low, but “unions bad” is often the most that the HN contingent can come up with. A lot of it is “I once knew a union guy who was lazy” kind of discourse. The consistency of the anti-union takes reads to me like a lot of well-internalized propaganda. Many people have bought the SV exceptionalism lie hook, line, and sinker.
Just because you’re a few more months away from homelessness than somebody working a different job doesn’t make you part of the capital class.
I've always heard "millionaires" (the quote was always apocryphal, anyways), and that belief is much less delusional than the belief that we're part of the proletariat, that class of workers who have nothing to lose but their chains. The vast majority of people here have lots to lose. These Blizzard workers, however miserable they are, have always had a staggering lot to lose, more than the proletariat could ever dream of possessing.
Uh, do you think that the labor class is defined by utter poverty or something? The labor class is defined by having to work for their livelihood, which most of us still do, even if we have a mortgage or a nice 401(k) or whatever.
> I've always heard "millionaires" (the quote was always apocryphal, anyways)
Gotta update it for 2026 because millionaires are broke bitches. Basically part of the permanent underclass that will never escape the singularity at this point.
But more seriously, your view of what constitutes the proletariat is skewed off of its contemporary meaning.
If you can't retire today and never work again without having to worry about money, you're part of the proletariat. You don't have to be poor, you just have to be a laborer. That's... almost all of us.
Also, attribution of the quote to Steinbeck would be apocryphal, but the core idea behind the oft-misattributed phrase has never been more true than it is today on social media and internet forums, so I wouldn't say the quote itself is apocryphal.
Big corporate gaming studios get my full support for unionizing, those people need collective bargaining. I am a skeptic of many unionizing efforts, but not this one.
Almost every comment I can see from this account is a brief, snarky swipe, lacking any substance nor even a period at the end of the sentence, which is a hallmark of low-effort participation. It's honestly hard to know if these comments are human written or bot generated, so, in the absence of any redeeming qualities, the account is now banned.
Bethesda used to make great games, but the last great game they made was Skyrim in 2011, they unionized in 2022, and just recently they had some big layoffs.
CD Projekt made the highly acclaimed Witcher 3 in 2015, Cyberpunk disappointed on it's release in 2020, although it's reviews are mixed. CD Projekt unionized in 2023.
Blizzard have been in decline for a long time, they mostly focus on maintaining the cash cows games WoW and hearthstone. Although Diablo has is mostly well regarded(ignoring immortal). They haven't made any new ambitious game for a while. Their last attempt at making something ambitious was Titan, a cancelled MMO that they worked on for 6 years and supposedly spent $80 million on, cancelled in 2013.
The decline seems to begin well before the unionization, so I wouldn't say it's causal, it's more of a symptom of the company no longer being a place that can foster high functioning teams, where people feel like they are valued and working on something important.
Worker proportion of total company profits is at a historic low, but “unions bad” is often the most that the HN contingent can come up with. A lot of it is “I once knew a union guy who was lazy” kind of discourse. The consistency of the anti-union takes reads to me like a lot of well-internalized propaganda. Many people have bought the SV exceptionalism lie hook, line, and sinker.
Just because you’re a few more months away from homelessness than somebody working a different job doesn’t make you part of the capital class.
Gotta update it for 2026 because millionaires are broke bitches. Basically part of the permanent underclass that will never escape the singularity at this point.
But more seriously, your view of what constitutes the proletariat is skewed off of its contemporary meaning.
If you can't retire today and never work again without having to worry about money, you're part of the proletariat. You don't have to be poor, you just have to be a laborer. That's... almost all of us.
Also, attribution of the quote to Steinbeck would be apocryphal, but the core idea behind the oft-misattributed phrase has never been more true than it is today on social media and internet forums, so I wouldn't say the quote itself is apocryphal.