Year: 2019

For the 5th of December, the first day of the social movement against a planned overhaul of the French pension system, the STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo, or Video Game Workers Union) issued a call to strike. The movement has been largely followed in the video game industry : more workers than we expected went on strike and the STJV, present at every protest since the beginning of the strike, has been able to gather around 100 people in 4 cities in France on the biggest days of action. We have also been able to exchange ideas and info with other unions, and meet workers and inform them about our activities, their rights and how they can defend them. This strike movement is creating favorable conditions to build workers unity and a collective base to fight for a better future for everyone.

The revelations concerning Jean-Paul Delevoye, who was in charge of the planned pensions overhaul until his recent resignation, and his numerous conflicts of interest, showed clearly that the goal of this attempt at reforming the pension system is to favor private interests, in particular pension funds, and eventually wealthy people. Delevoye is gone but his reform stands. The new state secretary appointed to lead the reform, Laurent Pietraszewski, is not known for his love of workers and unions: we are not expecting anything from him. We do not wish to reach any compromise, and need to keep rallying until the complete withdrawal of the pensions overhaul project.

Every step back on a social benefit threatens all social rights, painfully gained through social struggle, by creating a window of opportunity to lower them. After the labor laws and unemployment benefits reforms, both already having the effect of impoverishing the population and making people’s lives precarious, the government will keep on its destructive endeavor as long as we do not put a stop to it.

Our demands did not change: complete and non-negotiable withdrawal of the planned pension system overhaul, improvements to the current pension system, better working conditions, less job insecurity, and overall more equality. More precisely, in the video game industry: end of the crunch culture, higher salaries, equality between genders, fight against harassment and every form of discrimination, end of the generalization of precarious contracts, end of the exploitation of interns!

Since the 5^th of December we have been following the calls to strike issued by the large trade unions confederations, which we passed along to our members and on Twitter. We are now issuing our own renewable call to strike, which covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, from the 1^st to the 10^th of January 2020 included. The union will then assemble to discuss the future of the strike and the possible renewal of this call to strike. We are inviting everyone to organize or take part in general assemblies everywhere in France.

This call concerns: every person employed by a company editing, distributing, providing services for and/or creating video games whichever position or status they have in the company and whatever type of games or services produced by the company (console/PC games, mobile games, serious games, VR/AR experiences, game engines, marketing services, etc.), as well as all teachers working in private schools on video game related curriculum. For all these people, and since it is a nationwide call to strike, there is no procedure needed to go on strike legally: you simply need to not show up to work on the days you wish to strike.

We are also inviting freelancers, content creators, students, researchers, members of workers co-ops and unemployed people to take part in the strike effort and to join us in future protests and gatherings.

The STJV is issuing a call for every worker in the video game industry, every student in video game related studies, and everyone able to do so, to go on strike on Thursday, December 5^th, to protest against the pensions overhaul project and, on the contrary, to ask for improvements to the current pension system, better working conditions, less job insecurity, and overall more equality.

This overhaul project’s goal is to make us retire later in life and to reduce pensions. We cannot accept more precariousness regarding pensions, especially after health-destructing and underpaid careers in video games. We do not want to lose our lives making a living! By attacking the “special” pension schemes, which have been won through social struggles, the government is trying to divide us. Every industry, every craft that loses benefits is one more excuse to justify lowering the standards for everyone. We must unite and defend, together, our desire for a better life.

When it comes to workers’ rights the current government, just as its predecessors, is on its way to dismantle everything that’s been gained in the past. Video game workers, already threatened by the neoliberal practices rampant in our industry, cannot accept more cuts to their rights. Between the unemployment benefits reform, which is already reducing the standard of living for many of us stuck between contracts in a slow-recruiting industry, and the incoming Project Contract, the future of our industry cannot be conceived without social struggle.

We demand better working conditions and the respect of our rights: end of the crunch culture, higher salaries, equality between genders, fight against harassment and every form of discrimination, end of the generalization of precarious contracts, end of the exploitation of interns!

We believe the unity of workers, across different industries and demands, will allow us to build a collective base able to create, with everyone carrying this hope, a better future not only for our jobs but also for the whole population and for the planet. This strike will be an occasion to come together and unite everyone’s struggle.

