shawns11385772
55661
1987
28
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/19/24202271/bethesda-game-studios-workers-unionize-cwa
Jul 20, 2024 5:14 AM
shawns11385772
55661
1987
28
https://www.theverge.com/2024/7/19/24202271/bethesda-game-studios-workers-unionize-cwa
chbarts
Is that what happened to Ion Storm? They un-ionized?
ThePastmaster
Hope it was more well bakes than their last game. XD Seriously though, great for them. Unions make workers lives better.
Nbiakro
Trankia12
alwaysupvotefuturama
Un-ionized = atomic = new Fallout confirmed
TheGreatAtomsk
let's see if they are now finally capable to deliver proper games that don't have to be modded to hell an back to be somewhat runnable and fun.
LinguisticBitch
I'm part of a Union and I approve this message.
NKato
Oh, nice.
SolidDoc
Midgarmerc
Well, not everyone. I'm sure there are plenty of right wing grifters right now screaming about how this will ruin the company
ThatTransformersDude
They did what most unions should be doing, unionizing by industry not by trade. Hopefully more people do the same and keep expanding their base past Bethesda and into other game studios.
ChePollino
Good. Hope they negotiate some severance pay before their next awful game makes Microsoft shut down the studio.
beewitches
a union is why my dad is dead from cancer. the woman in the union, who he covered shifts for, came in just enough that a) she wouldn't get fired and b) he wouldn't get pushed to full-time and be given health insurance.
Munchman347
'Bethesda declares bankruptcy and closes shop. In other news, a new gaming company opens it's doors, Non-union "Be The Sad" unveils hundreds of games it bought for one dollar...' š¤”š©
DocTanner
Seeing more and more unions in the tech industries gives me some hope.
vex720
Good job. But their games are still going to be full of bugs that will neer be fixed
TurboCartoonSmuggler
Looks like Xbox are gonna need to price hike gamepass again..and probably still close dev studios after they release upcoming projects >.>
Shaodyn
Maybe now they can make games faster than one every five years.
Shaodyn
Hey, maybe they'll actually finish Elder Scrolls 6 before Skyrim is old enough to drive!
MightyIink
Hopefully now more developers will speak up over the quality of their games without the fear of getting fired.
Neurisko
So what's to stop the owners from harvesting all its value then shuttering it?
SunBrolem
Unionization: It just works
itrytoonlysaypositivethings
This considerably improves my opinion of Bethesda. I'll look on their next game release more favorably. That and the fact that the Fallout TV-show was better than we could have hoped.
5Ahn
It improves my opinion of their workers and their intelligence. The company is still absolute shit garbage with their drive to make wider and shallower puddles with each release and monetize everything.
itrytoonlysaypositivethings
I mean, just don't buy their games. People are still buying them, which is sending them the wrong message.
5Ahn
I don't, but there are enough whales and people that don't just care because the decline is slow enough that for a lot of them all the predatory MTX crap is just normal and it's a ridiculous idea to want better.
It makes more money so they don't care if I, or probably several thousand hypothetical me's, don't buy Starfield or the next Elder Scrolls and they won't unless they accidentally push too far and get a real flop.
nomanstanzalo
How about they union themselves into a bug free game release?
dansomehan
This is great news, I hate it when stuff becomes ionized
Humputse
I think it's radical.
SolidDoc
radioactive
treknor
good news..
lephilou
Does it mean they will finish their games before publishing them now?
JokenPo0079
Maybe they'll be able to make a good game now.
squishybaker
Union strong.
SpaceMarineWithAnUrgeToPurge
I hope Rockstar is next.
0570
I hope Rockstar's support department gets outsourced to a roving band of rabid baboons, they'd do a better job than the current staff.
WillWasThere
You don't like 120 hour work weeks?
HeadJamistan
CD Project Red is known for their insane pre-launch work. I'd like to see it there too
Ultratoxic
Yeah that's Poland though. I have no idea what unionization process is like over there. I do wish them the best in solidarity with workers everywhere
undercoverles
So i once interviewed at Rockstar around 2013 or so. Yes they should unionize, but also, they really really have a culture problem that starts at the top levels. Most artists and programmers i've met there have been good people. However. The lead that I interviewed with, and everyone at his level and above were / are? shitstains. You don't interview a woman by unclipping a gun on your belt, putting it on the desk, taking off your pants, toss them on a chair, and then invite her to "do the same"
Ultratoxic
Ayo, WHAT!?
undercoverles
Yeahhh. I've never noped out of an interview so quickly in my life. The entire place seemed like it was ran by a frat house. One of the first questions i was asked, was how i felt about weekly trips to a strip club and bar crawls. Dude just gave zero shits about my actual qualifications. It was one of the nails in the coffin of my career in the game industry that lead me to leaving it.
gearsmith
EA.
