At Spiders, layoffs as a thank you for a job well done

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On a red and black background, at the top of the image, the title « SPIDERS » in capital letters. On the right, a drawing of Aegis, the protagonist for the game Steelrising, from the Spiders studio. At the center, the text « Layoffs as a thank you for a job well done ». At the bottom of the image, the STJV logo.

This is a communication from our union section at Spiders.

On July 17, the COO and de facto director of Spiders announced a plan for layoffs. Presented to workers’ representatives the day before, it planned to fire 9 workers, exactly the number to, in theory, avoid having to negotiate with unions.

On August 18, after changes and talks with workers’ representatives, the « restructuration » plan at Spiders includes 7 layoffs and the overall cut of 25 jobs, which where either vacant at the time or which workers left voluntarily. These layoffs and cuts include the only UX/UI designer position, half of the managers in the Art and Design teams, the financial director position, nearly half of all environment artists and animators… These cuts add to the long list of workers leaving the company in the past year.

This layoffs plan has been prepared in secret and still lacks justification. A few months ago, Anne Devouassoux was still reassuring workers, looking them right in the eye, telling them not to worry even though it appears layoffs were already being planned. No one at the company, including managers, was informed of the layoffs more than a few days in advance. To this day, the company still refuses to communicate the details of this ongoing plan, even to the people at risk of being laid off !

On July 24, more than half of the workers at Spiders took part in meetings on Spiders’ future. These were organised in the context of a strike to demand the cancellation of the layoffs. The discussions proved, once again, that everybody is aware of Spiders’ problems and wants to change things, and has been for year. Sadly, workers are constantly refused the opportunity to do so, and instead continue to endure errors in management from Spiders and Nacon.

The value of a company lies in its workers, who are actually creating games. Laying them off is unacceptable and something which, considering the bad management, we oppose strongly. Workers at Spiders must not suffer from the ill-advised decisions of its COO and the Nacon group. Workers’ demands about the layoffs and the mismanagement of the studio, drawn up during the July 24 strike but similar to demands from the past years, have been sent the next day to management but are still waiting for an answer from the company.

Despite a harrowing production on GreedFall 2, and the cancellation of a promising project which finally brought necessary changes, Spiders’ workers are confident in their ability to create good games at Spiders. We hope that the COO and Nacon share the workers’ desire to make the company durable and the productions better. They will not prove it by treating workers this way, by laying them off and by degrading their working conditions, but by ceasing to create barriers to their work.

For the time being, you can help workers at Spiders by expressing your support, and by sending words of encouragement at . We ask you to please be polite and to not insult, harass or threaten anyone, at Nacon or at Spiders, our community manager colleagues have a hard enough job already.

Open letter from the Arkan Studios union section to Microsoft’s and its subsidiaries’ management

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On a dark background with a red accent, at the top of the image "Open letter". Underneath, "to Arkane's leadership". To the right of the image, the character Julianna who holds in one hand a megaphone, in the other a Palestinian flag, and her right foot is sitting on an Xbox.

Introduction

This letter is addressed to our direction at Arkane Studios, as well as the entities above, being the heads of Zenimax, Microsoft Gaming and the overall Microsoft group. It follows the call to Boycott Xbox products issued by BDS on April 10th, 2025, as well as the IOF Off Azure! Petition, and want to cast light on how this situation could affect our reputation and work, and ask Microsoft to take the appropriate measure to solve this issue.

The Genocide on Gaza and BDS

BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) is a Palestinian led movement launched in 2005 to support the rights of Palestinians to live a normal life, and to be entitled to the same rights as anyone else.

Those rights have been denied for decades by the oppression, occupation and colonization of the Israeli regime. Moreover, during the last nineteen months, this colonization openly became a genocide. As of the writing of this letter, more than 60 000 people were recorded killed, at least 74% of which were civilians. The real number is likely much higher. 217 Journalists died according to the International Federation of Journalists, making it the deadliest conflict for journalists in the 21st century. While the palestinians are starving, the Israeli regime has been denying any humanitarian help to the Gazans for months now, trying to get control over it and how it would be distributed, against all international laws. Overall, Israeli policies and actions have been violating repetitively the international laws and treaties, promoting torture, violence, deportation and destruction.

In an attempt to fight back, the BDS movement has been, for years, issuing campaigns trying to focus the public attention to pressure government and companies to stop collaborating with the Israeli government. Thanks to their international network, those call to boycott have proven massive, and made companies yield multiple times. Even us, at Microsoft, have already been subject to a previous boycott in 2020, which proved successful and led to the withdrawal of Microsoft from AnyVision, an Israeli tech company specialized in facial recognition algorithm, which has been used to secretly keep Palestinians under surveillance.

Microsoft’s Xbox Boycott

On April 10th, 2025, BDS announced a new boycott campaign, targeting the Xbox gaming products, both hardware and software.

They chose to do so to cast light on how the Israeli military has been using Microsoft services to help out on its genocidal assault on Palestinian, as it’s been revealed by the Associated Press. Microsoft has continued, and reinforced, their collaboration with the Israeli military in the last years, providing both cloud services through their Azure service, as well as AI systems to accelerate and automate their crimes, which, as an example, have been revealed to be used to help define bombing targets. In a post on their blog, even Microsoft has been stating that “[…] Microsoft does not have visibility into how customers use our software on their own servers or other devices.” For all those reasons, and a lot more, BDS chose to call for a massive boycott over Microsoft product, as they ask for Microsoft to stop supporting the Israeli military in their destruction of Palestine.

Support of IOF Off Azure Petition

In addition to that boycott, since May 2024, more than two thousand workers at Microsoft studios have signed the “No Azure for Apartheid” petition, demanding Microsoft to cut all their ties with the Israeli Army, as well as asking to have a third-party independent audit of our contract, services and product to make sure they are not involved in any human right violation, be it in Gaza, or elsewhere. But Microsoft have been turning a blind eye to demands from its own team. Even worst, multiple persons, trying to raise awareness of the situation in Gaza and Microsoft implication in it have been terminated.

Microsoft has a responsibility toward its employees, as we have one toward the company. As stated in the company’s commitment to human rights, and regularly used in the company talk points, “Microsoft is committed to protecting fundamental rights”. But so far, Microsoft has failed both its teams & its customers by being actively complicit of the invasion and war crimes happening in Gaza. If those « core values » are more then just a talking points to sell more products, it is now more than due time for Microsoft to commit to them.

We Demand that Microsoft takes their responsabilities and put an end to this.

Arkane Studios’ STJV section joins BDS and the No Azure for Apartheid in their demands for Microsoft to stop supporting the Israeli regime. We think that Microsoft has no place being accomplice of a genocide, and as Microsoft employees, we don’t want to be part of this sinister project for Gaza. Moreover, we think it’s our responsibility, as tech workers, to raise the alarm, and to ensure that our technologies are used to make the voices of the oppressed heard, and not facilitate their demise.
Finally, in a more direct manner, we think this could very well affect our life directly, by reducing the audience for our games, thus directly compromising the viability of Xbox Games, and, in the long run, our very own jobs.

In order to ensure the future of the Palestinian society, we join No Azure for Apartheid in their demands:

Stop Killing Games : let’s preserve the fruits of our labour!

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On a red and black background, to the left of the image the title STOP KILLING GAMES!! To the right, the initiative's logo (a raised hand holding a game pad that's deteriorating). At the bottom of the image, the STJV's logo.

With publishers pushing more and more towards “live service games” / Games as a Service (games with a strong online component that tend to drive recurring spending under various forms of monetization), more and more players have come to know the disappointment of seeing one of their games become unplayable, one way or another. We could even describe those products as “exploitation services (🇫🇷)“, though it’d be a bit on-the-nose.

