Changes need to take place in the educational content

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.

NFTs in video games: harmful technology, speculative bubble, it must all go

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.

In order to move forward on schools’ problems, changes must take place at all levels

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/

While waiting for external actions and systemic reactions to occur, sometimes one has to take matters into their own hands. Indeed, students or teachers directly facing discrimination, harassment, health problems caused by their studying or working conditions need immediate actions, and cannot wait for large-scale changes. To this end, there are different means of forcing schools to respect the law, their teachers and their students.

It should be reminded that students of a private education institution are consumers of the services provided by the company behind that institution. Contracts with schools, which are often integrated or even merged with application papers, obviously fall under the law, mainly consumer rights law. Schools must comply with their clauses. In particular, schools must provide an outline of the courses to be taken. If the courses provided do not correspond to this, or if they are not provided, the school can be sued.

Moreover, as mentioned before, discrimination and harassment are already punished by law. Teachers, administrative staff, school representatives who discriminate against or harass students can also be prosecuted, and in many cases the school that allowed these acts to take place can also be prosecuted.

We explained in the first part of this report that schools are economically dependent on their public image, and disproportionately so. Although this dependence is a source of many problems, and one of the main causes of schools’ repression on their students’ freedom of speech, it is also a weakness. Schools are afraid of having their wrongdoings exposed publicly, which gives a relatively powerful leverage to the victims of their (in)actions. Asking for accountability and asking questions at open days, at fairs, in meetings that schools may have with parents, students, student delegates, can also fit into this kind of tactic.

Whatever the means chosen, acting and exposing oneself alone is always risky, financially, mentally or socially. We very strongly advise not to do things on your own and, depending on the situation, to approach unions, consumers’ associations, lawyers, etc. In the same way, it is always useful to communicate with colleagues, fellow students, external acquaintances, other parents… Warning each other, discussing our problems together, combining different skills, experiences and means, gives the opportunity to do more, and better, than alone.

Many suggested solutions to the issues of video game studies are dead ends or lies

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/

While schools are often the first to blame for these problems, they are hardly the last to attempt to solve them. Well aware of the economic risks of a loss of public reputation – or for members of the administration, the risks to their careers – they have found means of protecting themselves.

The first one, which we discussed in the first part of this report, is of course repressive measures. The “best” way to protect one’s reputation is to prevent the expression of any fact or opinion that might damage it. Intimidation of students, notably via school rules that violate basic freedoms, unlawful dismissals of people considered a nuisance, the use of crisis communication agencies to counter-attack and bury information, SLAPP suits … the range of options in this regard is unfortunately wide and heavily used.

These issues are those against which workers’ and students’ organisations, such as the STJV, are fighting on a daily basis through their actions: our goals are to prevent companies (and therefore schools) from abusing their power, to create a counter-power benefiting all workers, present and future, protecting whistleblowers, and, in the long run, to hand all power over to the workers.

Among the external actors of private education monitoring, we also find the state. Through schools’ subsidies mechanisms but also, and above all, through its system of degree certification via the Répertoire National des Certifications Professionnelles (RNCP). These certifications are very important, because a degree that is not recognised by the state “does not count” administratively, which has many repercussions:

  • Without ECTS credits, it is very difficult to obtain equivalences in order to continue one’s studies elsewhere, whether in the public sector or abroad;
  • some state subsidies are conditioned by the validation of a recognised education level;
  • some CNC grants for independent video game creators and studios require a recognised degree from a small subset of schools;
  • obtaining visas, whether in France to immigrate there, or abroad to emigrate, is often conditioned by the education level and therefore the recognition of the degrees achieved;
  • professional status and all that goes with it (salary, pension, holidays, etc.) may also be linked to the recognised education level.

If the monitoring of education by a public authority external to private education companies is useful and even necessary, these certifications are not without flaws, and schools are constantly seeking to hijack or circumvent them. Degree designations are sometimes misleading, for example the term “Mastère” which, unlike the term “Master”, is not an official designation and therefore does not guarantee the quality or recognition of the degree. The certifications given may not correspond to the classes taught, as is the case in a Parisian school where the Game Designer diploma delivered has an RNCP certification of “interactive designer”. But they may also have expired, despite being highlighted in schools’ advertising, leaving students at risk of obtaining a diploma that is not certified upon graduation.

