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Irish Times
11-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Video-games industry is not the high-paying sector many think
With about three billion people said to play at least occasionally and estimated industry revenues of more than €200 billion this year, the video-gaming industry now generates a multiple of what the movie business does. In Ireland thousands of jobs have been created in the sector, helped by section 481 film industry-scale tax breaks. Given the amount of money pouring in, then, there should be huge opportunity for skilled workers with an interest in the end product to land the job of their dreams. Somehow, it doesn't quite seem to be working out that way. READ MORE A survey of workers in the sector carried out by Game Workers Unite (GWU), a branch of the Financial Services Union, published this week finds almost two-thirds have had direct experience of low pay while more than half report long hours and job insecurity. The union acknowledges some progress has been made within the sector since its last big attempt to gauge opinion in 2021, but the findings suggest there is still some way to go. Though the largest single age group among the respondents is between 30-40, more than 90 per cent are under 40 and so it is a generally young workforce. That the survey suggests almost a third earn less than €36,000 is more of a surprise, with another quarter on salaries of €36,000-€48,000. Given those numbers, and the fact that many of those employed here have moved to Ireland for the work, it seems somewhat inevitable that housing features in the findings. About 70 per cent of respondents said they spent more than 30 per cent of their income on accommodation and some 15 per cent suggested it used up more than half of their salary. The figures for healthcare and pension provision might be regarded as more positive, at 65 per cent and 53 per cent respectively, but only half say their employer provides a secure contract and 7 per cent say they have none of these things. Having taken what might once have appeared to have been an irresistible career path, some in the sector may find themselves wishing they had more lives to play with and the opportunity to start over.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Game Developers Launch North America's First Industry-Wide Union Anyone Can Join
Game industry unionization efforts that exploded across Sega of America, Bethesda, and others have recently been on pause. A new initiative by the Communications Workers of America could jumpstart things again. At the Game Developers Conference 2025 happening this week, the group announced the founding of the United Videogame Workers, a new sister organization that hopes to enlist developers from all different disciplines and studios in broader labor battles across the industry. The UVW-CWA's mission, per a press release reported by IGN, is 'to not only build community and solidarity amongst video game workers, but also to build large-scale education campaigns about labor organizing in the video game industry.' Unlike individual union shops which bargain contracts with employers, the direct-join model functions more like a voluntary trade group where paid dues and resources are pooled to help with various labor fights across the broader market. The announcement comes as SAG-AFTRA game actors enter their ninth month of striking for AI protections while publishers experiment with digital replicas. 'For two-thirds of modern industrial history, there were no legal forms of unions,' Emma Kinema, a game dev behind the 2018 Game Workers Unite campaign turned organizing operative for CODE-CWA, told Aftermath. 'They were just humans coming together to organize as best as they could in leverage against their employers for better conditions.' She pointed to statutory protections enshrined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act as a 'peace treaty' that can cut both ways if rolled back by conservative forces in the second Trump administration. Despite developer unions forming across some of the biggest gaming companies in the U.S. in recent years, none have yet successfully bargained their first contract. Quality assurance staff at Raven Software, which works on Call of Duty for Activision, now owned by Microsoft, are nearing the three-year anniversary of negotiating a collective bargaining agreement with the company. The group filed an unfair labor charge against Activision and Microsoft for 'bad faith bargaining' last fall. 'We are committed to negotiating in good faith,' a Microsoft spokesperson said at the time. . For the latest news, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
