If working overtime on AAA games with giant budgets is the only way to succeed, 'then maybe the industry deserves to die,' says RPG veteran David Gaider: 'There is another way to be'

The main character, Grace, of musical RPG Stray Gods.

Underneath the professional atmosphere, there was a defiant tone to this year's Game Developers Conference. During the GDCA awards, Larian Studios boss Swen Vincke called out corporate greed for "fucking this whole thing up for so long," and other developers gathered to have a cathartic scream about the state of the industry. In an interview with PC Gamer, Summerfall Studios co-founder and former Dragon Age lead writer David Gaider expressed similar conviction that something has to give.

"The way the games industry and game devs are heading right now—the type of existence they have—it doesn't have to be that way," Gaider said. "There is another way to be. I just want to see them all finally get unionized and get treated fairly.