Punch Up Games

People want meaning in their work. They want to decide what they do. They want to create and share. They are not 'less than' a boss, team lead, or manager and they don't want to be treated that way.

Punch Up Games is an employee owned cooperative of creative, autonomous individuals. We don't all work on the same project. We don't decide what others will do. We don't hoard knowledge or have dozens of meetings in a week. We have a few projects running at a time, at different stages. We huddle on Mondays to pitch potential work to our co-workers but we individually figure out what each of us will do. We share what is working and what is not. We teach others what they want to know. We give people a chance to try something new.

We are all humans, we are equal, and we love what we do. We have no secrets. We all know how much money we have and how it is being used. We can all weigh in on improvement. We decide as a group on the best path forward.

It may sound cyberpunk but we are living in a reality where massive corporations are consolidating everything. They are giving us fewer and fewer choices. They're paying us out of one pocket and providing all of the services and products we buy so it comes right back. We choose not to work for them. Instead we act cooperatively to own our own work. Why should a CEO or shareholders earn millions on the backs of the work that we do?

In 2020 and 2021 the games industry benefited from massive successes brought on by the global pandemic's historically low interest rates and opportunities provided by customers spending more on games. From 2022 onward big game development companies have consolidated, shut down studios, and purged 'overhiring from the pandemic' to the tune of tens of thousands of creative workers every year. All of that wealth went into few pockets and we're left with an industry with as strong demand as ever but ever more hostile to the workers. Entry level jobs are virtually non-existent. Corporate developers have re-asserted control over where we work despite the proven successes and benefits of remote work. Unions have made gains in Games over this time period but we've also seen big developers shutter studios that dare to unionize and fire teams in blatant disregard of the law.

We want to model an alternative. A cooperative gives us full creative control, control over how we work, and the freedom to decide how profits are spent. We'll choose who we work with for publishing, if we decide to sell or license an IP, the team will benefit.

Generative AI (LLM) systems were built on naked piracy. The companies behind them stole the collective work of the planet and are selling it back to us. We will NOT use AI to replace creative work. You will never see art, hear music, or read text that was created by AI in our projects. Humans will bring their ingenuity, creativity, and passion to places AI can't touch.

Generative AI use is not ethical but it enables the mission. We won't claim purity, but we won't hide by neglecting to disclose this. We will use AI for code and prototype. We can allow coders and non-coders alike to prototype and tune, tweak, test it in hours and days; not weeks and months. People who can't code can start creating games instead of waiting for coders and begging for their support.

Real, human coders will still ensure our products are stable and safe.

The stated purpose of a corporation is to gather up as much wealth as possible from society and dump it into the wallets of a few people.

Valve takes 30 cents of every dollar you spend on Steam games, billions of dollars a year. It built us an excellent platform. They have earned SOME of the wealth they collect. But all of that exists now. Maintaining it costs nearly nothing in comparison to the profits they still collect. Why haven't they reduced their percentage? They aren't creating game development grants with that money. They aren't supporting game development education. They aren't giving vast amounts to charity. They're just hoarding wealth, making a few fun toys like Steam Deck and VR headsets which are more profit-seeking products.

Punch Up Games is a Social Purpose Corporation. Our stated purpose is to survive, thrive, and share. We want to gather some wealth from customers by providing fun, engaging products and use it to directly support creative, hard working people. Money is a collective fiction, but it is a useful tool to improve lives. So that is what we will do. We will ensure creatives have healthcare. We will give money to school programs in creative pursuits and other game-related charitable organizations. Our initial successes will keep us running and anything beyond that we will send out to keep good creative people from being ground up in soul-sucking industries.

A Corporation can be sued by its shareholders if they fail to take every opportunity to squeeze the wealth out of the world and deposit that into the shareholders accounts.

A Cooperative organized as a Social Purpose Corporation can decide to turn its profits into aid for others. We have to secure our own future or we won't be able to continue the mission, but after that we can donate as much as we are able. We can create game development grants. We can provide creative people with part time work and world class health benefits.

We don't want to buy boats and mansions and fancy cars. We can't make the world a better place for everyone, but the world is darkening for creative people and we can nurture them.