Another major game developer that's owned by Microsoft has voted to join a union. This time, about 500 members of the World of Warcraft team at Blizzard Entertainment have voted to join the Communications Workers of America.
Bloomberg reports the union vote was confirmed by an arbitrator who found that the majority of World of Warcraft's team members supported joining the CWA. So far, Microsoft, who acquired Actvision Blizzard in October 2023, has yet to issue a comment on this union election. This move follows last week's announcement that Microsoft-owned Bethesda Game Studios also voted to join the CWA.
Like Bethesda, the new CWA members from Blizzard will now be able to enter into labor talks with Microsoft to get better wages, benefits and working conditions.
Microsoft previously said in 2022 that if more of its employees wanted to join a union, it would enter talks with those groups, stating, "We believe in the importance of listening to our employees’ concerns." Later in that same year, Microsoft entered into an agreement with the CWA, stating that after it acquired Activision Blizzard, it would take "a neutral approach" if those employees expressed an interest in joining that union.
Microsoft will now have to enter labor talks with at least two of its major game development studios in the near future. It will be interesting to see how those talks will turn out. It will also be interesting to see how many more Microsoft-owned game studios decide if they wish to unionize as well.
It has not been a good 2024 so far for Microsoft's gaming division employees. Early this year, the company cut 1,900 team members. Later in the year, it shut down three development studios entirely and merged a fourth one with another studio. The company has never revealed how many team members were affected by those closings.
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