STATE OF THE UNION
After a decade in game development, Jon McKellan has seen many sides of an increasingly divided industry. Prior to founding Glasgow-based No Code with his brother and a childhood friend, he served as lead UI designer on The Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation and crafted UI and animation concepts for Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2. Now a weaver of shortform techno-horror yarns like Stories Untold, McKellan looks back on his larger projects fondly, but also with a certain rancour. “I think there’s a thing where, because people enjoy the work, somehow it’s okay to abuse that. You like making games, it’s your passion, so fine – do it for 20 hours a day, what’s the problem? I feel like I have been in this situation where because I’m passionate, I’ve been taken advantage of – the people paying the bills have said, ‘Sure, stay late, stay late’. And I feel like the lack of unionisation has been a problem.”
A game industry union – that’s to say, an organisation of workers formed to protect the rights and interests of its members – might have highlighted and mobilised against such practices, ensuring that the occasional burst of overtime doesn’t mushroom into a culture of overwork. “I do feel there are occasions where doing overtime is necessary, but not institutionalised overtime – ‘We’ve contracted you to 35 hours a week, but we expect you to do 50, for the next five years,’” McKellan continues. “It’s just exploitation.” Unfortunately, large swathes of the industry remain distrustful of unionisation, as he has discovered firsthand. “I’ve seen employment contracts where [you’re required] to not join a union. If there was one, you’re not allowed to join it, and that’s really shady to me.”
, the seasoned writer-designer whose works include and Respawn’s forthcoming , has also come to see the point of unionisation. Besides challenging crunch, he argues that unions might force publishers to include departed employees in game credits, and provide legal resources and insight in the event of an unfair dismissal. “California
