World of Warcraft developers unionise under Microsoft

Earlier this week, Bethesda Game Studios became the very first team under the Xbox umbrella to unionise. Now, Blizzard has done the same thing, with the World of Warcraft team forming a union, known as the World of Warcraft Game Makers Guild. 

The WoW Game Makers Guild is going to be part of the Communications Workers of America union, one of the largest in the US and the same union that Bethesda joined recently. The union has been formed after many issues getting former Activision Blizzard management to play along with employees. As part of its bid to acquire Activision Blizzard, Microsoft confirmed that it would recognise employee unions at Activision Blizzard studios and as a result, the CWA put its political weight behind the acquisition, vocally supporting Microsoft's efforts in the face of regulatory scrutiny.

Now, Microsoft has begun delivering on that promise. There are now unions formed at two of the biggest Xbox studios and chances are, there will be more to come in the future. The big test will be what sort of deal the union can obtain for employees through collective bargaining, which should ensure fairer pay and conditions for employees.

It is anticipated that more studios throughout the games industry will begin efforts to unionise as developers fight for less churning of talent, the abolition of ‘crunch' and fairer contract terms.

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KitGuru Says: Given that many AAA studios have failed to manage their talent pools and production output correctly for decades, this has been sorely needed. These higher-ups need to be held to account and a union goes along way to helping achieve that. 

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