Game Development is unique in a very key way. We are the means of production, and we all own our means of production.
Our ideas and our time are our own, we all have computers, and we have a strong open source community making the software we use.
At any moment you can say Fuck it and leave the bosses behind. You and your developer friends can say Fuck it and start a Coop, a Collective, or anything else you want to do.
The only thing that is established studios – bosses/owners – give us that we do not have ourselves is money to pay the bills.
That’s huge, I’m not pretending it isn’t. But compared to other industries… ones that need hydraulic car lifts, or needs airplanes, or taxi cabs, or chain saws, than need lumber up fornt. Compared to those our barriers to self determination are some much easier to grasp, and to tear down.
Studios have marketing access, but marketers are workers too. Studios have software subscriptions, but open source has risen against it….. these are all made by our fellow developers.
I’m not saying to “Go quit your job right now!”, or that starting your own studio is easy, we are in a better place to do that than our non game dev friends. It helps to have savings, it helps to have a education about unions and coops, and most of all it helps to have friends to go with. But more than almost any other industry, we have individual empowerment, and we can come together to translate that into a truly powerful self determined industry.
This process is already happening: UVW-CWA is here, you can join right now. We have groups that sponsor new coops all over the world. Steam is open to any developer, it wasn’t like that when I was a kid! And itch has been here for us all along. We have new ways of monetizing, from patron and ko-fi to running your own weird subscription thing.
The darkens in our industry comes from centralized, out of touch, and authoritarian management. Management that burns whole studios like fuel and burns employees like kindling on the pyre of their sacred stock value. Our freedom is limited by non-compete clauses and NDAs. But these limits are asserted, and they can be changed with collective action.
Executives will shit-can a successful studio at a moments notice, they’re coming for us all eventually. The growth is mandated, so the layoff are inescapable.
We design our world, we design these games, and we can design our own jobs.
Fuck AI, all the power to all the people, and always remember: Better things are not only necessary, but entirely possible.
