March 8 is the international day of struggle for women’s rights. The date was chosen to commemorate the women’s strike of March 8, 1917 in Russia that sparked the Russian revolution, and it has always been a day dedicated to demanding equal rights for all genders and ending gender discrimination through action. In recent years, this day has developed into a massive strike day in many countries.

Feminist struggles in 2021

With the French presidential and parliamentary elections approaching, the climate remains as tense as it was last year: the far right is rampant, democracy is declining, police violence is on the rise, and the Covid-19 epidemic is leading to an increase in precariousness and sexual and gender-based violence. Access to abortion is under threat in many countries, or even in decline, as in the USA, Poland, Russia, Hungary and China. Women and gender minorities are under attack in France and throughout the world. In the workplace, we note that the equal rights theoretically acquired and enshrined in the law are in fact very limited, not applied or simply non-existent, due to a lack of controls, resources and political will.

But despite this alarming situation, we must not forget the victories achieved during the year, which show that the feminist struggle can still win, that it must always go on, everywhere, and never falter.

In France, we can mention:

• The Ibis Batignolles hotel chambermaids’ victory after 22 months of union struggle and strike action
• Extension of free contraception until the age of 25
• A ban on “conversion therapies”
• Access to abortion increased to 14 weeks

And in the world, this list being far from exhaustive:

• Progress on different scales on abortion in many countries: Japan, Gibraltar, Namibia, Saint-Martin, Colombia, Mexico…
• Implementation of measures to combat maternal mortality among African-American women in the USA
• Unmarried Saudi women can now choose where to live without the consent of their “guardian”
• Inclusion of pregnancy and maternity leave in the calculation of pensions for women in Argentina
• Inclusion of LGBTQIA+ history in the school curriculum in Scotland
• In Indonesia, progress and simplification of administrative procedures, allowing transgender people to obtain an identity card
• Creation of a domestic violence support scheme in Australia, allowing women to receive money to help them leave their partners

Equality for all is everyone’s business. Whether we are directly concerned by discriminations or not, they have an impact on our lives and fighting against them must be part of our common social goal. This is what we must constantly remind ourselves: our rights can never be taken for granted and it is more important than ever to fight, all of us together, to defend them and acquire new ones.

In the video game industry

Workers around the world are organising and fighting to hold their management and companies accountable, and to destroy sexism in the industry. This is particularly vivid and visible at Ubisoft and Activision-Blizzard, where workers have been fighting for over a year. The scandals revealed at these two industry giants are a particularly sordid example of the gap between theoretical rights and the material reality.

Gender-based violence and discriminations are widespread in the video game industry. Predominantly masculine, it combines in an exacerbated fashion capitalism, meaning the exploitation of workers by those who own the means of production, and patriarchy, the domination by men over people of other genders. This combination leads to situations in which marginalised people experience sexist, homophobic, transphobic, etc. violence and say nothing because the perpetrator has power over them at work, over their economic situation and over their careers. Very often, it is even the victims who suffer the wrath of their company when they speak out by being forced to resign, “put on the back burner”, suspended, etc.

A notable and telling fact to remember is that the percentage of women in the industry is lower than in video game schools, and their careers are on average much shorter than those of men. Women and other gender minorities are discriminated against in hiring and promotions, face harassment as early as their first internships and often even at school, and are on average paid less than their men colleagues.

Furthermore, practices such as crunch, the high frequency of burnouts and the industry’s incompatibility with family life, combined with the patriarchal division of labour and the predominance of men in the industry, mean that video game production relies on women’s work. These practices result in an overload of domestic work for women, which sadly already falls disproportionately on them in the current patriarchal social organisation.

The role of unions

This is why the syndicalist struggle is also a feminist one, and vice versa! As organisations created to defend workers in their relationship with the companies that exploit them, to improve their material conditions of existence and to empower them, trade unions are uniquely placed to fight for equal pay and against the discriminations, harassment, and harmful working conditions that plague gender minorities.

Trade unions are unique in their powers, as they can communicate directly at companies, represent and assist workers in disputes with their employers (both in court and in disciplinary interviews), negotiate with or pressure company management, etc. In short, by organising workers and reversing the balance of power in the workplace, trade unions are a powerful tool to lead the feminist struggle and ensure that not a single person remains isolated.

Everyone on strike on March 8, 2022!

The Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo is calling for a strike in the video game industry on Tuesday March 8, to fight against gender discrimination and inequality in our industry. We call on women and gender minorities to strike against reproductive work (housework, childcare, emotional work, …) for the whole week of March 8, and we invite everyone to come to the demonstrations on March 8, 2022.

