Unionisation leaps forward: now it's time to deliver | Opinion

gamesindustry.biz:

Gradually, then suddenly.

Ernest Hemingway was talking about how people go bankrupt, which admittedly gives this quote a somewhat grim tone, but it's often used as an apt description for all sorts of change, from political and social movements to personal success.

It's really an encapsulation of the concept of a tipping point; that there can be many years of seemingly unrewarded slog when it seems like change is impossible, only to suddenly reach an inflection point where everything accelerates and change now seems inevitable.

Such tipping points usually look very obvious with hindsight but are notoriously tricky to pick out in the moments when they're occurring. So it's with a heavy note of caution that I say that this week could mark a tipping point for unionisation in the games business – a process that has been a slow, lengthy slog thus far, but which has now seen two major unions (around 250 workers at Bethesda, and over 500 at Blizzard) formed in the space of a week.

Maybe, perhaps, we'll look back in years to come and see this as the moment when things finally changed – but caution is still warranted and the mere existence of these unions, while important, will be of far less long-term consequence than what they do next.

A little backstory here is probably helpful. The reason that unionisation efforts are succeeding at these studios after years of struggling to gain traction across the industry is largely a result of a deal Microsoft struck with the Communication Workers of America union back when it was negotiating to acquire Activision Blizzard in 2022.

This agreement bound Microsoft to take a neutral stance on unionisation efforts – which have generally been strongly opposed by large employers in the games industry – and initially applied only to former Activision Blizzard staff at the company but was extended to cover Zenimax staff a couple of months ago.

While there have been some small wins for unionisation efforts under this labour neutrality agreement before