This “evolution” is both saddening and damaging for the player experience. For a while, what used to disappear were mere multiplayer modes, which could of course be very appreciated, but remained an addition to the main game experience (one could think of Metal Gear Online, for example). More recently, there was a quick degradation of service for games where the multiplayer component is important (for example, service deterioriations on Call of Duty games when the game’s publisher is still raking in profits from content sales).

Now, more and more, even content that was meant for solo play and that barely, if at all, benefits from online features, ends up being affected by arbitrary end of service, with a recent example in The Crew, which acted as a trigger for many to recognize the tendency we just described.

This is the context in which the Stop Killing Games initiative was started, with the goal of ending such practices. STJV supports the initiative, both because we believe it is entirely feasible to meet its demands, and because those demands are reasonable expectations from players and in the interest of games preservation.

In particular, we invite any person living in the European Union to sign the petition to the European Commission in order to promote the initiative and request the EU to push it into law.

As for why we support this initiative, here is our reasoning:

The initiative’s demands are feasible

The initiative as described in the European petition proposes a simple rule: a project must have an “exit plan” when they shut down the services. Does your studio make a solo game without online components? Congratulations, you have nothing to do. Does the game actually include online content? There’s a myriad of possibilities to explore – many of which have already been experimented on other projects, sometimes even in games viewed as classics. Here are a few of them:

  • Keep the servers running if they’re not too costly (but we wouldn’t want to make a dent in EA’s CEO’s salary, poor soul!);
  • Plan for content that doesn’t require online connection to remain playable after the servers close (as Ubisoft promised they would for the follow-up games to The Crew);
  • Provide the necessary code to run one’s own server within the community, allowing those who want to keep playing online to do so on their own (see the appendix on City of Heroes below).

Those are only suggestions, and the initiative doesn’t aim at making any of those mandatory, but solely to require a solution to exist. On that topic, let’s dive into the disingenuous answer from Video Games Europe, the European lobby of video games publishers:

the industry ensures that players are given fair notice of the prospective changes in compliance with local consumer protection laws

How gracious of them to respect the law, well deserving of praise. Good news: the initiative aims at having laws changed to fix the problem, so publishers will have their work cut out for them!

Private servers are not always a viable alternative option

This is why no one is saying that private servers should be the only solution expected of studios.

In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only; in effect, these proposals would curtail developer choice by making these video games prohibitively expensive to create.

This is insanity. This argument, which was repeated by unscrupulous commentators, is at best ignorant and at worst a bald-faced lie: if the law changes, companies adapt. The industry is constantly following legal or technological evolutions, why would things be different here?

As such, the publishers’ stance is completely indefensible. The initative doesn’t make revolutionary demands, and if those C-suit execs had spent a modicum of time asking their dev teams, they’d probably have been told that nothing is impossible and that solutions are definitely out there.

The demands are logical and legitimate

First of all, let’s ponder on the fact that this phenomenon of abandonned games is singular. It’s a riff on planned obsolescence that’s particularly agressive, with a perfectly functional product being destroyed remotely by the company that made it. If there are paralles to be drawn with the world of consumer electronics, where for example smartphones run out of update coverage, at least the object itself is left functional.

Under the guise of a digital economy that would get rid of the most basic rules of commerce because it’s different, this is once again pure disdain from publishers towards the audience and their clientele. As game developers, we would love nothing more than for the games we made to remain playable, but due to penny-pinching measures or a lack of care, projects end up discarded even as players wanted to keep playing the game they paid for. How would one feel about a cinema studio sneaking into one’s home to burn the Blu-Rays of their movies?

The Stop Killing Games campaign also brought back talks about video games preservation. In France, the BnF legal deposit of video games (🇫🇷). However that’s not a perfect solution: what use is it to safeguard physical versions of games if the publisher can make them useless by cutting off access to the servers it needs to run? Dozens of people devote their time to safeguarding ancient games that run on equally old hardware, but the challenge today is to face this new wave of degradations. At the turn of the millennium, the favored tech for online play was using community servers, which means many of those games can still run today even if the publisher has no more involvement with them. A quarter of a century later, the demands are merely to return to those good practices!

Appendix: City of Heroes’ “exit strategy”

A strong example of what such legal efforts could facilitate can be found in City of Heroes Homecoming


City of Heroes, a popular MMORPG, went through the layoffs of its dev studio and subsequent closure of its servers in 2012, even though the game was profitable a little over a year after switching to a hybrid monetization scheme to fit the then burgeoning free to play model and new content to come had been announced.

On August 31st 2012, Paragon Studios (who had taken over after the departure of the game’s original creators Cryptic Studios) announced its closure and that servers for the game would shut down 3 months later, on November 30th 2012, by publisher order and without recourse.

Faced with this brutal decision from NCSoft (the publisher who also oversee ArenaNet, the studio behind the Guild Wars series), the community gathered to ask them to hand over the licence and exploitation rights, as well as the game and servers’ source code, to allow them to continue working on the game. The developers themselves supported this proposal, and we later learned that they were in talks with NCSoft to obtain independance and the rights to the game.

NCSoft stayed silent for many years, refusing to sign off on selling the licence to the developers at the last minute during an effort to revive the game in 2014, never answering any of the community or the press’ requests, and leaving the game and licence unused all this time.

On April 15th 2019, information surfaced about a « private » server that ran the game’s last known version existing for 6 years. 3 days later, the source code for the server leaked, and the community mobilized to create new instances, all while NCSoft went and threatened the servers’ creators with legal action.

The community ignored those threats, and among the servers that emerged, one of them, Homecoming, was able to not only restore the game’s content, but also add updates that the original studio wanted to implement but couldn’t deploy before the game’s closure.

On January 4th 2024, after nearly 5 years of threats and negotiations with NCSoft, the publisher ended up offering the City of Heroes Homecoming team an official (but limited) licence to run the game.

It took over 11 years between the game servers’ sunset and the validation of a « private » as official to play a game whose return the community never stopped hoping for.

This illustrates that it’s possible, provided the fan community is involved, to keep games requiring a complex infrastructure running, but more importantly, if legislation such as that championed by Stop Killing Games had existed back when the game got shuttered, this ordeal could have lasted months instead of 11 years.

Ubisoft’s former executives trial: behind excuses, accountability

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[en] bluesky mastodon justice

Three former Ubisoft executives were on trial from June 2 to June 5. Serge Hascoët, Thomas “Tommy” François and Guillaume Patrux appeared before the judicial court of Bobigny, for charges of sexual and moral harassment, complicity in sexual and moral harassment, and attempted sexual assault.

The STJV joined this trial as a plaintiff to defend the rights of workers, and in support of the victims seeking justice and the Solidaires Informatique union.

We outline our position here, drawing on the closing arguments of Sophie Clocher, the lawyer representing the STJV at the trial.

First of all, let’s not forget that this trial is taking place in a reality where many victims stop long before the courtroom. How many victims of the actions committed at Ubisoft were absent from this trial? It’s impossible to give a figure, but it’s certainly very high. Due to a lack of resources, discouragement or because they are crushed by society, many people do not defend themselves, either in the workplace or in court.

There is widespread sexist discrimination in the form of sexual harassment in the industry. It was particularly telling to hear that, for the defendants, seeing a man rubbing up against another man was a problem, but that when it was with a woman they didn’t even realise the concern. The defendants themselves presented a complete patriarchal framework of domination.

The video games industry has always been, and still is, very hostile to women. In 2024, women will account for barely 20% of the industry in France, a figure that employers themselves admit is down sharply from 2022, and which is even lower in production studios. At Ubisoft, women disappear completely after the age of 40. The same applies to high-profile or executive positions: very few women are entrusted with the creative direction of a project, for example.

