The Video Game Industry Is Famously Toxic. These Workers Have a Radical Idea to Change It.

On his office desk, Aleksandar Gavrilovic keeps two figurines: Vladimir Lenin, the Russian revolutionary, and Josip Broz Tito, the former communist leader of Yugoslavia. Gavrilovic is the founder of the video game company Gamechuck. Based out of a tiny office crammed with computers in Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, the company is organized around equality: Each worker earns the same salary and shares the profits of the games they create. All decisions are reached through anonymous voting on Discord: The 17-person collective recently voted to shorten workdays from eight hours to six. "We wanted to show that you don't actually have to work like everyone else to be successful," said Gavrilovic. Gavrilovic's company is an outlier in the gaming industry, known for its grueling hours, high turnover rates, and worker discontent.