Blizzard’s 500+ World of Warcraft developers have banded together to form a union, narrowly defeating Bethesda employees who similarly unionized late last week, but never mind, there’s never been anything more than a little “friendly” competition between the two.
The Blizzard union, called the World of Warcraft Game Producers Guild (WoWGG), was formed in partnership with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). This union is different from the unions we’ve seen in the past in that it’s a company-wide union, meaning members are spread across multiple departments within the company, rather than just one department.
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“We are the WoW Gamemakers Union: Blizzard’s first all-employee union,” the group announced in a tweet. “We’re excited to include the voices of WoW’s QA, Art, Sound, Design, Engineering, and Production departments in a democratized workplace. We’re united in this critical moment for the game. For Azeroth!” “Blizzard is a big name,” World of Warcraft senior producer Samuel Cooper told IGN of what the unionized workers hope it means for the future of the industry. “We make great games, and we hold a position in the industry that I think is very influential. Being able to show people a big, very successful, very long-standing game… We’re able to do that, and be able to do that with all of our development teams, not just design or production and design or production design, engineering, and art, but also QA, where we’re brought in and treated properly as full development partners. We’re hoping this is the start of a paradigm shift for the entire industry.” https://x.com/WoWGG_CWA/status/1816194652539871269
He added that despite some interesting competition between Blizzard and Bethesda employees to unionize, the WoW staff were very happy with coming in second, saying, “We were in a friendly way to see who could squeeze in first. It’s great to be surpassed. Big congratulations to them.”
Microsoft issued a statement to Variety regarding the union: “We will continue to support our employees’ rights to choose how they are represented in the workplace, and we will negotiate in good faith with the AUA to work toward a collective bargaining agreement.”
The union will next enter into contract negotiations with the company, which will decide what protections to provide to employees.