This call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore applies to any person employed by a company that publishes, distributes, provides services and/or creates video games or video game equipment, whatever their position or status and whatever the type of production of their company (console, PC, mobile, serious games, VR/AR experiences, game engines, marketing services, game consoles, streaming, etc. ), as well as all the teachers working in private schools in courses related to video game production. For all these people, and since this is a national call to strike, no action is necessary to go on strike: you just have to not come to work on the days you want to strike.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

This article is a sub-section of a large report on French video game studies published by the STJV. You will find the table of contents of this dossier, and links to all its parts, here : https://www.stjv.fr/en/2021/09/report-on-french-video-game-studies/

Whatever the source of improvement in the situation – through global pressure at the society level, through sudden awareness of school administrations, or through internal activism – the actual changes will mostly target the hierarchical and political organisation of these companies. In the first place, the classes taught.

In many schools, especially private ones, there is an overabundance of technical classes, focused purely on practical applications, such as the use of a particular software program. Schools and companies have an agreement, more or less explicit, to train future employees to be docile and to be assigned to a simple, unjustified operational role. If they are not given insight into the creative, theoretical and technological world inside and outside of video games, they will be forced to remain at the mercy of companies. By only being considered, and sometimes by only considering oneself, as yet another person clicking on buttons, one locks themselves into a role that can theoretically be replaced at will by a multitude of candidates trained the same way. And by having learned only very specific technical tools, it becomes all the more difficult to sell one’s experience in places where they are not or no longer used.

It is therefore urgent to widen the field of disciplines taught, and to teach in the interest of students rather than companies. This will involve opening up to more “academic” and “theoretical” fields, often wrongly considered useless, especially when they are not directly related to “video games”.

To begin with, there is an imperative need for project management courses, one of the biggest gaps in the video game industry, and not to do it from a project manager or team leader point of view, since the majority of students will never be one. Some schools are already raising awareness about production planning and monitoring, in order to teach students to manage workloads and analyse their production capacities. This approach should be extended, in particular to teach students to detect any danger of going into crunch, and how to prevent it, but also so that future workers can understand the production processes at work in companies and identify the causes of organisational problems. Moreover, this would allow them to have an impact on it, and thus to improve their working conditions and no longer have to blindly trust their superiors and their abuse.

To move forward, it is crucial to enable students to develop critical thinking skills about video games, media and cultural products in general. Video games are one of the most significant media in the world, and it is necessary that those whose job it will be to create them have access to the knowledge that will enable them to handle its discourse and uses:

• Critical classes about the video game industry, its current state and future trends, will help them to better understand the important economic and social movements that run through it, and to position themselves within it.
• In addition, classes in art history, video game history, and even game history, could break down our industry’s exceptionalism myth, and expose its less glamorous sides (notably its links with the arms industry).
• Opening up to video game research would be an important starting point for breaking down the barriers between video game production and the fields that study them, and allowing a better circulation and valuation of the knowledge that shapes this medium.
• Analysis of mass media and their discourses would allow future creators to better understand their own role and place in the propagation of ideas to the public. Similarly, broad classes on sociology, philosophy, economics, politics, etc. could have a positive impact on video games as a medium. Understanding the social structures in which creators are embedded can only sharpen the understanding and design of the video game produced.

Finally, and this needs a paragraph of its own, it is crucial that students are taught about labour law. People graduating and entering the labour market, and this is unfortunately not limited to the video game industry, are unaware of their rights and the different employment regimes that exist. This makes them vulnerable when negotiating their contracts, and often delays their recourse to legal action when they are exposed to abuse, as we still experience all too often. Not informing them about these rights only serves the companies and reinforces predatory behaviour on young workers.

The STJV regularly gives talks in schools and universities to present the basics of labour law and provide information on how the industry works, but this is far from enough. In general, organisations and professionals that defend and represent workers (lawyers, workers’ representatives, unions, etc.) should have access to schools and give lectures there. Conversely, such classes should definitely not be given by entrepreneurs, speakers from employers’ unions, etc. whose material interests are diametrically opposed to those of workers.

For the same reason, it is also crucial that companies and their organisations no longer have a hold on schools, which must cease their partnerships with them. Representatives of employers’ lobbies and studios, who hijack presentations to advertise the industry and their companies, go so far as to lie, spread false information and cover up the disastrous working conditions that await entry-level workers there. They must no longer be tolerated. Even more necessary, partnerships between companies and schools for student projects must be eliminated. These must be pedagogical exercises, for the benefit of the students and not the companies! They must therefore be prepared by the school’s teaching staff. If the aim is to simulate a “customer order”, this can be done perfectly well without using companies. Making students work for an entity outside the school is at best a failure in the pedagogical process, at worst completely illegal and falls under concealed (“off the books”) work.

