Last year it was Hollywood’s turn, but now it’s ours. Between historic union wins at Bethesda and Blizzard and, as of yesterday, a video game voice actor strike over AI, gaming’s version of hot labor summer is in full swing. On this week’s episode of Aftermath Hours, we talk about the rapidly-growing movement that could reshape game development as we know it.
We tackle a very eventful week, beginning with news that broke mere minutes before we started recording: video game voice actors and mocap performers are going on strike. Major companies – including EA, Take-Two, and Activision – aren’t guaranteeing them necessary AI-related protections, so they’re taking to the picket line. We reflect on how things reached this boiling point and consider what might happen next.
After that, we discuss Humble Games, which laid off its entire staff – replacing them with a third-party company – and had the gall to call it a “restructuring.” Then we talk about what might protect other game workers against similar ravages: Hundreds of game developers at both Blizzard and Bethesda unionized, giving them leverage previously unheard of among rank-and-file employees at massive, multinational video game companies. Others, inevitably, will learn from their example.
Next we discuss Ubisoft’s decision to try to appease bad-faith arguments against the next Assassin’s Creed, and then finally, Chris tells us about Kunitsu-Gami, a game that just sounds neat. Also, we decide which animal – aside from apes – would be the best gamer.
You can find this week's episode below and on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you prefer to listen to podcasts. If you like what you hear, make sure to leave a review so that we can cover labor movements in video games from now until the end of time.
Here’s an excerpt from our conversation:
Riley: I imagine what comes out of the contract negotiation process for these unions will be very enlightening and very useful to lots of unions – just seeing how they work together.
Nathan: Relevant to all of this is the fact that another one of the unions associated with all of this, the 376-member Zenimax union – so, you know, parent company of Bethesda – announced last December that they had reached an agreement with Microsoft about AI. That directly ties back to all the voice actor strike stuff, albeit within a company versus pertaining to voice acted performances. The agreement they reached said that it will commit Zenimax to uses of AI that "augment human ingenuity and capacities ... without causing workers harm" and requires that Zenimax provides notice to the union in cases where "AI implementation may impact the work of union members and to bargain those impacts upon request."
So basically, the idea is that they are trying to ensure that AI will not be used to replace people’s jobs – and that it will only be able to assist people in particular ways. They’re already going to bat on that. They’re already trying to ensure that they’ve secured protections on [a similar front to SAG-AFTRA]. As we’re seeing, the sooner you can build that labor power and make that happen, the better off you are.
Because then at these other companies – and this is unfortunate, but that includes Activision Blizzard, per reporting from Wired this week – video game companies are already moving really quickly to implement AI in ways that are not always great for workers and that often push them out. So again, the sooner the better, and the bigger these unions grow – and the more power they have through both strength in numbers and in terms of being cross-disciplinary and able to understand through communication with each other how workers stand to be impacted – the faster they can get on the same page and prevent these sorts of worst case scenarios from coming to pass.
I think Riley, as you were saying, when these bigger unions are able to secure protections – and even just pay increases and quality-of-life improvements that everybody wants – other people in the games industry are gonna be looking. They’re gonna be like “I want that too, and I see how they managed to make that happen. It doesn’t seem that hard. There’s a clear path.” It’s not just this nebulous thing of “It sure would be cool if I could have that, but oh well, it’s never gonna happen for me.” It’s like, no, here’s how you do it. Here’s a guide. In fact, if you reach out to the people who did this, they’ll probably help you. They’ll probably say “Yeah, of course we want more unions in the industry. We’ll send you all our resources. We’ll talk to you and walk you through it. Whatever you need.”
Riley: Would you say this was a good week or a bad week? More good than bad?
Nathan: I think it’s a week where you can see forces playing off each other. You can see the possible bad outcomes and then also the ways that people can band together to prevent them from happening again in the future. And again, these are really big wins. These are incredibly significant. I saw Jason Schreier on Twitter repeatedly saying that we’re seeing the beginning of what will probably become a much bigger movement. This time next year, the sorts of numbers we’re seeing right now could seem quaint by comparison.
Riley: Similar to what you were saying before, I know that in the World of Warcraft union’s press release, they talked about the protests in 2021 against Activision Blizzard, and then they also referenced Game Workers Unite at GDC. And when you think about how long this has been, I remember when we first started talking about “Could the games industry unionize?” And I feel like the vibe back then was “Oh, it’ll never work.” To see how far that’s grown since those first conversations – to get that sense of historicity and how this has built – I think is really exciting. It’s cool to see those seeds that were planted way back then flowering now.
Nathan: It’s really cool. And to your point, there was a time when it felt like none of this would ever really happen. At most, we’d have these little QA unions, and that would be a cool thing, an important thing, but we’d be like “Well, that’s kinda where the buck stops, and other than that our industry will just remain what it is.”
Chris: I also will say that just generally speaking, I think it’s really important to acknowledge the actual work that QA unions did. QA was there first putting their flag down. You can see that bleeding into other parts of companies. That was such important work, and I think that it shouldn’t be diminished or even considered as separate. Because these are people who need it probably the most. Not that other people don’t, but they are the most precarious and subject to the changing winds of the market – the ones that are gotten rid of first. They were there first. It’s important to acknowledge that because it comes part and parcel with failing to emphasize the importance of QA generally, because it’s not as glamorous.
Nathan: I think you’re exactly right. I think it’s not an overstatement to say that without QA, none of this would have been possible. They made it all happen. They were in the trenches when there wasn’t a neutrality agreement with Microsoft. They were really sticking their necks out.
