Bethesda Game Studios, the Microsoft-owned game developer responsible for games like the Elder Scrolls series, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and most recently Starfield, confirmed late on Friday that its development team members have voted in favor of joining a union.
Specifically, the union is the Communications Workers of America, which made the official announcement. It states that 241 members of the Bethesda Game Studios development team have voted to either get a signed union authorization card, or they will claim they want union representation from an online portal.
The press release also states this is the "first wall-to-wall union at a Microsoft video game studio" and that the company has recognized the union. Now that the CWA has been established at the studio, it will enter talks with Microsoft to approve a new labor agreement with the company.
Microsoft previously stated in 2022 that it would work with labor unions if more of its employees wanted to join such an organization. Shortly after that announcement, it made an agreement with the CWA, stating that after the company's acquisition of Activision Blizzard was completed, Microsoft would remain neutral if employees of Activision Blizzard had an interest in joining a union.
It will be interesting to see how this new union agreement at Bethesda Game Studios will play out when the actual labor negotiations begin between the CWA and Microsoft.
The company's gaming division has suffered two major layoffs since the Activision Blizzard deal closed in October 2023. In January, Microsoft cut 1,900 jobs across its many game studios and groups.
In May, the company completely closed three in-house studios that used to be under Bethesda's parent company ZeniMax, while also merging another development team with ZeniMax Online Studios. The company has still not revealed how many team members were laid off as part of those studio closings.
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