The Means of Gaming Production: video game industry labor cooperatives

Coops do have a lot to offer to markets too, since coops tend to value stability over exponential growth and there are various markets where this is desperately needed.

I think the more wonderful idea of coops is democratic hierarchy on top of flat hierarchy, where directors or even a president is elected and limited to certain rights for efficiency:

- president for pr

- director to see that the vision of the project is on the right track.

Where ofc veto or votes are needed for certain tasks.

>> On his office desk, Aleksandar Gavrilovic keeps two figurines: Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary, and Josip Broz Tito, the former communist leader of Yugoslavia.

There is a reason people wanted independence from Yugoslavia...

>> Each worker earns the same salary and shares the profits of the games they create.

When one person realizes he is doing the majority of the work and that many of his coworkers are incompentents who are being dragged along he will realize the truth: that some people are more capable than others and will then naturaly start asking himself "Why do I get paid the same when I get so much more work done"?

Communism is at odds with the reality: that some people are more capable than others.

The moment one realizes it it's over for communism.

This is the reason why communism will always be doomed to failure.

>> All decisions are reached through anonymous voting on Discord

Some people understand what makes games better than others. But now incompetent people get the same voting power as those that actually know what makes games good. The result is a bad/mediocre game instead of an excellent one.

This kind of a study can work for a while: but only until the really capable devs realize that they are doing the lions share of the work. When this happens the smart ones will leave, and the clowns will remain. The result will be bad games which no-one will buy.

Communism assumes people are born equally capable. We are not. And many incompetent people think they are component. This is how companies and communist countries get destroyed: because everyone is assumed equal so truly competent people never rise to the top.

Eg Elon Musk himself, just one guy, is the only reason why the USA has an electric car industry and more rocket lunches than China.

Obviously crunch etc.. is a huge problem in this industry: when people are truly passionate about something they will do a lot of work. The problem is that in the gamedev industry you do a LOT of work but the pays are substandard.

>> The co-op model means that everyone is responsible for running the company.

Some people are not good at that and via democratic voting will vote for stupid and destructive decisions. Some people should simply have NO vote in certain things.