Share. Putting a comedic spin on some serious industry issues. Putting a comedic spin on some serious industry issues.

The premiere of season 4 of Netflix’s Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj tackles issues in the video game industry, including harmful labor practices, crunch, layoffs, and workplace sexism.

The first episode of Minhaj’s political and social commentary show debuted Sunday morning, with Minhaj discussing frequently cited examples of video game industry labor issues. These includes the layoffs at Telltale Games and Blizzard Activision, accusations of sexual discrimination at League of Legends developer Riot Games, industry turnover due to crunch, and more.

Exit Theatre Mode

Minhaj interviewed Kotaku senior reporter Cecilia D’Anastasio about her work covering the accusations of sexism at Riot Games. Minhaj also spoke with former Telltale Games employee Emily Grace Buck, who was part of the company’s sudden layoffs in 2018.

“To me, Telltale sounds like a really bad boyfriend who’s like ‘I’m telling you, this is great, we’re going to go the distance,’” Minhaj says to Buck. “Then two weeks later it’s like ‘this is the end of our journey?’”

“One of the things that’s scary about games though is they’re all kind of bad boyfriends and you just need to pick which kind of bad you can live with,” Buck answers.

You can watch the new episode right now on Netflix, and while you’re there, check out our favorite action movies, comedies, anime and more on Netflix right now. You can also check out what's new to Netflix this month.

As for the issues of crunch and other harmful workplace issues, you can read what Nintendo told us on its philosophy behind delaying games, or check out what Bethesda's Todd Howard had to say about crunch in the workplace.

Joseph Knoop is a writer/producer for IGN, and he's watching Kill la Kill for the fourth time.