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Bethesda employees unionize

Most places I've worked flat out said that if you try to unionize you'll be fired. And I've worked for at least one company on Microsoft's scale. I suspect they have a similar mindset.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I suspect (hope?) these people get fired.
Retaliatory firing for unionization efforts is a crime and violation of the National Labor Relations Act.

Not sure unionization was really intended for this type of compensation level

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For senior positions in those cities with their cost of living thats not really that much.

Most US professions do not need unions in 2024. I don't see how Bethesda needs one.

Every profession needs unions.
 
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SaintALia

Member
Not sure unionization was really intended for this type of compensation level

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That seems about in line with the average salary for Senior level software engineers though, and those are senior level salaries with many years of experience, so I'm not sure what this post is supposed to illustrate. Besthesda has over 400 employees and I doubt they're all senior level engineers with multiple years of experience.

You don't form unions to just get better pay anyway, it's mostly for worker protections. The videogame industry has a bad history of exploiting it's workers, with no real way for the workers to fight back against it, other than to quit.

As for the comments about making the studio slower being said by other commenters, a lot of that can be chalked up to bad management, feature creep, other issues etc. There was tremendous Crunch with Fallout 76, and I don't recall it raking in multiple GOTY rewards, and that 'crunch culture' disappeared with Starfield(or so Microsoft said), and that game didn't exactly set the world on fire with it's brilliance. So yeah, just better working conditions for Besthesda employees, but still expect your poor animation, neverending bugs and mediocre gameplay, as is the norm.
 
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Three

Member
Nokia killed itself with their incompetence before Microsoft buy them. Buying them just gave them more time to live.
That incompetence was former MS employee Elop partnering with the struggling ecosystem that was Windows Phone when Nokia still had some brand awareness. Then they got bought and killed by MS. Nokia could have been a good phone company like Samsung if they hadn't squandered their internal Maemo and then swapped it for another struggling OS instead. It was a clear failure to recognise why Maemo didn't take off and that reason was app support.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
God forbid employees have someone fight for their corner

Never change, America.
Yep, there is nothing inherently wrong with Unionizing for worker protection.

Those software dev salaries are fairly normal for more senior level people for where Bethesda studios is located (if we are talking Bethesda, MD) or really any other major US city. Hell, it’s probably on the low side for most of CA or NYC.

And as we see with say Airline pilots, doctors and University professors, you can have decently to well compensated folks form a union for worker protection rights.

Folks, stop stanning for $3Trillion corporation. If you want to know why Bethesda games are taking so long, blame the management for incompetence or MS for using contractors who they kick out every 18 months.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
As an European its just sad seeing how successful American corporations slander campaign against Unions has been. First thing people do is joke...

Seriously guys. This is great news and shows there are still some backbone in the videogame industry.

Unions where I work have a long track record of pushing for better pay, staff bonuses and very significant severance terms. All without harming productivity.

It’ll never cease to amaze me to see People complain about ‘mega corps’, then turn around to be anti-workers.
 

kikkis

Member
Yep, there is nothing inherently wrong with Unionizing for worker protection.

Those software dev salaries are fairly normal for more senior level people for where Bethesda studios is located (if we are talking Bethesda, MD) or really any other major US city. Hell, it’s probably on the low side for most of CA or NYC.

And as we see with say Airline pilots, doctors and University professors, you can have decently to well compensated folks form a union for worker protection rights.

Folks, stop stanning for $3Trillion corporation. If you want to know why Bethesda games are taking so long, blame the management for incompetence or MS for using contractors who they kick out every 18 months.
Why not form nation wide union and raise min wage to 30 dollars an hour and reduce hours to max 30 a week? It's funny employers are banned from cartels and monopolies are anti trusted but for employees all that's fine and even encouraged.
 

Topher

Identifies as young
Why not form nation wide union and raise min wage to 30 dollars an hour and reduce hours to max 30 a week? It's funny employers are banned from cartels and monopolies are anti trusted but for employees all that's fine and even encouraged.

