This is how creative unions and a host of other group that bully their ways into some discrete professions muscle in to get membership income and then start setting the rules for all participants.

The real reason the video game writers are included in this thing is to force them to pay dues and eventually use them as leverage against some industry. It's not about recognizing their talent or contribution.

If there were money to be made in comics, the WGA would be stepping in to represent the oppressed comic book writers too.

I hadn't really thought of that, but it makes sense.

The two issues that worry me, with all of this in mind, is that writers who are not part of the WGA's Videogame Writers Caucus (VWC) will be excluded from nominations, unless they choose to join the VWC, and that any time the WGA goes on strike, video game writers who are members of the VWC will have no choice but to join them, thus disrupting the workflow of game development. [...] The second issue worries me far more, as part of the WGA's primary goal for the VWC is to �Expand writers' WGA coverage to include every writer working in the gaming industry�.
Hi, stumbled across this page today. I'm the chair of the WGA's Videogame Writers Caucus, and I'd like to address your concerns. Number One: Yes, we restrict nominations to those writers willing to join the Videogame Writers Caucus of the WGA. We do this not because of some sinister intent, but rather because we're trying to bring non-Guild writers together with Guild-member writers to discuss the future of the games business and the WGA's place in it. So if you'd like to nominate yourself for the ONLY game award given out to individual writers for the craft of writing, then you have to put up with us talking to you for a year. Seems like a pretty fair trade to me... those writers are always free to quit the VWC at the end of their first year.

As for the second issue which concerns you even more, not to worry: VWC membership is NOT equivalent to Guild Membership... it's an Associate membership and comes with none of the strike requirements that a full membership entails. Not only could we not demand that Videogame Writers Caucus members who are Associate members of the guild go on strike with us, it would be ILLEGAL for them to do so.

So no need to worry about those writers being forced off their games projects.


In my mind, and likely the minds of many others in the video game industry, video game writers following the rest of the WGA into a strike could be a devestating blow to the the industry as a whole. Video game development takes far longer than film or television production. Any delays, even minor, can throw things out of balance. Severe delays, which could easily result from a prolonged writers strike, could ruin video game development projects. I would hate to see that happen.

Sadly, you may someday see a LOT of organized labor strikes in the games business. Most designers despise being forced to work 80 hours a week without overtime, for example, and the recent massive layoffs have broken forever the naive belief that the games Publishers were going to take care of everyone forever with lifetime employment. Games is a wide-open business with no unions in it thus far, but now many designers are seeing the light and understanding why having portable Health & Pension (easier to move from job to job) like the Hollywood model is a better vision for the future. I have no idea who will step forward to organize the games business (the WGA, after all, is singularly interested in the writers), but NO $17Billion business will go unorganized for long.

As for the commenter from Herve St-Louis, I'm not sure how unions work in your stretch of the world, but the WGA doesn't "bully" its way into anywhere. We're most often invited in by the writers seeking to be covered by the superior health, pension, minimum pay, and working conditions that the WGA negotiates for its members. You incorrectly assert that "The real reason the video game writers are included in this thing is to force them to pay dues and eventually use them as leverage against some industry. It's not about recognizing their talent or contribution." This is simply wrong. If and When a majority of games writers WANT to be covered by the WGA, and only then, will the WGA step in to cover them. And what "other" industry are we talking about? The WGA has a mandate to cover "writing for the moving image" -- we already cover film, TV, internet & some games... who's left for us to "bully"?

As for comics, no, we wouldn't cover them... there's no "moving image" therein. Those comics writers who feel oppressed can go join the Author's Guild.

First of all, thanks for writing in Micah.

Side note before I get into it - The fact that you didn't put the quotes from the article in quotations made it a little bit difficult to pick out my writing from your comment.

On Number One: Joining a group just to get an award seems like a pretty lame reason to join that group, even if it's the only group that gives awards for your part of a project. Quite honestly, it's a shame that all parts of video game creation aren't recognized by all the mainstream awards to begin with. People who do cool things shouldn't have to join a club so people will tell them, "Hey, you do cool things!"

On Number Two: It's good to have it in writing. If the Guild ever forces its video game writing members to join a strike, don't be surprised if I call you on that. The difference in membership point certainly piques my interest though. Perhaps we can do an interview - phone, email or other - some time to discuss it further.

On Number Three: Now's probably not the best time to talk about the "benefits" of unions. Everything looks good on paper, but put it into the hands of humans and suddenly you've got ridiculous situations like that of the CAW (Canadian Auto Workers) fighting to keep pay rates at dying companies like Chrysler the same, even though they know those rates need to be changed (as Tony Clement, Minister of Industry, put it "the alternative is no job at all"). I know that situation is not solely the union's fault (bad management at all levels, including executive pay, played a huge part), but they couldn't even fund their own pension!

So I certainly don't want to see that kind of situation happening in the video game industry (neither overpaid executives nor ridiculous expectations from some kind of union).