Bad ending route for the CEO/Owner/Employer: Workplace Democracy

[ggx2ac]

Link to all bad ending threads: https://www.installbaseforum.com/fo...-for-the-video-game-industry.1998/post-228671

Like my previous thread where I went in-depth predicting the future of the video game industry controlled by rent-seeking behaviour. I wanted to talk about Workplace Democracy.

To set up the premise, I am going to briefly mention an anime adaptation of Legend of the Galactic Heroes (the OVA series that ran from 1988-1997 which you can watch on the streaming service HiDive) that is 110 episodes long. Here's a quick summary of the background and synopsis from MAL:

Background:
Legend of the Galactic Heroes was adapted from a series of ten novels, published 1982–87, by Yoshiki Tanaka. The novels won the Seiun Award for the best long-form Japanese science fiction in 1988.

Synopsis:
The 150-year-long stalemate between the two interstellar superpowers, the Galactic Empire and the Free Planets Alliance, comes to an end when a new generation of leaders arises: the idealistic military genius Reinhard von Lohengramm, and the FPA's reserved historian, Yang Wenli.

While Reinhard climbs the ranks of the Empire with the aid of his childhood friend, Siegfried Kircheis, he must fight not only the war, but also the remnants of the crumbling Goldenbaum Dynasty in order to free his sister from the Kaiser and unify humanity under one genuine ruler. Meanwhile, on the other side of the galaxy, Yang—a strong supporter of democratic ideals—has to stand firm in his beliefs, despite the struggles of the FPA, and show his pupil, Julian Mintz, that autocracy is not the solution.

(Yes, I have watched all 110 episodes. The soundtrack is all classical music such as the fourth movement of Beethoven's 5th symphony and "From the New World" by Dvořák.)

You may have seen images of the anime on social media quoting themes of...

Wage slavery:

"Wages aren't actually made of paper, but chains that bind men."

Space imperialism:

"Under the banner of capitalism, Earth plundered the riches of the colony worlds,"

And the central theme of the story, Democracy vs Autocracy:

"In the Empire, the masses are misgoverned by a group of nobility. But in the Alliance, the masses are misgoverned by the government they choose. Which is the worse system?"

Which is the worse system? For you, it's probably obvious that you'd rather have corrupt government officials that were elected by the people than to have the State being controlled by a dictator and the nepo babies that dictator is going to produce which become the dictator's successor.

Does it not shock you then that the majority of businesses around the world are autocratic? You are bound to the whims of your employer in this employer-employee relationship, like the serf bound to their lord. They are the owner that accumulates wealth off of the surplus value of your labour and you have nothing, you have nothing because anything you produce belongs to the owner. You may have wages, but those wages are used to pay off your essential needs: food, utilities, housing. You then use what remains of your wages to buy consumer goods to stave off the meaningless and daily routine of your work life.

That finally brings us to the topic, what is Workplace Democracy? According to Wikipedia:

Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in various forms to the workplace, such as voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, and systems of appeal. It can be implemented in a variety of ways, depending on the size, culture, and other variables of an organization.

What company is there that has an example of workplace democracy and is also a video game company? Valve. Note: Valve is not a worker co-op. Once again, I reference the former Finance Minister of Greece who worked at Valve as an Economist-In-Residence: Yanis Varoufakis. (That other time being when I brought up technofeudalism in the previous thread)

Video is timestamped where Yanis talks about workplace democracy at Valve, (from 17:20, section ends at 20:50):


You saw worker co-op mentioned, what is it? According to Wikipedia again:

A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by every worker-owner who each have one vote.

Probably the most well-known example of a video game worker co-op is Motion Twin, the developer of Dead Cells: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3kx...-dead-cells-is-ditching-co-ops-for-capitalism

Quoting from the above Vice article titled, "The Ambitious Future of 'Dead Cells' Is Ditching Co-Ops For Capitalism" (Ironic, I know):

In France, where Motion Twin is located, the studio is a “SCOP,” or Société coopérative, a relatively recent phenomenon. There's no legal requirement to have a flat hierarchy, or to share power. What it does mean means, Filby explained, that Motion Twin is legally required to pass on a specific percentage of its earnings to workers, and traditionally, Motion Twin has passed on most of its profits to its workers. The result is a studio that doesn’t have a “war chest” of money, in case things go awry, but its workers end up personally enriched; when Motion Twin makes money, said Filby, “95 percent” becomes salaries and bonuses.

“The members of Motion Twin know they work better with a fire under their asses,” said Filby. “Every rut they've ever had was caused by an abundance of comfort, so they like to live dangerously to stay hungry.”

