<story><title>Activision-Blizzard layoffs after reporting record results</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/02/activision-blizzard-lays-off-775-people-after-record-results-in-2018/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasonkester</author><text>&lt;i&gt;the basic function of a union is to equalise the power imbalance between employer and employee.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;... which is why good developers are so against unions.&lt;p&gt;The power balance is so skewed in the direction of the &lt;i&gt;employee&lt;/i&gt; in the software industry that it would be insane to throw that away and form unions.  The industry would be happy to pay us all 70k a year with 3% raises based on seniority, and sure, maybe the bottom third of the talent pool would benefit from that.&lt;p&gt;But the rest of us would see tens of millions of dollars chopped off of our expected lifetime income.</text></item><item><author>EdwardDiego</author><text>Not sure why people are opposed to unions in software dev - the basic function of a union is to equalise the power imbalance between employer and employee.&lt;p&gt;Now, people who question the &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; for unions in dev, I understand where they&amp;#x27;re coming from.&lt;p&gt;Software development is rather unusual in its lack of unionization, and IMO, that&amp;#x27;s because no-one has properly figured out how to commoditise our labour yet. We&amp;#x27;re the modern equivalent of medieval guilds of craftsmen - we get paid far above the median precisely because we can&amp;#x27;t yet be commoditized or automated.&lt;p&gt;Yet.&lt;p&gt;IOW The lack of a need for unionization in developers shows how lucky we are.</text></item><item><author>cableshaft</author><text>I wonder if this will end up being the straw that breaks the camel&amp;#x27;s back and leads to unionization in the game industry. I&amp;#x27;ve seen a decent uptick in serious discussion about it already this year after so many other dumb decisions by AAA publishers.&lt;p&gt;I know a lot of people here don&amp;#x27;t think there should be unions in software, but I think the game industry is a special case. There&amp;#x27;s enough starry eyed people that love the idea of working on games enough that they are willing to put up with total abuse and just about no one who cares about raising a family can seriously stay in that industry.&lt;p&gt;I myself spent a few years in it, and even though I love making games, it&amp;#x27;s just a serious hobby for me because I can&amp;#x27;t put up with the expected constant crunch, low salaries, and layoffs after every finished project.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>batty_alex</author><text>&amp;gt; The industry would be happy to pay us all 70k a year with 3% raises based on seniority, and sure, maybe the bottom third of the talent pool would benefit from that.&lt;p&gt;Talk about an inflated sense of ego there. Do you not consider the fact that people make less may have nothing to do with where they stand in the talent pool? You&amp;#x27;re suggesting there&amp;#x27;s some sort of logical relationship between income and talent. Does it? Are you sure it&amp;#x27;s not your own cognitive bias at work?&lt;p&gt;Scared that your own workers will unionize? I hate to break it to you, but your workers deserve the right to collectively bargain with you for what they consider to be fair. They are people and they deserve to be treated like humans, not your own expendable labor force.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; But the rest of us would see tens of millions of dollars chopped off of our expected lifetime income.&lt;p&gt;Who&amp;#x27;s the &amp;quot;rest of us&amp;quot;? You&amp;#x27;re arguing that we should all not organize because a handful of people might get rich. I hate to break it to you, but that dog-eat-dog mentality isn&amp;#x27;t helpful for workers or humanity. We&amp;#x27;re all in this together, it&amp;#x27;s not just jasonkester&amp;#x27;s world you live in. We&amp;#x27;re all humans living together, not just a salary attached to hands with programming ability.</text></comment>
<story><title>Activision-Blizzard layoffs after reporting record results</title><url>https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/02/activision-blizzard-lays-off-775-people-after-record-results-in-2018/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jasonkester</author><text>&lt;i&gt;the basic function of a union is to equalise the power imbalance between employer and employee.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;... which is why good developers are so against unions.&lt;p&gt;The power balance is so skewed in the direction of the &lt;i&gt;employee&lt;/i&gt; in the software industry that it would be insane to throw that away and form unions.  The industry would be happy to pay us all 70k a year with 3% raises based on seniority, and sure, maybe the bottom third of the talent pool would benefit from that.&lt;p&gt;But the rest of us would see tens of millions of dollars chopped off of our expected lifetime income.</text></item><item><author>EdwardDiego</author><text>Not sure why people are opposed to unions in software dev - the basic function of a union is to equalise the power imbalance between employer and employee.&lt;p&gt;Now, people who question the &lt;i&gt;need&lt;/i&gt; for unions in dev, I understand where they&amp;#x27;re coming from.&lt;p&gt;Software development is rather unusual in its lack of unionization, and IMO, that&amp;#x27;s because no-one has properly figured out how to commoditise our labour yet. We&amp;#x27;re the modern equivalent of medieval guilds of craftsmen - we get paid far above the median precisely because we can&amp;#x27;t yet be commoditized or automated.&lt;p&gt;Yet.&lt;p&gt;IOW The lack of a need for unionization in developers shows how lucky we are.</text></item><item><author>cableshaft</author><text>I wonder if this will end up being the straw that breaks the camel&amp;#x27;s back and leads to unionization in the game industry. I&amp;#x27;ve seen a decent uptick in serious discussion about it already this year after so many other dumb decisions by AAA publishers.&lt;p&gt;I know a lot of people here don&amp;#x27;t think there should be unions in software, but I think the game industry is a special case. There&amp;#x27;s enough starry eyed people that love the idea of working on games enough that they are willing to put up with total abuse and just about no one who cares about raising a family can seriously stay in that industry.&lt;p&gt;I myself spent a few years in it, and even though I love making games, it&amp;#x27;s just a serious hobby for me because I can&amp;#x27;t put up with the expected constant crunch, low salaries, and layoffs after every finished project.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>intended</author><text>As mentioned previously here on HN - the coder pool is binomially distributed. Theres the extremely high end coders who will get job offers falling out of the sky, and then there is everyone else. Further, this is only in America - in the EU and the rest of the world, coders don&amp;#x27;t get rock star salaries.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d say unions are definitely for everyone else - and &lt;i&gt;especially&lt;/i&gt; for people in the Video Games industry.</text></comment>