I know a guy that worked on StarTrek for years as a VR architect and general 3D modelling type of work. He worked longer hours than your average Torontonian, but nothing absolutely crazy. I've worked longer weeks.

He loved his job.

I'm not saying it is this way for everyone, but part of life is deciding if you want to work hard, have impact on things that matter, work on cool stuff, earn a lot of money, etc.

There are places where it truly gets exploitative, but in my humble opinion that's usually places where the people involved have almost no options other than to move to another town or country. I'm not against industries or companies where the up front expectation is hard work. Some people want that, at least some of the time.

VFX people in Hollywoord are some of the most underpaid workers in the industry. Sure, it's cool that you can be a part of a team that helps make a movie. No doubt it must be pretty cool to see your work on the big screen, or even the small screen, and know that you played a part in bringing it there. But I think something the workers would also value is having some autonomy over their work, and being paid for it.

I'm not easily convinced by the argument of, "you get to work on cool stuff", working on cool stuff doesn't make up for risking povery, debt, or unemployment when you're underpaid. Furthermore, there's a difference between hard work, and exhausting working. And being put under crunch is exhausting work, not hard work.

Screw cool. I’m an adult.

Working on “cool stuff” is for people in their 20s or the perpetually naive…

The perpetually naive usually come to their senses when they’re old and recognize they don’t have any savings, don’t have a home to live in and can’t retire.

I’ll take a fair wage, health insurance, and balanced work hours every time. I can find cool things to do on my own time when not putting in 16 hours a day.

Either way, for people with the skills to choose between working for Google and making $400k a year or working for Hollywood and making $70k a year, then they go and work for Hollywood and complain about the hours and pay, I just don't really know what else to say other than it's a choice.

You get to see your work on the big screen, hang out at cooler parties, etc. Google people, generally speaking, do not get the same thing in life. Unions have their place, of course, especially with monopsonies or mining towns, but when it comes to a whole industry I just think some things naturally come out that way due to the motivations and dynamics.

One man's happiness is another man's hell, and so forth.

The question of happiness is a very subjective one, with everyone having a different answer.

So? How does that justify being exploited and treated badly?

I've seen the same arguments made against teachers, nurses and other people who get to do "meaningful" work whenever they want fairer wages, and I do not see the logic. Do they need to be punished for doing a job where the result of their hard work doesn't make them hate themselves?

I see the reverse logic: pay jobs that nobody wants to do well to make them attractive. But the need for carrots does not imply the need for sticks.

The problem is when the producers use it in an exploitative way to have people work insanely longer hours than billed, or to lower the costs of labour so that the workers can have the "pride" of writing "big name" on their resume.

Unfortunately, this is common practice.

Like most things, working on the cutting-edge, successful, top-tier stuff is cool, but most people in the industry aren't doing that. If you look at something like https://steamdb.info/upcoming/ you'll see a small number of "Yeah, it'd be cool to make that" games, and a lot of "Who the hell buys this crap?" games. Most people employed to build games are working on the second type of game.

In other parts of the software industry, you can also work on legitimately cool stuff without having to kill yourself.

[1] - https://www.cnet.com/culture/entertainment/marvels-vfx-artis...

RRR wouldn't be out of place in a Hollywood blockbuster.

I'll bet there's some folks here, that actually watch the movies, and could point to better stuff.

I would posit that it is more akin to exploitation to keep rich nations rich and poor nations poor.

It's possible to be the worker who's paid relatively well and still be exploited. That worker then becomes complicit in the exploitation.

Pitting one workforce against another is an old trick used to control them all.

It's not a trick, it's the same as you choosing the cheapest product on a shelf between two competing brands. It's the foundation of a competitive market that puts high incentives to produce products the most efficiently and most cost effectively. Which is a huge boon to consumers and has lead to us all having a better standard of living than anyone else in history.

Being in country A and able to choose products made in country B is the result of specific political and legal choices made by the power structures of both countries.

