Is our industry really so heavenly we don't need the comfortable assurance of tenure and normal work hours? Any victim of outsourcing or frequent "crunch time" is crazy to think so. No, things have swung in the direction of upper management, to the point where workers are forced to accept low pay and long hours out of fear, and it's time to bring the equilibrium back to balance. It's time to make Electronic Arts a union shop.

EA employs 2,500 people inside the U.S. They boast that none of their employees are "represented by a union, guild or other collective bargaining association." But really, why aren't they?

Frustrations with the developer/publisher relationship have been emphatically stated even by developers who have been extremely successful in the industry, such as Naughty Dog co-founder Jason Rubin, who left his studio in 2004 following a well-publicized address to developers demanding they lobby for more recognition and control.

Is unionization the answer, though? It's hard to say. Game development is still one of the most sought-after jobs around, and starting a union system for the industry would be a great challenge at best.