The “creative culture” excuse brandished by the defendants is absurd. What prevailed was rather a virilist and childish culture. A culture which, as Serge Hascoët himself admitted in court, was not encouraging creativity anyway! But the games were selling, so any questioning was swept aside, and still remains unanswered today. Serge Hascoët and his editorial department were seen as the source of Ubisoft’s success, in a way similar to a cargo cult: they were there at the right place at the right time, and the company made no attempt to understand the real ins and outs of video game production and success (or failure).

Ubisoft’s editorial department is nothing more than a magnifying glass on an industry-wide plague, a distortion of the norm where “the creatives” have every right, where insults are not insults (‘When I called someone an asshole or a loser, it wasn’t to say that they were an asshole or a loser” ventured Guillaume Patrux). One victim compared this department, unfortunately very accurately, to the series Severance: a form of dissociation weighed on the victims of these « creatives » who were more concerned with inventing new forms of bullying rather than contributing to the smooth running of the company. From this testimony, we also retain this chilling sentence: « I had the impression that the law stopped at Ubisoft’s doorstep ».

This trial clearly demonstrates a disregard for the law, particularly labour law, that has been asserted and upheld. « It’s the role of HR » as Serge Hascoët, 2nd in command at a multinational company with over 20,000 employees, choses to put it, while also claiming that his role is not that of a manager. If he didn’t know enough about the subject, he had ample opportunity to take an interest in it and to educate himself. The fact that he has chosen not to do so, like all employers, is revealing.

Ubisoft, the elephant in the courtroom

Although it’s lawyer was present, taking extensive notes throughout all 4 days of the hearing, Ubisoft was conspicuously absent from the dock. Until the explosion of testimonies in 2020, relayed by the press, there were no whistleblowing systems at Ubisoft, apart from the specific legal minimum for reporting corruption, laid down in the Sapin II law.

The testimonies clearly demonstrated the extent to which Ubisoft’s management was, at best, deliberately unaware of what was going on on the floor just below the CEO’s office. Yves Guillemot even had the opportunity to console a crying victim: how dare he continue to pretend he didn’t know?

Since 2020, the system specifically designed to deal with corruption has been extended to include reports of harassment but, despite regular requests from workers representatives, opacity continues to reign at Ubisoft, crushing workers as much as ever. Our article from 2021 is unfortunately still relevant: Harassment: Ubisoft chooses delaying tactics and communication campaigns instead of protecting employees – STJV

In the face of these “‘mind-boggling”’ facts, in the face of this “‘indescribable”’ case, as the plaintiffs’ lawyers so aptly described it, it seems crucial to us that everyone’s responsibilities be recognised: Ubisoft exposed its employees to danger. A workers representative was harassed, sidelined and driven out of the company. Many of the victims still have problems working in a company because of what they experienced at Ubisoft. We will not forget!

It still should be noted that, contrary to what their lawyers tried to argue, Ubisoft’s liability in no way removes the defendants’ personal responsibility. Nobody forced Serge Hascoët, Thomas “Tommy” François or Guillaume Patrux to insult, harass or assault their colleagues.

We hope that justice will be served.

To all the victims, to all the people who suffer in the workplace for whatever reason, we reiterate our unwavering support, and we invite you to contact us by any means: together, we have the power to put an end to these acts!

LGBTQIA + : Proud, unyielding, and out of patience

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On a dark red background, a character representing the LGBTQIA+ community is holding a sword colored like the LGBTQIA+ flag. On top of it, a text box reads "Pride month, Unified solidarity defense".

Human rights regression in France and around the world

In France, while the population at large is becoming increasingly accepting of LGBTQIA+ people, the political system and the mainstream media are sinking into a hateful and lethal spiral of moral panic to justify their abject ideas and their cis-hetero-normative vision of society.

While the French Senate passed a bill (in French) restricting minors’ access to transition, Emmanuel Macron declared that it would be « grotesque to change sex at the city hall (in French) ». Half of LGBTQIA+ people say they have experienced general rejection (in French); a third declare they have been insulted; and more than one person out of 10 have been physically assaulted because of their identity, gender and/or sexual orientation [SOS Homophobie report].

LGBTQIAphobia kills. In 2024, out of the 186 cases of violent assaults reported by SOS Homophobie (in French) in France, 5 were murders, and these are only reported cases. These cases are most often combined with other forms of discrimination such as racism, ableism, classism, as well as stigmas and prejudice against sex-workers and people with HIV/AIDS.

The reactionary offensive is in full swing worldwide, with a critical anti-trans ruling, particularly against trans women, on access to gendered spaces in the UK and the annihilation of self-id under Trump in the USA. Being trans is still criminalised, and can lead to sentences up to and including the death penalty, in several countries. It is interesting to note that, while our rights are under attack, their assailants are posing as protectors to justify genocide, in particular Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, by portraying their victims as homophobes.

In the midst of all this, Pride month will once again be an opportunity for companies, governments, mass murderers and more generally for the entire apparatus of capitalist domination, to wash their hands. When your hands are red with blood, rubbing them for a few seconds appears to be enough to turn them pink.

What about video games?

While some reactionary groups, inspired in one way or another by the ‘gamergate’, find video games too ‘woke’, call for boycotts of games they imagine to be affected by the spectre of ‘DEI’ and harass workers in the sector, the reality couldn’t be further from their conspiracy theories.

Indeed, LGBTQIA+ people have never been that much the butt of the capitalist machine: our stories and our lives, when they are not borne solely on our shoulders, are widely mistreated by ignorant or even downright ill-intentioned creative managers, when they are not simply abandoned after we leave companies that sideline us back to the closet as soon as we raise our voice.

Schools, whose aim is to mass-produce docile workers, accustom students to the flood of violence (in French) they will be subjected to in the workplace.

Companies such as Don’t Nod, Quantic Dream, Ubisoft, Blizzard… display a rainbow logo 30 days a year, but structurally foster and protect LGBTQIAphobic behaviour (in French), something many workers can testify to.

Employers are not our allies in this fight for our rights and if they do sometimes give us a voice, it’s only so that they can benefit from it.

The situation is not any better for players. The lack of moderation in multiplayer spaces leaves room for widespread violence and communities have to organise on their own to provide safer gaming spaces. The creative directors’ stubbornness in depicting our sufferings more than our joys, which is all they know about our lives while they are the ones putting us through it, paints a very bleak picture in many of our games.

Let’s puff out our chests and roll up our sleeves

The only viable response to the ongoing attacks against us is unwavering class solidarity, everywhere, at all times. LGBTQIA+ people are also workers; therefore, the liberation of workers cannot be achieved without the liberation of LGBTQIA+ people. Unions have a duty to be a refuge and a place of resistance to carry our struggles forward collectively.

We do our part all year round. If you are a victim or witness of LGBTQIAphobic violence, contact your union sections or get in touch via . We stand up for everyone, members and non-members alike.

We also call for everyone to take part in all forms of social movements, not just LGBTQIA+ ones. If oppressions converge, then so must the struggles: anti-racism, anti-ableism, anti-fascism and feminism are all necessary for our collective liberation.

Over the course of June, we will be highlighting various organisations and campaigns fighting for our liberation, and we invite you to join them. We will also be providing accounts and analyses to shed light on what the video games industry really inflict to LGBTQIA+ people when the veneer cracks.

