The Overwatch 2 team at Blizzard has formed a union. The new union, called the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild, includes nearly 200 developers, such as artists, QA testers, writers, and programmers. This is the second union formed at the company since last July, following the World of Warcraft team. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) announced the creation of the union in a press release shared with Kotaku, stating that an “overwhelming majority” of the workers supported this move.
The Overwhelming Majority
The CWA shared that developers behind the famous Overwatch franchise from Activision Blizzard have joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA), becoming the latest group of workers in video game studios owned by Microsoft to create a general union. “A neutral arbitrator confirmed today that an overwhelming majority of workers have either signed a union authorization card or indicated that they wanted union representation via an online portal,” said the CWA.
Currently, the number of unionized workers within Microsoft has exceeded 2,000. We will have to see how the company negotiates with the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild, especially after previous accusations of intentionally slowing down negotiations.
Reasons Behind the Union
Simon Hedrick, a test analyst at Blizzard, explained that the mass layoffs in early 2024 were the main reason for the team’s decision to unionize. Hedrick told Kotaku, “Up to that moment I’d been really happy in what I was doing.” He was referring to the mass layoffs carried out by Microsoft in January, where over 1,900 jobs were cut from its gaming division, including the president of Blizzard, Mike Ybarra. “People were gone out of nowhere and there was nothing we could do about it.”
Other factors driving the Overwatch 2 team to form a union include salary inequalities, restrictions on remote work, and the desire for protections such as safeguarding against crunch time and ensuring fair severance packages.
Sadie Boyd, a UI Artist at Blizzard, also commented on the decision to unionize, telling Kotaku, “We’re not just a number on an Excel sheet. We want to make games but we can’t do it without a sense of security.”
