Video Gaming Got Its First Major Union. Now What?
WiredIt's May 23, and history is about to take place in Madison, Wisconsin. A group of game developers have gathered in person to await the results of a National Labor Relations Board election that will determine whether the quality assurance workers at Call of Duty developer Raven Software have the majority vote needed to unionize roughly two dozen employees under the behemoth known as Activision Blizzard. “It’s a beautiful day to unionize,” says Jessica Gonzalez, a former Activision Blizzard employee who now works as a campaign organizer at CODE-CWA, in a Twitter Spaces stream on May 23. Game Workers Alliance, formed by quality assurance workers at the Wisconsin-based studio in collaboration with the country's largest communications and media union, Communications Workers of America, is the first to exist at a AAA developer. Discussions around unions and better working conditions came to the forefront at events like 2018’s Game Developers Conference; yet it wasn’t until last year that North America’s first union formed with independent studio Vodeo Games.
History of this topic
Microsoft’s World of Warcraft development workers are unionizing
Associated Press
Sega of America employees vote to unionize
LA Times
How ‘crunch’ time and low pay are fueling a union drive among video game workers
LA Times
Video game workers form Microsoft’s first U.S. labor union
LA Times
Video game workers create first union at big U.S. game maker
Associated Press
Quality assurance workers at Activision Blizzard subsidiary unionize, a first at a major U.S. gaming company
LA Times
Video game workers found their voices in the pandemic. Could unions be next?
LA Times
Raven Software union effort: Why video game testers are fed up.
Slate
Workers at Activision Blizzard-owned game studio Raven Software vote to unionize
LA TimesDiscover Related