Because of the way Motion Twin is structured, it pays a lot of taxes “for the awesomeness of the French welfare state,” as Filby put it. That’s all on purpose. But Evil Empire wants to be more conservative. A percentage of Evil Empire’s eventual revenue will get paid out at certain milestones, with money given out based on “posts, seniority, and time with the company.” It’s in line with the way companies, inside and outside games, distribute cash.

Linking a one-hour video here from "Unlearning Economics" that goes in detail about the positives and negatives of worker co-ops:


There are good examples in that video such as when the show Undercover Boss is mentioned with how CEOs go undercover and work with the workers and what happens often is that since the power structure of most businesses are top-down, the CEO has the realization that he didn't even know how the business was run at the bottom and they find that it sucks working there but they don't do anything to fix the systemic issues. When you have a system that has no worker representation at the top, then it shouldn't be surprising that those at the top are disconnected with how the business is run.

When CEOs are aware of what's going on in their business, it's usually something they don't want the public to know about. Remember this headline from Polygon? "Activision’s Kotick knew of rape allegations, kept them quiet, new report says"

What is the point in talking about these subjects? It's the year 2023 where there's been lots of news about workers being laid off from various video game companies and the response from the people who consume those video games hasn't been, "This is great, now the company will be able to make more profit!". Instead, they have something that CEOs don't have, a conscious. It is becoming likely that all the people that have been laid off from various industries in the past year will cause a recession in the near future because people that don't have a job don't have money to buy consumer goods/services which causes a decline in economic activity (shocked Pikachu face).

Then there is the other future concern regarding artificial intelligence and automation. AI can be a valuable tool for a worker, but we know that the employer is not going to be benevolent in how it will be used. Either you will lose your job to automation or have your wages cut drastically due to how productive automation from AI can be, the employer then earns more profit from the combination of cutting your wages and having AI automating tasks. This concern would be lessened if you were in a worker co-op, that is why there is appeal for worker co-ops, because in this very uncertain and unstable future where most governments are controlled by autocratic businesses through "lobbying", a solution exists to remove the employer from the employer-employee relationship resulting in a democratic workplace such as the worker co-op. A reminder that worker co-ops will have pros and cons which is why I recommend watching the "Unlearning Economics" video I linked.

Will worker co-ops be the majority type of business in the future, maybe? It's going to be a gradual change like how Feudalism was replaced by Capitalism. Maybe you won't see it during your lifetime. We're currently reverting to Technofeudalism according to Yanis Varoufakis so who knows what the timeline will be. If you want a more optimistic take about worker co-ops, here is a random blog I found that you can read: https://canadianworker.coop/three-reasons-for-optimism-about-worker-co-ops-in-2023/

Bad Ending: The Employers have lost power (or have they?):

Diary of a fictitious Employer:
"Things were going so well; wealth inequality was contributing to the rise of fascism in governments across the world. But then those meddling kids were crying about climate change and social responsibility. All those unionists were upset that I wouldn't let employees not have to piss in a bottle for their toilet break. Why do they not understand that my profits will trickle down?

Those workers wanted four-day work weeks, over my dead body. In hindsight, that's where the cracks started to form. They then complained about being replaced by AI as I fired them, I may have ended up being too encouraging by telling them to start their own business if they didn't like their circumstances. It was disgusting to hear my former employees found purpose in work after they founded a worker cooperative. They should not be feeling joy from work, only from buying my consumer goods.

The propaganda the news media were delivering to the masses weren't enough to convince them: "Workplace democracy bad, autocracy good." What did the masses mean they didn't like being ruled with an iron-fist!? Time was running out, if we didn't stop this change, we'd lose everything. I wouldn't have any employees left to exploit; we needed the government to intervene, and they failed! What good is a State if they won't serve my interests.

That is why I used my wealth and fled to Mars, to build a new capitalist utopia and then, I'll take over the galaxy!"

 

[BoktaiFan]

I would agree with a lot of the ideas here but I think it's worth highlighting some counter examples. The first thing I thought of is a recent video by Sakurai. Not necessarily on corporate profit structure but on majority rules

 

[theprodigy]

I would agree with a lot of the ideas here but I think it's worth highlighting some counter examples. The first thing I thought of is a recent video by Sakurai. Not necessarily on corporate profit structure but on majority rules

This is more about having a coherent vision for a game rather than a mishmash of "popular" ideas that don't fit together.

 

[BoktaiFan]

This is more about having a coherent vision for a game rather than a mishmash of "popular" ideas that don't fit together.

Yes but I think there is an argument to having a hierarchical structure for a corporation rather than a strictly democratic one.

Now that could take the form of a similar company structure where the board is made up of employees or ownership is something like that.

I think you could have just as much an issue of an "unfocused" company as you do a game if you go to far.