Wow......talk about taking an argument to the extreme. Nation wide unions and corporate cartels? Time to pump the brakes my man.

Matthew Broderick GIF
 
As an European its just sad seeing how successful American corporations slander campaign against Unions has been. First thing people do is joke...

Seriously guys. This is great news and shows there are still some backbone in the videogame industry.
You do know which forum you are on?
 
As an European its just sad seeing how successful American corporations slander campaign against Unions has been. First thing people do is joke...

Seriously guys. This is great news and shows there are still some backbone in the videogame industry.
Oh, the Europe aka "open air museum" where the tech is coming from USA, resources from the ME and Africa and industrial goods from China :messenger_tears_of_joy: And also not paying for its own military.
 
Let's take the lowest amount of compensation there, $119k, and convert that to GBP - £92,000.

Using a UK government take home pay calculator, this works out at about £64,000, after tax. Or about £5,300 a month.

Nothing to sneeze at.
You'd still struggle to be able to afford a modest single family home on that salary. In most instances without a big deposit, even on that salary you'd get laughed out of the bank.

These numbers all look high, but the cost of living, and house prices and rents have increased dramatically in the last 5 years.

I find it funny that Americans sympathies lie with the corporation's rather than the employees. Apparently unionisation is bad because it serves to milk the poor widdle multi-trillion dollar corporation for money.
I'm sorry but no. Workers should milk their employer for every penny they can. They're not working for some mom'n'pop shop. These corporations are making literally tens of billions of dollars off their backs, they deserve to see a significant proportion of that money.
Meanwhile jokers like Phil Spencer who has run an entire brand into oblivion and layed off thousands, is getting a pay packet that could pay the wages of an entire studio all for himself. Fuck outta here with that.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
Why not form nation wide union and raise min wage to 30 dollars an hour and reduce hours to max 30 a week? It's funny employers are banned from cartels and monopolies are anti trusted but for employees all that's fine and even encouraged.
Why not stop with obviously trolling arguments? You came up with some BS and are pushing it as what? Nobody is asking for that shit.
 
Oh, the Europe aka "open air museum" where the tech is coming from USA, resources from the ME and Africa and industrial goods from China :messenger_tears_of_joy: And also not paying for its own military.
Hey did you know that all the tech that US companies are responsible for providing the world come from Taiwan. And the things that help the Taiwanese make their chips comes from this European company called ASML. You should check it out.

Also a strong economy is meaningless if the money made doesn't distribute itself across the economy from top to bottom. The American workers that are contributing to the US' economy should be able to fight for a share of the trillions of dollars they're making for their corporate overlords.
 

kikkis

Member
Why not stop with obviously trolling arguments? You came up with some BS and are pushing it as what? Nobody is asking for that shit.
I suppose you being such highly intelligent individual can then explain how unions in nurses for example are not cartels and not monopolies if they control labor? And for instance California acted as labor union for fast food industry by raising wages to 20 dollars, and already so far lost 10000 jobs? https://www.hoover.org/research/cal...d-jobs-after-20-minimum-wage-signed-last-fall
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
Oh, the Europe aka "open air museum" where the tech is coming from USA, resources from the ME and Africa and industrial goods from China :messenger_tears_of_joy: And also not paying for its own military.
This is quite false. You have some of the highest end pharmaceuticals, companies like ASML in high end electronics manufacturing, some of the best lens manufacturing in the world (used from electronics to telescopes), heavy machine industry, leading in airplane manufacturing, very healthy car manufacturing and a lot more.

EU is even now ramping up military spending and finally starting to properly fund their defense contractors, and they do have home grown airplane, tanks, cannons, missiles, ship industry and more.

You are way oversimplifying the situation with EU, which really has a big issue with lack of unity and over-eagerness around climate change emissions reductions like some of the dumb Dutch regulations on farming or Germany shutting down their nuclear power.

