The video game development industry already makes extensive use of contractors, dedicated outsource studios in various disciplines (art, audio and QA being the most common), and "support" studios (internal or external studios that work on large, cross-functional parts of a project). While I can see this increasing, the majority of the staff on the larger projects are not full-time staff at the "lead dev" studio but fall into one of the aforementioned categories.

I wouldn't mind seeing broader unionization in the video game industry - it already exists in some European countries - but I don't see it as a panacea to the issues often associated with it. Collective bargaining wouldn't have prevented a company like Activision Blizzard from making a strategic decision to move in a different direction, a direction that necessitates staff restructuring. Potentially, it could improve severance agreements, work rules, or entry-level pay, all laudable goals, but much of that is orthogonal to what is happening here.

The unionization efforts in European countries don't seem to be doing much good. See fiasco after fiasco at Eugen Systems, for example.

Most studios need leads/experienced developers/artists/audio folk in house. If they are unionized, wouldn't they have leverage over how and when outsourcing was used?

Maybe. But they're competing against developers that aren't subject to these limitations. Art assets often make up the bulk (50-70%) of the development costs of modern games. If one studio has to pay 3D modelers $50,000 a year and another only has to pay $10,000 a year (not to mention no healthcare, retirement fund, etc) then the former is at a huge disadvantage.

Outsourcing isn't a hypothetical. Naughty Dog started outsourcing art asset production to Asia with Uncharted 3. Music recording has been outsourced for at least a decade. Sure, the company hires experienced people (like art directors and composers) in house but the heavy lifting is done offshore.

The heavy lifting in game music is not outsourced. It’s really only the orchestra musicians that are outsourced. The music direction, supervision, engineering, orchestrating, score prep and copy services, editing, mixing,mastering, integration and testing is still done in-house or by a contracted music service, usually US based. The reason for outsourcing orchestras is ironically to avoid overly strict contracts with AFM, the musicians union. This is why Nashville is bursting with video game scoring sessions. Tennessee is a right-to-work state.

The former Soviet countries probably have a bunch of low cost talent as well.

Guess it's time for a outsource music and art tariff.

Not if the union was globalized.

It actually already exists in some countries so USA would not be first unionising software workers. That would seriously help with the outsourcing problem if everyone would get the same benefits in all countries. Stop outsourcing everything to China would probably stop them from growing into the superpower it has become during the last decades. But I guess that train has left the station already.

Doesn't even have to be a global single rate, just a way to collectivize the negotiations worldwide while still accounting for local economic conditions.

Business people form conglomerates together whenever it makes strategic sense. How this became so stigmatized an action for business people selling their own labor makes no sense at all.