Video Games Are Destroying the People Who Make Them

[crazy canuck]

In the fundamentals your system is the same as ours.  There is a distinction between putting a limit on the maximum hours which can be worked and the point at which overtime must be paid.  That provides flexibility for employers because they can choose to have employees working longer than a normal work day but they have to pay for it.  At the same time maximum hours of work (both in terms of hours in a week and mandatory rest periods between days worked) are imposed so that workers' health does not suffer.

For the purposes of this thread the issue is which workers are excluded from these protections.  In the US, it seems excluded employees are defined by whether they are paid a salary or an hourly rate.  The exclusions in Canada are based on whether they employee is a "manager" or whether they fall within a description of work which is excluded from the protections of the regulation (eg most professions). Relevant to this thread, employees in the Gaming industry are excluded (at least in BC) because of the logic argued by Berkut - that they are a special type of employee who do not need protection.

It's actually more similar that what you seem to imply here, simply because in the US, the definition of who can be a salaried employee mostly limits it to managers and members of certain professions (doctors, lawyers, etc.).  The trick is in defining who can be considered a manager and thus be salaried.  Generally, the trend has been to place more restrictions on who can be considered a "manager" for the purposes of overtime law.

the difficulty with that argument is that if those employees are so special, why do so many end up accepting employment with such poor contractual terms of employment - eg no overtime pay, long hours of work, uncertain tenure (most work in the industry is now project based).  I doubt the answer is that every one those employees prefers to work under those conditions.  More likely the answer is that most have no other alternative.

More likely the answer is that they enjoy that type of work, and find it fulfilling.  I very much doubt that people with no other alternative end up with job titles like "game developer".  People with no other alternatives end up with job titles like "ditch digger", "janitor" or "fast-food restaurant crew member".

So it turns out our laws protecting workers are a lot more similar then Yi initially described.  Thank you for clarifying that.

In relation to your second point, by no alternative, I meant that if someone has the skill set and desire to work in the game industry, there are few choices available to them other than to work for employers who do not pay overtime.  Telling them choice is to accept those working conditions or go work as a ditch digger is effectively no choice at all. 

[dps]

In relation to your second point, by no alternative, I meant that if someone has the skill set and desire to work in the game industry, there are few choices available to them other than to work for employers who do not pay overtime.  Telling them choice is to accept those working conditions or go work as a ditch digger is effectively no choice at all. 

Well, how is that any different than telling someone who wants to be a medical doctor that they have to work the notoriously long hours required of interns and residents (except that internships and residencies are just a stage of their career, not something they'll have to deal with on a permanent basis)?  People with those levels of skill and talent have a lot of options besides digging ditches.

[grumbler]

In relation to your second point, by no alternative, I meant that if someone has the skill set and desire to work in the game industry, there are few choices available to them other than to work for employers who do not pay overtime.  Telling them choice is to accept those working conditions or go work as a ditch digger is effectively no choice at all. 

Well, how is that any different than telling someone who wants to be a medical doctor that they have to work the notoriously long hours required of interns and residents (except that internships and residencies are just a stage of their career, not something they'll have to deal with on a permanent basis)?  People with those levels of skill and talent have a lot of options besides digging ditches.

On top of that, the idea that computer programmers must choose between working for game companies that don't pay overtime and digging ditches is utterly ludicrous.  CC apparently hasn't noticed that there are computers everywhere, and programmers (even for the gaming companies) have lots of choices.

[Oexmelin]

So, the disagreement then seems to be about the government imposing regulations over the conditions of wage labor, if workers are deemed to have sufficient alternative choice (with the understanding that said choice implies resignation).  Does this, in turn, mean that regulations should be more forthcoming in a variety of industries, or for workers, who are deemed to have less choice, or less capacity to find "comparable" employment?

[crazy canuck]

In relation to your second point, by no alternative, I meant that if someone has the skill set and desire to work in the game industry, there are few choices available to them other than to work for employers who do not pay overtime.  Telling them choice is to accept those working conditions or go work as a ditch digger is effectively no choice at all. 

Well, how is that any different than telling someone who wants to be a medical doctor that they have to work the notoriously long hours required of interns and residents (except that internships and residencies are just a stage of their career, not something they'll have to deal with on a permanent basis)?  People with those levels of skill and talent have a lot of options besides digging ditches.

I think you answered your own question.  Residents become specialists, articled students become lawyers etc.  The pain is relatively short term.  Once that training is over doctors and lawyers have a wide range of options regarding how they will work in their fields.  The argument for better regulating the gaming industry is that the gaming company employers are the only game in town - ok bad pun.

I could see an argument that people who start their own gaming companies should not be regulated.  Maybe that was the argument Grumbler was awkwardly trying to make?  But I think that a good argument can be made that the employees in the industry should be treated differently.