Our demands are the logical outcome of these actions and we will continue to fight to ensure that they are met within companies:

  • ending the use of fixed-term contracts to tackle the lack of job security for marginalised people;
  • requiring companies to introduce public pay scales to put an end to pay discrimination, which disproportionately affects minorities;
  • ensuring full reimbursement of all medical consultations and procedures by company health insurers, including transition procedures for transgender people;
  • using a person’s preferred name at work when they request it, without asking any questions or requiring any supporting documents;
  • requiring mandatory and identical parental leave, including adoption leave, for all couples;
  • integrating staff and unions representatives into the processes handling reports of discrimination or violence in the workplace, so that the workers’ voices can be heard;
  • involving all workers in the decision-making and creative processes, which should be fully transparent, so that each and every one of them can be consulted and have an influence on the company’s choices.

These demands will not be met simply by appealing to the goodwill of our oppressors, but won with solidarity, collective action, strikes and a balance of power.

On a dark red background, various characters representing the LGBTQIA+ community are holding swords colored like the LGBTQIA+ flag. On top of it, a text box reads, in French "Pride month, defense through unity and solidarity". At the bottom, a QR code linking to the STJV's website, the STJV logo, and links to its social networks accounts.

Glossary

(1) cis-hetero-normative : pertaining to a heterosexual and cisgender-only view of society and opposing LGBTQIA+ rights
(2) gamergate : far right movement stemming from the 2010’s advocating for the removal of women, racialized or LGBTQIA+ people in video games as well as in the companies that make them
(3) DEI : Diversity, Equality and Inclusion, name given to the different programs aiming to improve diversity and inclusion in companies and in the games being made

Looking back on the fight against layoffs at Don’t Nod’s

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Don't Nod fight against layoffs Report

The fight at Don’t Nod is drawing to a close. Our hearts are aching to see our colleagues leave, but we wanted to bring these months of intense struggle to a close with an analysis of what we have learnt for the future.

Why it’s important

Our starting point was a layoff plan in which the employer intended to fire 69 people, i‧e. almost a third of the workforce, without compensation (other than the legal minimum). The plan contained a breakdown of job categories so precise that it targeted around thirty people individually.

Through mobilisation, through strike action, we succeeded in imposing a framework and conditions that mitigate, not sufficiently but greatly, the violence of this layoff plan.

We would like to highlight a few specific points in these departure conditions.

Voluntary departures

During the negotiations on the terms of this layoffs plan, we secured 23 voluntary redundancies for job categories not threatened by the plan, in order to save as many colleagues from being fired.

We are pleased to announce that these departures have saved 23 workers from being forcefully fired.

Instead of the 69 layoffs initially planned, there were 46 voluntary departures and 1 layoff. We have almost reached our ‘0 forced departures’ objective.

In addition, 8 people were offered a new position, which a handful refused, leading to their dismissal with the same severance pay.

Cadre severance pay for everyone

We demanded and obtained the application of the method for calculating Cadre redundancy payments to everyone. It is financially advantageous for employees and echoes a general demand of the STJV: all video game production jobs should be covered by the Cadre status.

This is not just a symbolic measure, but an acknowledgement of our trades, our expertise and the autonomy we are required to exercise. It also represents a concrete improvement in our working conditions.

Companies must requalify the status of all employees still on ETAM status as Cadre, as was recently negotiated at Amplitude.

Strike pay

Don’t Nod has agreed to our demands and has paid the strikers’ wages for all the days of our indefinite strike. In so doing, the company recognises that this week-long strike is its full and entire responsibility: to defend our rights, to obtain negotiations and then this agreement, we had no choice but to mobilise by striking.

While this measure may seem unusual in our sector, it is in fact commonplace in end-of-conflict agreements. A precedent has now been set in the Video Games industry too.

Conclusion

Anne Devouassoux, President of the employers lobby SNJV, recently explained before the French Parliament that the agreement reached was, in the SNJV’s view, a proof of social dialogue.

Duly noted! This victory proves that progress can only be achieved through a show of strength, and even the president of the SNJV acknowledges this. The fight belongs to all workers, let’s seize it to win together.

Summary of the strike fund’s usage

Thanks to the 17,000 euros donated to the Don’t Nod strike fund, we were able to use 15,300 euros to pay off the 4 days of strike action in November/December 2024, at 100 euros per day per worker The rest will now go into the STJV’s general fund for future strikes.

Self-defence in the workplace

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Note : this guide is based on French labour laws, and may not entirely apply to other jurisdictions.

One of the STJV’s main activities is to help workers when they encounter a problem that is directly or indirectly work-related.

We find that, unfortunately, requests for help come rather late, when workers are already in a very critical situation. While it is difficult to defend oneself against the abuses of employers – because of the policies of successive governments – it is not inevitable.

We believe it is necessary to adopt certain habits and set up safeguards before any conflict arises, and to raise awareness among workers, even when working conditions appear to be good. No-one is immune from a sudden reversal of fortune.

Our assistance policy is to be able to protect oneself and take action as early as possible to avoid finding oneself in a serious situation in the first place. This means that prevention, training and individual preparation are essential.

Let’s be clear: we have every reason to believe that in the course of your career (and yes, that includes your student years), you will be confronted with a situation of conflict or abuse with your employer, your superiors, and sometimes your colleagues. Virtually all workers have been or will be victims of abuse in the workplace, the question is to know when and with what level of preparation.

The purpose of this guide is to prevent the situation from getting out of hand by teaching you the basic reflexes you need to show your employer that you are aware of your rights and that you will not be an easy target. These principles have two aims:

  • Firstly: to do everything in your power to put an end to any abuse.
  • Secondly: to pave the way for possible legal action if your employer perseveres in his abuses.

Justice is biased in favour of companies and, to defend yourself, you need to do things in the right order and show that you have been a good worker. Unfortunately, taking advice too late means missing out on easy opportunities to strengthen your case.

The aim of this guide is to list the tools available to help you navigate the professional world before, during and after a dispute.

Important reminder:
The STJV provides help unconditionally within the limits of its human and financial resources, even if you are not a member. We are not a service but an expression of solidarity. If you think you have suffered any form of prejudice, please contact us using our contact form.

1. Myths to debunk

Protecting yourself and ensuring that you work in a healthy environment means first and foremost being realistic and pragmatic about the professional world.

So it’s important to be aware of the myths that have been created by employers in the video games industry (and elsewhere) and to know the limits that your employer is not allowed to cross.

Myths to debunk

Myth no. 1: “We’re a big family / We’re cool / We’re not complicated”.

An employment contract establishes a relationship whereby the employer exercises his authority over the employee. It is a relationship of subordination. The same applies to the majority of “freelancers”, who are in fact in a situation of undeclared salaried employment.

Any kind of “friendship” between bosses and workers cannot be balanced. This often comes to light when workers start asking for better working conditions.

For this reason, it is best to be wary when the person you work for tries to become your friend.

The family argument is universally used to minimise workers’ perception of employer misconduct (working without a contract, late wages, uncompensated overtime, pressure, harassment, etc.). This is pure manipulation.

It’s better to distance yourself and calmly but firmly demand that your rights be respected, in accordance with labour laws and collective agreements.

Myth no. 2: “You’re lucky to work here.”

Employers like to maintain the idea that they are doing their employees a huge favour by accepting them into their company. This is a complete inversion of reality, which is unfortunately commonly accepted. While a career in video games isn’t necessarily easy to get, it’s important to remember that a company is worth nothing without the people who work there: games don’t make themselves.

Keep in mind that the company that employs you is not doing so out of the goodness of its heart but out of economic interest. If you have been hired, it’s because the company makes a profit from exploiting your work.

You have a trade, skills, knowledge and experience. It’s valuable.

Myth no. 3: “It’s a passion-driven profession”

At the STJV, we firmly believe that taking care of our health is a priority. It’s a matter of giving ourselves the chance to enjoy what we’re passionate about over the long term.