Finally, curricula that require the validation of numerous internships are detrimental to students, whether or not they follow said curriculum, and to the quality of their own teaching. When internships come to replace a third or even half of academic semesters, sometimes as early as the first year, the very point of pursuing these studies comes into question compared to directly seeking a job. The number of students looking for an internship each year makes this search so difficult, especially for short internships, that they are no longer done for any pedagogical or professional interest but with the sole purpose of validating grades, at any cost. Companies do not make the situation any better, the vast majority of them seeking to make interns profitable, not caring at all about the pedagogical aspect of the internship. This provides them with a weakened, abundant and almost free labour force to offload all sorts of tasks.

Schools must therefore reduce the number of compulsory internships in their curricula, in particular by eliminating short internships which are so difficult to obtain. While, given the amount of abuse it causes, we believe that the notion of internships as they currently exist in France should be abolished altogether, we understand that they are a real necessity for students in order to hope to land a job. In such a case, the STJV advocates keeping only an end-of-study internship, as a tool to validate and apply the knowledge acquired during the course of the studies in a professional environment. These long internships, which can sometimes lead to a job, are the only ones that can bring something to students that the school itself cannot. Reducing the number of internships also makes it easier for schools to set up a real educational project between students and host companies, and the monitoring that goes with it, which is currently lacking in the vast majority of internships.

A lot has been said about « crypto-currencies » and related technologies, and many have already done so, whether it is about the stability or the centralization of power (on a supposedly « decentralized » technology) of these systems. Also on NFTs to explain how, in general, this technology has no use. So, even if their environmental impact could magically be reduced by some imaginary new method of consensus, there is plenty to question about these technologies.

But let’s focus on the field of video games, which is what we are interested in here. There is a « virtual gold rush » by many video game companies on NFTs. Their announcements about NFTs are often hailed by investors and other « crypto-enthusiasts » who have very little to do with video games (and don’t seem to understand much about them). In video games as in other fields, the only reason people talk about NFTs is not for their intrinsic value, but for their market value. The parallels with the art market and its many, many abuses place this technology in an unfavourable light from the start.

Q: What do NFTs actually bring to games? A: Nothing

To summarise the content of the above links, blockchain and NFTs are technologies looking for problems to solve, rather than solving existing problems. This is a very bad starting point, going completely against the concepts of design and engineering. When all you have is a hammer, everything else looks like a nail.

This situation is all the more obvious and deplorable when the properties so touted by the promoters of NFTs in games are already feasible, and already exist, without blockchain nor NFTs. Unsurprisingly, these uses are already harmful even with « conventional » technologies.

• Unique objects with various properties? Team Fortress 2 has been doing this for over 10 years, with trading possible within the Steam platform.
• Items that can be exchanged for real money? Counter-Strike: Global Offensive has proven that this is possible, all while creating a money laundering system in the process.
• Obtaining items « in exchange » for playing time (play-to-earn)? MMORPGs and gacha games have made this their raison d’être, long before NFTs were even mentioned.
• Want to sell items? Diablo 3 did it, and since it caused all sorts of problems, Blizzard finally decided to remove this feature.
• Want to make money by offering a game experience on your favourite platform? Roblox does that without a blockchain either, provided you do’nt mind child exploitation and censorship…

It gets even worse: so far, we’ve been talking about NFTs « in theory ». But, in practice, video game companies don’t and never will have any incentive to provide « full » and free-to-use NFTs. For example, the terms of use for Quartz, Ubisoft’s take on NFTs, state that « you may not modify the Visual Representation [of the NFT] in any way […], use the Visual Representation [of the NFT] in videos or any other form of media ». Proof that, whatever the provider may claim, the use of these NFTs is not yours to decide.

As an aside, one may also note this extremely charitable formula: « Ubisoft is not liable to you or to any third party for any claim or damage that may arise from any use of the Tezos blockchain network, payments or transactions you make ». In other words, good luck if anything happens to you because Ubisoft will not help you.

An NFT is a reference to an object that can be used in a closed ecosystem, whose existence and usefulness (and therefore value) remain subordinate to the goodwill of the operator of said ecosystem (the company that publishes the game). For it to be usable anywhere else, it would not only require the agreement of the company publishing the NFT, but also the willingness of another company to integrate it into its games without any notable gain for it.

However, as we know, video game companies are the exact opposite of paragons of virtue or disinterested works; their executives’ pay is convincing enough. Have you complained about lootboxes, games sold piecemeal with dozens of DLC and other season passes? Don’t believe for a moment that these same companies will suddenly be generous on NFTs. They will just explain that you didn’t understand.

Why then is there such a rush to put NFTs in games?

The reasons for integrating this technology are varied, but let’s get the most obvious one out of the way right away: for some time now, there has been a speculative bubble completely unleashed around « blockchain » and NFTs. This is the reason why companies that have nothing to do with this technical field have found themselves boasting about having « their » NFTs, even if it means taking the occasional hit. This is primarily a promotional ploy by companies towards investment funds, a pathetic attempt to lure people who know even less technically than our executives (which is not always easy to find).

