Hello and welcome to the front stage of Amelore's first newsletter! ✨ Thank you for signing up and taking interest in our small lil worker co-op, and remember you can always email us with any thoughts, ideas, questions, etc.

Let's just get right into what I had promised to all y'all: Details on worker cooperatives.

Perspectives on being a Worker Owner

This intentional relationship structure leads to us having very positive perspectives on being a worker owner, it gives us an important sense of clarity and purpose. Taking on this more involved business relationship is what we wanted, and what we try to outline and explain to any new potential worker owners. Here are a few of our highlights on what this experience is like.

• Transparency. Due to the nature of the relationship of being an equal business owner, transparency is required. It can come with its own stress, having access to these budgeting details can make anyone anxious. But this transparency is freeing: We are not subject to an unknown hand deciding on our job being lost, we can make plans for ourselves, our lives, and for the business itself.

• Decision making. We steer the ship together and have the space and agency to advocate for ourselves and for each other. Hiring, firing, who we take on as clients, what direction we go in as a studio, we can have conversations and have a voice. Maybe something we originally disagreed on, we got to see the issue in a new light thanks to someone else’s input.

• Values integrated from the beginning. Being on the same page as other people about values is critical when it comes to collaboration, and worker cooperatives have a start on this by asking people to follow the 7 Cooperative Principles. Having values everyone can agree to gives us guidelines, and is a major asset to decision making and understanding if a new collaborator fits in with the group beyond a nebulous vibe check or culture fit check.

• People first. Treating each worker with kindness and discouraging crunch is baked into our very structure and is a core value to Amelore. As equal business owners, we get a share of the profits, and we decided to split that share based on hours worked. However, there is no benefit to working overtime, it does not mean a worker at Amelore gets a larger piece of the pie. Otherwise, we would be actively rewarding those who crunch themselves, recreating those existing problems in the games industry.

We hope this is an interesting lil sneaky peek to understanding what it is like for us!

Co-op Check In

Reese went on a mission critical research trip for Amelore's current unannounced secret project: to a petting zoo! They want everyone to know that kangaroo joeys are very soft and love to chew, and that capybaras feel like petting a big broom that loves lettuce.

Q&A

What are some resources to look into to start a worker cooperative?

These days we are honestly swimming in a gold mine of resources, but let me hand y'all ones we personally reference at Amelore and what others have recommended.

• Our favorite is this repository of studio development juicy goodness from Weird Ghosts. They are Canadian, but really speak beyond legal frameworks and get at the heart of it

• The 7 Principles are a very important basis for the fundamental shared values amongst worker cooperatives and this webpage has some nice details going beyond simply listing them

• This is a federation of co-ops based in the US and they have a solid chunk of US-focused resources, books they recommend, etc

• And for folks beyond the US and Canada, this is Internationally focused, and there are plenty of countries to click through.

Thanks for reading <3