For all these reasons, the STJV is issuing this call to strike and will march along other unions in several cities. We encourage everyone who is working, has worked in the past, or is looking to work in the future in the video game industry, whatever their status, to gather at the meeting points which we will organize. We would like to remind workers in the private sector that, since it is a nationwide call to strike, they don’t need to do anything in particular to participate in the strike: you only need to not show up to work on the 5^th of December.

We relay a statement from our colleagues at gumi Europe, from Paris. A japanese version of the statement is available below the english one.

 

Following the official announcement of the termination of its latest game, Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner, gumi Europe (developer and publisher) will be closing down.

The employees denounce cheap severance packages, and are pointing out the parent company’s, Tokyo-based gumi Inc., responsibilities in this closure.

What is gumi Inc. being criticized for ?

• The conditions offered to people being laid off are minimal, in spite of all the mutual and personal investments during the game’s extremely tense development phase;
• The company hasn’t considered finding alternative or exploratory solutions in order to facilitate the redeployment of gumi EU’s future ex-employees or the future of their careers;
• gumi EU (France-based European branch of gumi Inc.) benefits from public funding in the form of a tax credit granted by the CNC, the french institution in charge of public funding for the video game industry, for a value of 1,5 million euros, while at the same time destroying jobs without considering ways to preserve them;
• gumi Inc. is putting a lot of blame on gumi EU, going as far as questioning its own employees’ skills, in order to justify its decision to shut down gumi EU. However gumi Europe, being a branch of gumi Inc., cannot be held responsible for management errors attributable to the parent company, which held all decision power.

gumi Inc. is wasting human talent

After an important reorganisation phase between 2016 and 2017 (with the replacement of a large part of the workforce), after more than 2 years of development, and after the international launch of Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner, gumi Inc. has suddenly decided to shut down the game and to close the Paris studio (gumi EU). While the decision appears to have been taken by gumi Inc. as soon as October 2018, the workers’ representative was only told about it officially in April 2019, after 6 months of a demotivating atmosphere of uncertainty taking hold on the studio.

Consequently between October 2018, date at which the marketing budget for the game was gradually reduced (until it reached 0) and a month long waiting time followed the release of the game, and April 2019, date at which the employees finally learned about the studio’s closure, more than 20 people left the company after their contract were not renewed or following their resignation due to the lack of motivation. This lead to several departments being unable to operate correctly and having to resort to makeshift solutions in order to keep running the game and release new content for the community every week, a crucial element with the free to play economic model. To give a few examples, in February 2019 gumi EU started operating without a marketing department, and in April 2019 the internal QA team was reduced to… 2 interns!

A worsening phenomenon, after the effective stop in marketing in October 2018 gumi Inc. set extremely ambitious goals for gumi EU with a deadline for December 2018, too short to be realistically achieved. Achieving these goals was the condition set by gumi Inc. to start investing in marketing again. As gumi EU’s workers were already scrambling to fill out the positions left open in the studio, they had to invest themselves even more to try to achieve these goals, which meant they had to resort to working at night and on weekends. This renewed practice of crunch was already a recurring thing at gumi EU, to allow the studio to achieve the delivery goals set by gumi Inc. All of this happened while gumi Inc. was already considering shutting down the branch.

The workforce at gumi EU is talented and has skills that can be reused in other studios or activities of the group (video games, VR, crypto-currency, etc.).Gumi Inc. didn’t show any intention to do skill assessments of its employees or to try redeploying the, instead choosing to abruptly close the studio without caring for its employees.

Moreover, although it happened before in the group’s history (during Stockholm’s studio closure in 2016) and despite explicit request by some employees, gumi Inc. refuses to sell the game’s source code, which would have allowed to secure the creation of a new studio for at least 10 ex-employees who would have benefited from 3 years of technological development. Gumi Inc. never mentioned searching for an external buyer or the possibility to sell to the workers. By doing that, gumi Inc. shows yet again they have no intention to make any effort to secure the future of their ex-employees.

gumi demolisher of the community’s trust

The free to play model for games relies on the trust established between the developers and the players’ community. To help establish it, the teams at gumi EU have made – since 2014 and the first project operated by the studio, Brave Frontier – numerous efforts and listened to players’ feedback and expectations thanks to its community managers. It resulted in several hundred thousand hours of in-game play, and at least as many euros invested in the game by players. This virtuous circle was brutally brought to an end by gumi Inc.’s decision to shut down the game, which lead to a rapid breakdown of the built-up community following the announcement of the game’s closure on June 11th 2019. The community feels ripped off after so much commitment.

Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner sadly represents only one of several such cases at gumi. It leads us to think that gumi Inc. sees its community of players only as a financial reserve, while omitting the prerequisite trust in its relationship with them. It must also be added that community managers communicate with players non-anonymously, and that their identity is public. It causes a problem of reputation on the job market. How can they dissociate their personal reputation from the one of an employer whose commitment is untrustworthy?

gumi is getting public funding but does not respect its promises

1,5 million euros of public funding has been granted to gumi EU in the form of a tax credit, to help with the development and launch of Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner.

As a quid pro quo, it is implicitly asked that the development and commercialisation plans for the games be respected. But in the plan presented to the CNC (which grants public funding for video games), which allowed for the validation of the tax credit, 3,5 million euros over several months were planned. In the end only 500 000 euros were actually invested in marketing, speeding up the collapse of the game’s fame and giving gumi Inc. an excuse for their decision to close gumi EU, since the results they were asking for were not achieved.

The situation is both one of failure to respect these declarations and commitments, and one of deliberately creating the conditions that lead to the situation necessary for the group to justify the closure of gumi Europe.

For all these reasons, gumi EU’s employees feel cheated and not respected, considering their investment on the 3 years production of the game.

Moreover, the management at gumi hired some highly skilled persons outside of France (primarily from Europe and Asia) and had them move on promises of long-term career plans (promises of more games being produced by gumi EU). None of that will happen, and we have the common feeling that it is our duty to keep the bond of trust that made these people come to France intact, to protect our attractiveness and competitiveness.

The employees at gumi Europe are asking for the reconsideration and reevaluation of their severance packages, and hope that their demands will be heard before they have to take legal action.

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Japanese version

gumi Europe の従業員が安く首切り！

最新のゲーム「Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner」の取り消しが発表された後、開発者と出版社gumi Europeは閉鎖する予定だ。

gumiの従業員はケチな調整手当を攻撃して、閉鎖の責任は東京で位置された親会社gumi Inc.にあるということを指摘している。

gumi Inc. はなぜ非難されている？

ゲームの緊迫した開発段階の間に互いと個人のインベストメントのくせに、首切った従業員に与えた調整手当は最小だ。

会社は gumi EUの元従業員の再配置、キャリアの未来を促進するために代替解決を考慮に入れていなかった。

gumi Inc. のヨーロッパの子会社で、フランスで位置されたgumi EUは公的資金から利を得るのに雇用を保つ方法を考慮せずに仕事を廃棄している。この公的資金はCNCというのフランスの協会が与えている税額控除で、１５十万ユーロの価値だ。

この閉鎖を弁解するために、gumi Inc. は gumi EU に非難をつけていて、自分の従業員のスキルも疑問している。しかし、gumi EU は gumi Inc. の子会社なので、全部の決定を行った親会社の運営失態に責められるのはいけない。

gumi Inc. は人材を無駄にしている

２０１６年から２０１７年までの重要な更生段階（大勢の人員が入り変えた時）の後も、２年間以上の開発の後も、「Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner」の国際発売の後も、gumi Inc. は突如ゲームを取り消し、パリのスタジオ（gumi EU)を閉鎖するという決定をした。この決定が２０１８年１０月の程度早く行われたようなのに、従業者の代表者はつい２０１９年４月に告げられていた。それまでに、やる気を失わせる空気が６月間にわたってスタジオで現れた。

その結果、２０１８年１０月から２０１９年４月（従業者がついにスタジオの閉鎖について聞いた時）まで、請負が更新しなかった理由で、それともやる気が失ったから辞職した理由で２０人以上が会社をやめた。そのため、いくつかの部門は正しく運営できなくなった。ゲームを続けて、新しいコンテンツを毎週にコミュニティに与えるために、その場限りの解決が必要になった。たとえば、２０１９年２月にgumi EUがマーケティング部門なしで運営しはじめた。２０１９年４月に、社内のQAチームが２人のインターンに切った。

