Still, I think it is legal for you to beat your wife with a stick no thicker than your thumb in the Lone Star State; so I guess it is swings and roundabouts 
For what itās worth, the industry also recognizes the huge problem of ācrunch timeā and has been working on changing it. When games were full of 20-ish single young males, it was easy for that kind of culture to develop. Now those guys are in their 30ās and 40ās (or women), married, with kids, and not so willing to put in 80-hour weeks for anything.
Nobody wants to have the next EA Spouse.
that would be our children not our wives.
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Shit, nobody wants the next EAā¦
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Unionizeā¦ If only. āUnionā is a bad word these days, and some states make it very hard to actually pull it off. Further, as a person not in the industry, having associated with many members of it; Libertarian and Randian idealists are a significant portion of that industries membership and management.
I canāt really wrap my head around why people hate organized labor, but that sad fact is that most people do.
Does that work with creative types, though? Seriously, how many northern Californians would move to Arkansas or Texas?
If they had no choice? Do you think engineers really choose to work in Alabama, Georgia or Missouri over California or Washington?
Iām really lucky right now in that I have a good job thatās also near somewhere nice to live. Thatās never been the case before. I canāt imagine itāll last, either.
I donāt know about creatives in the games industry, the only people I know who worked in it were in the UKā¦
Engineering usually requires being in a particular place, though; either because thatās where what youāre building is going to be located, or because the industry is centralized somewhere (space program, aeronautics, etc.). Creatives, by definition, donāt need a specific physical location to do their work. What they need instead is a community conducive to doing creative work.
Well, Iāve never lived in Alabama or Missouri, but Georgia actually has some things to recommend it, including Atlanta, which is a pretty cool city, actually, despite it being a pretty red out in the rest of the state - even then, Athens is great, as is Savannah.
Not everyone wants to live on the west coast or in a large urban environment and all places have their problems and their high points. I wouldnāt expect everyone to want to live here, but not everyone who does want to be here is a backwards, anti-union, racist, conservative redneck, either. We do have a large gay community and an incredibly diverse population in terms of race, ethnicity, and religion, which is awesome. One of the things I like best about my university is the social and racial diversity, which is one of the best, not just in Georgia, but in the country. I honestly wouldnāt have traded that experience for going to a more āprestigiousā university.
I lived in Savannah. I absolutely detest the place. I can see why it might be nice for a weekend in the historic district, thatās about it. Itās a horrible city to actually live in (plus, itās too damn far from nicer places, like Athens and Atlanta).
This is probably getting a bit O/T, though 
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Fair enough.
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Well when problem employees are protected by a union, thereās a frustration in changing the unionās policies to be better and more transparent. But that is also more an issue of the long leg of bureaucracy rather than the inherent concept of unions.
In many ways, Atlanta is the exception that proves the rule. My college roommate settled in Atlanta because thatās where her job took her. Sure, itās one of the few places in the south that works for her family, which includes her wife, but the commute issues are a daily headache and racism is never far from center place. The thing she complains most about, however, is the lack of cultural amenities in comparison to the major northern cities sheās lived in, especially with regard to diversity. And traveling anywhere takes them through some very dangerous territory unless they fly out.
Huntsville, Alabama is another āislandā like that. Certain industries there mean they have more diversity than Alabamans as a group would choose, but itās not the same thing as being able to go for a drive in any direction and still feel safe and culturally stimulated.
Also, much like the law, unions are there for everyone, even assholes.
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Safety is of primary concern of course, and I think youāre right on there. Atlanta has long functioned as a safe space for refugees from around GA (and around the south more generally). But there are people who are moving OTP and settling there who are not WASPs (in part they are being displaced by younger, middle class whites wanting to move back into the city - but this is a well-trod discussion now, the reverse white flight back into cities). Iām not far outside the perimeter, and Iāve noticed a considerable change in demographics out our way. In fact, I went back to my hometown not too long ago, to some event in the downtown area, and I was kind of flabbergasted about how intergrated it felt - something Iād never really thought my hometown to be (the racial tension was always high there, a NW GA town of about 30,000 people - hell, the chair of my department wrote a whole book about racial tensions and labor up to the 70s in my hometown).
Honestly, if we want these places to change, and to claim or reclaim them from racists, homophobes, Islamophobes, sexists, and other bigoted assholes, that does entail moving there and making contact. Same for creating stimulating cultural environments. Asheville, for example, is a cool place to live because people make it so. Same with Atlantaā¦
Iām unsure about her complaint about diversity, as Iāve found it an extremely diverse cityā¦ Buford Highway, the mid-town gay community, there is a large community of Balkan refugees on my side of town, and a community of eritreans out there too. Iām down town, at least 2 days a week, and at times Iām one of a few white faces in the crowd walking around downtown or on campus. My classes tended to be a fair mix of races, too. How that compares to NYC or Boston, I couldnāt say, but until fairly recently, Atlanta was indeed black majority, in part due to white flight.
Also, yes, the commute always sucks - we all agree there! But Iāve found the west side of town to be by far the worst (plus itās whiter, redder, too).
(editing for clarity of thoughtā¦)
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Curators are a core part of the long-term vision for Steam. Theyāre going to be important if people like it or not. That they just rolled out the system (poorly, as usual) and people havenāt settled into it yet doesnāt mean much.
The only lawsuit about overtime was the EA suit here in California, the result being that theyāve moved people into the contract system where they donāt have to provide benefits. So it wasnāt much of a win, really. We need a cultural change in the industry before anything really happens - most workers donāt see themselves as exploited, at least not when theyāre new to the industry. They know something is wrong, but canāt quite figure out what it is. Itās terribly counter-productive, but it doesnāt necessarily lead to high turn-over - layoffs are common and itās rare to stick with one company for long whether you want to or not.
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I work in the game industry, and Iāve been lucky enough to work for companies run by people who had experienced some of the most abusive labor conditions possible, so they made an effort to eliminate crunch time. But my coworkers spoke of the companies they had just come from (and the companies they moved on to), and they werenāt so great. There is, indeed, a growing awareness, but itās got a long way to go. Part of the problem is that the burn-out rate in the industry is huge. Itās constantly being replenished by new college grads. All the experienced developers I know have either left the industry or want to leave the industry (but canāt because their job skills are so industry-specific).
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Yeppers. Thatās why we will see more EA Spouses, more Rockstar Spouses (look where that got them), and more Team Bondis. (Those are just the ones I recall off the top of my head)
While there are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed youngsters wanting to work in the industry, there will be people who will take advantage of their enthusiasm.
