So. After the recent events (1.Background and 2.What Happened?) where the IGDA Board has triggered a PR “FAIL”, and in passing made a mockery of the IGDA’s own flagship initiatives … does it matter? Does anyone actually care what the IGDA does anymore – especially after how it’s handled this matter?
Yes. Very much so.
Because when you look at these IGDA-specific events you can see a partial microcosm of the games industry at large, played out on a smaller scale, and more explicitly than in many places.
The massive problems that the IGDA has are the same as some of the problems that pervade the industry. The issues that some commentators (and the IGDA Board!) even now fail to appreciate or understand are the same issues that face studios across the world.
Issues? What Issues?
Is Exploitation part of the American Dream?
IGDA Board Member:
“Mike does it by compensating his employees richly.”
TCE Member:
“No, Mike does it by compensating those employee’s willing to work extended hours at the expense of their own lives, richly.”
TCE Member:
“My favorite was the guy saying “You join a company to make a game… it’s like joining a rock band. Do you think rock stars work 40 hour work weeks when they’re on tour?”
No… they don’t. But we’re not the “rockstars”, you are. You make the money, and we’re the f—ing roadies. F— off.”
Funny. It seems that the boss gets the money, the power … and when the recession strikes, or the budgets were “mistaken”, or bad decisions are made, it’s the employees who lose their “not guaranteed” bonuses, and get “made redundant” … but it’s the employees who should be working 80 hour weeks for the priviledge.
But it’s all OK, apparently, because … you don’t have to work for a living if you don’t want to (at least, if you’re a Studio Director you don’t – you’ve got all that money and all those second homes to live in).
Issue Summary
The Free Market – where anyone can choose freely to buy (or not buy) anything – is a theory, not a real-world model. People need to eat. They need homes. They need … jobs.
It is NEVER valid for a manager to excuse exploitative working practices with the declaration “You chose to work here”; they are still exploitative, and the manager is still morally and ethically wrong.
(where does this end? A proposed pricing model for life-saving drugs is “take the future life earnings of the individual, and charge them close to 100% of that, even though that is several thousand times the cost of manufacture. They should be grateful that we’re giving them the chance to prevent their kids being orphaned and dieing of starvation”. Would you be grateful? Is that how you envision a civilized society?)
When you “stand for” something, you have to actually STAND for it
IGDA Chairwoman:
“I don’t think it’s the role of me, the IGDA, or any other organization to tell an individual what kind of workplace they should choose.”
IGDA Board Member:
“I would not use the model that Epic does and I would not work for a company that does.
I’m fine with Epic recruiting only the folks who want to work long hours and make game dev their life. That leaves thousands of great employees for Kaos and other studios committed to 40-hour work weeks to steal away”
Issue Summary
Beliefs are not something you pick up and set down when it’s convenient; you either believe them, or you don’t.
If you are one of the people running the organization that explicitly describes it’s campaign for “Better Quality of Life in the industry” as one of it’s most important activities, you had damn well better believe it – or resign and make way for someone who does.
Why do so many professionals have so little faith in the IGDA?
TCE Member:
“I’ve gone to the trouble of registering on the forums simply to answer this point. I’m not an IGDA member and with comments like Mr Capps’ being essentially defended by the board I have no intention of joining.”
TCE Member:
“Ignoring the QoL issues involved for a moment, it also unbalances the industry for all well-managed companies, be it clothing or games, who do not resort to such exploitative tactics by creating an uneven playing field for competition.”
TCE Member (?):
“If i’m honest, this is a ridiculous model. Can you imagine trying to source funding, outside of the games industry, on the basis that it might make you rich if everything goes to plan?
…
This is the whole problem with the games industry. I do not understand how anyone can defend this sort of position. It is untenable. Sure occasionally it works but once it has worked it is not a viable method to continue your business around. Its all about risk. Unfortunately you are putting that risk on to your employees and that is wrong.”
TCE Member (?):
“As a slight aside I will also say that the reason I never did and will never join an organisation such as the IGDA is because they cannot change that which the board has a vested interest in.”