Workers’ passion for their job is a lever that companies abuse on an industrial scale, in all sectors and for all occupations, to justify poor working conditions and widespread violations of the law.

Once again, it is pure manipulation with the aim of squeezing out more and more work, without paying its fair value or providing dignified working conditions.

“Passion” is thus invoked to demand more commitment, extra hours, low pay, dedication to the project and the company, blind obedience, etc.

This myth only leads to stress, burnout, high turnover, loss of knowledge, disorganisation, etc.

Think carefully about who benefits from your time and effort when you work beyond the terms of your employment contract.

Myth 4: “HR is here for your own good”

This is completely false, and the contrary is true. As all the scandals and investigations of recent years have shown us, the role of HR departments is to systematically cover up and defend the company, disregarding the victims. This is despite all the pink-, green-, and other washings.

This is not a question of the quality, benevolence or skill of the people in HR departments, but of structure. The primary function of Human Resources is to ensure the smooth running of the business, to manage the workforce as a resource like any other.

The HR employee you know may well be the nicest person in the world, but that doesn’t change the fact that from the moment you point out an employer’s abuse, he or she will at best be facing a conflict of values. Their employer (on whom their job depends, and therefore their financial security and, more broadly, their life) has no interest in stopping any abuse because it benefits them, and will order them to find a way to avoid it. It’s hardly surprising, then, that HR managers find themselves ignoring, sweeping under the carpet or playing down misconduct committed by people in positions of power within the company.

Myth 5: ‘’I’ll be blacklisted if I speak up‘’.

The fear of blacklisting is understandable, but extremely exaggerated. In our 8 years of trade union experience, actual instances of blacklisting can be counted on the fingers of one hand.

Employers may be organised through lobbies such as the SNJV and SELL, but that doesn’t mean they’re friends. And they are far from all having the same standing in their ranks. Ironically, the threat of blacklisting is always used by small, insecure bosses who have absolutely no capacity to enforce any kind of blacklisting. By greatly exaggerating their influence, they hope to further consolidate their hold and domination over the workers.

“John McIndy” may have bumped into a major studio executive in the corridors of the GDC in 2015, but that doesn’t mean that he or she would listen to him.

The French industry may be relatively small, but it is now unionised. At the start of 2025, the STJV was approaching 10% union membership. Omerta can no longer work in this configuration: now everyone is speaking up.

2. Critical points for attention

Critical points for attention

Critical point no. 1: Protecting your freedom of speech at work

Freedom of speech at work is protected by:

  • the freedom of individual expression, a fundamental right enshrined in the French Déclaration des Droits de l’Homme et du Citoyen.
  • the freedom of direct and collective expression, enshrined in the French Labour Code.

The French Labour Code states that:

  • Employees have the right to direct and collective expression on the content, conditions and organisation of their work.
  • The purpose of the direct and collective expression of employees is to define the actions to be implemented to improve their working conditions, the organisation of the activity and the quality of production in the work unit to which they belong and in the company.
  • Opinions expressed by employees, irrespective of their position in the professional hierarchy, when exercising their right of expression cannot be used as grounds for disciplinary action or termination of employment.

Therefore, you cannot be punished in any way for talking about your working conditions or your salary. Employers often pressure on workers using the pretext of excessive “confidentiality within the company: it’s totally unfounded.

If you find that your employer is paying you less than the agreed minimum wage, we encourage you to talk to your colleagues about it and build a collective demand on the subject.

Critical point no. 2: Building solidarity

No matter what, and whether your work is going well or not, there is one constant: together we are stronger. Employers are well aware of this and will do everything they can to break down or prevent the creation of bonds of solidarity.

Working together is an essential prerequisite for improving our common working conditions. As a result, employers always use the same tactic: divide and conquer. This can take many forms: pitting one against the other, setting an example, encouraging submission on individual levels, individualising collective problems, withholding information, changing their tune depending on who they are talking to…

The best defence is always the same: discussing, then acting, collectively. Watch out for any action that isolates colleagues, and cultivate a close-knit working group.

Critical point no. 3: Do not sign anything

Sometimes on their own, but often in response to a conflict situation, for example a request for salary adjustments, employers will try to get you to sign changes to your contract, addendums or similar.

Apart from very specific situations, you are under no obligation to sign a piece of paper just because you are asked to do so. In 99% of cases, the employer believes that they can put pressure on you to backdate a document or amend the contract to their advantage in order to hide a violation on their part.

By default, you should not sign anything without talking to your worker representatives and trade union. Ask your employer which legal grounds they are using to justify their request. Talk it over with your colleagues.

Critical point no. 4: Never belittle yourself

By default, workers are honest. This character trait is easily exploited by employers, particularly during performance reviews.

It’s human and understandable to believe in the merits of these reviews. But most of the time they are a sham, and decisions on pay rises etc. have already been taken beforehand. There is one thing they are good at, however, and that’s finding things to blame on someone the company dislikes and wants to get rid of.

It is common practice for companies to examine past reviews, among other things, in order to fabricate unjustified accusations and justify sanctions or even lay-offs.

To protect yourself, you need to avoid demeaning yourself, being self-critical, pointing out things you could have done better – in short, you need to avoid giving your employer any arguments against you.

Self-criticism is a good and necessary thing, but it should be done with colleagues and comrades, not with your employer.

Rather than belittling yourself, it is useful to mention the external causes of your problems to your employer when you receive criticism: work overload, lack of communication from management, pressure, tasks that do not correspond to your job, etc.

3. The right reflexes to have when things are going well

The right reflexes to have when things are going well

Get your professional entourage used to written communication

The main challenge in asserting your rights in court lies in gathering evidence. Legally speaking, written records are the elements that are taken most seriously when a dispute is examined. Employers are well aware of this, and for this reason will always use oral exchanges, with no paper trail, to commit their misdeeds.

A great way to counter this tactic is to make e-mail your default method of communication. Ask your questions in writing, draw up summaries of meetings and send them by email – in short, keep records and get your professional entourage used to this way of communicating.

Subscribe to legal protection through your insurance

If you can afford it, we strongly recommend that you take out legal protection. The legal protection offered by insurance policies (including home insurance) often covers lawyers’ fees in case you need assistance following a professional dispute. This protection costs an average of €8 per month, depending on the type of insurance, and is sometimes automatically included in your policy.

Labour court proceedings can cost several thousand euros. Having legal protection allows you to finance all or part of these proceedings, and to feel more legitimate and better protected if you have to defend yourself in court.

Join a union

As explained above, the balance of power between employees and employers is uneven. To protect yourself as best you can against abuses and increasingly precarious working conditions, it’s vital to get organised together as workers.

Joining a union means not being alone, learning about your rights, creating a social and mental safety net in the event of professional difficulties, and improving working conditions for everyone in the industry. The STJV has won many victories thanks to the hard efforts of workers. Taking part in the fight restores confidence in one’s ability to take action and dispels the feeling of powerlessness in the face of recurring injustices at work.

Make sure there is a CSE at your company

The role of the CSE (the French version of a workers’ council) is to represent employees vis-à-vis the employer. In France, its presence in a company is mandatory for companies with 11 or more employees (full-time, over 1 year). It is the main point of contact in the event of disputes between management and employees, and has access to a range of rights and information to ensure that employees are defended and represented.

In the video game industry (and especially in small companies), it is common for employers to resist setting up a CSE. They may, for example, fail to meet their obligation to provide information about elections in order to prevent them from taking place, or prolong a period of absence (absence of a CSE in the company).

As an employee, however, you have various means of countering these methods, in particular by requesting that elections be organised when a CSE becomes compulsory, or reorganised four months after a period of absence.

Whichever the case, we invite you to contact the STJV to organise these elections: we will help you to organise them and obtain better conditions.