 

[Fisico]

Thanks for the write-up

In France, where Motion Twin is located, the studio is a “SCOP,” or Société coopérative, a relatively recent phenomenon

That quote made me chuckle, the very basis SCOP are based on is a 150y old concept in France that had its ups and down since and the weight of SCOP companies is roughly the same in 2021 as it was in 1985 (which isn't much, 0.15-0.20% of the total "workforce").
Seeing the source used they're conflating SCOP and SCOP grouping which are two different things, the latter being more recent (2014) but mostly an ease on regulation to allow a SCOP to buy another company and grow externally (something which went against the original principles of SCOP, whether that's a good thing or not I wouldn't know)

Since Varoufakis name came up I can also recommend his book "Adults in the Room", it's (almost) completely off topic to the matter at hand but more or less his point of view of the Greece crisis during his short tenure (6 months) as Greek Minister of Finance in 2015 (since that's a credential of his that the topic uses as well), there's a lot to learn there including on Varoufakis (who went into that position extremely naive and got thrown straight into the Lion's den to be fair)

 

[Mekanos]

I think one thing Marx didn't really account for when writing about the inevitability of revolution is how much stronger the capitalist state would be in the years since he passed, reinforced by the police and military. There's probably an argument here that this is why the 20th century mostly saw revolution in feudal countries, not industrial ones. Which is to go off your point that we might instead see a rise of co-ops in the developed world, though I do think the current trajectory is pretty grim. I don't have a crystal ball into the future or anything but it unfortunately does seem like things are gonna get a lot worse before they get better.

 

[Terrell]

If I ever founded a game studio, it would absolutely be a co-op. Stable wage borrows against sale revenue and gets paid back when the game releases until such a period where all prior wages and startup costs are recovered by revenue and then surplus profit is distributed among the workforce at a mutually agreed upon rate, with future projects starting the whole process over again (with a lower overhead from lack of startup costs to get to profitability faster).

 

[Undead Warrior]

I think one thing Marx didn't really account for when writing about the inevitability of revolution is how much stronger the capitalist state would be in the years since he passed, reinforced by the police and military. There's probably an argument here that this is why the 20th century mostly saw revolution in feudal countries, not industrial ones. Which is to go off your point that we might instead see a rise of co-ops in the developed world, though I do think the current trajectory is pretty grim. I don't have a crystal ball into the future or anything but it unfortunately does seem like things are gonna get a lot worse before they get better.

Well, there were a lot of military coups that prevented revolutions as well.

The example of Motion Twin is interesting because a true coop should also have the ability to decide how much they want to extract vs how much they want the company to accumulate capital, which as noted is quite necessary. I'm also not terribly fond of Valve's structure of "nobody is your boss" cause that results in no work being done, just things that immediately make each developer money, ie: hats and gun skins. Arguably this has made them incredibly rich, but this is absolutely a case of unchecked libertarian capitalism rather than collectivism.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

I know it's far from the same thing, but public companies allow you or even encourage you (via stock bonuses) to be a shareholder of the company you work in. It's an okay substitute in a world where co-ops basically don't happen.

With regards to AI, I think at some point it's going to be so advanced that devs will be able to work alone. Think Stardew Valley but AAA tier. So we're going to have a million one-person gaming companies. A bunch of solopreneurial autarchies, so to speak.

 

[ggx2ac]

I know it's far from the same thing, but public companies allow you or even encourage you (via stock bonuses) to be a shareholder of the company you work in. It's an okay substitute in a world where co-ops basically don't happen.

My main disagreement is that while shares of a publicly traded company give you a share of ownership of that company, those shares don't give you control of how the company is run. It is far from the concept of a workplace democracy.

The voting power of your shares is dictated by how many of them you have, if all the workers owned shares in the company, there is no way they would even hold 1% of voting power let alone 51% if they wanted to take over the company. Workers are not going to outbid institutional investors that can move millions of dollars in microseconds. Also, the representation of workers as shareholders will be a tiny minority compared to the CEO and/or board of directors.

There is still a top-down hierarchy where the CEO and/or board of directors at the top are the employers who have control of the company, as an employee my shares are not going to save me from being laid off.

With regards to AI, I think at some point it's going to be so advanced that devs will be able to work alone. Think Stardew Valley but AAA tier. So we're going to have a million one-person gaming companies. A bunch of solopreneurial autarchies, so to speak.

If AI becomes advanced enough for higher complexities of automation, it has to result in the ultimate outcome: no more workers. A worker that no longer needs to work finally gets time to do things with their life. Like how the employer/owner spends all their time at golf courses or on their yachts instead of sitting at a desk.

I do not expect that outcome happening any time soon.

