I've said it before and I'll say it again, the games industry needs unionization. The idea that it is somehow permissible to treat your workers like absolute shit because this is a 'creative' industry is so unbelievably abhorrent. It's the same justification that employers have used for the last hundred and fifty years to resist unionization. Our industry is 'special', it's 'different', if you mess with it bad things will happen. Bullshit. The argument that jobs would flee overseas doesn't hold muster either. Most countries have quite stringent union laws, the exception being America and to an extent, Australia.
The very worst thing about this story is not the unpaid hours worked, the awful conditions, the borderline sociopathic management, but the pride that McNamara takes in all this. He sits there behind his thin excuse of being an 'auteur' and pretends that it's alright to treat human beings like disposable resources just because the end product is well received.
The fact of the matter is that in most cases pertaining to worker's rights, employers can not be trusted to do the right thing by themselves. This is the entire reason unions exist. You'd better believe this kind of bullshit wouldn't happen if the industry was widely unionized.
The final argument is always 'Well, if you do this, games will be more expensive/take longer to come out/ wont be as good.' For a start, this is total speculation, and secondly, so what? Games are a hobby to me, I love and enjoy them but I'm not willing to see human misery caused in my name. It's not worth it.
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