Labor regulations in the gaming industry (with Jennifer Hale)

Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer

Civic Ventures

Business, Government, News, Politics

4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 1 May 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Prolific voice actor Jennifer Hale joins Paul and Stephen to discuss her work in two very different fields: the video game industry, which largely isn't unionized, and the animated film industry, which enjoys strong union protections. Jennifer Hale is a voice actress known for her work in video game series including Baldur’s Gate, Mass Effect, Halo, World of Warcraft, Spider Man, and many more. In 2013, she was recognized by Guinness World Records as the most prolific female video game voice actor. Twitter: @jhaletweets Further reading: As video games make billions, the workers behind them say it’s time to unionize: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-video-game-union-movement-20190412-story.html Game makers stare down major union drive: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/video-game-makers-stare-down-major-union-drive-1269510 Website: http://pitchforkeconomics.com/ Twitter: @PitchforkEcon Instagram: @pitchforkeconomics Nick’s twitter: @NickHanauer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Paul. I just want to let you know that we recorded this episode before the coronavirus pandemic hit the United States. So in this episode we don't mention
0:14.4	coronavirus or COVID-19 even once. We thought that might be nice for a change, so we are
0:19.6	releasing this episode this week. Given that Verizon says that video game use has increased by
0:24.7	75% during the shutdown, it seems like a good time to think about how video games are
0:28.9	made and what that labor looks like. Enjoy and have a great weekend.
0:33.0	Hey I'm Stephen Palini. I'm the program director for Civic Action, which is the online
0:44.2	digital advocacy platform for Civic Ventures. And I'm Paul Conston. I'm a writer
0:48.2	at Civic Ventures. Today's episode is about economics in the gaming industry and I am personally super stoked to talk
0:56.2	about this because I am an avid gamer and I just love this conversation.
1:00.8	Actually before I got into politics I played video games semi-professionally in high school and college and thought sort of very strongly about going into that actually as a career. I am not a gamer. I played a Mario many years ago and I like a
1:17.5	Pac-Man. I've always been interested in the gaming industry because it is such a
1:21.6	huge part of the lives of people I was going to say
1:25.6	young people but really everyone people who were my age people who are younger
1:29.4	like Stephen and it's just like this fascinating alternative entertainment industry that I'm aware of
1:36.8	but I don't participate in. So I have kind of a unique perspective on it, but I'm really
1:42.0	excited by how excited Stephen is by it.
1:45.0	And this episode is super interesting to me because I write comic books in my spare time,
1:52.0	and as an interviewer I talk with a lot of writers and about things like compensation and a lot of people don't think about the money behind the industries that they enjoy.
2:03.0	And Paul, actually, one of the reasons you should care,
2:04.6	even though you don't play video games a lot,
2:06.8	is this is a massive industry.
2:08.8	Last year's revenues were $134.9 billion. And in contrast to most entertainment industries that are like that,
	...

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