Regarding the idea of having one million AI developed AAA games from one million separate single developer studios, that would be a nightmare. The scenario is no different to indie studios currently who release games on the iOS app store or Steam where it is flooded with games, all one million of those studios are not going to be successful and, another aspect where those one million studios can't even compete with the current top publishers is marketing since the majority of people out there who buy games find out about them through advertisements. With one million games flooding the market, you would need advertisements to even get attention and you would need to outbid the competition to get advertising space of which the current top publishers would easily outbid you.

I dread the amount of "entrepreneurs" that are going to have their start using AI because the majority of them will be stealing other people's work to make money just like how currently some youtubers make money by doing content theft or streamers who make money by reacting to other people's work.

Oh wait, I forgot. A lot of people have already used AI right now to make money by creating things that were stolen from other people's work.

 

[ggx2ac]

This article: https://www.ign.com/articles/bungie...-layoffs-cuts-and-fear-of-total-sony-takeover

Posting some relevant quotes from the above IGN article regarding Bungie.

One month after a major round of layoffs impacted roughly 100 Bungie employees of 1,200, those remaining at the Destiny developer say the cuts, as well as other cost-cutting measures, came alongside an apparent scramble by studio leadership to avoid a total Sony takeover.

While the exact details of Sony’s deal to acquire Bungie remain unknown to the public or employees, sources say they were told by leaders that the current split board structure is contingent on Bungie meeting certain financial goals. If Bungie falls short of certain financial thresholds by too great an amount, Sony is allowed to dissolve the existing board and take full control of the company.

I needed to add the above context that this is an unusual situation since Bungie is a subsidiary of Sony. The article mentions other cost-cutting measures besides the layoffs that you can read in the article linked above.

How the employees feel:

According to those still with the company, employee frustration and sadness in the days and weeks following the layoffs was met with a surprising amount of indifference or even outright flippancy or hostility from management.

From a Q&A session:

Others said they were rebuffed repeatedly and discouraged from even discussing the layoffs whenever they tried to ask questions. Employees in one department recalled a post-layoffs Q&A session where a department head was asked if leadership taking salary cuts to prevent layoffs had been considered, only to respond that Bungie was “not that type of company.”

If you recognize it, that employee was most likely referring to the time that Satoru Iwata when he was CEO of Nintendo had himself and the board of directors take pay cuts to avoid doing layoffs during the Wii U era.

One employee comment, this is a reminder of the problem with Employers where they live in their own bubbles ignorant of how the company works:

"I’m angry. I’m upset. This isn’t what I came here to do,” one person said. “It feels like many higher ups aren’t listening to the data and are like, ‘We just need to win our fans back, they still like us.’ No. They don’t...We got rid of some of our most knowledgeable beloved folks who have been here for 20+ years. Everyday I walk in afraid that I or my friends are next. No one is safe."

Employers have plans for outsourcing employee roles:

Another anxiety sources discussed with us was that many of the reductions made at Bungie recently were part of a broader move toward outsourcing. Multiple individuals across various departments told us they’d heard discussions within their teams of plans to increase outsourcing both before and in the wake of the layoffs.

Employees didn't have a say in the acquisition in the first place:

But in the wake of an acquisition that shocked many Bungie employees we’ve spoken to, and which seemed out of character with the studio’s independent streak, it feels to many like that’s all falling apart.

Since this event is so detailed, it is a great example to show others why workplace democracy matters. The employees had no say in how the business is run, they were not privy to the details of the acquisition, they didn't even know an acquisition was happening to have a say in whether it should go ahead, they weren't given a say anyway, same deal with the layoffs, the employers didn't want to cut their own salaries to keep workers around, the employers are in their own bubbles, the employees don't have a say in having their jobs not outsourced.

You're probably going to point out that it wouldn't matter because the owners sold the business to Sony. I am putting a video here of an economist who gives an example of what could have happened in the UK had the Labour party got into power in 2019 regarding turning current corporations into worker co-ops, (timestamped 12:00, section ends at 16:53):


I know that Bungie is not based in the UK, but it is what could have led to a real-world example of a company that wants to sell itself to another company, but the workers were given the first right of refusal and if the workers voted for it, they would be able to purchase the company themselves. (Watch the video before asking "How would they afford it?")

Another example of a business that I'm sure people would have preferred for the workers to own than to be owned by Elon Musk, Twitter. He purchased Twitter for around $44B and then laid off more than 50% of the workforce just because he could. That is the warning sign that we shouldn't let businesses be autocratic.

 

[KR_EP]

I’m your modern Robin Hood.
We’ll keep robbing the poor to give to the rich!