The second, more fundamentally vicious reason is a covert financialisation of games. Introducing NFTs into a video game allows monetised exchanges, in crypto-pretend-money, without having to assume the consequences. Indeed, in the event of a transaction problem, error, theft or scam, the video game’s publisher will be able to absolve itself of any responsibility by taking refuge behind the argument « everything is in the blockchain, the code does not lie! » This will in no way prevent these same publishers from promoting this « play-to-earn » model and the murky possibilities of making a financial profit from it.

If they were to assume their role as guarantors of this market, which they are in fact, these publishers would have to offer the same guarantees as banks, such as being able to give you back the money you store within the system, and ensuring the validity and traceability of transactions on their platforms. Surprisingly, companies are not rushing to the door when it comes to putting their responsibility at stake and deploying costly guarantees!

Artificial scarcity, illusory value

This subject of financialisation is crucial. Our daily lives are constantly affected by the impact of markets that are less and less correlated with the real world. Whether it’s the subprime crisis of 2008, the various speculative bubbles (of which crypto-currencies could very well be the next to burst), the lives sacrificed during the COVID-19 pandemic in the name of the sacrosanct economy: the carnage must end, in video games and elsewhere.

It is natural to see the way the economy works, the revolting profits made by the richest while many fall into poverty, and to conclude that there is something wrong with the system. But the answer and the solution is not to say « well, what’s missing is the possibility for me to exploit others too ». The solution is not to reproduce the scarcity of the « real world » in a purely artificial way in our digital spaces, but its exact opposite: to bring abundance for all in our physical societies.

Breaking our (block)chains

NFTs are not just a bad solution to a problem that does not exist and that no one has really raised, they are also another symbol of the harmful functioning of economies so greedy for profits that they seek to monetise the non-existent. Let’s not fall into this trap!

The STJV, one of whose goals is to extract video game production from the infernal capitalist circle in which it finds itself, is therefore opposed to the use of these technologies in video games. Video games should not be casinos that allow studios and publishers to exploit the most fragile and youngest among us. This is a demand that aims to protect our ability to produce quality works, as well as to protect the players who wish to enjoy them.

The STJV nevertheless supports the workers forced by their companies to work on these technologies, or their already existing equivalent such as lootboxes, and will support any struggle to stop their use. You are not responsible for the insatiable financial appetite of your bosses.

Since the beginning of 2021 inflation, in France and in the rest of Europe, is dangerously rising, and with it the cost of living, especially this year energy costs. Wages, social benefits, pensions, allowances, etc. are not keeping up with this inflation, leading to a general loss of purchasing power. The job market is stagnating, the implementation of the latest elements of the unemployment insurance reform keeps impoverishing hundreds of thousands of people.

In this context of growing poverty, the latest annual report of the Secours Catholique explains, for example, that one in 10 people living in France has asked for food aid, and that among these more than a quarter (i‧e. nearly 2 million people!) regularly spend a whole day without eating. These numbers are rising for the first time in a while, and have particularly increased among young people under 25.

The campaign for the next elections, presidential and parliamentary, will see a majority of candidates calling for a reduction in state welfare. Rather than wasting time analysing manifestos to see who will be willing to leave scraps for precarious and young people, pensioners and workers, we must take the lead and impose clear demands.

While, since 2021, victorious local struggles for better wages are multiplying, an intersyndicale has called for a national demonstration on January 27, to demand higher wages for both the private and public sectors, higher allowances for young people in training and looking for work, and higher pensions for retirees.

In the video game industry, there is a high degree of precariousness for people at the beginning of their careers, for freelancers, for jobs that employers consider expendable (QA, CM, etc.) and, in the context of the Covid-19 epidemic, for people working in companies that receive visitors. Most of us know or have known the hardships caused by low wages, unemployment, the fear of not finding a (new) job.

The Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV) is thus joining the movement by calling for a strike on January 27, 2022, and is calling on video game workers, unemployed people, retirees and students to organise themselves in their companies, in general assemblies and in the demonstrations that will take place throughout France. The STJV will be officially present in several demonstrations in France.

This call covers the STJV’s field of action in the private sector, and therefore applies to any person employed by a company that publishes, distributes, provides services and/or creates video games or video game equipment, whatever their position or status and whatever the type of production of their company (console, PC, mobile, serious games, VR/AR experiences, game engines, marketing services, game consoles, streaming, etc. ), as well as all the teachers working in private schools in courses related to video game production. For all these people, and since this is a national call to strike, no action is necessary to go on strike: you just have to not come to work on the days you want to strike.

Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.

In a previous communiqué, we reminded everyone of the threat posed by the French government’s political choices and misleading communication around the « covid pass » and the vaccines against Covid-19, which are not the infallible panacea they tried to sell us.

