More than 200 game developers form a new union in the US

The approximately 200 developers behind Overwatch 2 at Blizzard Entertainment have unionised. This seems to be the second Blizzard team to unionise in 2024, after over 500 World of Warcraft developers were seen forming the studio's largest union back in July 2024.

The developer has joined the CWA Union, which is the largest ever media and communications labour union in the USA, with approximately 700,000 members in the team. Notably, more than 2600 workers who are the art by Microsoft-owned studios seem to have formed a union with CWA.

The union movements seem to be emerging in Blizzard, including sexual harassment lawsuits, Microsoft's acquisition of the publisher back in 2023, and major layoffs in the early 2024 year that followed.

In addition, unions in game development have struggled for a long time despite their many labour practices, such as job security or unsafe working conditions, that have been documented very well.

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Microsoft has earned some big credits in the past years!

This seems to be a big push towards unionisation in the current era, and Microsoft has earned some credit in years past for not opposing such efforts. Notably, Microsoft is not only the beneficiary of the game industry's unionisation efforts. One major move occurred in March when CWA announced that United Video Game Workers would develop regardless of whether they work or whether their individual workplace is already organised.

"After a long history of layoffs, crunch, and subpar working conditions in the global video game industry, my coworkers and I are thrilled to be joining the broader union effort to organise our industry for the better, which has been long overdue," senior test analyst II and organising committee member Foster Elmendorf said. 

"Workers organising themselves and striving for better conditions as a group allows us to present initiatives that would not only improve our workplace but games overall," he added further.

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