As employers’ lobbies want to limit state intervention in their business, they often pretend to be ahead of legislation to show a positive image and negotiate the deregulation of their sector, in the name of some imaginary “self-regulation”. One example in the video game industry is the game rating and age recommendation systems, whose management by these lobbies is partly responsible for the uncontrolled emergence of gambling mechanics in recent games. This exposes children in particular to a practice that is normally highly controlled. As far as video game studies in France are concerned, this strategy takes the form of various labels, mainly the Réseau des Formations aux Métiers du Jeu Vidéo (RFMJV, formerly REJV, Réseau des Écoles du Jeu Vidéo).

But, like all private labels, this one is only a front for communication. It is impossible to trust it, and the people and organisations behind it know this very well, even going so far as to reject the title of “label” and any responsibility that goes with it when confronted about it. In an article in Libération in April 2021, the journalists recall that “admission conditions [to the RFMJV] do not imply any control over the content of classes, and the Syndicat National du Jeu Vidéo insists on the fact that this network is not a label“.

The shortcomings of labels are not only caused by the organisations behind them. Ensuring sufficient quality in educational programmes is a colossal task, beyond the reach of private actors, which in any case would only allow for a posteriori evaluations. It is simply impossible to guarantee that data is up to date, true or complete. This is why, rather than relying on necessarily imperfect communication tools, we prefer the implementation of systems that prevent schools from being judge and jury, and ensure that the problems and lies we are talking about do not occur in the first place.

Beyond labels, companies, including schools, have many other tools at their disposal. Practices such as over-communicating about the slightest effort, whether real or not, appropriating minorities’ struggles while undermining their core message, or exploiting marginalised people are unfortunately common. They are better known as pinkwashing or socialwashing. Inauguration of a building accessible to persons with reduced mobility while the rest of the campus is not and never will be, promotion of a gender discrimination awareness week while the school turns a blind eye to the sexual harassment that takes place within it, a ban on crunch in a school that explicitly leaves project rooms accessible 24/7 and overloads students with projects… There are many examples. Highlighting the 5% of things that are going well often conceals, sometimes intentionally, the 95% that are not.

While the benefits of making discrimination more visible, the representation of marginalised people and ‘role models’ have been demonstrated, these are just the tip of the iceberg, and can never replace fighting discrimination from within and in a systemic way. Attracting marginalised people is a small and inexpensive step to take, preventing discrimination against them throughout their education and career, whether one is the perpetrator or it comes from someone else, requires far more effort.

In this respect, charity is a good example of dissonance between publicly stated intentions and actual impact. For example, but this is not the only case, the positive direct effects of a private scholarship are completely undeniable, and one can acknowledge the light it sheds on the material problem of access to private education. But one can also lament the far greater benefits it brings to video game companies, and to individuals who capitalise on the positive image of such initiative to promote themselves despite any misconduct they might be accused of.

Many schools and studios have been quick to jump on the bandwagon to give themselves a ‘humanist’ image, making financial donations that are cheap compared to their annual budgets: tax exemptions means that 60% of them will actually be paid directly by the state. The motives of institutional sponsors can thus be seriously questioned when they include schools that explicitly discriminate against some students during the recruitment process and continue to raise their tuition fees every year, or companies that cover up the material and personal discrimination they impose on their marginalised employees.

In recent years, many schools also added various ethical codes of conduct to their communication arsenal. These codes consist of a series of proposals to improve diversity and inclusion in schools, and can be incorporated into the school’s rules. On paper nothing negative, and schools have not hesitated to stage the signing of these codes during important events of the French industry, in the presence of ministers, or to communicate intensively on their introduction to their students and during their open days.

However, these codes are only notes of intent, or recommendations. They are not tools for solving problems, only communication tools to express the intention to solve them. This is why, unfortunately and not surprisingly, there are schools that have signed an ethical code of conduct but continue to cover up problems internally and to repress the people who try to solve them. Some of the first schools to communicate publicly about such codes were reported to have actively protected sexually abusive students or teachers in the year following the implementation of their respective codes.

