Days after losing a “friendly” race to Bethesda staff, over 500 World of Warcraft devs unionize at Blizzard: “Never happier to be outrun”
For the Horde!
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
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!”
We’re the World of Warcraft Gamemakers Guild: the first wall-to-wall union at Blizzard! 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! pic.twitter.com/ieewW5KFuIJuly 24, 2024
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.”
The next step for the union will be contract negotiations withMicrosoft, which will determine the specific protections offered to employees. Senior quest designer Paul Cox additionally tells IGN that two key issues are pay equity and the option to work from home.Activision Blizzard controversially ended full remote work in 2023.
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.”
After 5 years away from the MMO, here’s why I’ll be returning to World of Warcraft for The War Within.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He’s been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.
One World of Warcraft player burned roughly 8.4 million gold by bidding on the MMO’s old $475 mount right before a cheaper $90 version came out
World of Warcraft celebrates its 20th anniversary by selling a $90 version of a mount that cost $475 around 6 years ago, knocking the MMO’s economy sideways
The genuinely scary demo for this PS1-style survival horror game is like Silent Hill mixed with FromSoftware dungeon crawlers and it’s worth canceling your Halloween plans for
