We are the workers of the North American video game industry: the artists, writers, designers, QA, community managers, programmers, the freelancer and fulltime, and beyond. We craft the sights, sounds, and interactions of every AAA and indie darling that has hit storefronts, and the untold many that haven't, building worlds and telling stories and tending to the communities that love the art we create.

We are the backs on which the world's largest entertainment medium is built, and are the first to bear the shock each time it stirs.

OUR TRADE is one of passion, a lifelong "dream job" for many, to be able to create the same kinds of art that inspired us. Some even uproot their lives, moving states and countries for a chance to work in this industry. But too often that passion is exploited by opportunistic parasites that turn our dreams into nightmares.

OUR WAGES are significantly lower than our counterparts in other industries, despite the constant rise of employer profits.

OUR HOURS are notoriously long and arduous, often spiraling into the dismissively-named "crunch" and claiming years of our lives from ourselves and our families.

OUR STABILITY is fleeting: each job is one corporate handshake, one slightly underperforming release, one empty promise away from a mass layoff.

OUR GROWTH is stunted, as we’re strung along by promises of promotions, of salaried positions, of basic benefits that never materialize. Worn down, our seasoned talents leave, our collective knowledge is drained, and our juniors left to fend for themselves.

OUR SKILLS are scrutinized, devalued, and disrespected by powerful yet incompetent shareholders, who try to automate us away with large language models stolen from the very labor they belittle.

OUR DIGNITY is undermined at every turn. We are sexually harassed, racially profiled, and ostracized for our gender, sexuality, religious belief, disability, and country of origin.

These forces alienate us from our work and each other, leaving us on the precipice. With self-styled corporate titans acquiring and scorching studios, killing projects, and laying us off en masse, with governments increasingly hostile to workers of all stripes – what is to be done but unite?

OUR MISSION is to take back our lives, our labor, and our passion from those who treat us like replaceable cogs; to empower our fellow workers; to link up arms with the laid off, with the freelancer, with the disillusioned contractor, with the disenfranchised and the marginalized, with the workers laboring invisibly to keep this industry afloat. Our goal is to create a union – your union – to fight the whims of CEOs and private equity vultures.

YOUR UNION is one built on fundamentals, fueled by the solidarity of members spread across trades and companies, ready and eager to fight. While we negotiate for fair contracts inside the studios, we will also build power and wage a broader battle across the industry, creating a vibrant community through shared struggle.

We are going to CREATE A GAME INDUSTRY THAT WORKS FOR US, one that nourishes its talent and invests in its future, rather than constantly seeking short-term profits. We are the ones that make the games, so we must be the ones that set the terms of how we work. We will raise the expectations for working conditions throughout the industry, and our collective power over our labor, and our ability to withhold it, will require the executive class to comply.

We are going to DRAFT A VIDEO GAME WORKER BILL OF RIGHTS, setting standards that have been glaringly absent from our craft for too long. It will address inequality in hiring, the pervasive reliance on crunch, healthcare for contractors, and protections against all manner of injustice. Armed with this bill, new organizers can activate with clarity of goal and action, cultivated by the shared knowledge of not only fellow game developers, but workers in the entire labor movement!

We are going to BUILD COALITIONS with other organized workers, allying with our neighbors in tech and entertainment, along with our siblings in other sectors. Our struggle does not happen in isolation, and we’ll need all the help we can get in the face of the most anti-worker administrations of our lifetimes.

WE NEED YOU to build this power, to come forward to smash the inertia of the status quo. We are not content and will not continue accepting things as they are. 

We’re ordinary people that believe in our power, and believe that power is magnified when we work together. Take the fire you felt when you first picked up a controller and discovered this medium and its limitless potential, and pour it into the struggle for a better future. Industry bosses have shown time and time again that they will choose the siren call of profit over uplifting workers or doing what’s right. Now is the time to stand with your peers, and fight for the dignity and respect you deserve!