Video Games Are a Labor Disaster: A Review of Jason Schreier's "Press Reset"
Video Games Are a Labor Disaster: A Review of Jason Schreier's "Press Reset"
Video Games Are a Labor Disaster: A Review of Jason Schreier's "Press Reset"
By Alex Pareene
June 25, 2021
Summary
At this moment, it is hard to envision a video game worker guild amassing the power and influence of the Hollywood guilds.
The power of the Hollywood guilds shows us a past worth remembering, but difficult to reproduce.
Even in heavily unionized Hollywood, there are ominous trends: While IATSE is an international union, major studio productions now routinely escape high labor costs in Hollywood by filming abroad. And the movie industry hasn't avoided the problems of the game industry entirely.
Because the period in which computer graphics developed into an essential component of filmmaking happened well after the era of labor radicalism described by Denning, Hollywood special-effects studios never developed a strong union.
Now, special-effects houses are treated remarkably like video game studios, expected to perform their highly technical and complex work on difficult deadlines.
The results are not quite so disastrous as in video games, but the absence of the sort of workplace regulation that, for example, makeup and costuming artist-workers enjoy, thanks to their union, is becoming apparent in big-budget films the same way it is in games.
The stories in Press Reset suggest one argument: Labor advocates could harness the incredible online energy of angry gamers by arguing that a new era of mass organization wouldn't just be good for the people who make video games, it'd be good for the games themselves.
Reference
Pareene, A. (2021, June 25). Video games are a labor disaster. The New Republic. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://newrepublic.com/article/162606/video-games-curt-schilling-jason-schreier