もっとひどいのは、マーケティングが２０１８年１０月に終わった後、gumi Inc. が gumi EUにすごく野心的な目標を設定した。締め切りは２０１８年１２月で、遂げることは現実的にできなかった。マーケティングにもう一度投資するように、この目標を達成することは gumi Inc. が設定した条件だった。gumi EU の従業員はもう必死にスタジオの欠員を補充してみていたから、この目標を達成するようにもっとがんばらなければならなかった。それで、夜間と週末に働く仕方がなかった。実は、gumi Inc. が設定した目標を達成するように、この新たにしたクランチュという実行はもう gumi EU で繰り返されている現象だった。この時期に、 gumi Inc. はもう子会社の閉鎖を考慮に入れていった。

Gumi EU の従業員は才能があって、ほかのスタジオや活動に再配置できるスキルもある（ゲーム、VR、暗号通貨など）。gumi Inc. はこの従業員を能力評価するか、再配置する意向を示せず、むしろ不意にスタジオを閉鎖する決定した。

その上、gumi グループの歴史に前に起こったが（ストックホルムのスタジオが２０１６年に閉鎖したの間）、ある従業員がはっきりと頼んだのに、gumi Inc. はゲームのソースコードの売却を断っている。この売却は新しいスタジオの設立を可能にして、少なくとも１０人の元従業員が３年間の技術開発から利する可能性もある。gumi Inc. は社外の購買者を探すことや従業員に売ることも全然話し合わなかった。このように、gumi Inc. は元従業員の将来を確保するに努力の意向がないということがまたまた明らかにした。

Gumi Inc. はコミュニティの信頼を破壊している

ゲームの「F2P」モデルは開発者とプレイヤーコミュニティの間に築いた信頼を頼りにするということだ。この信頼を築くために、gumi EU のチームは、スタジオの最初のプロジェク「Brave Frontier」が２０１４年に発売された以来、コミュニティマネージャーのおかげでプレイヤーのフィードバックと期待を聞いて、色々な努力した。その結果は、数十万時間のゲームプレイで、プレイヤーが数十万のユーロをゲームに投資した。この好循環は gumi Inc. がゲームを閉鎖する決定したので終わった。この決定のせいで、２０１９年６月１１日にゲームの閉鎖が公表した後、既成のコミュニティが急に没落した。この程度の掛かり合いの後、コミュニティは巻き上げられたと感じている。

残念ながら、「Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner」はgumi Inc. で多くある中の一例にすぎぬ。gumi Inc. が必要な信頼を考えずプレイヤーコミュニティを資金しか視しないという情勢のようだ。その上、コミュニティマネージャーはプレイヤーと話す時、匿名ではなくて、むしろ氏名は公開だ。それで、就職したら問題を来す可能性もある。自分の評判をどうやって信頼できない会社から分けられるだろうか。

gumi EU は公的資金をもらうのに約束を守らない

「Brave Frontier: The Last Summoner」の開発と発売を促進するために、１５十万ユーロの公的資金が税額控除の形式でgumi EU に与えられていた。

それの代わりとして、ゲームの開発と商業化の計画が行われることは暗黙的に要求された。しかし、CNC（ゲーム開発に公的資金を与える協会）に提案した計画で、数ヵ月の間にわたって３５十万ユーロが約束した。とどのつまり５十万ユーロしかは実際にマーケティングに投資しなかった。それがゲームの没落を早めて、gumi Inc. の gumi EU を閉鎖する決定に口実を与えて、gumi Inc. が要求した業績は達成していなかったからだ。

宣言と責任を尊敬する失敗で、gumi EUの閉鎖が必要になった情勢をわざと作ったという情勢だ。

以上の理由で、３年間のゲーム開発段階に努力を考慮にいれて、gumi EU の従業員は裏切られたよな気がする。

その上、gumi の経営はフランスの外から（主に欧州とアジアから）熟練した人材を雇って、長期のキャリアプランの約束（つまり、gumi EU がゲームを作り続けるという約束）を通じでこの人材を引っ越させた。その約束は破れた。私たちは共通の感じがあって、魅力と競争力をまもるために、この人材がフランスに来させられた信頼を尊敬するのは義務だという感じだ。

gumi EU の従業員は調整手当の再考と再評価を願っていて、法的手段が必要になる前に要求が聞かれたと希望する。