WONG: At the same time, costs and time needed to produce blockbuster games have gone up significantly. Skylar Hinnant and about 300 of his fellow quality assurance testers voted in 2023 to unionize. In the last few years, they've started organizing to push for better work conditions. WOODS: But some video game workers aren't waiting for their employers to act. WONG: For example, the studio that makes The Witcher game series says it's combatting crunch by making sure employees are given comp time or extra pay for overtime. Others have conceded that overwork happens, and they're trying to address it. WOODS: Executives have talked about this lack of wiggle room, where neither deadlines nor budgets can stretch. And what happens is that that starts to be so constraining that really the best piece of flexibility in that triangle is the workers themselves. WESTSTAR: In the iron triangle, you need to deliver your game on time, on budget and within the scope that you promised. WONG: Johanna also says that the video game studios get caught in something called the iron triangle of project management. And what we see in the game industry is that there is quite a large reserve army of labor. And if somebody burns out, then they burn out and in comes somebody else. The working conditions could be more harsh. JOHANNA WESTSTAR: If there are a lot of people willing to do the job, companies can afford to pay workers less. WONG: Johanna Weststar is a professor of labor and employment relations at Western University in Ontario, Canada. For example, one executive said that the writers for the game Red Dead Redemption 2 worked a hundred hours a week for three weeks. The entertainment press has documented more extreme schedules, and not just for developers but across departments.

WOODS: In a 2021 survey of game developers, 1 out of 4 workers said crunch meant working more than 60 hours a week. WONG: And crunch was a normal occurrence for both contractors and permanent employees. That meant no paid time off or health benefits. WOODS: Skylar knows about the passion tax in video games. This may be a familiar feeling to people in creative fields or in helping professions like social work. WAILIN WONG, BYLINE: A passion tax is when an employee might do unpaid work or put up with not-so-great conditions because they really love what they do.

So there is a certain level of passion tax that you pay to get into the industry. SKYLAR HINNANT: The prestige of, like, working on something that you grew up playing, like, is really cool. That's a video game publisher that's owned by Microsoft. He's a quality assurance tester at ZeniMax. Our colleagues Wailin Wong and Darian Woods at The Indicator report that video game workers are organizing for better working conditions.ĭARIAN WOODS, BYLINE: A number of video game workers got into games by playing them as a kid. The schedule is so entrenched in the industry that it's known by a special name - crunch. Workers at video game companies often put in long, grueling hours to meet product launches.

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