[Berkut]

In relation to your second point, by no alternative, I meant that if someone has the skill set and desire to work in the game industry, there are few choices available to them other than to work for employers who do not pay overtime.  Telling them choice is to accept those working conditions or go work as a ditch digger is effectively no choice at all. 

Well, how is that any different than telling someone who wants to be a medical doctor that they have to work the notoriously long hours required of interns and residents (except that internships and residencies are just a stage of their career, not something they'll have to deal with on a permanent basis)?  People with those levels of skill and talent have a lot of options besides digging ditches.

I think you answered your own question.  Residents become specialists, articled students become lawyers etc.  The pain is relatively short term.  Once that training is over doctors and lawyers have a wide range of options regarding how they will work in their fields.  The argument for better regulating the gaming industry is that the gaming company employers are the only game in town - ok bad pun.

That is simply not true.

Video game programmers are software developers. They are not "video game programmers". Video games are software, and the skills needed to develop them translate perfectly well to a variety of other endeavors.

Which you know perfectly well since the original article pointed out that a problem in the particular industry with these long work hours is that people leave and go find jobs that use their skills that do no demand those hours or crunch.

So no - this is not the only game in town for them, and they do in fact have a incredibly wide range of options regarding how they will work in their field of software engineering and software development.

Many choose to work in this particular subset of their field because the rewards make it worth the downside of often having long hours. There is no problem here that needs your nanny state to fix in particular. Many do it for some time, then decide to move on for more reasonable hours and better pay writing less interesting software.


It's kind of hilarious that the proponents of the nanny state will invent problems to justify more government intrusion under any conceivable circumstance. Which has always been my basic problem with the left - there is no possible end state where they will say "Yes, this is the right amount of government control! We are good!"


And this absolutely proves that - there might not be any job industry ever with as good a deal for skilled technicians than what exists right now for people who know how to write code. Unemployment is basically zero, pay is solid, and they have outstanding mobility and ability to find the right balance, and for some of them, the shot at being brilliant and becoming incredibly wealthy. There are not many jobs ever that have enjoyed such a great amount of power in the hands of the individual provider of this kind of labor, and I say this as someone who does EXACTLY this kind of work.


And yet...nope, not enough. We even need the state to mandate how they can work anyway. It is clearly not about this market at all, but rather about increasing the control of the state under any and all circumstances.

[crazy canuck]

In relation to your second point, by no alternative, I meant that if someone has the skill set and desire to work in the game industry, there are few choices available to them other than to work for employers who do not pay overtime.  Telling them choice is to accept those working conditions or go work as a ditch digger is effectively no choice at all. 

Well, how is that any different than telling someone who wants to be a medical doctor that they have to work the notoriously long hours required of interns and residents (except that internships and residencies are just a stage of their career, not something they'll have to deal with on a permanent basis)?  People with those levels of skill and talent have a lot of options besides digging ditches.

I think you answered your own question.  Residents become specialists, articled students become lawyers etc.  The pain is relatively short term.  Once that training is over doctors and lawyers have a wide range of options regarding how they will work in their fields.  The argument for better regulating the gaming industry is that the gaming company employers are the only game in town - ok bad pun.

Many choose to work in this particular subset of their field because the rewards make it worth the downside of often having long hours. There is no problem here that needs your nanny state to fix in particular. Many do it for some time, then decide to move on for more reasonable hours and better pay writing less interesting software.

I like how you think this is my nanny state   

DPS has already confirmed that US workers have these protections.  So stop pretending like the US is some Yi inspired dystopia.  The question we are debating with whether the protections given to most American workers should be extended to the gaming industry.  You have repeated the argument a few times that employees in the gaming industry choose these working conditions.  Do you really think that employers are paying no overtime because the employees prefer it that way?

[Berkut]

In relation to your second point, by no alternative, I meant that if someone has the skill set and desire to work in the game industry, there are few choices available to them other than to work for employers who do not pay overtime.  Telling them choice is to accept those working conditions or go work as a ditch digger is effectively no choice at all. 

Well, how is that any different than telling someone who wants to be a medical doctor that they have to work the notoriously long hours required of interns and residents (except that internships and residencies are just a stage of their career, not something they'll have to deal with on a permanent basis)?  People with those levels of skill and talent have a lot of options besides digging ditches.

I think you answered your own question.  Residents become specialists, articled students become lawyers etc.  The pain is relatively short term.  Once that training is over doctors and lawyers have a wide range of options regarding how they will work in their fields.  The argument for better regulating the gaming industry is that the gaming company employers are the only game in town - ok bad pun.

Many choose to work in this particular subset of their field because the rewards make it worth the downside of often having long hours. There is no problem here that needs your nanny state to fix in particular. Many do it for some time, then decide to move on for more reasonable hours and better pay writing less interesting software.