Ethical committees, whose name and composition may change locally, are a key measure found in the majority of recently adopted codes. When they are set up, they are usually composed of volunteer students and teachers and can be tasked with collecting testimonies and complaints, discussing problems in the school, and/or proposing solutions to the administration. The existence of such representative bodies is good news, as it is a significant step forward in student representation and democracy in schools.

However, a number of biases remain, of which we must be aware. The composition of these committees, necessarily only people from the school and mixing teachers and students, can lead to difficulties of judgement, as in a recent case where an ethical committee initially did not want to study in detail reports about a former and high ranking teacher, or when students are deprived of their right to speak (voluntarily or involuntarily) because of the hierarchical superiority of teachers over them. The members of these committees are very often temporary, preventing a long-term monitoring that is often necessary, and preventing the identification of repeated situations: no matter the band-aid solutions, the obstacles that marginalized people face are systemic. But in most cases, the main problem is the lack of resources and power allocated to these committees, and the resulting inactivity or inefficiency.

This is in fact the main problem behind all attempts to solve problems. Actions and regulations without the will to allocate resources to ensure that they are respected and carried out properly are in fact merely propaganda and camouflage tools for employers (or the state, depending on the type of regulation).

As in almost all fields and sectors, more resources are needed first and foremost. There are already laws, decrees and other regulations that take into account existing problems: we don’t need one more law (let alone a code) to prohibit (again) rape, harassment, breach of contract, embezzlement, etc. Before talking about more regulation, the existing ones should be enforced.

January 27, 2022 strikes for wages, pensions and benefits: call for strikes in the video game industry

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.

New epidemic wave, same solutions: remote work, self-isolation, vaccines

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.

Schools are serving the industry, not their students

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.

Harassment: Ubisoft chooses delaying tactics and communication campaigns instead of protecting employees

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.


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 ».


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.


Studying conditions lead to the reproduction of the industry’s problems

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/

The absence of questioning of the industry’s methods and the lack of a development of a critical perspective, combined with the high porosity between teachers and the industry, leads to the reproduction of the industry’s problems in schools. Many of them even come to consider them as normal for the industry and encourage their students to adopt them in their work organisation and social behaviour. These students will then join the video game industry and act in the same way, thus ensuring the reproduction of everything that is wrong with it.

The first articles in Libération and Gamekult discuss at length the practice of crunch in schools, and for good reason. Even in schools that make great efforts to limit workloads, students are expected to work 60-hour weeks or more. And that is without counting “pools”, very intensive work periods with various names such as workshop, intensive week, project week, etc., or project submissions, which result in very busy work periods with no special working time arrangements. The deadlines for these projects very often fall just after weekends and holidays, with the implicit idea that these breaks will in fact be used to do very long days (and nights) of work until the last minute before the deadline. It is not uncommon for educational departments to value all-nighters and projects with scopes far greater than what is manageable by students, as we have witnessed on numerous occasions in emails and messages sent to students. This unacceptably high workload has, as everywhere else, serious consequences for health and social life. Many students are already burnt out by the time they leave school, even before they have worked in a company.

The multiplication of working hours is also often encouraged, indirectly, by the opening hours of the school facilities. It is not uncommon for school buildings to be open to students until very late in the evening and on weekends and, in extreme cases, to never close. If access to the facilities is important for students to be able to use the school’s equipment, especially for those who cannot afford to buy expensive equipment by themselves, the resulting abuses are unacceptable. Systematic open hours, keys to the buildings provided to students, educational directors present on the premises to encourage project groups: when a school explains that it is possible to work at night in their facilities, they are normalising an abnormal practice, which the students integrate into their work process.

Discriminations of all kinds are also widespread in video game schools. Sexism, racism, ableism, LGBTI-phobia, and all other forms of discrimination are commonplace, reflecting the present of the video game industry, and shaping its future. Numerous testimonies we received speak of discrimination and harassment suffered during the course of studies, going so far as to push students to quit their studies or, worse, to end their lives. The second articles published in Libération and Gamekult go back through numerous testimonies about these discriminations and about the failure of schools to react, when they are not themselves at the origin of these discriminations.

