A Future-Forward Examination of the Viability of Worker Cooperatives Within the Digital Games Industry

In this thesis I explore the subject of cooperative labour and its potential broad adoption within the digital games industry in light of recent unionization efforts. I begin with historical and environmental scans to examine the trends surrounding the practices of digital game development and publishing, followed by a review of the literature on worker cooperatives as an alternative to the traditional hierarchical organization prevalent within the digital games industry, and finally apply the Three Horizons model as a foresight method to ascertain what impact the broader adoption of this model might have upon the digital games industry. Through this study, I present the indie games movement as a site of industry disruption, and its recent experiments with worker cooperatives as an indicator towards emerging future game development practices, highlighting points of synergy between indie game development and worker cooperative principles. I conclude with the suggestion that this structure affords the opportunity to develop games collaboratively between independent studios towards their own ends beyond profit and shift towards a more equitable, creative and collaborative game development ecosystem