If your company already has a CSE, get in touch with it and try to assess how well it is fulfilling its role. Depending on its relationship with management and its political engagement, you will be able to assess whether it can help you in the event of difficulties within the company.

Keep a union section alive

Unionised workers in a company constitute a union section. It acts as the union’s representative in dealings with the employer and serves as a means of communicating with fellow workers. It is the best framework for discussing and reflecting collectively on the problems encountered in the company, and for fighting against them.

A section can appoint a union section representative (Responsable de Section Syndicale) or union delegate (Délégué·e Syndical·e), its improved version in the event of a victory in the CSE elections. If there is a union delegate, the company is obliged to obtain his or her signature in order to apply all the provisions of a company agreement. It must also hold mandatory annual negotiations.

4. The right reflexes to have when the situation deteriorates

The first step is to recognise when your professional situation is deteriorating. Certain events in the workplace are classic signs of abuse and are therefore important to watch out for.

The right reflexes to have when the situation deteriorates

Here is a non-exhaustive list of typical cases that should set off alarm bells:

  • task priorities change frequently, you are under pressure.
  • a significant amount of work is simply thrown away.
  • your employer is asking you to work overtime (especially unpaid overtime).
  • some workers have no tasks at all.
  • someone is the subject of a lot of complaints.
  • someone known for their inappropriate behaviour is hired by your company.
  • you notice that some of your colleagues are being humiliated, belittled or ostracised.
  • wages are paid late.
  • more and more people are resigning (high staff turnover).
  • key people are being made redundant (particularly those responsible for organising the company and/or the workload).
  • your company is starting to run into major financial problems.

We are often led to play down what we experience at work. This is very common and perfectly normal, since our income (and therefore our survival) depends on our ability to keep a job.

However, while turning a blind eye to situations of abuse in the workplace may be relieving in the short term, the risk of paying a high price later through burnout, depression, loss of capacity for work, etc. is considerable.

It is therefore important to be aware of the signals that should alert you. A good, objective way of doing this is to take note of the most common indicators of ill-being at work, such as: finding it difficult to talk about your work other than to complain about it, irritability, eating disorders, difficulty in feeling empathy (a symptom of burnout), sleep disorders, nightmares, memory problems, feeling nauseous before going to work, etc.

We advise everyone to fill in this questionnaire (sadly only available in French) to assess their own state of burnout, as it may reveal some surprises.

Alerting your employer

When you become aware that you are being abused in any way (by your employer, a colleague, a contractor, whether financially, morally or physically, etc.), you must alert your employer.

To do this properly, you need to follow the advice below, but the important thing to remember is that the earlier you warn of a problem, the safer you will be later.

Employers are legally bound to take steps to prevent and stop any danger, risk, harassment, ill-treatment, etc., in the workplace. If they can justify saying that they were not aware of the problem, then the courts will not consider them to be at fault.

Asking around for advice

Many people isolate themselves when they encounter difficulties in the workplace. The reasons for this may vary from person to person, but are often unfounded: fear, shame, guilt and so on. It’s important to overcome this reflex by talking to others about the difficulties you’ve encountered, so that you can assess the situation you’re in.

Talk to your colleagues. Contact associations and trade unions, talk to people you trust and/or doctors. You can even anonymously call the French Labour Inspection (Inspection du Travail) and/or the Labour Court (Conseil des Prud’hommes) to ask for information, without committing to anything and without even having to give your name or that of your company.

When in doubt, talking, trying to understand and asking questions will help you to realise whether what you’re experiencing is normal or not, and will give you access to resources and solutions that you might not otherwise have thought of.

Keeping notes

In cases of workplace abuse, time can move very quickly and the potential state of shock in which the victims finds themselves can affect their memory. Even without evidence, keeping a diary of situations that have been harmful to you, with the facts, the names of the people involved and the dates, will give you a clearer and more objective view of the problems you are experiencing.

Additionally, should you seek help from health and/or law professionals, having access to this diary will allow you to explain the situation much more clearly and obtain better assistance.

It can even help in legal proceedings. For example, having written down your overtime hours with their dates will be admissible as evidence, and the employer will have to prove that he did not ask you to do them and that he took steps to prevent you from doing them.

Seeking the help of a healthcare professional

Realising that you are suffering and taking appropriate decisions to defend yourself in the event of abuse at work can be very difficult when you do not have enough perspective.

If you experience any of the symptoms listed above, your first instinct should be to go and see a doctor and explain how you are suffering because of your work.

Consulting a healthcare professional first allows you to assess the situation from a competent outside perspective. If your doctor deems it appropriate, taking a sick leave will also allow you to review the environment affecting you and take the time to analyse the situation calmly. You can also use this time to make an appointment with specialists for the health problems you are experiencing, to have your mental and physical state of health examined (which also has the advantage of creating evidence in the event of legal proceedings at a later date), and to seek advice from those around you.

In an emergency, you can call SOS Médecins in France (for a fee). Health insurance schemes (which you must have if you have an employment contract) sometimes offer free tele-consultation services.

It’s also a good idea to ask for an appointment with your occupational physician, to assess your health (and any worsening of it), obtain information on any special accommodation you are entitled to request, etc.

The appointments take place during working hours, so the employer will be notified, but will not be informed of the reason for the request or its content.

We urge you to insist that doctors declare your condition an occupational illness.

Gathering evidence

If you feel that your work situation is starting to get difficult, the first step is to gather as much evidence as possible on your own equipment. An employer can cut off access to your professional data at any time (yes, it happens regularly) and, while you have the legal right to request access, in practice the employer can make this very complicated.

That’s why it’s important to download your e-mails as soon as you feel the situation escalating and to take screenshots of anything you think is relevant. Make sure that the date and context appear clearly: your evidence should be as foolproof as possible against the lies and bad faith arguments that the employer will use to defend themselves.

Unfortunately, people in positions of domination know very well when their behaviour is risky from a legal point of view and for this reason tend to impose verbal communication. This means that in the event of a dispute, you find yourself in a situation where it’s your word against theirs, which is bound to be to the worker’s detriment. Hence the importance of putting things in writing: either by asking openly (at the risk of a refusal), or by establishing the facts after the event.

In the latter case, and as soon as you have the slightest doubt about the legality or legitimacy of what you have been told, you can make a written record of it and share it by e-mail with the people present during the discussion. At best, this will force the employer to back down on his/her misconduct by forcing him/her to deny it, and at worst it will add to your evidence.

5. Defending yourself when things get (really) bad

Even when a company ostensibly violates the law and mistreats its employees, it can sometimes be difficult to accept the situation for what it is and to mourn the loss of the project you worked on and/or the team you were part of. Video games remain a trade into which many people put their heart and soul, with a strong desire to give their best. Employers exploit that pride of a job well done against their employees to justify the most unfair and degrading treatment. It’s not doing yourself or the industry any favours to accept such working conditions.

Defending yourself when things get (really) bad

To accept abuses for what they are, especially when you have accepted many abnormal situations in the past, requires a major effort and a great deal of determination. It’s tempting to think that if you’ve accepted this or that little breach of labour law, then you can’t complain if others occur. But you have to remember that it’s never too late to say stop. You don’t have to feel bad or justify demanding that the law and your integrity be respected. The fact that you’ve been accommodating to your employer once doesn’t mean you have to be accommodating all the time, especially if you start to feel that it’s having an impact on your day-to-day life, your family life and/or your health.

It’s important to be able to name things for what they are and to be convinced that nothing justifies them.