But overall if we are talking manufacturing, EU as a whole is probably stronger vs US if not as innovative generally. Even that depends on particular industry.

That’s coming from me as a US Citizen, living in US, and working as a technical manager in a large manufacturing multinational corpo.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
I suppose you being such highly intelligent individual can then explain how unions in nurses for example are not cartels and not monopolies if they control labor? And for instance California acted as labor union for fast food industry by raising wages to 20 dollars, and already so far lost 10000 jobs? https://www.hoover.org/research/cal...d-jobs-after-20-minimum-wage-signed-last-fall
You are mixing up government regulations in a US state (personally I think they were poorly thought out) and acts by workers for protection of their rights.

Also, please explain how unions for nurses are cartels. That’s just bewilderingly confusing.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Also a strong economy is meaningless if the money made doesn't distribute itself across the economy from top to bottom. The American workers that are contributing to the US' economy should be able to fight for a share of the trillions of dollars they're making for their corporate overlords.

Well over half of American households aren't paying income tax. I promise you, the money is getting "redistributed" well beyond the point of sustenance.

America has a more progressive taxation system beyond the most holy of European grails in Scandinavian countries. This idea that it's the financial badlands is ridiculous.

Unions for white collar, high skilled labor are a joke for a reason.
 

SF Kosmo

Banned
Why not form nation wide union and raise min wage to 30 dollars an hour and reduce hours to max 30 a week? It's funny employers are banned from cartels and monopolies are anti trusted but for employees all that's fine and even encouraged.
This is a lazy, absurd parody of a slippery slope argument that seems to argue any collective bargaining might as well be TOTAL collective bargaining. It's like arguing taxes shouldn't exist because "Why don't we just tax everyone 100%?" or that you shouldn't have to brush your teeth because "What am I just going to brush them all day?"


Nationwide regulations and minimum wages exist, precisely because corporations are motivated by design to prioritize profit over everything, including the rights of workers, consumers, and their employees, and that is precisely what they will do if left to their own devices.

Unions, on the other hand, are incentivized to consider both the wellbeing of the employees AND the company in balance. They cannot negotiate for anything unsustainable because the companies will cease to exist if they do. But they serve as a check on corporate greed and a mechanism for negotiation and balance of the competing needs of workers and companies.
 

RJMacready73

Simps for Amouranth
I suppose you being such highly intelligent individual can then explain how unions in nurses for example are not cartels and not monopolies if they control labor? And for instance California acted as labor union for fast food industry by raising wages to 20 dollars, and already so far lost 10000 jobs? https://www.hoover.org/research/cal...d-jobs-after-20-minimum-wage-signed-last-fall

McDonald's gross profit for the twelve months ending March 31, 2024 was $14.688B, a 9.03% increase year-over-year. McDonald's annual gross profit for 2023 was $14.563B, a 10.26% increase from 2022. McDonald's annual gross profit for 2022 was $13.207B, a 4.98% increase from 2021.

Oh noes imagine expecting a company that makes that amount of profit to pay their workers an actual living wage, keep on shilling for those billionaires K kikkis the rich always needs useful idiots

 

kikkis

Member
You are mixing up government regulations in a US state (personally I think they were poorly thought out) and acts by workers for protection of their rights.

Also, please explain how unions for nurses are cartels. That’s just bewilderingly confusing.
Cartel = teaming up with others to raise prices. Its not rocket science for ffs. But union aim for exactly same things as that min wage increase, so I don't see reason to separate them.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
£5400 per month...



Sarcastic Joke GIF
In Bethesda, MD or surrounding areas? Yeah, it’s pretty damn bad as house prices are generally well over $1 mil. Well, in Bethesda itself and surrounding areas more like $2mil.

You would have to move out for about 40 min or more car based commute, and get an old house in a meh condition in a meh neighborhood. That will still be like $800K min.

Also, this is US and meh neighborhoods can mean shootings at night or even not at night.
 

