> The question ultimately is: how do you create an ecosystem which fairly compensates and doesn't brutally overwork game staff?
This is a problem that has to be solved by those actually able to do something, and that is the regulatory agencies for the US and EU, not multinational corporations or placing the responsibility on individual consumers. The multinational corporations have no interest in kneecapping their "competitive advantages", and consumers don't care or don't even know just how fucked up the entire entertainment industry is ("crunch time" isn't just an issue in games, but also in movies!).
That's stuff like actually enforcing labor regulations (e.g. the Directive 93/104/EC that prescribes a maximum week work time of 48h)... and that linked together with stuff like passing "supply chain laws" (that hold corporations liable for labor rights violations by their suppliers) should put a stop on these practices.
Unfortunately, labor regulations enforcement is pretty scarce in the EU as it is, and the US are pretty much a regulatory wild west, at least when seen from an European perspective.
This is a problem that has to be solved by those actually able to do something, and that is the regulatory agencies for the US and EU, not multinational corporations or placing the responsibility on individual consumers. The multinational corporations have no interest in kneecapping their "competitive advantages", and consumers don't care or don't even know just how fucked up the entire entertainment industry is ("crunch time" isn't just an issue in games, but also in movies!).
That's stuff like actually enforcing labor regulations (e.g. the Directive 93/104/EC that prescribes a maximum week work time of 48h)... and that linked together with stuff like passing "supply chain laws" (that hold corporations liable for labor rights violations by their suppliers) should put a stop on these practices.
Unfortunately, labor regulations enforcement is pretty scarce in the EU as it is, and the US are pretty much a regulatory wild west, at least when seen from an European perspective.