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Blizzard developers working on World of Warcraft have voted to unionize, increasing the number of unionized workers at Microsoft’s games division by roughly 500. Their addition to the union brings the total number of unionized game devs at Microsoft to 1,750.
“It’s exciting to potentially raise the standards of the entire industry as siblings in organizing,” World of Warcraft designer (and member of the union’s organization committee) Kathryn Friesen said in a recent statement to Bloomberg.
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Although Microsoft has yet to make any official statement regarding the unionization, it hasn’t made moves to block employees from unionizing. In 2022–while in the midst of negotiating the acquisition of Activision-Blizzard–Microsoft finalized an agreement with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) with the goal of making it easier for employees in certain positions to unionize, and later announced it would support the organizing efforts of other American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (ALF-CIO) unions in a similar way. ALF-CIO is the largest federation of unions in the United States.
The news of the World of Warcraft developers’ victory comes just a week after 240 employees at Bethesda Game Studios (also owned by Microsoft) joined the union.
Microsoft’s gaming division has seen massive layoffs in recent months, with 1,900 employees losing their jobs in January alone. More layoffs (and studio closures) followed, including the shuttering of Tango Gameworks, which left the developers behind 2023’s highly praised Hi-Fi Rush jobless. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer has defended the recent layoffs, citing the need to “run a sustainable business.” The expansion of unions at Microsoft is good news for developers, as it offers them an array of potential benefits, from increased job security to more beneficial salary negotiations.
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