They’re children.
Overgrown children.​

I think one thing Marx didn't really account for when writing about the inevitability of revolution is how much stronger the capitalist state would be in the years since he passed, reinforced by the police and military. There's probably an argument here that this is why the 20th century mostly saw revolution in feudal countries, not industrial ones. Which is to go off your point that we might instead see a rise of co-ops in the developed world, though I do think the current trajectory is pretty grim. I don't have a crystal ball into the future or anything but it unfortunately does seem like things are gonna get a lot worse before they get better.

Karl Marx didn't account for a lot of things, like what happens next. Proletariat run political transition, about that... Despite the aftermath of the French Revolution having already provided the bloody answer. As for his views on Russian Imperialism, pan-Slavism & how Marxism was pre-opted by the Soviet Union, oh boy...he'd be dead last in the Sales Prediction thread.

Friedrich Hegel: Who the hell are you?
Marx: You know. You all know exactly who I am. Say my name.
Friedrich Hegel: What? I don't have a damn clue who the hell you are.
Marx: Yeah, you do. I'm the communist. I'm the man who killed Capitalism.
Friedrich Hegel: Bullshit. The Philosophy of Right got Capitalism's House of Cards in Order.
Marx: Are you sure? That's right. Now. Say my name.
Friedrich Hegel: You're Karl Marx?
Marx: You're goddamn right.​

Regarding the OP, while I appreciate the effort put into (both) threads @ggx2ac it's all a bit Marxism & Coca-Cola: Vidyagame Edition for my palette considering gaming is the Opiate of the Unwashed InstallBase Massives. Do you really wanna live in a world without Coca-Cola? Somehow I doubt the production staff working/slaving away on a 110 episode series had much if any workers rights when animating those scenes. Long standing gaming sales followers on InstallBase also have to accept some blame for being part of the wider problem of labour being devalued. Aren't we harming journalists & enthusiast writers with free sales data analysis as the culling going on extends beyond developers to media outlets being closed left, right & centre?

Pureblood is the sigh of the oppressed creature,
The Heartless of a Hollow Bastion in the End of the World That Never Was,
and the Missing Link of Unversed conditions.
It is the opium of the Nobodies.​

Taking a step back & thinking about this forum & the use of Open Source Intelligence to learn more about the industry by not taking press releases at face value, parsing through investor Relation (IR) pages, joining the dots between disparate sales data points, the question is, why do members & Archivists here go to such trouble? Publishers & platform holders withhold so much sales data begs the question, for what end? Is it to use against developers in contract negotiations, putting them at a clear disadvantage as to what constitutes a fair deal?

To ensure customers have more understanding of how the sausage is made, giving people recourse to dispute infringements over basic consumer rights for the games we buy. That's why.

My main disagreement is that while shares of a publicly traded company give you a share of ownership of that company, those shares don't give you control of how the company is run. It is far from the concept of a workplace democracy.

The voting power of your shares is dictated by how many of them you have, if all the workers owned shares in the company, there is no way they would even hold 1% of voting power let alone 51% if they wanted to take over the company. Workers are not going to outbid institutional investors that can move millions of dollars in microseconds. Also, the representation of workers as shareholders will be a tiny minority compared to the CEO and/or board of directors.

There is still a top-down hierarchy where the CEO and/or board of directors at the top are the employers who have control of the company, as an employee my shares are not going to save me from being laid off.

Hang on a second, let’s not tarnish all with the same broad strokes. Even from my very limited experience in reaching out to publicly listed companies, I've been able to field questions to a publicly listed company despite not owning a share in the holding company. Current Reports provide valuable insight while the submission of Corporate Governance reports enables us to gain insight as to any wider goals a company is pursuing. Independent audits can be read in Annual Securities Reports too. It is more to do with culture plus robust checks & balances.

Downsizing is not a dirty word, but it is a dirty business if you keep it a secret until the last moment. Nobody should ever have their life & livelihood thrown into disarray. Nobody. Noted the Virtuos San Fran/Tokyo dichotomy. The Far East is not El Dorado, nor a mystical Land of Milk & Honey but nor is it Another World away from North American & European industrialised nations. The huge disparity in fortunes in one part of the developed world compared to the other is striking & proves how there's no justification for the appalling scale of skilled job losses.

If AI becomes advanced enough for higher complexities of automation, it has to result in the ultimate outcome: no more workers. A worker that no longer needs to work finally gets time to do things with their life. Like how the employer/owner spends all their time at golf courses or on their yachts instead of sitting at a desk.

I do not expect that outcome happening any time soon.

Regarding the idea of having one million AI developed AAA games from one million separate single developer studios, that would be a nightmare. The scenario is no different to indie studios currently who release games on the iOS app store or Steam where it is flooded with games, all one million of those studios are not going to be successful and, another aspect where those one million studios can't even compete with the current top publishers is marketing since the majority of people out there who buy games find out about them through advertisements. With one million games flooding the market, you would need advertisements to even get attention and you would need to outbid the competition to get advertising space of which the current top publishers would easily outbid you.

