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I’m a no-name nobody who enjoys observing the games industry, and blogging about Xbox (mostly). About.

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    More game dev unionisation at Microsoft

    World of Warcraft workers have voted to unionize the popular video-game franchise, expanding organized labor’s new foothold at Microsoft Corp. by around 500 employees…

    Their organizing effort, which brings the number of unionized US gaming employees at Microsoft to around 1,750, was buoyed by the company’s unusually union-friendly stance…

    Rather than campaigning against unionization on its gaming teams, Microsoft continued its recent practice of staying neutral and agreeing to voluntarily recognize and negotiate with the group if it secured majority support, according to the CWA.

    – Bloomberg

    This follows previous unionisation at Bethesda Game Studios where over 200 employees voted to form a union, which was similarly voluntarily recognised by Microsoft.

    Excellent news for employee rights and advocacy in game dev at one of the world’s biggest companies, Hopefully the momentum continues to build.

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    Generative AI in gaming development is already here, and it’s going to get messy

    Brian Merchant for Wired:

    A recent survey from the organizers of the Game Developers Conference found that 49 percent of the survey’s more than 3,000 respondents said their workplace used AI, and four out of five said they had ethical concerns about its use.

    Brian’s piece is thoroughly reported, and presents a messy, transitional state of affairs, as the gaming industry navigates a new reality where automated creativity (gross did I really type that) has become available during a shaky economic period.

    Managers at video game companies aren’t necessarily using AI to eliminate entire departments, but many are using it to cut corners, ramp up productivity, and compensate for attrition after layoffs. In other words, bosses are already using AI to replace and degrade jobs. The process just doesn’t always look like what you might imagine. It’s complex, based on opaque executive decisions, and the endgame is murky. It’s less Skynet and more of a mass effect—and it’s happening right now.

    Though many of the game workers and artists were queasy about this proliferation, and some were even afraid for their livelihoods, few spoke out. “I think we all didn’t talk about it much for fear of losing our jobs,” Noah says. He claims Activision assured its artists that generative AI would be used only for internal concepts, not final game assets—and importantly, that AI would not be used to replace them.

    Yet by the end of the year, Activision made an AI-generated cosmetic available for purchase on the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 store.

    Essential reading.

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