Discussions on the pandemic and public health are virtually absent from all media, which are more interested in spinning the latest far-right moral panic and campaigning for fascists. After nearly two years in a pandemic situation, a new variant emerges, the epidemic rises to unprecedented levels, and the government is still pursuing its criminal policy of inaction. It is as if Covid had not already caused more than 100,000 deaths in France, the majority of which could have been avoided by taking more deliberate measures rather than touting miracle solutions to benefit the capitalist agenda at every stage.

The new and particularly worrying variant, Omicron, could make the situation even worse, like Delta before it. It should be remembered that the higher the circulation of the virus, the more likely it is that these mutations will appear, kill more people and prolong the epidemic. The flaws in public health policies directly favour their emergence. This is why it is absolutely necessary to lift patents on vaccines in order to ensure equitable and global access to vaccination and to stop the pandemic.

At this very moment, many video game companies are trying to formalise their remote working policies, generally doing their best not to make it too widespread, and to maintain their control over their employees. Some have even forced a full return to the office for several months already. We demand the massive implementation of remote working in the video game industry, so that all voluntary workers can avoid risking their health at work and while commuting.

This demand is neither absurd nor complicated, as previous waves have shown that it is feasible. Companies had massively implemented remote work, which remains a practical, efficient and proven solution after more than a year of pandemic. Video games jobs are generally very well fitting to this kind of work, and so there are no longer any valid excuses for not reducing workers’, and their close relatives, exposition to the virus – and more importantly, for not reducing the industry’s workers contribution to virus circulation within the population as a whole.

If physical presence in the office is really necessary, the application of sanitary measures (disinfection and ventilation of the premises, physical distancing, protection by wearing a mask throughout the working day) is indispensable and compulsory. It should also be reminded that technical devices exist, and must be adopted in addition to individual measures: CO2 sensors (in french) can detect a lack of ventilation (this of course requires that the necessary measures are taken in case of insufficient ventilation !), and air filtration devices (HEPA standard) are a suitable solution for places where ventilation is not possible. These are not comfort measures, but necessary conditions for any work in shared spaces!

For workers, the benefits (significant reduction of risks for oneself (in french) and others (in french), and ultimately participation in the eradication of the virus) of vaccination are immense and undeniable but, contrary to the lies peddled by some ministers, it does not protect 100% and does not completely prevent infecting oneself or others. Vaccination is therefore not an individual but a collective solution.

It is important that as many of us as possible take advantage of having access to a booster dose (third for most people) to get vaccinated, not to blindly follow the government but for the health of us all. Let’s remember that the law passed last July by the French Parliament includes, in its article 17 (in french), the right for employees to go and get vaccinated during working hours, without any penalty to their salary or holiday rights. There is therefore no longer any excuse on that front, and we will be uncompromising with any company that opposes the exercise of this right.

From the beginning, the government’s vaccination campaign has disproportionately favoured the wealthy, like all its policies. Let’s act autonomously to build a vaccination coverage capable of protecting all workers!

To build the solidarity and mutual aid necessary to face the pandemic, let us continue together to :

• get vaccinated and get the necessary booster shots;
• encourage our relatives to get vaccinated;
• help people who suffer from the discriminatory nature of access to vaccination appointments to get them;
• remind and demand the strict application of sanitary measures in our everyday life and at work;
• isolate ourselves and get tested whenever possible, at the onset of symptoms or if any doubt arises.

This article is a sub-section of a large report on French video game studies published by the STJV. You will find the table of contents of this dossier, and links to all its parts, here : https://www.stjv.fr/en/2021/09/report-on-french-video-game-studies/

As a consequence of the problems cited, video game studies accustom students to working in poor conditions, being overloaded with work and having to organize and find solutions to problems alone, without support. This goes against the primary mission of schools: teaching. They also expose them to sexist atmospheres (often categorised by the term “boys’ club”) and harassment, while indulging in favouritism towards people with harmful or even dangerous behaviour. Finally, by promising them wonderful careers in an exciting environment, and dispossessing them of their work and knowingly ignoring labour laws, they push them into precariousness.

Taken together, these problems combine to reveal the true function of higher education as conceived in the video game (and many other) industry: schools serve the industry and companies, not their “clients,” i‧e. the students. Whether this function is conscious or not among school administrations does not matter, because the result remains the same regardless of the intention.

The first result of this submission to the industry consists in studies that ensure a pre-selection of future workers for the companies. While this occurs from the admission process, as previously stated, the material costs and studying conditions finalise the elimination of weakened, marginalised and disabled people. The “non-conforming” persons who manage to enter video game studies are under continuous pressure during their school years, pushing them to drop out. Among the few figures available on the French video game industry, there are two that speak volumes in the SNJV’s annual survey and expose the extent of the problem for women, one of the categories of people discriminated against, among so many others: for 2019, it indicates a percentage of 26% women in video game schools, but only 14% of women in the industry’s companies. This reflects discrimination in hiring, but also the large number of women who drop out during their studies.