Srcsqwrn
I hope this happens for everyone in all entertainment industries
Trankia12
We can all hope any and all major gaming corporations are next.
ItSeemsYouHaveSufferedaTerribleFate
For real. Crunch sounds like the greatest cancer in game dev. Hearing about someone working 16 hour days so often on Call of Duty QA that they started to needing to wear glasses is awful.
WhereIsMyAppleQuava
I can make it worse: Rockstar when they were making L.A. Noire based themselves in Sydney. The extreme workload burnt so many out.
farfie
Based themselves in Sydney, what does that mean?
WhereIsMyAppleQuava
As in they had a studio in Sydney Australia... I should have double checked my grammar, eh?
chaylar
All workplaces.
HashMaster9k
Not if we let Trumpy into the next presidency.
I know I sound like a broken record of every imgur political post, but please allā VOTE BLUE. Trump is literally the end of America as we know it. Preserve its dignity and ethics by voting Dem your whole ticket.
Scary time to be alive, but we will all survive if we don't let Trump have the last term as president.
chaylar
I'm Canadian. If I could vote in your elections, I'd be voting blue.
HashMaster9k
Thank you for your support! ā¤ļø
nickoftime90
I'm about to start Fallout 4 since the show pulled me in. I'm open to any advice on how to play.
Midgarmerc
The best advice is to play Fallout New Vegas instead. The 2nd best advice is to not care about the main plot of Fallout 4 cause it's really really bad but the gameplay is fun at least.
rdement
If you decide to get into settlement building, go with 6 charisma for the local leader perk to tie them all together.
also purified water is your friend. lotta filters/pumps = lotta caps.
DMWildemount
I am very rich with water in my latest Fallout 4 play through, having lots of settlements with lots of purifiers. Whilst I know it is a game and there is no Fallout 3 like karma system, I give water away to the people of the wastelands by trading clean water for 0 caps. I only realised how weird it was when my daughter (also a big Fallout fan) asked me why I do it when she was watching me play.
rdement
If it makes you feel more immersed, then I get it.
ForestRed
Take your time, explore, have fun.
Nykidemus
Personally I modded in real VATS first thing, and then something to remove the level restrictions on higher-tier perks.
DMWildemount
As the Hate-All-Non-New-Vegas (āHANNVā) people have commented, I will provide a little bit of a counterpoint. Firstly, yes, New Vegas is good (Iām playing it again as part of Tales of Two Wastelands). As such, please HANNV people donāt just downvote me for providing balance, Iām not saying anything bad about NV. Secondly, Fallout 4 is beloved by many people for a reason, so your choice to play it is a valid one and (my opinion is that) it is a great game.
Gelaticat
Asking for advice on how to play? You know who does that? A synth!
anonymous
Before you do anything, the first thing you need to do is head over to nexusmods.com and install every single most endorsed mod, followed by the mods you like the most.
Remember: Only psychopaths play Bethesda games in their vanilla, unmodded state.
DMWildemount
Damnit, I failed the psychopath test: Both my latest Fallout 4 and Skyrim games (both of which have hundreds of hours) are unmodded. Does my Fallout New Vegas/3 being heavily modded into Tales of Two Wastelands cancel out some of my psychopathy, or is it a one strike rule? Jokes aside, there is no wrong way to play a video game to have fun. I have only modded Bethesda games previously with unofficial patches and visual/UI improvements, and I try to play them as close to vanilla game as possible.
Radix865
At the very least get the unofficial patch from there, it just fixes a lot of bugs and crashes that have been there since launch and Bethesda has just not bothered to fix.
AnneMakesMistakes
Do. Not. Use. AWKCR.
aThingWithTheStufAndTheJunk
Don't forget to explore. Bethesda loves environmental storytelling and FO4 has a lot of it.
TI99Kitty
Yes, this. There are little goodies and Easter eggs all over the place! There are hilarious random encounters everywhere, too, as well as some heartbreaking ones.
Also, save often. Manual saves, that is. don't trust autosaves or quicksaves. In fact, go into the settings and disable all the autosave options, and just remember to save. Fallout 4's autosaves and especially quicksaves have a greater tendency to become corrupted.
