This article read like sour grapes. He talks about the game industry as a whole, but is entirely limited by his bottom-rung position as a game tester. Pretty much every hardcore gamer on the planet has a wet-dream of playing video games for a living, like he said, it's an awesome job. He got paid to play video games. Then he wonders why the pay is low and they aren't valued? Well, because they could find a million people to replace him, who would probably even be willing to work for less. Sorry, but I'd say most people are naive if they think "playing video games" is going to be a solid career for a lifetime, unless you compete at the top of your game and can consistently take down tournament purses, playing video games sadly isn't a viable career for the long term... though I know that there's millions of people out there who have a dream of doing exactly that... so, that's why you get shitty jobs, shitty treatment, and shitty pay. The market is volatile though, because one flop can mean half the company gets laid off. It's the nature of the business unfortunately. But these game studios can do what they want, because everyone and there brother wants to work in the video game industry. And if you're nothing more than a "tester", you have ZERO skills that are really valuable, and you have nothing that they can't train someone else to do. QA testers at my work all make well over $60k, and most of them are in the $80k range, good benefits, full time and secure employment... but guess what? QA'ing and testing financial software isn't as cool as playing video games all day, so it doesn't attract the 20-30 something entitled crowd.
I'm having a hard time seeing what the issue here is. It's contract work because it is so cyclical, and it doesn't pay very well, because there are so many young people eager to do it. Expendable contract work is going to suck by definition. That didn't sound too bad.
The problem is the same as with universities increasingly relying on adjunct professors. The work sucks by definition and is all the people taking it can get in their industry. The game industry is notoriously rough on its employees in general.
I've heard anecdotes, and from an employee's POV, I think some sort of organization might be worthwhile. However, as this was a contract job through a temp agency, and as it seems like they treated him fairly well, it seems his expectations might have been a bit unrealistic. As the development of games is so cyclical, and as so many young people would love to be paid $11/hr to test games, I don't think this position is really a good place to take a stance. It doesn't sound like he landed another option with 50+ resumes sent out, and his experience was very thin. Furthermore, when he decided that he didn't like things, he stopped showing up. IMHO he should know better. At the very least he could have walked away from a bad job with a good reference. Now he doesn't even have that. The job he had would be a good one to get a little experience early in the industry, and it was through a temp agency. That's how building a career from the bottom works. It doesn't seem like they came even close to "working him to death", and he was hired as an outside temp contractor for a low-skill job that many people want. There may be problems in gaming industry employment, but I don't see this as a major one.The game industry is notoriously rough on its employees in general.
One of the reasons I took this job was because they sold me on the fact that, if I did well, and showed promise, that it would be a real possibility to get hired on full-time. I sure as hell did not accept it for the whopping pay rate of $11 an hour.
They will work you to death and they will promise you potential, but it is for nothing. You will never truly be a part of anything.