Still waiting… Is this to come at a later date?
Come on, now. We can’t read posts for you. We can’t do all your homework for you.
At some point, you’ll need to pony up and invest in a little intellectual honesty. That or make a reading list and get crackin’.
You didn’t answer my question. Is that to come at a later date? I’m genuinely curious. I love debunking.
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Oh, but I did! You’ll need to read my response to Todfur.
Anyway, start slow. I recommend Nina Powers and Mark Fisher as good starting points. Take notes as you read and don’t leave the oven on.
You never answered my question. You’re deflecting. Don’t do that. That’s so indecorous, especially for someone who claims they’re famous on a forum.
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Bruh, are you okay? Do you need a physician?
I know a guy who knows a guy, reads a lot of books. All I’m saying is maybe your keyboard ain’t working so good, ya know?
Still deflecting and utilizing sophomoric insults.
Real charming way to get people to take you seriously.
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Nice. Another big attempt at unionizing. Within Microsoft. Quite relevant if MS manages to acquire ATVI (speaking of which, CWA Union has expressed support for the acquition by MS, specifically because they think it might be better for the unionization effort 
as naive as that might be).
Around 300 workers at ZeniMax Online Studios, Bethesda’s former parent company before both were acquired by Microsoft, are in the process of forming a union, GI.Biz reports. The effort by ZeniMax workers comes in collaboration with CODE-CWA, the same organisation which assisted in the creation of the recently formed Activision Blizzard unions.
In a post on Twitter, the union, which goes by the name ZeniMax Workers United, said: “Today we, a majority of QA workers at ZeniMax, are proud to announce the launch of our union,” adding “We are empowered to advocate for ourselves & build a future where we can thrive alongside the company.”
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/qa-workers-at-zenimax-are-also-organising-a-union
Regarding the ZeniMax QA union specifically, the organisers note that “So far, Microsoft has remained committed to staying neutral throughout this process.” Microsoft’s neutrality stands in stark contrast to the approach of Activision Blizzard, which has made multiple attempts to thwart unionisation attempts of QA testers at its Albany studio. Those attempts have proved fruitless, however, and Blizzard Albany voted overwhelmingly in favour of unionising, becoming the company’s second union after Raven Software’s QA workers voted to unionise back in May.
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The Teachers’ Union says “Hold My Beer.”
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Are you apart or have been a part of a union? I hope you say no to both so I can tell you to go someplace really hot that reeks of sulfur. Also, that you have no idea what the bleep you are talking about so you should just shut the bleep up and let the experienced talk. Please tell me you are one of those gasbags that just likes to cause trouble, just because.
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Experience is not expertise, you can have plenty of experience and still be utterly ignorant.
I’m a union welder. I’d be making $5/h less anywhere else for the same job, with worse conditions and toxic management.
With a union things are more stable, benefits and pay are better… everything is better (aside from some cases where the collective agreement clashes with individual flexibility, but that’s a minor gripe usually).
Unions are, on average, a more than decent deal for workers. I applaud these guys in QA for pushing forward on the issue. Hopefully better days on the horizon for the industry as a whole.
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Not if the outsourcing is from another country, a much cheaper country which is most likely the case.
Most of the Warcraft reforge assert & animation were done in Malaysia’s LemonskyStudio.
On their homepage (which I linked) you can also see other studios that used their work.
Unions are fine when you have jobs that cannot replace by cheaper locations, like Walmart, or Amazon, where people need to be physically in US.
But in an industry where outsourcing is on rampage, & QA is a lower tier of development work, & seen as easily replaceable. people have to be careful in making demands.
I am saying this from experience.I love getting paid more, like everyone, but what I love more is job security. Every time the pay increase significantly is every time the risk of losing a job to a cheaper location.
In my film, we have R&D cost, & production cost (the latter always to cheaper locations now in Asia or eastern Europe). The factory which still exists at my current location, which is 2 football fields wide, is a ghost building & has been closed for 20 years (due to high labor costs).
R&D cost is high in Germany, compare to most locations, hence we must be able to justify R&D cost & reduce it as much as possible, by taking on a tougher more challenging project, in-house specialty, Value per developer, performance etc.