I like how you think this is my nanny state   

DPS has already confirmed that US workers have these protections.  So stop pretending like the US is some Yi inspired dystopia.  The question we are debating with whether the protections given to most American workers should be extended to the gaming industry.  You have repeated the argument a few times that employees in the gaming industry choose these working conditions.  Do you really think that employers are paying no overtime because the employees prefer it that way?

You are totally changing the argument from the claim that game developers have some special problem that needs to be fixed, to the much more general problem that salaried employees in general are not paid overtime.

That is a completely different argument entirely, and has nothing to do with the game industry in particular, except that they are an example of a set of people who are typically salaried and hence don't get overtime.

If you want to argue about this in general, rather than in this particular. then make THAT argument. Hell, I would probably agree with you- in fact I made exactly that argument several pages ago.

But the idea that software developers are some oppressed class of workers without options is so bizarrely ludicrous for anyone who actually works in this industry makes your idiotic comments like comparing them to ditch diggers just farcical.

[crazy canuck]

You are totally changing the argument from the claim that game developers have some special problem that needs to be fixed, to the much more general problem that salaried employees in general are not paid overtime.

I am genuinely confused by why you think that.  My whole argument is that excluding all employees who work in the gaming industry from the legal protections most other employees enjoy should be reconsidered.  My reasoning all along have been that at least some of those employees have more in common with other employees who are paid overtime than not. 

[Berkut]

You are totally changing the argument from the claim that game developers have some special problem that needs to be fixed, to the much more general problem that salaried employees in general are not paid overtime.

I am genuinely confused by why you think that.  My whole argument is that excluding all employees who work in the gaming industry from the legal protections most other employees enjoy should be reconsidered.

There is no such exclusion that exists.

[grumbler]

I am genuinely confused by why you think that.  My whole argument is that excluding all employees who work in the gaming industry from the legal protections most other employees enjoy should be reconsidered.  My reasoning all along have been that at least some of those employees have more in common with other employees who are paid overtime than not. 

The problem with your proposed solution is that it does not seem to work.  CD Projekt Red pays overtime, and has a 10% job vacancy rate.  Bethesda game Studios does not pay overtime and has a 10% job vacancy rate.  It doesn't seem like overtime pay has a big impact.

Your proposal would also require (in the US) that the artists and programmers be paid on an hourly, vice salary basis.  I'm not sure that they would want to shift.

However, in the US, all that would be required to imnplement your scheme would be to eliminate the "Exemption for Employees in Computer-Related Occupations" under the FLSA, rather than the creation of new laws.

[crazy canuck]

You are totally changing the argument from the claim that game developers have some special problem that needs to be fixed, to the much more general problem that salaried employees in general are not paid overtime.

I am genuinely confused by why you think that.  My whole argument is that excluding all employees who work in the gaming industry from the legal protections most other employees enjoy should be reconsidered.

There is no such exclusion that exists.

The exclusion exists because all employees in the industry, at least in American terms, are defined as salary workers . At least that is how Languish has explained why gaming employers are exempted from having to pay overtime.   I understand from DPS that salary is another way of saying manager or professionals.  Which bring us back to the public policy argument of whether all employees in the industry should be defined as such.

[crazy canuck]

Your proposal would also require (in the US) that the artists and programmers be paid on an hourly, vice salary basis.  I'm not sure that they would want to shift.

Yes, that is the heart of the public policy debate.  As I stated earlier the prevailing wisdom (and the position forcefully taken by Berkut) is that they do not.   But the problem I see with that argument is it is likely the employers who would rather not pay overtime.  If one accepts the open market theory which underlies Berkut's argument, the only way the employees would agree to such a bargain is if they are compensated in other ways which are greater or equal to the overtime pay.  We would need more data to make a reasoned conclusion on that point.

My purpose is simply to challenge the accepted wisdom that there is no issue to consider.

However, in the US, all that would be required to imnplement your scheme would be to eliminate the "Exemption for Employees in Computer-Related Occupations" under the FLSA, rather than the creation of new laws.

Yes, I was initially led astray by Yi's inaccurate description of workers rights in the US.  As DPS later explained, US law is very similar to Canadian law and that all that needs to be done is amend the exemption.  Btw, that would be the same legislative change in, at least, BC.

[Jacob]

There is no such exclusion that exists.

There definitely is - at least in British Columbia: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/employment-business/employment-standards-advice/employment-standards/factsheets/high-technology-companies

The hours of work provisions of the Act, including those governing meal breaks, split shifts, minimum daily pay and hours free from work each week, as well as the overtime and statutory holiday provisions, do not apply to "high technology professionals".

Not sure about other jurisdictions, of course.

[crazy canuck]

Not sure about other jurisdictions, of course.

Grumbler helpfully identified the "Exemption for Employees in Computer-Related Occupations" under the FLSA"