If you are routinely belittled, unjustifiably criticised, humiliated (“you’re incapable’”, “you’re useless”, “you don’t do anything well”, etc.), if you are ostracised, if you are subjected to discriminatory mockery, if you are given tasks beyond your capabilities, if you are not given any tasks at all, if you are denied access to work tools, etc., you are a victim of psychological harassment.

If your managers and/or colleagues regularly make sexually charged remarks towards you, if explicit, erotic or pornographic images are sent to you or displayed in your workplace, if you are treated unfairly on the basis of your gender, if comments are made about your body, your clothing or your (real or supposed) sexual orientation, or if sexual propositions are made to you in the workplace, you are a victim of sexual harassment.

If you are denied accommodation for your disability, if your wages are not paid on time or at all, if you are paid less than a colleague for the same work and experience, if you do not have the same benefits as others, if you are forced to work outside your normal working hours or during sick leave, if your fixed-term contract is renewed more than twice or exceeds 18 months, if your management tries to force you to accept a rupture conventionnelle, if you are made to work without a contract, if you work as a self-employed person for a single employer and they treat you as an employee (disguised salaried employment), etc. your employer is not complying with the French Labour Code and is potentially exposing you to danger.

If you find you can’t work any more, if your empathy is at an all-time low, if you’re constantly tired, if you can’t get interested in anything work-related any more, if you tend to withdraw into yourself, to be irritable, if you notice the appearance of sleep or eating disorders, if you feel constantly anxious, if you feel worthless, etc., you’re probably experiencing burnout.

These situations must be taken seriously. If you have the slightest doubt about one or more of them, it’s better to take action and seek help and advice (at the risk of realising it was a false alarm, something that never hurt anyone), rather than continuing to endure until the breaking point.

Contacting the union

Every situation has its own unique characteristics, and even with the longest and most comprehensive guide in the world, it’s not possible to cover every situation and every possible course of action. That’s why it’s important to contact a trade union if you’re suffering at work.

The volunteers who work there are trained to deal with people who need help and are in touch with lawyers if professional expertise is required. They can advise you on the best course of action, listen to you and reassure you. In particular, the STJV will not initiate any action without the victim’s agreement, and will first and foremost provide support, a listening ear and information so that you can make an informed decision about whether or not to act.

Through our activism, our experience as workers and our close links with lawyers, we are very familiar with the problems encountered and how to deal with them.

Seeking testimonies / support from colleagues

Depending on the abuse you have suffered, it is likely that you are not the only person in the company to have been affected. And even if you are, your colleagues may at least have witnessed what you’ve been through. Whatever the case, turning to colleagues you trust to discuss the situation, prepare joint actions and think about how best to defend yourself can only be beneficial.

Getting support from worker representatives

Employee representatives have the status of protected employees. They are therefore in a position to help workers in difficulty much more easily, by bringing issues to the attention of company management and alerting the Labour Inspection. You can also turn to these people for support during layoffs or severance procedures (or, failing that, an employee adviser).

6. Returning to work during or after a dispute

Working for an employer with whom you are engaged in a dispute may seem difficult, if not impossible. Unfortunately, the duration of legal proceedings and the difficulties associated with losing one’s job regularly result in this situation. Depending on your situation, we obviously recommend that you protect yourself as much as possible, as working in these conditions can have a serious effect on your health:

  • You should continue to be on sick leave as long as your condition does not allow you to return to work with peace of mind.
  • Consider the possibility of getting your position adapted, or even gettinp a therapeutic part-time arrangement.
  • Make sure you receive the appropriate health care, particularly from psychologists/psychiatrists in the case of depression, anxiety disorders and/or burnout.

7. Conclusions

To summarise this guide, the most important things to remember are:

  • You should not wait for the situation to get worse before dealing with it.
  • Talking to others (colleagues, worker representatives, STJV, family, doctor, etc.) is always useful.
  • In most cases, you can prevent abuses with the right reaction.
  • The STJV will help you put in place an effective defence strategy.

State of the video game industry: bosses remain unable to provide answers, even before the National Assembly

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On March 12 at the National Assembly, the french lower house, the Committee on Cultural Affairs and Education, chaired by MP Fatiha Keloua-Hachi, and the Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by MP Aurélie Trouvé, held hearings with representatives of the SNJV and SELL, the industry’s business lobbies, and the CNC, the french public body in charge of allocating public subsidies for video games, among other things. The purpose of this audit was to understand the crisis that the ultra-lucrative video game industry in France is apparently going through, and the economic and cultural implications. The hearing can be viewed here, in French: Link to the French National Assembly’s website

The video game industry in France was worth more than 6.1 billion euros in 2023 (according to the SELL), is an industry that has been growing steadily for decades, and represents more than 10,000 jobs threatened by the carelessness of our executives. The STJV and Solidaire Informatique met with the committee chairs before the hearing, which gave us an opportunity to discuss what video game workers experience on a daily basis, the structural and management causes of the current social crisis, our demands and the international video game strike that took place on February 13 and mobilised 1 in 5 workers in the video game industry in France.

The employers’ representatives played out their false arguments at the hearing, arguments so tired that we predicted them almost word for word to the MPs. From the supposed youth of the industry to the allegedly ‘tough’ competition (in what cultural market isn’t it tough?), we could have made a bingo of the language used by these robotic industry salesmen. They were also quick to admit their incompetence, seeking refuge behind a so-called ‘post-covid correction’ that everyone was capable of anticipating, and invoking the fantasised ‘complexity’ of video game production.

In line with their role as lobbyists, the employers’ representatives cited the crédit d’impôts jeu vidéo (CIJV), or video games tax credit, at least 10 times during the hearing as a solution to virtually all the industry’s problems. Instead of addressing the systemic problems, which workers have been denouncing for years, they keep asking for more and more public money to bankroll corporate incompetence.

Despite the considerable amounts paid out, there is no real control over this funding, how it is used or whether companies comply with its criteria. And employers don’t want any: according to Anne Devouassoux, “we must not impose any constraints on companies”. One never knows, perhaps that would improve working conditions, which is what the employer lobbies fear? Also, as the CNC was able to point out, and which is a union demand, video games should not finance public subsidies for video games… Video game bosses like to take money from the cinema industry, but refuse to pay the slightest penny to finance the CNC.

It’s all well and good to repeat over and over to trade unions, MPs, investors, judges… that bosses “are aware” of the problems, of the importance of workers, of job insecurity and gender issues. But behind all the talk, where are the actions?

Although these issues come up regularly in companies and despite the predictable questions from MPs, the employers’ representatives :

  • provided no solutions to the problems at schools or to the excesses of private education. All they did was talk about a fantasised ‘French excellence’, far removed from the reality experienced by students, and without a word for them.
  • provided no concrete answers to the omnipresent problems of sexism and the lack of parity in schools and in the industry.
  • provided no answers to the demands on careers and employment, or to the mobilisation of workers.

Given their inability to address the slightest problem, whether with employee representatives or MPs, it makes sense to ask whether bosses serve any purpose at all. Any worker in the video game industry can easily see in their company that they do indeed only exist to pocket large paychecks and get in the way of productions.

We deplore the lack of workers’ representatives at this hearing. Indeed, unlike their bosses, workers actually make the games and therefore have concrete answers to bring to the problems of our industry. We hope to be able to participate directly in discussions in the future, so as not to leave the floor to the video game bosses.

The Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo & Solidaires Informatique

March 8, 2025: feminist srike for the rights of women and gender minorities

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March 8 2025

March 8th is the international day for womens and gender minorities rights. It’s a celebration of historical and ongoing fights of feminist struggles. In video game, where sexual and gender based violence thrive, these fights are necessary.

Everywhere, the far right is gaining power to impose its project of reinforcing patriarchal, racist and capitalist dominations. Everywhere, it’s attacking our rights: reproductive rights, women’s rights, queer people rights, POC rights, children’s rights, workers’ rights, health and education public services. The sudden rise of fascist ideas and their constant normalisation in the public discourse directly threatens our lives.

