Game Developer Unions

It’s one of those quirky US things, mate. In the US there is a type of salaried worker, the exempt salaried worker which is expected to work a potentially unlimited number of hours without right to overtime pay.

Those jobs are typically always paid north of 100K USD, and require education levels well above high school. Examples of exempt salaried workers in the US would be lawyers or academics.

Exempt professional job duties.

The job duties of the traditional “learned professions” are exempt. These include lawyers, doctors, dentists, teachers, architects, clergy. Also included are registered nurses (but not LPNs), accountants (but not bookkeepers), engineers (who have engineering degrees or the equivalent and perform work of the sort usually performed by licensed professional engineers), actuaries, scientists (but not technicians), pharmacists, and other employees who perform work requiring “advanced knowledge” similar to that historically associated with the traditional learned professions.

Professionally exempt work means work which is predominantly intellectual, requires specialized education, and involves the exercise of discretion and judgment. Professionally exempt workers must have education beyond high school, and usually beyond college, in fields that are distinguished from (more “academic” than) the mechanical arts or skilled trades. Advanced degrees are the most common measure of this, but are not absolutely necessary if an employee has attained a similar level of advanced education through other means (and perform essentially the same kind of work as similar employees who do have advanced degrees).

Some employees may also perform “creative professional” job duties which are exempt. This classification applies to jobs such as actors, musicians, composers, writers, cartoonists, and some journalists. It is meant to cover employees in these kinds of jobs whose work requires invention, imagination, originality or talent; who contribute a unique interpretation or analysis.

Identifying most professionally exempt employees is usually pretty straightforward and uncontroversial, but this is not always the case. Whether a journalist is professionally exempt, for example, or a commercial artist, will likely require careful analysis of just what the employee actually does.

This was a huge factor when I decided to setup shop in Australia (hello from across the Tasman!)

That was my classification. When billing hours, the largest issue was how much the budget could afford the hours I cost the client. It wasn’t about my pay, when hours were tracked. it was about my cost.

There is an specific classification for that kind of work in OZ too, but I can’t recall :S

I do think that considering junior programmers or artists, who are expected to do as told, as exempt salaried workers is a bit exploitative. But go and tell that to a 20 something who wants to excel… You will end up working for crazy hours non stop until burnt out. Been there myself.

I mean, that’s all true. I only said we might want to see how film unions handle those issues.

…But I also wonder if you totally understand the scope of roles on modern video games. I have colleagues who direct actors (unionized ones) in mocap shoots, who do digital cinematography, who do foley work, and scriptwriting. Sure, they use software to do it, but so does the Hollywood screenwriter. Our writers work the same way that a tv show writers’ room does.

Anyway, you might totally be right that game devs fit best in a tech union that doesn’t exist yet. I think I’m saying that if that tech union were to get its act together, and if game devs were to join it, then that union would likely have to incorporate some concerns and strategies that they otherwise wouldn’t. I’m sure unions adapt like that every time they grow!

It also is a byproduct of working for a Startup. Everyone is vested and exempt. That model ruled the tech industry for years; still does.

Woah, not in video games they’re not! And, in my experience, not in tech more generally (note I never worked in tech in San Francisco, but in Denver).

Yes, that’s typical on start-ups. If you’re an owner, certainly not working your ass off doesn’t make much sense to me.

And the Actors could join the pre-existing unions and guilds. Writers have guilds as well. Those specific specialists should absolutely fall in where they can…and recognize that those unions and guilds are built for SoCal-centric businesses in the 1970s. Same for all the other film/tv-like specialists.

But by and large, the Lion’s Share of the game industry is in tech.

I was quoting the US Dept of Labor guidelines.

Ah. Well, according to this (if I’m Googling and reading right), the federal requirement is about $50k.

https://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/final2016/faq.htm#6

Would a CGI artist go in a artist guild or a tech guild?

It’s not so cut and dried. This is a good overview:

Insightful thread looking at AAA development from a different angle:

Here are the actual rules regarding exempt salaried workers in the US:
http://www.flsa.com/coverage.html

Basically, it boils down to this:
If you are an engineer who is paid a salary of more than 23k a year, then you are considered an exempt salaried worker, because you are making the minimum for this classification, and you are performing exempt professional duties.

This basically applies to everyone in the tech field.

What it means is that if your employer is forcing you to work hours that are longer than you like? Find another job.

Like I said, there is no shortage of work for software engineers… maybe you might not find a job in a game company, but you can absolutely find a job that will pay very well and won’t require 100 hour weeks.

But the thing is… there are folks who really want to make games. And there are big corporations who will use that as leverage.

The nice thing is, with today’s tools, you can basically make a game on the side, on your own, if you want. You don’t need a big development house behind you anymore.

If a game company is treating you like shit… leave.

Yeah I have a feeling I’m not on the same page as Timex. Hello from New Zealand, I can see your house from here. No I can’t, Australia is at least 3.5 hours away from New Zealand by plane.

Yeah, the idea of legal unpaid overtime is baffling to me looking at it from Spain (here you have to pay overtime, legally, but most workers do not claim it for fear of being let go. However, give somebody who knows the law a few 100 hour weeks In a high rotation industry -games are here- and as soon as another job opening pops up, you’ll see a suit for unpaid salary that the company will lose).

Most big AAA studios I know here have little overtime and when they do they compensate with extra paid holidays. Also, producers at such studios are good at their shit.

100 hour weeks means somebody high up has really fucked up beyond repair.

Hahaha that made me lough out loud

Sadly, a lot of store supervisor and managers are exempt, so many companies expect those people to work 60 or so hours a week. They could change jobs, but it seems like an industry standard, so you don’t have a lot of options. You are stuck getting paid 40,000 to 50,000 and working a lot of extra hours.

What’s scary is that recent industry consolidations means less competition for employees. Market place had a piece focused on how fewer hospital employers (because of consolidation) meant that nurses had fewer options for employment and had to settle for lower wages. At least that was one of the theses of the piece about lower employment, but no real wage gain.

Anyway, without a specialized skill or union, your life in the US might be pretty rough, and you might be working longer hours compared to other people in other nations. It’s one of those horrible truths of the US.

Not necessarily for game programmers, though. A good game programmer is essentially a software engineer with additional specializations. In our program, we routinely have some of of our best game programmers decide to take jobs in, say, banking or other fields, because the benefits, pay, hours, and stability are better.

The problem is for artists and designers, mostly. They have a harder time breaking out of the game industry framework, though it’s definitely possible.

Except that the model is also usually screw over the bulk of the people who made the startup work, and leave all the stock options and the rest for the principals after you burn out/drive away the overworked labor that got you there. Startups are like lotteries; you put a lot in for very little chance of getting anything out.