Stop. (Gaming)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Thursday, October 25, 2018, 14:10 (2010 days ago) @ EffortlessFury

I just don't like that line of reasoning. It's really close to victim blaming.

This is absolutely, in no way, "victim blaming". Somebody walking down the street who gets ambushed is a victim. A free adult who goes to school, applies to a bunch of companies, goes off to an interview, accepts a job, all the while knowing full well that the company and the industry at large routinely overwork their employees is NOT a victim in any way, shape, or form.

You can like a job and love the work you do at that job, while also acknowledging the exploitative labor practices and wanting to push things forward towards positive change. "This is just how it's always been" and "if you don't like it, leave," are extremely shitty and unhelpful lines of reasoning that just allow these companies to continue getting away this horseshit.

No. It's not about letting them get away with it, its about realizing that the people who willingly choose to work in the industry are equally responsible for creating a solution. Screaming for other people (customers or the government) to step forward and force studios to change is not the right way to go. Employment is a 2-way relationship. Developers are not captive. They entered this relationship willingly. It is ultimately up to them to change the nature of that relationship if they are unhappy with it (and again, I fully agree that they are being treared unfairly).

I think we both want the same thing here. I'm just pointing out that people have individual responsibilities when it comes to the relationships they choose to enter.

In the world that exists today, there are rarely any systems in place that aren't abusing people. The type of choice you believe exists is mostly an illusion. I think I'm coming to this from a more pessemistic view than you might think I am :)

It's not "today"... there have never been systems in place that didn't abuse some people. But that's where I'd point out that the systems we have now are the least abusive systems we've come up with. Still loaded with problems, still exploiting people, still in major need of improvement, but it is simply wrong to believe that things have ever been better anywhere or anytime. Yes, the choice I'm referring to has all sorts of limitations placed on it (the need to make a living wage, and potentiall provide for a family, just to name a couple), but that choice is more real now than it ever has been before.

Right now, workers are less valuable than employers. You can choose to go into an industry that doesn't, but you might hate it, and that's not your fault but still your burden to bear?

Of course its your burden to bear... who else's would it be? The vast majority of people across the vast majority of time have hated their jobs, if they were even lucky enough to have one. This idea that you have to "love" your job is just so bizare. It's called "work" for a reason. Yes, a very tiny and lucky few will manage to find jobs that they truly love. But in my personal experience, the years that spent focusing on how much I hate my job and obsessing over finding one that I could love were the most depressed and hopeless years of my life. It wasn't until I decided to find meaning in other areas of my life that I started viewing my job not as a source of happiness, but as the sacrifice that allows me to persue ACTUAL sources of meaning and happiness. And the cool thing is, I actually no longer hate my job now that I've learned to appreciate it for what it actually is.

Sounds to me like there's one side of this equation with a win-win and the other with a lose-lose.

The only way that it can be a win-win for 1 side is if the other side behaves like captives. Luckily, they aren't. Devs are speaking up, and have been doing so for years. This is good. They've spread awareness of the horrible practices that many studios have engaged in. That has, slowly, begun to change the way people look to get into the industry. This is the mechanism by which things have changed and will continue to change for the better.

Finally, I'm totally on the same page as you when it comes to the imbalance between employers and employees in general. Automation is making workers less and less valuble every year. It's a big problem. So far, the gaming industry is not nearly as effected by these changes as other industries, because so many of the disciplines involved in game development are creative in nature. Luckily, that's one thing that automation hasn't replaced yet.