Indeed, schools have a lot to do to stop discriminating against students. And this starts with the admission process, as it has been reported to us on several occasions that some schools have deliberately sidelined applications from disabled and/or LGBT people, considering that integrating them into the school would be “too complicated” and that “it causes problems”. This intolerable and of course illegal practice shows that the problems start before the actual studies begin, but of course they do not end there. People with disabilities, chronic illnesses or, in general, who need special accommodations to their studying environment and rhythm, either temporarily or permanently, virtually always run into a brick wall: schools expect them to fit in or leave the school. Those who try to report discriminations to the administrations are at best ignored, and at worst their voice is belittled and questioned, and their future within the school is jeopardised.

Speaking out alone is not always without consequences. Too often, the perpetrators of discrimination (teachers, administrators, students) are protected by the educational management, which does not sanction them, sidelines the victims instead of protecting them, etc. Many educational departments actively participate in discrimination in this way, but also by being a direct actor in it. Testimonies of educational directors telling women that they do not belong in video games, or disabled people that they must adapt to the industry and not the other way around are not so rare, and some schools even refuse to pass a year without any real justification other than pure discrimination. Cases of favouritism at the expense of marginalised people and/or those who speak out about the schools’ problems are also legion.

There is also a great deal of sexism in schools from men teachers towards women students. All too often, teachers use the leverage that the student/teacher relationship gives them to make unwelcome comments or engage in asymmetrical and abusive sexual or romantic relationships with women students, and face no consequences. These predatory behaviours towards younger women who are more vulnerable due to their hierarchical position are reminiscent of behaviours that can be seen in companies and in the social circles of video game workers. In schools they are facilitated, among other things, by the lack of preparation and training of teachers, who are sometimes not even aware of the potential dangers of this student/teacher relationship, and think that they can behave with students as if they were friends.

Students also often follow the toxic examples of their teachers, and engage in forms of discrimination and harassment that are common in socially homogeneous environments, such as the video game industry. This happens at school, but also on social networks and students communication channels such as Slack and Discord servers, etc., which very often exist in students spheres and which schools pretend to ignore in order to absolve themselves. For example, in a testimony we received, a student suffers “increasingly frequent humiliations on the school’s Discord”: transphobic, sexist attacks, to which the school’s management responded “that they could not do anything about it because it was not happening at school”.

Degraded working conditions for teachers

These conclusions on the student side are accompanied, with no surprise when one is familiar with the working conditions in video games and in higher education, by similar conclusions on the teacher side: schools can be a hell for students but ALSO for teachers and lecturers. Precarious contracts, very low salaries, lack of time to prepare lessons and to mark assignments, little or no educational coordination, hierarchical pressure, illegal lay-offs: the working conditions are excessively bad.

Even more disproportionately than in game studios and other video game sub-sectors, the teachers of the various video game disciplines are largely employed via precarious contracts. Fixed-term contracts covering only one semester, hours of teaching paid a posteriori as freelancers, etc. : for many, it is impossible to project themselves on their teaching and their students’ future, and even less on their own finances or career development. This precariousness also hinders teachers who would like to improve the curricula, since schools can simply opt not to renew the contracts of people who might stand up to them.

This precariousness thus serves to pressure workers into accepting intolerable working conditions. Video game schools often offer lower salaries than in other sectors, which already pay very poorly, even if you only take into account the class hours. For one hour of class, there are also hours of preparation, course editing, marking of assignments, discussions with students, but also commuting and hours of waiting between classes (without access to a workstation). Compared to the actual number of hours worked, the salaries are so low that they are not enough to live on.

« Whatever the experience and qualifications of the teacher, if they do not agree with their working conditions, they can simply leave at the end of their fixed-term contract and be replaced by a younger teacher who will accept the job and its working conditions. (…) I was almost always made to sign my contracts after the classes had started. Signing contracts very late is also a means of pressure for HR. The teachers are up against the wall. »

When these conditions are not accepted by the teachers, the schools put even more pressure on them, for example by resorting to emotional blackmail by blaming them for abandoning the students. And if they do not give in, they are replaced. When they express concern about the school’s problems or bring up students’ problems to their managers, their concerns and even their suggestions beneficial to the students are at best ignored by the school management, and at worst suppressed with harassment and illegal firings. Our findings show that the latter is particularly true in cases of discrimination, making schools direct accomplices to it.

