In France and abroad, strikes and layoffs are increasing within video game studios.
Employees at French video game studios went on strike again this week to protest their working conditions, as concern and anger mount in the industry, which has been hit by waves of layoffs around the world for two years.
On Monday morning, about ten people gathered in front of the entrance to the Spiders studio in Ivry-sur-Seine, in the Paris region. Among them were employees of the company but also of other studios such as Kylotonn, also on strike, both belonging to the French publisher Nacon.
“Accumulation of problems”
“There has been an accumulation of problems for years,” laments Antoine, a designer at Spiders and member of the action committee, who did not wish to give his last name.
He denounces “a disorganization of schedules” leading to an overload of work and “a significant risk of burn-out”, while the developer’s next game, Greedfall II: The Dying Worldis due to be available in early access on September 24.
At the end of August, 43 employees of the studio, which has 96 employees, signed an open letter warning about their working conditions. The sector, which employs 10,000 to 12,000 people in France, is particularly weakened by the drop in investments.
Emblematic of these difficulties, the Lyon studio Mi-Clos closed in April after ten years of existence and six games, leaving around thirty employees out of work.
At Spiders, the strike was not lifted on Thursday evening, despite a meeting during the day with management and “concessions” on wages and teleworking, according to a delegate from the Video Game Workers Union (STJV). Management deplored a blockage and blamed the “radical positions” of the STJV.
“Maturity”
This mobilization is far from being the first this year. On February 14, the French giant Ubisoft experienced the largest strike in the history of the sector, with 700 employees who stopped working in particular for wage increases, according to the unions.
“People are starting to realize that these means of action exist and are legitimate,” notes Pierre-Etienne Marx, STJV representative at Ubisoft, who hopes for a “ripple effect” in the coming months.
He regrets, however, that this mobilization at the French video game giant “did not lead to any response from management.”
Created in 2017, the STJV, the leading union of video game employees, is now established among the majority of French developers.
“It’s an industry that was born in neoliberalism,” says Mr. Marx, and in which the “crunch” (a period of intense work preceding the release of a game, editor’s note) is still very common.
In February, the STJV union section of DON’T NOD expressed concern about the “ambient chaos” within this French studio, citing “psycho-social risks” in the face of “deadlines that change very frequently” and “a trying reorganization”.
For Stéphane Rappeneau, professor of video game economics at the Sorbonne, the increase in these mobilizations is a sign of “a maturity in the sector.” “The world of video games is becoming aware that you can’t make a game without employees,” he believes.
World Movement
However, “this will not change the difficulty of balancing the economic equation” between a market that is evolving very quickly and development times that can take several years. “The social conflict is a direct consequence of the economic difficulties of the sector,” he said.
Globally, the video game industry has laid off more than 11,500 people since January, according to the website Game Industry Layoffs, after already laying off more than 10,000 people in 2023.
In the wake of these job cuts, the industry is turning to unions like never before. In the UK, the fledgling video game branch of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has seen a 37% increase in membership since the start of the year.
In the United States, where the first unions appeared in 2022, the movement is gaining momentum. In March, nearly 600 employees in the quality assurance department of Activision, owned by Microsoft, formed the largest union in the industry across the Atlantic.