I dread the amount of "entrepreneurs" that are going to have their start using AI because the majority of them will be stealing other people's work to make money just like how currently some youtubers make money by doing content theft or streamers who make money by reacting to other people's work.

Oh wait, I forgot. A lot of people have already used AI right now to make money by creating things that were stolen from other people's work.

Robots cannot buy cars, AI cannot buy jack shit. Over 8 billion people, all need jobs to make ends meet, all want careers to have fulfilling work, to be recognised by peers at the bare minimum, accomplishments to their name that are known to the public writ large. Rather than unproven social experiments on a large scale, most people just want to work for a non-sociopathic, well adjusted employer, earn a living wage in a healthy working environment, go home to a house they own, spend time with friends & families. Then & only then can people be expected to have the means to spend a bit of spare time & money enjoying a hobby or two. Such as creative industries like video-games, it'd mean people could afford to pay full price.

Rounding off by tying your comment about Bungie above with the ongoing discussion in the Layoffs at Bungie, Delays to both Destiny: The Final Shape and Marathon thread. Bungie could've always created a mid-sized team to 50-100 to develop a new GAAS free sci-fi IP or collaborate with either Insomniac Games or Guerrilla Games on a new Resistance/Killzone for PS5/PC.

Sure but there are some very standard do and do nots when it comes to motivating staff and trying to turn around culture. Like sometimes, no matter what the team produces their window is closed and things will not return to what they once were. Good management already has that knowledge in mind and manages around it.

We tend to treat organizational management like a "either you have the gift or you don't" and aspects of that may be true but there are also very textbook approaches competent managers are suppose to utilize (obvious aspects, no one utilizes everything or could even know everything). Yeah the test is when things are rocky, can you lead, but I'm not criticizing their failure to reverse a 45% drop in revenue. It is very possible they have no shot at restoring it regardless of what they do. I am criticizing their approach to creating an environment where the team is even motivated to make a product that "could" do it at all.

Great, now I'm getting PTSD flashbacks of reading through all the SEC Filings about Motorsport Games. All I wanted was a new TOCA for Crimbo, Mr. Meanie Robot Santa

Since Varoufakis name came up I can also recommend his book "Adults in the Room", it's (almost) completely off topic to the matter at hand but more or less his point of view of the Greece crisis during his short tenure (6 months) as Greek Minister of Finance in 2015 (since that's a credential of his that the topic uses as well), there's a lot to learn there including on Varoufakis (who went into that position extremely naive and got thrown straight into the Lion's den to be fair)

Alternatively if you're illiterate like me, watch the film adaptation directed by Costa-Gavras. Alongside his prior film, Capital for anyone up for a double-bill about what ails social democracy.

​

Not to get too political or anything but since it was brought up...

No offence to Jean-Luc Godard or anyone who wrote more from the premise of his observation you invoked, but consumerism is not within the sole purview of capitalism. Coca-Cola need not be obliterated (much like we don't have to tear down every building owned by a landlord to their foundations in order to end rentier capitalism), and even if it did need to disappear, the process of carbonated water, coca leaf flavouring, caffeine and sweetener is not permanently lost to us. The nature of consumerism, however, is entirely mutable and thus can be changed (because it already happened through the proliferation of capital propaganda marketing/advertising, even a cursory glance in the direction of Mad Men tells you that's true).

What you've just described, if meant to exist in capitalism, is also "an unproven social experiment on a large scale" for most people, and any point where it might have existed in history for the majority of the world population was a mere blip that was swiftly course-corrected away from. And really, if we're talking unproven social experiments that'd take the same kind of effort to achieve either way, why settle for the one that's objectively worse by every measure? Also, it's not like capitalism was provably better than mercantilism and feudalism til it happened, and that transition was far from seamless, with failures along the way in its infancy/global rollout.

You give me too much artistic credit, Godard being an excuse to extend the Breaking Bad shit-post meme. Respectfully disagree that it is objectively worst to make a profit on all commercial endeavours. Said profits helped fund the creation of the modern welfare state, social democracy with robust checks & balances is a real (good enough) accomplishment. One that achieved tangible results until being increasingly supplanted by populist/facist, anti-social democracy in recent years. Making a renewed case for it is a more credible 'course correction' than reinventing the wheel.

​

 

[Terrell]

Not to get too political or anything but since it was brought up...

Regarding the OP, while I appreciate the effort put into (both) threads @ggx2ac it's all a bit Marxism & Coca-Cola: Vidyagame Edition for my palette considering gaming is the Opiate of the Unwashed InstallBase Massives. Do you really wanna live in a world without Coca-Cola?

