The aforementioned Polygon studio, Vodeo Games, which is fully remote studio founded this year by Asher Vollmer, who released the turn-based mouse-bouncing strategy game Beast Breaker on Nintendo Switch and PC in September, is a remote studio with roughly 13 full-time workers and independent contractors across both the US and Canada. Vodeo Games Union, which it formed in partnership with CODE-CWA, is the first gaming union to see both of its employees eligible for benefits. The developers at the studio told Polygon they were inspired to organize their own unions because they looked at their colleagues in the game-making and the tech industry demand better paid salaries and work conditions. One of the unions that cited them was Voltage Organizationed Workers, which was created by all the gameswriters of Voltage Entertainment in the USA, and started by the studio behind Lovestruck: Choose Your Romance, after it had been 21 days in the strike against management who refused to recognize their demands for better working conditions, transparency and more protections, and won. According to Game Director Chris Floyd, Vodeo employees focused on getting the right conditions for working in studios, while the potential to work on projects that could appeal to other companies who like to work, aimed at a good example of them notwithstanding: abuses often happen at companies like Activision Blizzard, where some QA workers are still on strike following layoffs at Raven Software. We looked at the wider industry; all of us were aware of how important these kinds of actions are for our industry. He said, as you looked around, it’s just so obvious. As part of their voluntary recognition from Vodeo’s management, Vodeo Games Union remains unafraid to resign to build a fair and equitable workplace for all employees. They seek benefits such as a four-day workweek, and for the benefits they have already gained.