This pre-selection allows companies to ensure that the majority of the people they recruit will be “fitted” to the industry, or “docile” enough to suffer in silence, and that they will therefore not need to adapt their offices, methods and work organisations, thus saving them money. It also has the effect of homogenising the industry: socially, by keeping a majority of employees from middle and upper classes, and culturally, by ensuring that the ideas, themes and intentions brought by workers do not go too far outside the current industry framework. Efforts to push students to create “marketable” games, and the consequent favouritism towards students who fit into the industry’s mould, play a huge part in this cultural standardisation. This is despite the fact that the industry would benefit from leaving more room for the exploration of new themes and mechanics.

In addition to this social selection, the schools also participate very actively in formatting students, pushing them to accept degraded working conditions in studios. Classes are mostly technical, to meet the requirements of job offers, and do not care much about the socialisation and well-being of students at work. Courses addressing labour law, corporate relations and the problems one encounters there are rare. But in a way this is understandable, since these same problems are present in schools (as evidenced by the number of them that do not respect labour laws). In the few schools that do offer them, they are particularly focused on entrepreneurship, which has multiple uses for the employers:

• to make students dream of setting up their own studio;
• to make them think like bosses;
• to push them towards precarious situations such as self-employment;
• to divert them from the legal recourses to which they have access.

« to get hired for sure, you should take on an auto-entrepreneur (freelance) status and ask for half the minimum wage for a full time job »

Statement from a manager at école Bellecour

« During a “contract and law” class, it was explained to us that if we had a problem, going to the labour courts meant taking the risk of being “flagged” as a troublemaker »

Former student at a video game school

Schools do not only offer talks by professionals and companies wishing to share their knowledge. They also invite professionals who simply come to advertise their products, production processes or studio like sales representatives, as well as employers’ lobbies (of which the schools are often members). It is thus almost impossible to escape from decontextualised business propaganda during one’s studies, the purpose of which being to teach students to love the degraded working conditions of the industry.«

« [We had] interventions from video game “professionals” to teach us how to crunch properly. […] We were conditioned to enjoy it. In our heads it was fantastic. »

Former student at a video game school

These professionals are now coming to select students directly in schools. This is done mainly through project juries, which are often treated by students and jury members as similar to job interviews, especially since these moments are presented by the schools as opportunities for companies to seek potential candidates. Typically, these juries are composed of professionals who volunteered after an announcement or proposal from the schools, sometimes relayed and approved internally by companies. What passes for a commendable initiative at first glance, is once again akin to free labour to the benefit of the schools, with many perverse effects. Indeed, these volunteers are almost never qualified to review student work, and their presence can be motivated by a wide variety of very personal and sometimes dangerous motives, with some seeing it as an opportunity to smear students’ work or even to harass them. Their presence also contributes to the reproduction and standardisation of the industry’s products, by favouring projects close to their personal tastes and to what they themselves produce.

« The school *** is looking for pros for its end of year jury. […] It’s the perfect opportunity to go and encourage the kids and/or to go take it out on them »

Internal mail from a French studio

The direct presence, at all levels, of professionals and representatives of the industry blurs the boundary between the latter and schools, particularly by ensuring the promotion of the industry to the detriment of informing students about its much less pleasant realities. Whether this is conscious and/or admitted or not, the purpose of schools remains to provide productive machines to companies, not to prepare people to live their work in the best conditions. The STJV’s interventions in schools, which we have been doing for several years and during which we introduce students to internship and labour laws and to the realities of the industry, are an attempt at compensating for their shortcomings and at counterbalancing the presence of employer lobbies within them. We will continue our efforts in this direction and remain available, with the aim of doing so in as many schools as possible. Do not hesitate to contact us.

This statement was written by French Ubisoft employees, including the STJV sections at Ubisoft Annecy, Ubisoft Montpellier and Ubisoft Paris, and adresses the situations we face in our day-to-day lives. While our conclusions may not apply to everyone within the company (due to legal differences between countries, for example), we believe that the principles described here remain valid everywhere and would be happy to get in touch with workers leading similar struggles outside of France.

NB: Throughout this article, we’ll refer to « CSEs ». A CSE (Comité Social Économique, aka Economic and Social Committee) is a workers council that’s mandatory by French law in any company over 11 employees. Its members are elected by the company’s workers, and they are protected from unjustified firing by their employer. A CSE is tasked with protecting the company’s workers by advising them on their rights, giving feedback to the company’s management on the problems they observe and making sure that the company respects the law.

