Over 500 World of Warcraft developers at Blizzard have voted to form Microsoft’s biggest wall-to-wall union
Yet again, some good food. Following the news earlier this week that 241 Bethesda Games Studios staffers had formed what was at the time the biggest wall-to-wall under Microsoft, The Verge reports that over 500 World Of Warcraft developers have voted to form their own union, alongside the Communication Workers of America (CWA).
The World Of Warcraft GameMakers Guild consists of workers from every department - hence 'wall-to-wall' - including designers, engineers, artists, and producers, across offices in California and Massachusetts. It’s now the second-largest union at Microsoft overall, after 600 Activision Blizzard QA workers formed a union in March, despite the publisher’s history of attempting to shoot down similar efforts.
WOW quest designer Kathryn Friesen told The Verge "You can tell just by talking to people how much they care about one another and the work that they do in the game. I think that that’s where [the unionisation effort] comes from, the desire to stand together to fight for collective bargaining rights at the table."
Senior quest designer Paul Cox told The Verge that staff were encouraged by the company’s response to being sued by the State of California in 2021, with walkouts leading to eventual unionisation. “A lot of the early responses felt very corporate and didn’t feel like they reflected the values that, as a company, we said we upheld.”
Last year, an estimated 10,000 people lost their jobs due to games industry layoffs and closures. From January to June of 2024, that number is around 10,800 already. God fucking speed, you beautiful people who make all our lives more fun and interesting. Let’s keep up the momentum.
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