Discontent over working conditions at video game companies has been growing for years, driven by anger about long working hours, poor pay, temporary contracts and sexual harassment in the workplace. Now some game workers are considering unionisation, which would have been unimaginable a few years ago
Jessica Gonzalez, who formed ABetterABK, a group of Activision workers who have been pushing the company to improve its culture, in San Pedro, Calif., on May 20, 2022. Employees at a company subsidiary complain about long hours and low pay but on Monday, May 22, they could vote to form the first union at a big U.S. gaming company. Image: Adam Amengual/The New York Times
Jessica Gonzalez can sometimes still hear the eerie theme music for one of the “Call of Duty” video games in her mind. She jokes that the soundtrack will play on a loop in her subconscious when she gets older.
Throughout the mid-2010s, Gonzalez spent months working grueling, 14-hour overnight shifts at Activision Blizzard’s offices in Los Angeles as a quality assurance tester, combing the video game developer’s shooter game for glitches while trying to stay awake.
“It is dystopian,” said Gonzalez, 29. “It really is exhausting sometimes, because you feel like you’re pouring from an empty cup.”
Gonzalez and other quality assurance testers were “crunching,” a term in the video game industry for prolonged stretches of intense work before a game’s release. Employees are often given shifts of up to 12-14 hours each day, with only one or two days off each month, all in the name of meeting a deadline to ship the title to players.
Discontent over working conditions at video game companies has been growing for years, driven by anger about the crunch periods experienced by Gonzalez, as well as by poor pay, temporary contracts and sexual harassment in the workplace.
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