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A little over a year ago, Ubisoft faced an unprecedented wave of testimonies about numerous cases of harassment and aggressions taking place within the group. These reports implicated many people, including some high up in the group’s hierarchy, and revealed a corporate structure that felt no remorse ignoring the many alerts issued about its members, and drove victims to resign.

Our analysis of the situation has not changed since then. More than ever, it is necessary that workers (through their representatives, unions or other local structures) are fully involved in the decision-making processes to address these issues. As such, the members of our sections within Ubisoft who are also members of the CSEs, and in particular our section representatives, have worked hard to ensure that this is the case.

This exhausting work (see the timeline at the end of this article), engaging with a management structure that used any trick at its disposal to buy time, is now blocked by a brutal and completely out-of-touch response from the group’s management, which outright refuses our demands. Once again, they cannot in any way claim to be wiping the slate clean by replacing only one or two well-known « figureheads » in order to conjure up a cleaner image.

By refusing to include employees in the feedback and decision-making process on harassment, Ubisoft management shows that it never had any intention to do more than communicate to « save face ».

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Another recent element illustrates this: the introduction of a sixth evaluation attribute (in addition to the five existing ones). This sixth attribute, « Act as a role model », would apply to everyone working at Ubisoft, and would not only impact their remuneration like the rest of the evaluation (see link below), but it would also be used as a multiplier for the production bonus in case of a game release. There are huge problems with this attribute, as it is given overwhelming importance, while its definition is extremely vague: « showing empathy », « being inclusive », « having a constructive approach »…

Ubisoft’s evaluation system is already deeply flawed and unfair, as we pointed out last June. This system is a factor of psycho-social risks, and adding a device that is highly likely to increase these risk factors rather than fundamentally reforming the evaluation and remuneration systems in place is simply irresponsible.

This addition is purely about public image: it will allow management to boast that it is fighting against harassment via a salary impact, while completely ignoring the fact that it is a tool that only intervenes after the fact (since it is used at the time of the evaluation), and that it is riddled with critical flaws: the predominant role of the manager in a situation where problems often come from these hierarchical superiors, possible discrimination against people who do not « fit in », etc. Therefore, this attribute could effectively become another harassment and discrimination tool available to the group’s management, rather than one used to fight against it.

This was not lost on our members from marginalised groups who immediately saw how these measures would exacerbate rather than reduce the discrimination they face:

• There is a real risk that their marginalisation will be highlighted in the evaluations: in the event of a positive evaluation, the person will be considered « privileged » by nature, reinforcing potential accusations of favouritism, or of being a « token ».
• A person who defends themselves against inappropriate remarks or misbehaviour may be evaluated negatively for their « non-constructive » approach or « difficulty in integrating with the team » even more than at present.
• This attribute does not help to reveal or regulate harassment problems within teams: it can instead be an additional means of repression, and in all likelihood a harasser will not be « punished » at the evaluation if they have not already been subjected to disciplinary actions.
• It should also be remembered that this attribute does not help to improve the evaluation process, since this process is dependent on the budget allocated for salary increases (see our previous article above).
• It should also be remembered that marginalised people are already most often penalised with lower salaries. They are therefore particularly likely to be harmed if their manager abuses this sixth attribute.
• People with neuroatypical empathic functioning could be blamed and punished in the name of this supposedly inclusive attribute.

The conclusion of this frightening, yet non-exhaustive, list is that this sixth attribute would rather encourage the people it is supposed to protect to remain silent so as not to be discriminated against further – or worse, that it encourages dangerous people to amplify their violence towards victims to silence them.

The STJV, on behalf of its members working in the Ubisoft group, is therefore demanding that the sixth attribute draft proposition be withdrawn altogether, as well as the integration of workers at all levels of the harassment reporting process, and not just downstream, after management has been able to water down or even cover up certain cases.

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This article is a sub-section of a large report on French video game studies published by the STJV. You will find the table of contents of this dossier, and links to all its parts, here : https://www.stjv.fr/en/2021/09/report-on-french-video-game-studies/

If students feel guilty about promoting their schools, it is not only because of the poor studying conditions and the exploitation, but also because the education they receive is often of poor quality. It is difficult to praise the merits of a school whose pedagogy is unreliable or even non-existent, and whose relevance fades with each passing year. All the more so when the schools’ brochures often boast of course hours far in excess of those actually provided, with classes that are outright missing from the curriculum.

The classes taught, which are mostly technical at the expense of other forms of knowledge, very often teach students technologies and processes that are outdated in the industry and, in most cases, do not have any educational structure. This is because the vast majority of schools simply do not allocate any, or only very few, resources to academic consistency and monitoring. This lack of resources leads to a lack of communication between teachers, the absence of a stable curriculum, and a lack of consistency between disciplines. Classes that would benefit from being taught simultaneously are not, and the number of projects multiplies because each class requires a specific one, instead of grouping different works into a single project, thus contributing to the overwork of students.

