Days after losing a "friendly" race to Bethesda staff, over 500 World of Warcraft devs unionize at Blizzard: "Never happier to be outrun"
Jul. 24, 2024For the Horde!
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Just days afterBethesda Game Studiosbecame the first Xbox division to form a “wall-to-wall” union, over 500 devs working on World of Warcraft have now done the same at Blizzard.
The WoW Gamemaker’s Guild announced its formation in partnership with the Communications Workers of America earlier today. “We’re the World of Warcraft Gamemakers Guild: the first wall-to-wall union at Blizzard,” the group says in atweet. “We’re thrilled to include WoW’s QA, Art, Sound, Design, Engineering and Production voices for a democratized workplace. At this crucial moment in games, we stand together as one. For Azeroth!”
Senior producer Samuel Cooper, a developer involved in helping organize the unionization push, tellsIGNthat there was a sort of friendly race between the unionizing workers at Bethesda and Blizzard. “In a friendly way, we were seeing who was going to squeak in there first,” Cooper says. “Never happier to be outrun. Huge congratulations to them.”
A spokesperson for Microsoft tellsVarietythat “We continue to support our employees’ right to choose how they are represented in the workplace, and we will engage in good faith negotiations with the CWA as we work towards a collective bargaining agreement.”
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