The new trend in gaming is unions: World of Warcraft developers unionize

World of Warcraft developers have banded together to form Blizzard’s first union: the WoW Gamemaker’s Guild, which is organized under the CWA (Communication Workers of America).

This is a wall-to-wall union that includes over 500 Blizzard employees, covering WoW’s QA, art, sound, design, engineering, and production teams, primarily located in Blizzard’s Irvine, CA offices. Another union of around 60 Activision-Blizzard QA workers based in Austin, TX has also formed. This union, called Texas Blizzard QA United, is also under the CWA. Both have been recognized by Microsoft.

And this does seem to be part of a trend: just last week Bethesda formed a wall-to-wall union of over 200 workers. Let’s hope it keeps going, because the people who make the games we love deserve good working conditions and a living wage.