Some teachers have told us that they have been hired and then sent in front of classes without any kind of syllabus, training or even basic tips from the educational department they report to. The high turnover of teachers and pedagogical staff prevents any continuity from one year to the next and leads to absurd situations where the same lectures are given two years in a row, to the same class, with two different speakers. To compensate for these shortcomings, students or teachers sometimes take on the task of pedagogical coordination in place of their school, but they are neither trained nor paid for this additional work. And the pedagogical departments do not facilitate this work: they are described as opaque, hardly communicating with either students or teachers. “Getting answers to our emails is a real obstacle course”, students in many schools tell us.

As if to drive the point home, these problems get worse as the years go by. With each passing year, schools are moving more and more towards a so-called ‘project-based learning’ approach, which allows them to leave students to fend for themselves without a teacher, sometimes to the point where Masters years are effectively completed without any classes. The mass adoption of this mode of non-teaching, apart from saving schools money by making the expense of monitoring training unnecessary, has no educational quality, drives students to burnout, increases inequalities, and gives rise to many of the problems outlined in the previous sections.

This article is a sub-section of a large report on French video game studies published by the STJV. You will find the table of contents of this dossier, and links to all its parts, here : https://www.stjv.fr/en/2021/09/report-on-french-video-game-studies/

These poor studying conditions are made even more difficult to identify when schools actively fight against their disclosure, instead of fighting against the problems themselves, and try to cover up any issue. Even if this makes the situation worse for victims and leads them to drop out of their school. The articles on discrimination and harassment published in Libération and Gamekult illustrate well the attitude of schools when they are faced with such problems. Since the publication of these articles, internal reports from several schools indicate that educational departments have remained silent about their content. The publication of an article and our press release, mentioned in the introduction to this report, on the suicide of a student at LISAA, had already led to a suppression of speech in this school.

This unacceptable repression is due to a number of reasons, but, at the systemic level, the main one is surely the dependence of these schools to their public image. Because their profitability depends on their reputation among people wishing to be enrolled there, and among companies, so as to be able to ‘place’ the students graduating from them (and thus use these placements as arguments with future students, closing the loop). This pushes school administrations to exploit students for their own profit.

In particular, we will see schools giving priority to students who are able to boost their reputation, and therefore to those considered ‘gifted’ in the current economic framework. In addition to deepening inequalities, as resources are redirected towards the students who need them least, to the detriment of those who need them most, this contributes to the degradation of relations between students, some of them causing harm to others out of a sense of competition, or jealousy. All of this takes place under the gaze of school managements, who even go so far as to protect abusers in order to uphold the reputation of their school. We received reports of students who had sexually assaulted and/or harassed others and were not punished because this could have ‘damaged the quality’ of their end of studies projects.

In fact, these student projects are used as marketing materials, serving to promote the school above all else. The theft of students work by their education institutions is a common practice: copying the video game industry, the schools’ contracts include copyright assignment clauses in their favour. Although always illegal, since it is absolutely impossible to assign rights to future works, which do not yet exist, in France, the existence of these clauses will allow schools to exercise leverage over students to claim the use of their work for their own publicity. As an example: the french Pégases awards, which grant an award (already problematic in itself) for student projects, attributes the authorship of these projects not to the students themselves, but to the school from which they come. Students are not considered the authors of these projects.

As if this were not enough, students are often forced, or in the best cases ‘very strongly invited’, to work to promote the school at open days and other trade shows. This unpaid work allows schools to fake transparency with visitors, allowing them to talk ‘freely’ with people currently studying at the school. In reality, students are often present to earn bonus points or because the school’s promotion counts as a required teaching unit. Schools provide them with talking points and monitor what they say, with several accounts reporting the discomfort and guilt felt by students forced to lie to convince high school students to enrol in a school where they themselves feel bad.

Ultimately, the exploitation of students can be extremely literal when schools use them as cheap, expendable labour. Because even when students work for their school within a legal framework, which is rarely the case, the double worker/student subordination relationship with the company allows schools to use the student status to put pressure on working conditions and salaries, with no possibility of external control.

Thanks to the testimonies collected, we were able to notice that schools exploit students to replace teaching units, by making them work for example on assignments for private companies “to prepare them for the professional world”, or even as “teachers” by entrusting lab sessions or first year lectures to students from higher years. Cases of illegal employment of students, without a contract and with variable “payment methods” (gift vouchers, discount on their tuition, etc.), are also not rare. Among other things, we were told of schools that use students as watchmen to keep the school premises open at night and on weekends, without any supervision, or as a replacement for the IT department by putting them in charge of maintaining the school’s computers and installing pirated versions of software.