Historically, there was nothing inevitable about the free movement of capital, goods and profit, but over the last half century or more, this has come to be seen as "normal".

Your argument is the classic one in favor of removing restrictions on the movement of capital, goods and profit (not labor!), and has been the justification for almost every free trade agreement over the last 75 years.

The evidence of it being a net benefit to everyone is now starting to skew against that claim. The distribution of negative environmental externalities to poor countries in particular argues against it (i.e. country X can make your widgets cheaper because they have less regulation about waste and pollution).

We're all consumers, it is true. But we're all citizens and employees too, and we spend more of our lives in those roles. Global free trade may be a boon to our lives as consumers, but it's been fucking over our lives as citizens and employees for too long alread.

When you use the word "labor" do you mean literally it has to be people who work or do you think any human should be able to move about freely?

I ask because international trade, capital, etc. don't move around without rules & regulations. For instance, I can't just move all my wealth between countries without scrutiny, fees, taxes, etc.

Let people live where they want, everywhere in the world. Good places will draw population and prosper, and bad places will stagnate until they change.

Paying people so they can lessen infant mortality and such does produce a baby boom.

That is: we move our money into whatever markets we want, we withdraw our profits as we choose, but heaven forbid that labor should be allowed to move as it pleases.

Hm, I have no knowledge or connection to the events, but "stomping out protests" made me expect a bit more dramatic events, than stopping someones speech, after his time was up.

"But Westenhofer’s speech was cut off mid-sentence after he used up his allotted time"

It's just an industry meat parade designed to get you to watch their bullshit.

The academy awards are literally nothing more than any other industry group awards: it's just people in the industry telling each other how awesome they are.

They are, and always have been, utterly meaningless.

Plus I assume if you're an independent contractor (not working in an outsourced sweatshop) you have more leverage to stand your ground against nonsense like crunch. But I'm fantasizing that because I've never done contract work so I don't know if that's really the case.

Edit: That would make game development much more palatable, since gig work implies no overtime unless you want it. Just do some game development and earn money rather than doing it for free on a hobby project. And since it is just a gig you can easily try it out and do something else if you don't like it.

Keep system running for decade or two and you have another area where people work. Because thats how gig economy worked for every other market.

And what is your retirement plan? Keep working until your health prevents you from working anymore and then die on streets?

The OP is actually right - contractors have much better treatment than employees. Not only in law, where you can't be told your hours - etc, but also just by the nature of your employment where you have to sell yourself and they desire to work with you or they wouldn't have paid your fee. This isn't the case in industries where they have fake contracting - employment in all but name, but as an actual independent developer or whatever you make more and get treated better.

> you dont want to do overtime making those car models? No problem. We have contact to 10 other people just waiting to do it in your place.

This isn't how contracting works. They give you a deadline for the work and you accept it. They don't know if you're fast or slow as long as you meet the deadline. They don't demand you do more, they offer it.

As an employee you're a machine for them to use? Have you heard the phrase "Drive it like you're renting it"?

> And we will pay them less than we pay you, and then we will pay even less to those who will replace them.

Then they aren't in that first artists range anymore so they take other work.

At some point the work is "Click on all transparent segments of the SpongeBob character, applying to correct color for that body part from this design document." Why would that employ the same artists who, from an empty page, designed those characters and their looks?

And yet, every instance of gig economy pushes wages way down, pushes all the externalities (like health insurance, travel, equipment etc.) onto workers and makes their life revolve around work.

> That would make game development much more palatable, since gig work implies no overtime unless you want it.

As others already mentioned: then you'll be out of the job, because there will always be people willing to work overtime for the same money.

And since it's "just a gig", you can be let go even faster than it is now for workers in the US.

Even for Amazon warehouses they churned through people faster than they could find new ones and that were jobs where you basically have to be healthy enough to carry things so not requiring much.

Development or working on game requires quite some knowledge of specialized tools. Then that toolset in game industry varies a lot.

I don’t think there are that many Unity developers one can hire on the spot.