Need For Unionization in the Video Gaming Industry

Dhananjai Shekhawat
NMIMS Kirit P. Mehta School of Law, Mumbai, India

Volume III, Issue IV, 2020

This paper talks about the video gaming industry and the urgent need for unionization in the industry. It explains the reasons and extent of the growth of the video gaming industry in the last few years. Chapter I of the paper talks about the Micro Transaction Model that is used to earn revenue by the videogame developers. Chapter II talks about the problem of ‘Crunch’ caused due to the micro-transaction model and how it impacts the life of video game developers and designers in the absence of labour law regulations. Chapter III talks about the role and condition of women in the video gaming industry, identifying the problems faced by them and the reasons for the same. Chapter IV explains how unionization will help solve most of the problems discussed in the previous chapters, and throws light on the contemporary situation with regards to movements and organizations pushing for unionization. The last part of the paper sums up the issues discussed in the paper and gives analyses of the future of the video gaming industry with regards to the COVID-19 pandemic.