Dragon Age: Dreadwolf's Unionised Devs Have Been Laid Off

thegamer.com:

Last year, all 16 of the QA devs at Keywords Studios Edmonton held a unanimous and historic vote to become the first games industry union in Canada. Unfortunately, just over one year later, they were laid off.

As reported by Polygon, the Keywords Studios QA team was working on the upcoming Dragon Age: Dreadwolf with BioWare, which recently laid off 50 devs, including the original Baldur's Gate lead writer. Keyword Studios, for context, is an Irish company formed in 1998 which provides development support for other studios, rather than making or publishing its own games.

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Late last month, BioWare declined to continue contracts with Keywords Studios, which led to the firing of everyone who was assisting with Dreadwolf. Keyword Studios' global head of marketing Liz Corless shared this news in an email, "We can confirm that regrettably the 13 Edmonton-based staff have now left the business following the end of a fixed term client contract."

Keyword Studios' development support James Russwurm added that it has "taken the position that there is no more work available", despite the studio having several QA job postings on its website, including within Canada.

Following news of the lay-offs, the union filled an employment standards complaint against Keyword Studios. Russwurm alleges that it offered "minimal serverance", but the union disputes this as serverance has not been paid.

BioWare has come under similar scrutiny from employees it laid off who are now suing the company over low severance pay. The suit requests both fairer pay and punitive damages for what they claim to be "unreasonably poor treatment by BioWare". Former devs are also