understanding of the legal process and what the correct procedure is. This is harmful to everyone in the long run.


What are the biggest challenges that unions face, in the UK especially, when organising in an industry where freelance and contract work are common? Under UK employment law, freelancers have very little in the way of employment rights. They’re often isolated from their full time colleagues, and have very little insight into how much their colleagues are being paid or how they are being treated.


How are you addressing these challenges? Union representatives have assisted our members working freelance by reading over contracts, helping them chase unpaid invoices. Longer term, we hope to create guidelines for freelancers on minimum and ideal standards in the industry, in consultation with our members working freelance in the video and tabletop games industry.


How do you work with international counterparts, considering that the games industry is a global one, to create a more united front for workers’ rights? We’ve held meetings with CODE-CWA and IATSE, unions working in the US and Canada to represent game devs, as well as unions in Europe, to discuss the issues affecting our members and our strategies for organising unions. We’re also a member of the Game Workers Coalition, an international group that includes many of these unions. Given how international the games industry is, collectively sharing our knowledge and working alongside each other is vital in creating a global movement.


What impact do you believe unionisation could have on game quality and industry sustainability in the long run and how do you counter arguments that unionisation could slow down or increase the costs of production? Unionisation will have a positive impact on game quality and industry sustainability - if game devs feel happier in their workplace, they’ll be more productive, and studios will benefit from workers staying in companies for longer, keeping knowledge within the workplace. Talent bleed is a huge problem in the industry, people


are leaving games and taking their skills to the wider tech industry where they’re treated better and earn more. With very few entry level roles we’re bound to see this affect development timelines and the quality of future games. Anyone who’s survived a round of layoffs knows how


strongly it affects company culture. We know the AAA studios are profitable, we can see their financial reports.


“Whether you want to call it unionisation or not, taking an interest in the well-being of your colleagues and coming together to communicate that to management is only ever going to improve the industry”


The money to save jobs and improve in the industry is there, but it’s going straight to CEO’ bonuses.


For game workers who may be hesitant about joining or advocating for a union, what would you say to convince them of the benefits We’re building a strong union for a sustainable games industry, where workers will have a say on conditions in their workplace. Everyone should have access to advice on any issues to do with their employment, and representation in grievances and disciplinaries. People are often conditioned to feel privileged or


lucky to have a job in the games industry, so they’re willing to put up with a lot from employers. Often they’ll cast aside their own legal rights for fear of losing their job. No job in this industry is stable: you could work every hour of unpaid crunch, drag yourself back into the office, and humour the CEO’s experiments in generative AI, and still end up losing your job. This isn’t going to get better unless we start looking out for each other. Sometimes people are hesitant to organise because


they like their boss. They feel guilty, as though they’re betraying their company. Your boss could be the nicest, most empathetic person in the world, but ultimately: they’ll never be able to anticipate the needs of, in some cases, the thousands of people who work for them. Whether you want to call it unionisation or not, taking an interest in the well-being of your colleagues and coming together to communicate that to management is only ever going to improve the industry. The AAA giants are happy to keep running the


industry into the ground, because they’re getting the profits they want. Change isn’t going to happen unless we collectively put our foot down.


December/January 2025 MCV/DEVELOP | 31


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