Blizzard's 'Overwatch' Team Just Voted to Unionize

"The Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard has unionized," reports Kotaku: That includes nearly 200 developers across disciplines ranging from art and testing to engineering and design. Basically anyone who doesn't have someone else reporting to them. It's the second wall-to-wall union at the storied game maker since the World of Warcraft team unionized last July... Like unions at Bethesda Game Studios and Raven Software, the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild now has to bargain for its first contract, a process that Microsoft has been accused of slow-walking as negotiations with other internal game unions drag on for years. "The biggest issue was the layoffs at the beginning of 2024," Simon Hedrick, a test analyst at Blizzard, told Kotaku... "People were gone out of nowhere and there was nothing we could do about it," he said. "What I want to protect most here is the people...." Organizing Blizzard employees stress that improving their working conditions can also lead to better games, while the opposite — layoffs, forced resignations, and uncompetitive pay can make them worse.... "We're not just a number on an Excel sheet," [said UI artist Sadie Boyd]. "We want to make games but we can't do it without a sense of security." Unionizing doesn't make a studio immune to layoffs or being shuttered, but it's the first step toward making companies have a discussion about those things with employees rather than just shadow-dropping them in an email full of platitudes. Boyd sees the Overwatch union as a tool for negotiating a range of issues, like if and how generative AI is used at Blizzard, as well as a possible source of inspiration to teams at other studios. "Our industry is at such a turning point," she said. "I really think with the announcement of our union on Overwatch...I know that will light some fires." The article notes that other issues included work-from-home restrictions, pay disparities and changes to Blizzard's profit-sharing program, and wanting codified protections for things like crunch policies, time off, and layoff-related severance. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

May 11, 2025 - 05:20

Blizzard's 'Overwatch' Team Just Voted to Unionize

"The Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard has unionized," reports Kotaku: That includes nearly 200 developers across disciplines ranging from art and testing to engineering and design. Basically anyone who doesn't have someone else reporting to them. It's the second wall-to-wall union at the storied game maker since the World of Warcraft team unionized last July... Like unions at Bethesda Game Studios and Raven Software, the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild now has to bargain for its first contract, a process that Microsoft has been accused of slow-walking as negotiations with other internal game unions drag on for years. "The biggest issue was the layoffs at the beginning of 2024," Simon Hedrick, a test analyst at Blizzard, told Kotaku... "People were gone out of nowhere and there was nothing we could do about it," he said. "What I want to protect most here is the people...." Organizing Blizzard employees stress that improving their working conditions can also lead to better games, while the opposite — layoffs, forced resignations, and uncompetitive pay can make them worse.... "We're not just a number on an Excel sheet," [said UI artist Sadie Boyd]. "We want to make games but we can't do it without a sense of security." Unionizing doesn't make a studio immune to layoffs or being shuttered, but it's the first step toward making companies have a discussion about those things with employees rather than just shadow-dropping them in an email full of platitudes. Boyd sees the Overwatch union as a tool for negotiating a range of issues, like if and how generative AI is used at Blizzard, as well as a possible source of inspiration to teams at other studios. "Our industry is at such a turning point," she said. "I really think with the announcement of our union on Overwatch...I know that will light some fires." The article notes that other issues included work-from-home restrictions, pay disparities and changes to Blizzard's profit-sharing program, and wanting codified protections for things like crunch policies, time off, and layoff-related severance.