Response, from IGDA Board Member:
“I will defend Mike and the others on this board unfailingly because the bottom line is that they are good people who are trying to do good things for the industry.”
Issue Summary
If the IGDA is supposed to make the industry better – a better place to work, a creator of better products, a better contributor to the lives of people who consume the products – then it needs to *improve* the industry.
It is not enough to simply say “it’s a world of free speech, I’ll defend every opinion to the death” – you have to actually have an opinion of your own, and you have to push it, everywhere.
Who does all the work around here?
IGDA Board Member:
“To be frank, the complete lack of support and involvement from the membership has been totally disheartening. Production level developers dropped off of the Taskforce and Roundtable discussions about this initiative at GDC a few years ago were universally empty with a total of 5 individual developers attending all 3 sessions. There were actually more Taskforce members and HR people from studios in attendance that there where individual developers. ”
IGDA SIG Chair:
“people can identify that there’s a problem, but the workers suffering most by definition do not have time to volunteer at anything – let alone something that might get them fired.
…
depending on meetings at GDC… yikes. The people who feel most strongly about this issue are not the ones who can afford to go to that conference (and again, by definition their companies are not paying them to go).
…
I believe we’ve made a real difference in the industry. Maybe not a difference everyone likes or agrees with, but when this SIG started in 2002 nobody would even think to put up a list of “Top 20 Game Writers” on Gamasutra. ”
IGDA Chapter Co-ordinator:
“I do my damn best to make the Boston chapter a useful and good thing for our local community.
…
Here are the basics of the Boston chapter:
…
Here’s what we provide:
…
So, IGDA broken? Sure, in places. IGDA useless? Not in Boston, that much I can say.”
IGDA Chapter Co-ordinator:
“But Jason, we can’t just sit back and say, “Hey, we formed some committees and we’ve scheduled some meetings: come one, come all, time to GET INVOLVED.” That doesn’t work. It never does.
When I was helping grow the Boston Chapter, it wasn’t enough to just hold the meetings and expect people to show. We had to provide incentives. We had to inspire people to show up. For the chapter, that was beer, food, and an informative speaker every month. And even then I had to personally reach out to hundreds of devs and harass them every month just to get them out to their first meeting. The incentives really only helped *retain* attendees.”
Issue Summary
Ah … here’s where I get a little controversial. Here’s the thought I’ve had but never voiced, even to myself, for a long time – it was too close to the bone. But hey, if I’m leaving, I might as well come clean with myself and everyone else.
The SIG Chairs actually do stuff. They make things happen (with very little overt guidance from the central IGDA – instead they have to make it up as they go along). They don’t tend to hold a lot of meetings (although a lot do, it usually very quickly goes nowhere – I know, I’ve made those mistakes myself).
The Chapter Co-ordinators actually do stuff. They run real-world events. They (with very little help from the central IGDA) get people to do things that others talk about, only … they actually get them to *do* it.
The Board?
I’d like to apologise to Tom Buscaglia here, in the interests of fairness, because in this exchange I used him as an example of people saying, not doing – whereas in reality I think the QoL program *is* doing things. So … I’m sorry.
HOWEVER … I suspect that if it were being done by a SIG or a Chapter, it would have been “done” a lot sooner – even if a lot “less well”. Chapters and SIGs live or die by their rapid, substantial results. The wider IGDA doesn’t seem to.
Again, an apology – I don’t know the details of why the QoL stuff is taking so much time, despite Board-level direct involvement, and IGDA’s not inconsiderable resources, and there may well be (probably are!) reasons outside of Tom’s (and the other members) control. But the problem here is that if you take *so* much time over things, maybe you lose more from the delay than you gained by doing it properly. Maybe not. It’s not an easy problem.
The End
I haven’t even broached all the key topics here. For instance, there’s the issue of people in other industries claiming that because *they* routinely work 50 or more hours a week, it’s pathetic of people in the Games Industry to complain about it.
(so what? your work is different, the effect on people’s lives is different, the careers you lead are different. Even if it were all exactly the same … does the existence of your poorly-run industry somehow “invalidate” the suffering in our industry? Of course not)
But I suspect most people have already stopped reading by now :).