In the United States, the Trump administration is destroying trans people rights and creating concentration camps for the undocumented immigrants. In Italy, the Meloni government removes parental recognition for lesbian couples. In Argentina, the Miley government shuts off the undersecretary’s office to the protection against gender violence. In Afghanistan, women are made prisoners in windowless rooms. In Sudan, rape is deployed as a weapon of war. In Palestine, Israel is perpetuating a genocide against the entire population. In Germany, the vast majority of men vote for a nazi party.

The video game industry is not foreign to the constant progression of the far right in the world. Players are radicalised through gamergate that tries to come back by, harrassing players, streamers or workers, in particular when they’re trans women. Our bosses don’t say anything against far right ideas, sometimes even support them!

Our bosses and companies play a crucial role in promoting and normalising fascist ideas, by protecting perpetuators of sexual and gender based violences, discriminating against and exploiting women and queer people. We, video game workers, are concerned and we won’t let this happen.

Video game workers demands are simple, and it’s mind-boggling to even have to formulate them:

  • companies management must truly listen to workers, thus take seriously their representatives and respect the negociations ;
  • tangible data and information collecting processes must be implemented, in order to then give them to workers representatives ;
  • this second item must come with publicly providing statistical and non-personal data, in particular for salary grid implementation ;
  • to prevent workers being silenced, real warning, reporting and internal investigation processes must be created and include workers’ representatives

In summary, to be clear: we demand our managers and company leaders to stop pretending to care about marginalised people only to use them as a stepping stone for the their company image, their career, or to maximise profits.

As we stated loud and clear in an assessment about our industry and our role, the fight against gender oppressions will go through unions. This statement comes from the fact that our rights are conquered only by fighting.

Unions are fighting spaces for women and marginalised people rights, whether it’s by creating choosen diversity spaces, by assisting victims of sexual and gender based violence in the workplace or in study areas, by forcing company managers to give back power to the workers, by enforcing equal pay, by assuring stable careers to precarious peoples, or even by undermining abusers authority and powers and of those who protect them.

Against the far right and macronism extreme economic liberalism , we demand dignified life for everyone, through the feminist strike!

Consequently, the Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo call for a strike in video game on saturday, the 8th of march 2025. We call for video game workers, unemployed people, retired people and students to mobilise in their companies and to join the mobilisations that will take place everywhere in France that day.

We remind that this call covers STJV purview in the private sector, and thus concerns everyone employed by a publisher, distributor, video game creator or services provider, regardless of their position or status, and regardless of the company’s domain of activoty (games, consoles, mobile, serious games, VR/AR, game engines, marketing services, streaming, derivative products, esport, online content creation, etc.), and all teachers and professors working in private schools with video game related curriculum or courses. As it’s a national strike call, no process is necessary to be on strike: it’s enough to not come to work.

Struggle pays: a deal was found at Don’t Nod

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On a grey and black background, with a thin red line surrounding the text, at the bottom left, 3 characters from Don't Nod games in revendicative postures, and to the bottom right, the STJV's logo. Title Struggle pays off! Agreement reached at DON'T NOD: Fewer job cuts Broader scope for voluntary redundancies Far better severance Full compensation for strike days

Since November 2024, workers at Don’t Nod have been fighting to save their jobs and mitigate the social disaster in the form of a layoffs plan that studio management put forward.

We maintain that this plan is a desperate move by management to address their own decisions that ended up putting the studio in a difficult situation. Workers are paying the price for management’s shortcomings, and are held hostage by company heads who only offered a choice between a devastating layoffs plan (PSE) or an even darker future, since it was out of the question for Don’t Nod’s bosses to look inwards.

The social movement reached a climax with a renewable strike followed by around a hundred workers from January 13th to 17th. Our colleagues’ resolve to hold their heads high and to stick to demands that ensured they were respected in the process forced management to actually take negotiations seriously and reach an agreement that we will describe here.

Terms of the agreement

Management’s initial offer

Initially, the plan was to cut 69 jobs within the company, among a list of professional categories.

People within those categories could get reassigned, or choose a voluntary redundancy from the company by presenting a « robust » professional project (having a new job in sight, creating or taking over a company, getting training in a new matter).

Those remaining would’ve then been ranked according to criteria that would determine who would be fired, if the total was not yet reached.

Anyone losing their job would’ve been compensated by the legal minimum, that is the Indemnité Conventionnelle de Licenciement (ICL) – the collective bargain-imposed minimum firing compensation as defined in the SYNTEC collective agreement:

  • For people classified as ETAM (technicians):
    • up to 10 years of seniority: ¼ of gross monthly salary per year of seniority within the company
    • over 10 years of seniority: ⅓ of gross monthly salary per year of seniority within the company
  • For people classified as « cadres » (untranslatable notion, sorry):
    • up to 2 years of seniority: ¼ of gross monthly salary per year of seniority within the company
    • over 2 years of seniority: ⅓ of gross monthly salary per year of seniority within the company

Those who would choose a voluntary redundancy would get a premium of 1500 €.

What we obtained

In accordance with our colleagues who fought for their rights, the STJV union negotiation group was able to wring out the following:

Widened scope for voluntary redundancies

The ability to request a voluntary reundancy will be open to more professional categories, some of which are not targeted for jobs cuts.

This could save up to 23 jobs, by letting those who wish to leave go even if they were not intended to, avoiding in return a forced job cut.

What’s more, the number of jobs being cut has been reduced from 69 to 49, since there were numerous resignations since management announced the PSE, and thanks also to adjustments to management’s plan following some of the CSE’s (workers council) observations when it was informed.

Less indignant terms to leave the company

Anyone who loses their job, ETAM or cadre, will benefit from an ICL that will use the more favorable conditions normally reserved to cadres.

It will be completed by an extra-legal compensation paid by Don’t Nod. The bonus for choosing a voluntary redundacy is removed to improve this extra-legal compensation. We focused on protecting those in the most precarious situations and who may have the harder time finding a new job, and they would also be the least likely to choose voluntary redundacy.

As a result, anyone who leaves the company, voluntarily or not, will be compensated by whichever formula yields the highest number:

  • ICL (cadre) + 13 000€
  • 2× ICL (cadre)

Payment of the strike

No day of strike that was followed between January 13th and January 17th will be cut from one’s salary.

The strike fund we set up will pay for the earlier strike days from November and December, and any remaining funds will be transferred to the STJV’s national strike fund, as announced during its creation.

Conclusion

We want to thank and congratulate our colleagues for their part in this historic and successful mobilization. Their support and their solidarity were outstanding.

This victory would not have been reached without the titanic work of the CSE (that was elected under the STJV’s banner) and the Don’t Nod STJV union section, over 4 months.

And crucially, we send warm thanks to all of those who supported us and who filled the coffers of the strike fund.

Collective action gets results, it is our best weapon.

Of course, this PSE leaves a bitter taste, and the struggle will continue for both our remaining colleagues’ working conditions as well as for the uncertain future that those who will be laid off will have to face.

It is not, and it will never be satisfactory to see people be fired. We hope that this struggle will be a stepping stone on which to weigh and from which to start, if any company out there did not get the memo.

Hurrah to strikers, and hurrah to strikes!

To whom it may concern

We said that about Don’t Nod, we also said it about the industry as a whole: this circus is done. Our efforts to raise awareness and to identify and denounce the gross violations of labour law in the games industry are bearing fruits, and the strike on February 13th proved that clearly.

We will keep supporting the workers in all of the sector’s companies to reach similar victories, and even bigger ones yet.