While these working conditions do not excuse the misconduct that some teachers may exhibit, they can explain some of it, and show how the whole system is a vector of discrimination and abuse. They also partly explain the low quality of teaching, since they do not allow professors and lecturers to stay for a long time, to gain experience and to follow students from one year to the next. Again, one may notice a loop: the low wages of the industry encourage young workers to accept precarious contracts in schools to supplement their income, regardless of the conditions (sometimes, ironically, to pay off the loan taken out for that same school).

Schools do not make students ready for entering the labour market at all

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/

Project-based learning is often an excuse to “build up students’ portfolios” with no further guidance from the schools as to what this means, or a way to learn to work “just like in the industry” without any educational oversight, and thus without any feedback on how their training matches the reality of the industry. This situation, which is very widespread in video game schools, can be explained in a relatively simple way: video game schools do not prepare students to enter the labour market.

It starts with the inadequacy between the number of students and the number of existing jobs. We feel it is important to stress that video games courses train more people than there are available positions. If it is true in almost all disciplines, it is even more so in certain fields such as game design, or in faculties that exploit the appeal of emerging disciplines, such as narrative design at the moment.

In particular, most of the year groups are very unbalanced in terms of the majors offered, often being composed of 50% of game designers and other design majors. However, there are relatively few jobs to be filled in these specialities in the French industry and internationally. These inconsistencies with the job market force students to over-specialise, to acquire a double expertise by their own means, or even to change direction completely or to give up the idea of working in video games in order to be able to find a job.

Because even at the finest of schools, there is no guarantee that students will find a job in the video game industry, if they even want to after surviving the conditions of their years in school. Many former students have made this observation themselves:

“Today, out of a class of 35, there are maybe 7 or 8 of us still in the video game industry.”

The 2019 Video Game barometer published by the SNJV, a French employers’ lobbying organisation that also includes schools, tells us that 57% of students find a job in the video game industry within a year of finishing their studies, which is a far cry from the 80-90% job placement rate claimed by the vast majority of schools. These employment figures for the first year or two after graduation, when there are any available, are purposely distorted by school managements to impress: they include former students who have been pushed to take up a freelance status without worrying about whether they can make a living out of it (which is rarely the case), and the jobs of former students who have moved on to other industries.

Some schools even introduce job blackmail right from the start of training, encouraging students to accept exploitative internships and/or to take internships without an internship agreement, insinuating that you have to accept everything without question to make video games. It even happens that some of them provide students with forged documents, in particular to satisfy the (illegal) demands of companies.

As a reminder, in France an internship is not an employment contract, it is not supposed to replace a job. A member of the teaching staff is responsible for overseeing the internship, with an interview with students during the course of the internship, to ensure that it is going well (for example, checking that the student has a mentor, that the company provides him/her with the necessary equipment and that he/she is in the right conditions to work). Internships are very much regulated by law, this fact sheet from the Ministère du Travail gathers important information.

Schools regularly give very bad “advice” to their students, encouraging them to enter the industry by accepting very precarious, unpaid or underpaid jobs. Among the comments we received were these chilling words from a member of the teaching staff to an entire class:

“To be hired for sure, you take an auto-entrepreneur (freelance) status and you ask for half the minimum wage for a full time job.”

The lies, whether explicit or of omission, of private schools are playing on the cool image of the video game industry. They sell dreams by talking about a rich, growing industry where creativity is limitless, while students will discover after graduation that salaries are low, the jobs they fantasized about are rare, opportunities for career advancement are limited, and most jobs are in companies that are peripheral to mainstream game production.

Many of these students will have taken out loans to cover the ridiculous cost of their studies, which they will then have trouble paying back because of the precariousness of the industry, low salaries, or simply because they will not have found a job.The few who manage to get a job in the video game industry will, after a few years, reorient themselves towards industries with more interesting conditions and salaries, leaving room for students from schools who will in turn flood the market… Thus, the loop is completed.

Our presentations in schools, and our discussions with students and professors, have revealed that students are almost never aware of the basics of internship and labour laws when they start looking for a job, sometimes not even really knowing the difference between a salaried and a freelance status. These gaps show a lack of teaching, as students should be prepared to be able to defend themselves when they leave school, if only to enable them to know the different employment statuses and to identify an abusive contract… It is essential that labour laws and economic concepts related to wages be an integral part of the training of any higher education institution.

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