And don't play on Survival for your first playthrough.
onlyhalfghost
Play New Vegas if you want an RPG; if you're set on 4, just roll with exploring the cool environments as a looter shooter; the storytelling>
onlyhalfghost
> of the dungeon environments and such is the only part Bethesda has ever done well about Fallout; 4's actual story engagement is shite
[deleted]
[deleted]
Midgarmerc
FO4 fans always downvote posts like this despite it being the truth... though 76 is by far the most hated of the games, lets be real
Nykidemus
If you dont count 76 or the BOS action games.
DearLordYoureDumb
I've had INFINITELY more fun with 76 than 4.
CaptainKipup
I was listening to a podcast just earlier about how unions and better work conditions increase productivity. It was meant to be supportive of worker rights but it actually frustrated me. We are at maximum productivity. It only gets faster from here if you put a gun to my head and say āfaster or dieā. Big corporations need to recognise they have pressed workers to an unsustainable pace and productivity and growth need to decrease.
philomemo9000
Its because that reason that productivity falls. I can do better and faster but after 3 months of pushing me harder, working extra-hours, I just dont mind, Iam doing what I can in a lowest rhythim that I would have done if I had my work time normal.
Marsupialmessiah
They can keep them productivity, if they were to staff appropriately and compensate people accordingly not just throughput because theyjust can get away with it. Also wallbstreet casino bs has to be reigned in
Isthe4thtimethecharm
You can guarantee corporations know your limits. They also know how to push you to those limits without you breaking. They just don't care how any of it effects the workers.
hybridjamaican
One of the worse parts of that with them going so fast they leave out things that would make a game good without a 40gb patch needed a month after a terrible launch
NoNameFred
I mean, one of the easiest ways to increase productivity is "have enough employees" ā hire more workers (paid a decent amount, so they don't need a second and third job to survive), so that people aren't constantly rushed and overworked. Because, that might mean you get 15% less activity from each worker, but if "error rate" drops from 30% to 5% (due to no longer being rushed and overworked) then you've still getting 15% more USEFUL output (well, 30% when you consider the errors need fixingā¦)
NoNameFred
(i.e. if each worker is doing 100 tasks per day, but at a 30% error rate, then they're producing 70 valid results ā and 30 of those 70 are fixing the errors. But if each worker is doing 85 tasks, with only a 5% error rate ā due to being able to take more time & care for each task ā then that's 80.75 valid results. Less haste, more speed.)
JarlCarlArchmark
"It only gets faster from here if you put a gun to my head and say āfaster or dieā." Don't give them ideas.
potshot
The thing is that productivity isn't a linear function. There are many things that affect productivity, and overall productivity isn't necessarily the aggregate sum of individual productivity. There's a point where more hours equal lower overall productivity, since rest is an important component in staying productive.
A lot of the time when companies aim to increase productivity, it's not to get more out of workers but to eliminate productivity drains.
trondason1
That's untrue. There are actually A LOT of productivity boosting things we could do that we aren't, because it means rich people getting to hoard less money. Like, for example, paying your employees more. Giving them more time off. Letting them work from home. Moving to a 4 day work week. Etc. This is stuff that isn't just good for the employee, but literally everyone cause increased productivity, but it means the rich people are less rich short term, so huge push back.
Foxsayy
I'm not sure there's good evidence that any of those things result in less money going into Rich pockets, except for paying them more.
trondason1
I think the biggest evidence is the fact that the rich so staunchly oppose such policies. Union Busting is a thing after all.
Foxsayy
I would agree for unions, but the comment I replied to didn't mention them.
trondason1
What do you think Unions are trying to DO? They try to raise pay, get benefits, ensure safety, all those things I mentioned earlier. Safety Regulations were written in blood, because companies thought it'd be cheaper to NOT have things be safe. Hell, they still do, as seen with every accident following derulgation. We had to FIGHT for the 40 hour work week. Literal wars were fought over trying to get companies to actually pay their workers and not lie and cheat and steal from them.
HashMaster9k
Not a huge deal if the union contract mandates 3 games max every 10 years or so. The Union can protect the workers to tell the Companies that there will be no crunch (without adequate compensation), there will be no midnight oil burning in the dev or asset team, and the myriad of other abuses.
With this, things like Cyberpunk 2077 and PokĆ©mon Black and Whiteā devs have time to polish/create good games while being treated fairly and not having to release half-baked products.