Nester99

Member
White collar office jobs with an 6 figure average salary unionization is peak privilege.

This nonsense will destroy any chance of this firm turning it around
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member

Well over half of American households aren't paying income tax. I promise you, the money is getting "redistributed" well beyond the point of sustenance.

America has a more progressive taxation system beyond the most holy of European grails in Scandinavian countries. This idea that it's the financial badlands is ridiculous.

Unions for white collar, high skilled labor are a joke for a reason.
Your argument goes out the door when a ton of ultra rich don’t pay jack shit in taxes. And we are talking Musk and Bezos levels even.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
White collar office jobs with an 6 figure average salary unionization is peak privilege.

This nonsense will destroy any chance of this firm turning it around
Ultimately, the proof will be in the results.

My personal opinion is that BGS is a joke now, and that they're unionizing indicates that the type of dev who actually wants to do shit isn't there anymore. The result will be inherently worse products. Worse than Starfield.
 

Nester99

Member
Unionizing will lower the quality of their games?


the-what.jpg



Wait are people against unionizing, or is this because its an MS studio unionizing that we must see this as a negative?

Unions will naturally cater to mediocrity and high end producers will move on to other firms. Overall product quality and creativity will suffer

It’s the death kneel for white collar production.
 

kikkis

Member
No offence guys, but gifs and insults are not exactly arguments. People think that profits are evil, but they are needed to reinvest and to actually increase productivity. Like if you get more money, but nobody produces anything more, how are you any more well off? Best results for productivity and thus better life comes when employers compete for best employees and vice versa.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
Ultimately, the proof will be in the results.

My personal opinion is that BGS is a joke now, and that they're unionizing indicates that the type of dev who actually wants to do shit isn't there anymore. The result will be inherently worse products. Worse than Starfield.
The issues with Bethesda lie with their management and not with the regular devs. Some of these issues have been well documented over the years.
 
No offence guys, but gifs and insults are not exactly arguments. People think that profits are evil, but they are needed to reinvest and to actually increase productivity. Like if you get more money, but nobody produces anything more, how are you any more well off? Best results for productivity and thus better life comes when employers compete for best employees and vice versa.

No one is going to seriously argue with your brainrot takes.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
No offence guys, but gifs and insults are not exactly arguments. People think that profits are evil, but they are needed to reinvest and to actually increase productivity. Like if you get more money, but nobody produces anything more, how are you any more well off? Best results for productivity and thus better life comes when employers compete for best employees and vice versa.
Then present arguments with at least a modicum of thought. Your discussion points were nonsense.

In the case of the OP in this thread, we are talking of Bethesda games studios which is owned by literally one of three largest companies in the world with $100 billion + annual profits.

This is a game studio with management issues going back many years. If employees wanted to unionize there must have been a reason for it.
 
Unions, on the other hand, are incentivized to consider both the wellbeing of the employees AND the company in balance. They cannot negotiate for anything unsustainable because the companies will cease to exist if they do.


This is as real as saying that feminism is a movement that protects women's rights.
 

ProtoByte

Weeb Underling
Your argument goes out the door when a ton of ultra rich don’t pay jack shit in taxes. And we are talking Musk and Bezos levels even.
The top 1% pay 40% of income tax dollars.
Despite making ~25% of the income.


The top 1 percent’s income share rose from 20.1 percent in 2019 to 22.2 percent in 2020 and its share of federal income taxes paid rose from 38.8 percent to 42.3 percent.

You can guarantee that the ~90th percentile of income earners also pay the vast vast majority of capital gains taxes, property taxes, a disproportionate amount of sales taxes, etc.

You might think that Bezos and Musk "should pay more" for whatever bizarre reason, even though the US government is bringing in 4 trillion dollars a year and still losing 2-3 more, but the truth is that most of the "wealth" money they have is non-liquid; tied up in the fact that they have functioning megacorps that employ millions of of people directly and indirectly.

So remind me what goes out the window?
 
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