I'm not sure that game dev as a gig economy would be the worst thing. Make a thing, get paid, move on. Especially since a traditional game (not MMO or "game as a service") has a natural beginning, middle, and end of development.
Plus I assume if you're an independent contractor (not working in an outsourced sweatshop) you have more leverage to stand your ground against nonsense like crunch. But I'm fantasizing that because I've never done contract work so I don't know if that's really the case.
Your assumption is 100% wrong and I couldn't imagine what on Earth gives you that idea. In fact, I am not convinced you actually believe that yourself. I don't believe you've thought about this at all.
Being able to earn money whenever you want so you don't have to build your life around your work would be huge even if it makes you earn a bit less. Developers earn a lot already, many would take that trade.
Edit: That would make game development much more palatable, since gig work implies no overtime unless you want it. Just do some game development and earn money rather than doing it for free on a hobby project. And since it is just a gig you can easily try it out and do something else if you don't like it.
> Being able to earn money whenever you want so you don't have to build your life around your work
And yet, every instance of gig economy pushes wages way down, pushes all the externalities (like health insurance, travel, equipment etc.) onto workers and makes their life revolve around work.
> That would make game development much more palatable, since gig work implies no overtime unless you want it.
As others already mentioned: then you'll be out of the job, because there will always be people willing to work overtime for the same money.
And since it's "just a gig", you can be let go even faster than it is now for workers in the US.
How would gig economy not result in game dev being more exploitative than it is now? Oh, you dont want to do overtime making those car models? No problem. We have contact to 10 other people just waiting to do it in your place. And we will pay them less than we pay you, and then we will pay even less to those who will replace them.
Keep system running for decade or two and you have another area where people work to don't die from hunger. Because thats how gig economy worked for every other market.
And what is your retirement plan? Keep working until your health prevents you from working anymore and then die on streets?
The OP's words were 'independent contractor'. Someone switched the words to 'gig economy' and started beating on the straw man.
The OP is actually right - contractors have much better treatment than employees. Not only in law, where you can't be told your hours - etc, but also just by the nature of your employment where you have to sell yourself and they desire to work with you or they wouldn't have paid your fee. This isn't the case in industries where they have fake contracting - employment in all but name, but as an actual independent developer or whatever you make more and get treated better.
> you dont want to do overtime making those car models? No problem. We have contact to 10 other people just waiting to do it in your place.
This isn't how contracting works. They give you a deadline for the work and you accept it. They don't know if you're fast or slow as long as you meet the deadline. They don't demand you do more, they offer it.
As an employee you're a machine for them to use? Have you heard the phrase "Drive it like you're renting it"?
> And we will pay them less than we pay you, and then we will pay even less to those who will replace them.
Then they aren't in that first artists range anymore so they take other work.
At some point the work is "Click on all transparent segments of the SpongeBob character, applying to correct color for that body part from this design document." Why would that employ the same artists who, from an empty page, designed those characters and their looks?
Independent contractors would have no leverage because there are too many people who will do the job. Also, companies won't like someone paying per hour when they can push 80+ hour workweeks on salaried employees.
Even for Amazon warehouses they churned through people faster than they could find new ones and that were jobs where you basically have to be healthy enough to carry things so not requiring much.
Development or working on game requires quite some knowledge of specialized tools. Then that toolset in game industry varies a lot.
I don’t think there are that many Unity developers one can hire on the spot.
There is a lot of domain specific knowledge for sure. There is a huge difference between, "I made a flappy bird clone/shitty side scroller in Unity" vs someone who actually knows how to make a triple-A level game. The former requires, can you spend 4 hours watching youtube videos on a saturday night and literally just mimicking the video. And there are people who become the latter developer starting as the former. But there is a lot that has to happen in between.
Plus I assume if you're an independent contractor (not working in an outsourced sweatshop) you have more leverage to stand your ground against nonsense like crunch. But I'm fantasizing that because I've never done contract work so I don't know if that's really the case.