The US Department of Labor is currently hosting the Workers’ Voice Summit, a three-day event where representatives from across industries meet to discuss concerns with their governmental counterparts. The games industry is in a particular spotlight thanks to a steady stream of reports on abuse, harassment, and poor work conditions, with many devs calling unionization the only solution to the industry’s problems.They might be right, but government oversight still has a role to play. That’s according to Amber La Macchia, a senior QA tester at Activision. She spoke to Polygon about the terrible prevalence of crunch within the industry and called on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to step in and investigate."There’s this perception that crunch is necessary and unavoidable, or that complaining about crunch is odd in the face of other injustices — like it’s an insignificant issue — but crunch ruins lives," La Macchia said. "This is something we don’t have to face as a very young industry, and because it’s a young industry, things are not locked in stone."
Developers have frequently called out crunch as one of the worst aspects of the games industry. Many developers have called out crunch in an effort to stamp out the practice, but it seems to be deeply entrenched at some studios. Speaking as a representative of the Communications Workers of America, La Macchia said that's something that OSHA should definitely be concerned with.
"The video game industry is brand new, at least compared to many of the other industries in the United States. OSHA is not very present when it comes to health and safety [in the video game industry]. One of the big things that I would like to see done is a proper investigation, training for health and safety concerns, and regulations."
It remains to be seen whether OSHA will take La Macchia up on her suggestion. Meanwhile, game developers at multiple publishers and studios are looking to unionize in order to improve pay, benefits, and working conditions.