The industry is unsustainable…

If you’re a developer, you’ve probably felt it. If you’re in the gaming press, you might have written about it. If you’re a gamer, maybe you’ve noticed you’ve been paying more for less over time.

Careers in the game industry remain short. The GDC State of the Industry survey in 2019 pointed out that as the industry has aged, the percentage of respondents who have spent more than 6 years in the industry did not increase. Talented, experienced developers are burning out, only to be replaced by young, fresh-faced kids out of game dev school, ready to be burned out in service of quarterly profits (and carrying plenty of student debt to boot).

While all this is happening, the game industry itself is massively profitable; more than Hollywood. And yet, have we as developers and players seen the benefit?

… but what’s the alternative?

There are two ways forward. For the workers who, for various reasons, can’t themselves directly challenge the ownership structure of the industry, unionization seems to be the best way to fight back against the current model of worker and creative exploitation. But, for folks who have the ability to take a slightly larger risk, there’s a more direct way to challenge the existing model and to truly take power for ourselves. And that is to begin to challenge the status quo of studio ownership with a time-honored, but relatively new to games, model: the worker co-op. This is what I’m planning to establish, to provide an example of how we can make a sustainable game industry.

What’s a worker co-op?

There are various legal and technical requirements to be officially recognized as a co-op in different places, but ultimately the core concepts behind a worker co-op are:

All workers own a share of the studio.
All decisions are made either directly or through elected officers on a one-worker one-vote basis.
A majority of the shares in the studio are owned by workers on a one-worker one-share basis.

Beyond that, there’s a lot of wiggle room. Co-ops can operate more like a traditional corporation with executives and a board of directors (who are voted in by the workers), they can be more horizontal and reach decisions on consensus, they can be large (as in the case of the Mondragon Corporation) or small.

Why will a worker co-op fix things?

A common source of many of the problems that face both developers and consumers of games is simple: game companies tend to be corporations with the common goal of earning the most profit for their shareholders and/or owners. Particularly in publicly traded companies, decisions are often made that hurt workers and can even hurt the long-term success of the company in sight of short-term gains in stock price. By removing the perverse incentives of public ownership, and by distributing power and ownership to the workers, who have the greatest incentive to keep the company stable, these problems can be avoided.

Of course, making games is still challenging, and while some of the old problems will go away by moving to the co-op model, some new ones will arise ⁠— in particular, seeking funding will be a challenge. Keeping budgets reasonable and seeking alternative methods of funding (like Kickstarter, Patreon, etc.) will be crucial to building a sustainable co-op.

But, game developers are creative people. We’re used to building things. We can build this, too. And this time, if we build it, we own it.

So what do I do?

If you’re a game developer and you’re interested in making a more sustainable, more humane, and more creatively fulfilling game industry, send me an email! I am planning to start a co-operative game studio headquartered in Southern California in the near future. This will not be “work for equity” or “work for exposure” ⁠— I plan to offer salary, benefits, and a share of the studio to anyone who works for the co-op. Again, please get in touch for more details.

In the short term, my primary need is for an experienced Art Director/Lead Artist, but don’t hesitate to get in touch if you don’t fit that role—we’ll need to add more folks as we grow and it can’t hurt to let us know you’re interested!

I’m not a game developer, but I’m interested in more info!

If you’re not a developer, but you’re interested in the project, please go ahead and sign up for a mailing list for news on eventual crowdfunding, game releases, or other related co-op information! I promise not to sell your contact info, spam you unnecessarily or do other gross/shady things with it.

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Thanks for reading! Let’s all work to build a better industry together.