Win for everybody.
potshot
Are you suggesting Cyberpunk 2077 was a good, fully baked product at release?
GriffinMann41
No I think they're saying the exact opposite, at least going by the *rest* of the post at least.
potshot
I assumed so except that they also reference Pokemon B&W, which was at the time considered the absolute pinnacle of Pokemon.
ProppaGanda
But that's the thing, you get more productive if you work slower. If you have time to be creative, if you have time to work on maintenance of old code instead of churning out bad code for new features at a neck breaking speed, if you have time to simply relax and get your brain out of survival mode.
prosper020
100% this. I used to work at an unnamed knife making experience blacksmith shop on an unnamed tourist Island, in an unnamed mitten shaped state. we had 1 anvil, 1 forge, 2 grinders. We maxed out at 4 knives an hour, with a super press speed of 6/hr if they werenāt all the biggest ones. A lot of the hammering was done by the customer, because that was the point, we did all of the grinding because itās dangerous and easy to mess up. The owner, who was my friend back then, was always pushing
Badprenup
Please, tell me more about what it was like at Forge a Memory on Mackinac Island in Michigan.
prosper020
Woah woah woah woah WOAH! I didnāt say anything specifically about Forge a Memory on Mackinac Island Michigan. Nor did I say anything specifically about Forge a Memory in Mackinaw City Michigan. Just that a certain owner of a certain business, that happens to resemble FaM, ditched his three friends and his entire crew because they wanted a livable wage, secure housing, and safe working conditions. But I could go on about said business if my other rantings arenāt enough lol.
prosper020
us to go faster and make more. He said we had to get to 6/hr to keep thing viable. We told him that he needs another grinder, worker, and a better generator to handle the load (we didnāt have electricity then) to safely get that speed. He generally never wanted to pay us above $12/hr for skilled labor, but loved to buy 5 figure items that donāt pertain to the preview of our shop. Anyway, he pushed and pushed, I had a finger almost cut off during a grinder accident, he told me to not do
prosper020
workerās comp. Had to wrangle bills and do a post workers comp claim when they came in. The next year he completely replaced the crew because 3/4 of us didnāt want to live in shared motel rooms paying $500 a month for only $12/hr. After tax and rent, they would have had about 30% of their pay check left. I got surprised laid off too, even though I had my own place and didnāt ask for more money or anything. I was just part of the original crew who wanted better life for all of us.
prosper020
He panic bought an entire other shop on the mainland, forced the new crew to live in the back of it with just a sheet of drywall separating the shop area and the living quarters. That was 2-3 years ago, they finally have drywall that goes to the ceiling and separate partitions for rooms for the employees. He got his speed increase without making any changes other than replacing the crew who knew better. He seems to get a mostly new crew each year. Iām just ranting at this point, sorry.
ItSeemsYouHaveSufferedaTerribleFate
I think it depends on the industry/product, and in cases like this - it is probably more long term. Having employee retention, a healthier work environment, and better compensation would ideally lead to more productivity instead of workers being pushed far beyond burnout just to meet some quotas stipulated by some greedy asshole that isn't involved in the process at all.
193X
Just something like crunch is extremely unproductive. Push all your employees to burnout and don't let them see their families? Yeah, I'm sure people are going to really churn out quality code and art when they're six weeks into a bender of 80 hour weeks.
ItSeemsYouHaveSufferedaTerribleFate
Really sad that it is essentially the cheapest way to get tons of labor from salaried employees that are probably new to an industry, then replace them immediately with the next fresh-faced newbie that will bend over backwards to work at [insert popular franchise here]. All the more reason unions need to be involved.
usernameusedinlessplatforms2
Training new workers constantly costs.. also lowers productivity.
SatanicSpirals
Burnout of established skill can also hamper future innovation.
farfie
Yep, a concrete example of that is Rome Total War 1 had range increases for ranged units on elevation. When Rome 2 came out it was a flat damage bonus and in Rome 2 they essentially said 'dynamic range increases are way too expensive and would be almost impossible to code.' I'm not even a programmer but making an algo that looks at map height differences and assigns attack range based on a formula of X elevation makes Y range increase should not be hard for a multi million dollar company.
farfie
Then again, CA are an F tier company even among companies like Blizzard, Rockstar, etc. They're the EA of grand strategy. So it's not hard to beat them to be honest. Either way, I wonder how many talented people have quit the industry because of the abuse.