Summary
Last week, a massive step towards improving worker rights in the games industry was taken, asFallout and Elder Scrolls developer Bethesda Games Studio managed to successfully unionize. While there are a number of smaller unions that have formed underneathMicrosoft,Bethesda’swas considered the first “wall-to-wall” union at the company, bringing together 241 developers from across all departments.
However, it now seems as though Bethesda’s unionization is part of a larger effort at Microsoft, as it’s now been announced thatWorld of WarcraftandDiablo 4teams have managed to get their respective unionization attempts recognized by the company. First reported byGame Developer, a new union called theWorld of Warcraft Game Makers Guild-CWA has been established, which consists of over 500 developers representing the entire World of Warcraft team and is described as “another wall-to-wall union.”
Speaking with Game Developer,Blizzard senior software engineer Kevin Vigue explained that the goal of the union is to ensure that “every voice matters” and hopes that it will work to “improve our working conditions and protect the things we love about Blizzard.”
Diablo 4’s QA Team Has Also Unionized
Along with the World of Warcraft team, a group of 60 quality assurance testers working on Diablo 4 in Austin, Texas also unionized at the same time, forming the Texas Blizzard QA United-CWA. While not as large or expansive as the unions formed by Bethesda and the World of Warcraft team, it’s a clear indicator that more developers are beginning to unionize following a couple of years of brutal industry layoffs.
Hopefully, the efforts at Microsoft by these developers convince others to also unionize. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) believes that the victories at Bethesda and Blizzard “underscore the growing momentum of worker organizing in the video game industry” and that they will hopefully inspire others to “form unions and raise industry-wide expectations” surrounding worker’s rights.
