You don't need to look any further than the film/TV industry in the US. There are any number of guilds with various rules and minimum pay scales, etc. It doesn't keep countless people from waiting tables in LA hoping for their big break.
I think developers are more like the background technical staff and startup founders are the big name actor equivalents. Founders move to SF, work hard, and generally struggle trying to become Zuckerburg as much as LA actors trying to become Chris Pratt.
But for every movie with the Micheal Bay or The Rock there are hundreds of unionized workers creating the explosions, car chases, and sets in the background. Just like developers they're the ones that make the production work but no one knows our name. (with few exceptions like John Carmack, but then again there are special effects experts with tv shows)
Yes, but that's important to know if you're proposing unionization in the hopes that it will make it so that every qualified person who wants to work in game development is paid fairly. Like with acting, only a small fraction of people will find such jobs, even with unionization.
But the point is they often go beyond ensuring people are treated fairly, and artificially drive up wages by constraining the supply of labor. This is a very unfair system. It benefits those they have the privilege to get into the guild (which often entails having the right connections, and until the Civil Rights movement also had the requirement of "be White"), at the expense if those that don't get into the guild. It also drives up costs for consumers.
