But it’s still an important example, because a union would not have allowed John Carmack to exist, and we would have none of his fruits. If you read Masters of Doom, it will be obvious why.
Yeah, a union definitely would have meant that half a dozen friends couldn't quit their employer and go work for themselves. That's definitely how it works. Because unions are slavery.
Why are you bad-faithing your way around this entire discussion?
OK, fine, then, I'll bite. If that's not the "claim" you want people to extract from your drive-bys, then please substantiate: how--exactly--would that evil specter of a union prevented Carmack and his friends from founding iD to make Keen, Doom, and Quake? Be specific.
There is already a book that details the origin story, but like most things, happenstance and early opportunities play a big role.
Carmack would have never met Romero or the others, who first worked for SoftDisk, and were later allowed to cherry pick “cool” kids willing to work crazy overtime and spin out their own business unit called Gamers Edge, much to the dismay of the senior developers. That’s where they made Keen originally. According to the story, the rest of the developers actually did “organize” and threatened to quit en masse because they were jealous of the special treatment that Carmack and Romero were getting. The owner had to tell them, like it or not, Gamers Edge was what was paying their salaries and he had no choice.
iD would not have existed without Gamers Edge, and Gamers Edge would not have existed without SoftDisk.
Wolf3d and Doom would not have existed without both of them. And the world would be very different without those.
Carmack is smart and might have done something else cool, perhaps in a different industry with a different group, but it wouldn’t have been Wolfenstein or Doom. He would have been unemployable because he could not stand college, and he would likely not have started his own company, because business and management was what he detested and relied on his partners for.
John Carmack was hired as a starry eyed novice without degree. A union would probably prohibit such things by enacting a high minimum wage and so on.
Edit: Since you probably missed it, the question where how unions would prevent John Carmack from existing as he does now. John Carmack entered the gaming industry as a low skilled cheap abused worker, if he couldn't have done that at a young age chances are he would never have started his company and so on. Being able to work for 3 years instead of finishing your degree is an option unions likely would close.
