A lot of the people who made Blizzard’s Hearthstone and Warcraft Rumble games have joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA) in a big step for the video game industry.
Microsoft, the parent company of Activision Blizzard, has officially recognized this new union, which has more than 100 members. The developers say this step is a direct response to instability in the industry and an effort to make working conditions fairer.
The union has a lot of different jobs that are important for making and keeping the games, like software engineers, artists, quality assurance testers, designers, and producers. These workers will become members of CWA Local 9510 in Irvine, California.
This decision is part of an unprecedented wave of organizing at Blizzard. More than 1,900 employees have joined the CWA through units set up for the Diablo and Overwatch teams, the Platform & Technology department, and the whole World of Hearthstone and Warcraft Rumble development team.
A unified voice for a more stable future of Hearthstone and Warcraft Rumble
The developers said that the constant threat of layoffs and unfair working conditions were two of the main reasons they decided to organize. They want to use their combined strength to push for real changes and protections.
Members of the organizing committee talked about why they were doing it. Uriah Voth, a senior 2D artist, said, “The pressures we face are making it harder to make the high-quality work we care about, whether we are fighting for job protections, security for our remote workers, or smaller wage gaps.” He went on to say that organizing fights against the “unfair conditions and instability that hurt us”
Dominic Calkosz, a game designer, discussed the power of working together. He said that while people can easily ignore their problems, a union gives the industry “solidarity that it can’t ignore.” QA test analyst Carol Blean said that being “overworked, underpaid, and forced into unreasonable choices” needed “real solutions, not free therapy or relocation suggestions.”
This feeling is similar to what the union has done in the past at the company. For example, when more than 500 World of Warcraft developers joined a union, senior software engineer Kevin Vigue said they wanted to “enshrine” the company’s value that “every voice matters” and make sure that developers “have a voice in our own workplace.”
Kelly Yeo, the producer of Diablo, said that mass layoffs were a big reason for the union drive. She said, “This is just the first step for us to join a movement that is spreading across an industry that is tired of living in fear.”
“The organizing effort of the Hearthstone and Warcraft Rumble team demonstrates the synergy between creativity and collective power,” stated Jason Justice, the president of CWA Local 9510. He said that the choice sends a clear message: “Building great games starts with respecting those who are behind them.”
United Videogame Workers-CWA (UVW-CWA) is an industry-wide union that has formed as a result of this growing movement among video game workers. Its goal is to give workers more power across companies.