No offence to Jean-Luc Godard or anyone who wrote more from the premise of his observation you invoked, but consumerism is not within the sole purview of capitalism. Coca-Cola need not be obliterated (much like we don't have to tear down every building owned by a landlord to their foundations in order to end rentier capitalism), and even if it did need to disappear, the process of carbonated water, coca leaf flavouring, caffeine and sweetener is not permanently lost to us. The nature of consumerism, however, is entirely mutable and thus can be changed (because it already happened through the proliferation of capital propaganda marketing/advertising, even a cursory glance in the direction of Mad Men tells you that's true).

Rather than unproven social experiments on a large scale, most people just want to work for a non-sociopathic, well adjusted employer, earn a living wage in a healthy working environment, go home to a house they own, spend time with friends & families. Then & only then can people be expected to have the means to spend a bit of spare time & money enjoying a hobby or two. Such as creative industries like video-games, it'd mean people could afford to pay full price.

What you've just described, if meant to exist in capitalism, is also "an unproven social experiment on a large scale" for most people, and any point where it might have existed in history for the majority of the world population was a mere blip that was swiftly course-corrected away from. And really, if we're talking unproven social experiments that'd take the same kind of effort to achieve either way, why settle for the one that's objectively worse by every measure? Also, it's not like capitalism was provably better than mercantilism and feudalism til it happened, and that transition was far from seamless, with failures along the way in its infancy/global rollout.

 

[ggx2ac]

Long standing gaming sales followers on InstallBase also have to accept some blame for being part of the wider problem of labour being devalued.

I don't believe that a bunch of consumers are responsible for systemic issues. This reminds me of the carbon footprint from BP as a way to put the blame of carbon emissions on the individual to avoid scrutiny.

Aren't we harming journalists & enthusiast writers with free sales data analysis as the culling going on extends beyond developers to media outlets being closed left, right & centre?

No. I'm certain that Vice which shutdown Waypoint and laid off all the people who worked there and then Vice declaring bankruptcy a month later was due to investors bailing out since Vice wasn't making enough money and they had between $500M to $1B in liabilities according to the bankruptcy filing.

Other than that, you're saying that Install Base shouldn't be competing with other outlets because it will harm journalists/writers when the act of not competing will result in the demise of Install Base.

Not to mention that some gaming news outlets rely on forum posts to make their articles and even credit the forum poster in the article. I still see articles that credit users on the old forum.

 

[SinCityAssassin]

Long standing gaming sales followers on InstallBase also have to accept some blame for being part of the wider problem of labour being devalued. Aren't we harming journalists & enthusiast writers with free sales data analysis as the culling going on extends beyond developers to media outlets being closed left, right & centre?

 

[Aquamarine]

Robots cannot buy cars, AI cannot buy jack shit. Over 8 billion people, all need jobs to make ends meet, all want careers to have fulfilling work, to be recognised by peers at the bare minimum, accomplishments to their name that are known to the public writ large. Rather than unproven social experiments on a large scale, most people just want to work for a non-sociopathic, well adjusted employer, earn a living wage in a healthy working environment, go home to a house they own, spend time with friends & families. Then & only then can people be expected to have the means to spend a bit of spare time & money enjoying a hobby or two. Such as creative industries like video-games, it'd mean people could afford to pay full price.

It's a feature of capitalism to be exploitative, not a bug. I say this as someone who has a degree in Economics. The end goal of capitalism is to figure out how to best optimize your company's profit at the expense of others. It's Fuck you, got mine institutionalized on a vast scale. Any business wants to maximize revenue at minimum cost, because it magnifies rewards for the zero-sum owner class, and the largest cost to any company is labor. The more exploitative you are towards your labor long-term, the more successful you become by proxy.

Living wages only exist for a distinct minority of jobs because employers are forced into offering those wages to lure top-tier talent. If there was any possible way that they could save money in this process, like through slashing salaries and benefits or by heavily relying on contractors or LLMs instead of proper staffing, they would opt for that route. Executives are rewarded time and again for engaging in cost optimization behavior like this.

Note the behavior of game studios recently. In 2023, over 9000 employees working at game studios have been laid off, a figure that's unprecedented for the industry. A common trend with the layoffs is business optimization. Now that cheap capital has dried up with sky-high interest rates for borrowers, studios were deemed as burning through investment capital too quickly. As a consequence, the "compassionate" executives slash and burn and destroy people's livelihoods at the drop of a hat the moment YOY growth faltered below their ridiculous projections.

Weathering the storm by allowing everyone to keep their job would be sub-optimal for profit and therefore executives follow the path of least resistance. There are only a handful of companies out there (like early-2010s Nintendo) who are willing to make the long-term sacrifice to retain employees over short-term profit maximization.

