Unionisation pushes reveal the industry's inequalities | Opinion
Rob Fahey
Contributing Editor
Friday 29th April 2022
BioWare Edmonton
Keywords Studios
Back at the start of this year, I predicted that the gradual but inexorable spread of unionisation efforts throughout the games industry would become one of the biggest stories of 2022.
It wasn't a tremendously brave prediction; by the end of last year, the motion in this direction was already very clear, with years and years of largely unproductive musing over the potential for unionisation being galvanised into sudden action by the dissatisfaction many staff felt with how their companies approached their safety and quality of life concerns during the pandemic.
Sure enough, 2022 has brought more than its fair share of union-related stories -- not just in the games business, but also in the broader tech industry and among newer "disruptive" businesses. In games, unionisation efforts have focused around smaller studios,where in some cases unionisation has been done pretty amicably and with the blessing of studio management, and QA departments, where it's been a far more contentious issue.
One of the biggest catalysts for unionisation pushes, however, was the ongoing series of revelations about abuse and unequal treatment at Activision Blizzard -- whose obvious role in pushing staff to think perhaps some kind of organised way to hold management to account was only boosted by the brutally incompetent way in which the company's most senior executives responded to the seemingly endless flood of bad news.
The push to unionise at Activision Blizzard's various studios hasn't gone away, but much of the wind has been taken out of its sails by Microsoft's plan to acquire the publisher -- a move which many staff expect will involve the departure
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