Why cooperative studios?
Studios rarely fail because of their creative work or ideas. They fail because of undefined governance, conflict, communication problems, and unsustainable working conditions. Cooperative structures address this directly.
In traditional studios, workers are disposable -- between 2022 and 2025, there were more than 35,000 layoffs in games, with marginalized developers often first to go. Workers don't own their IP, don't share in profits, and burn out from crunch and toxic culture. 74% of game workers say there is not equal treatment and opportunity in the industry.
Worker cooperatives offer an alternative: businesses owned equally by the people doing the work, with shared decision-making, transparent finances, and profits that flow back to workers rather than outside investors. Cooperative studios retain creative control and build sustainable businesses with diverse revenue streams that can handle market downturns (and even a poor release). This structure doesn't automatically create equity -- that requires ongoing governance work -- but it does protect and empower workers.
Cooperatives aren't new or untested. The modern cooperative movement formalized in the 1840s, building on practices from ancient cultures around the world, particularly in the Global South. More than 12% of humanity belongs to one of the 3 million cooperatives operating globally. Canadian co-ops show 3-year survival rates around 80% -- outperforming traditional businesses by 20 to 35%.
Baby Ghosts teaches the undervalued relational skills most founders don't know they're missing: shared decision-making, conflict resolution, and sustainable pacing. This is what helps studios last.
Why video games?
Games are a dominant cultural form -- larger than film and music combined. They shape how people think, behave, and relate to each other. Governments use them for training and simulation. Teachers use them to explain difficult concepts. They live in players' imaginations, alter perspectives, and can centre experiences excluded from mainstream media.
When games are made under extractive labour conditions, those values often get embedded in the work itself. Mechanics that reward domination and endless accumulation go unexamined. Opportunities to explore cooperation and care are lost. Creators with different lived experiences tend to ask different questions of the medium, designing systems that reflect mutual aid, inclusion, and shared survival. Yet these are the creators most likely to be excluded by precarity and lack of ownership.
Some funders assume games are purely commercial products that don't need support. Billions flow through from investors, but only a tiny fraction reaches marginalized founders. The industry looks profitable from the outside, but wealth concentrates at the top while workers face precarity.
There's also a persistent myth that games are "for" men and boys -- a myth actively constructed in the arcade era. Modern audiences are diverse across age, identity, and background. The industry isn't: 92% of workers with 20+ years experience and 87% of senior roles are held by white men.
Supporting marginalized game developers changes what kinds of games get made -- and what kinds of futures they help people imagine.