The move is the latest labor-related defeat for Activision Blizzard. The Quality Assurance team at Blizzard Albany just voted to unionize. According to Gamesindustry.biz, the vote tally was 14 in favor and none against. Another vote was disqualified while three others were challenged due to mail delays. Activision Blizzard had pushed for a studio-wide vote. … Read more
Activision continues to make headlines for all of the wrong reasons. Despite Microsoft apparently hoping to put the kibosh on Activision’s union-busting efforts – Microsoft is buying Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion – the publisher is carrying on. This time they are fighting a unionization drive at Blizzard Albany. Kotaku reports: Nearly two months after … Read more
QA workers at the Activision Blizzard studio Raven Software voted to unionize. It’s a major win for organized labor within the video game industry. The vote to unionize at Raven Software comes weeks after Amazon workers voted in favor of unionization at a Staten Island warehouse in New York. Although union membership remains at historic … Read more
Developers, artists, and other workers in the video game industry are overworked and underpaid. That’s not a secret. What is usually a secret is the pay differences from one employee to the next. Axios reports on how some game developers are taking it into their own hands to increase pay transparency: Developers are sharing their … Read more
Let’s face it. There’s more news each week than we can possibly keep tabs on. Sometimes stories slip through the cracks. Here are some of the stories that we missed this week! New Releases Command & Conquer Remastered Collection is out now on PC via Origin and Steam. (Yes, EA is supporting Steam again.) The … Read more
Kickstarter has become the first major technology company to unionize. Employees of the crowdfunding website voted in favor of forming a union on Tuesday. The vote was a culmination of 18 months of organizing. Kickstarter has proven to be quite popular with indie game developers as a crowdfunding platform for their projects. According to NBC … Read more
EA is the latest major video game publisher hit with layoffs, despite three consecutive years of profit growth. The company announced today that it is laying off 350 employees. That represents 4% of the company’s workforce. According to Polygon, the layoffs mostly hit marketing, publishing, and operations roles. The cuts come despite three years of … Read more