I recommend that you scroll through this website when you get a chance. It really magnifies the sheer scale of inequality that late-stage capitalism has wrought on society.

 

[ggx2ac]

This post is to give people more resources about worker cooperatives and ones that exist right now in the video game industry.

I am going to link here more resources about worker cooperatives especially in the video game industry. First, Game Workers Unite (wikipedia page) has a detailed resources page on their website explaining worker cooperatives; link: https://www.gameworkersunite.org/worker-co-op-resource

There's a lot to read in the game workers unite link above and they added this video as well which give a general view of how to establish a worker cooperative:


For longer videos to spend your free time with that are video game industry specific, there are:

Embracing the Co-Op Studio Model in Indie Games (posted on the GDC youtube channel), description:

15,354 views Nov 26, 2019
In this 2019 GDC panel, developers Scott Benson, Ted Anderson, Steve Filby, Ian Thomas and Bethany Hockenberry discuss life as indie developers, share their experiences forming workers co-ops, and talk about the benefits of the co-op model for small and midsize studios.

Cooperating as Game Worker Cooperatives #GDoCExpo 2021 (posted on the Game Devs of Color Expo youtube channel), description:

989 views Nov 17, 2021
The worker cooperative is a little-known business model in games, focused on workers' rights and democratic management, working against the current AAA flow of the industry. In this talk, Alex (Soft Not Weak), Eva (Lucid Tales), and Frani (Future Club) share their experiences as founders and members of game worker co-ops and give a crash course on what worker cooperatives are, why you should consider this model for your own studio and how FWGS (Federation of Worker-Owned Game Studios) is here to help.

There's also a gamesindustry.biz article that the above expo: https://www.gamesindustry.biz/an-introduction-to-game-worker-cooperatives

Own What You Create - Cooperate! Worker Cooperatives in the Games Industry

88 views Nov 26, 2023
A talk about worker owned cooperatives for game devs from a German perspective — the what, the how, the why, and the people trying to create new narratives about how we work. Alex is a game developer with over 10 years experience in design, creative direction, narrative, and 3D art. He wants to make games a space for everyone and for creators to own their labor.

Recorded at the Talk and Play games meetup - Berlin, Nov 22, 2023.

Deep Sky is part of a community of game developer cooperatives based in Berlin. We are working to spread awareness and knowledge on how cooperatives present a tangible option for game developers to take back ownership over their creativity and working conditions.

As you can see, the last video linked here is recent as of last month. The video views show that there is not much awareness of worker cooperatives especially among the consumers of video games but, I'm sure the industry-wide layoffs that occurred this year which I forget where it was quoted hasn't been this bad in 15 years (2008 unsurprisingly) might increase awareness among those unemployed about alternatives to finding work.

 

[ggx2ac]

Most of you would be aware that the GDC Vault website has finally uploaded videos from GDC 2024 of which you would have gone to watch the Mario and Zelda presentations from Nintendo.

Relevant to this thread, here is the worker co-op related presentation from GDC 2024.

The link to the video is here: https://gdcvault.com/play/1034180/Change-the-Rules-Co-Ops

Video details:

Session Name:	Change the Rules! Co-Ops, Unions, and Other Game Labor Structures
Speaker(s):	Saleem Dabbous, Francesca Esquenazi, Michael Iantorno, Carolyn Jong, Marie LeBlanc Flanagan, Coby West
Company Name(s):	KO_OP, Future Club, Concordia University, Game Workers Unite Montreal, A Kind of Play, The Glory Society
Track / Format:	Advocacy

Overview:

Join us for a lively conversation about games and work! Led by industry expert Marie LeBlanc Flanagan from Game Arts International Network, who dug deep into researching worker-owned video game studios and unions in games with Michael Iantorno from Concordia University. This session presents a wealth of insights from their compelling comic and supporting whitepaper, exploring alternative labor modes like co-ops and unions in the gaming industry. The session kicks off with a series of engaging micro-talks featuring prominent figures who have successfully established game co-ops and done union organizing work. Gain unique perspectives from representatives of acclaimed co-op studios like KO_OP Mode, Glory Society, and Future Club, alongside experienced union organizers rallying and advocating for worker rights within the gaming industry. The ensuing panel discussion, moderated by Marie LeBlanc Flanagan, will spark conversations around how to fight for collaboration, sustainability, and inclusivity from the dire depths of late-stage capitalism. A Q&A session will allow attendees to bring their burning questions to the experienced speakers. As the gaming industry evolves, this session offers invaluable insights and inspiration for attendees to embrace new, humane, and creative ways of working together.

Yes, the video is viewable only from the GDC Vault website just like the other videos mentioned that were presented at GDC 2024.