The point I am driving, is, giving higher pay & all the goodies, via Union or not, is not a single valuable equation with no side effect. Before someone goes, “all they have to do is reduce pay of CEOs & the top executives!”
That’s not how business work. In general, workers are NOT paid based on the income of film, but the perceived value. Very few companies will pay a janitor 200K a year because their films make big profits. They pay him what they consider market value give or take depending on how generous they not, but for certain not 200k.
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Got maybe 2/3rds through the thread before concluding some of our usual suspects function off jungle law relative to capitalism over embracing the societal concept of working together to better others and make life better for those who follow. This doesn’t mean being a vindictive boss challenging someone’s legal right to financial assistance or being petty you can’t aggressively micromanage their time. It doesn’t mean crapping on the service industry and assuming no one shouldn’t be able to get by on such work. Minimum wage grossly failing to keep up with inflation is not justification for higher skilled labor to argue it should stay low (No, you should get more, too!). It certainly doesn’t mean that unions and worker protections are bad by default. Nor should we be venerating CEOs as irreplaceable (indirect) labor when they can’t fill in for any of the positions they supposedly oversee.
The sooner more understand that profits are unpaid wages, the sooner we’re closer to fixing our growing wealth disparity and treating workers like people instead of cogs in the corporate machine. Don’t let economic stockholm syndrome take hold just because you think you’ve earned a spot, or dare I say, feel entitled to said spot because you suffered under bad bosses or had to pay the unjust adulthood tax of higher education. Everyone is disposable the moment you’re the difference between a bigger green bar on a chart. It’s just unfortunate being sleaze isn’t enough for a certain board or even a nation. Seems conscience can be bought, or at the very least, conditioned.
To wrap, if you’re ever grumbling about games getting more expensive, it’s not because QA is being humanized or crunch culture has been called out. It’s the bosses getting greedy, knowing they can get away with it because the alternative is no games in a world full of (overworked and underpaid) people desperate for entertainment and distraction. Just because we’re being manipulated as consumers doesn’t mean the rank and file need to suffer. Kotick won’t send you a copy of D4 for defending him. Elon won’t give you a Tesla. Millionaires and beyond aren’t our friends. They step on us daily, all with a cultivated visage of being the ones we need, not the other way around.
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That’s good advice, but I’m afraid some folk are already deep in the paint. Here’s an example:
That’s after a post in which I lay out, in excruciating detail, the corporate culture that shapes companies such as–and specifically–Blizzard and Activision. The blinders are on. The blinders have their own pair of blinders.
Here’s another gem:
Imagine pointing the finger at Teacher’s Unions when teachers in public school systems (including higher ed, my field) make hilariously bad pay for their level of education, the amount of work they do, and they amount of unpaid labor that goes into teaching. This isn’t a defense of the aspects of capitalism that are working. This is a learning to love, defend, and even worship your captor.
Check this one out:
First off, Unsanety (an oddly accurate name): Yes, I’m a member of a union, and I’ve been a member in every profession where joining one was an option. Even when it wasn’t, I’ve been a member of the IWW and various trade unions forced to operate outside the bounds of arbitration.
That aside, holy moly, that post is bonkers.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Corporations are not your friends!
“For workers.”
Maybe. Certainly a point to be debated.
But the suggestion herein was that this move would improve the situation for consumers. That position is untrue regardless of whether the worker benefits.
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This was a poorly-drafted screed that was based entirely on your own opinion, and is the paragon of sophistry.
Do people just not know how to write persuasively? Is this a lost art? What is the point of all these liberal arts degrees that have no non-linguistic purpose if their holders also cannot write to save their lives.
Those that truly believe that “profits are unpaid wages” are doomed to be poor forever. We have a few such people on these boards.
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You are making too much fiscal sense for people who live in a fantasy. Be prepared to be shouted down.
You’re still deflecting. If you have no real genuine interest in having an actual conversation, you could just say so without being superfluous.
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A scientist is not a career or a profession. It is a method of deduction.
Your attempts to defend a 200 year old philosophy that has caused the deaths over 100,000,000 directly by citing to academia is, frankly, a laughable one.
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