The last few years have seen more videogame developers unionising in an effort to ensure the industry offers sustainable careers for all, and the quality assurance workers of Blizzard have just secured a huge win by ratifying a contract with parent company Microsoft.
As reported by Game Developer, QA workers at Blizzard’s Albany and Austin studios have ratified a union contract after almost three years of negotiating. That sounds like an awfully long time to me, but it seems to be the going rate for union contracts with Microsoft—Raven’s QA workers also took three years to get theirs sorted. Fortunately, it all paid off in the end, because now 60+ workers are covered by the new agreement and it offers them a number of significant benefits.
A statement provided by the Communications Workers of America—the union that represents the workers—confirms that the QA staff will have guaranteed wage increases; more regulations on AI and generative AI usage at work to ensure workers are supported, not replaced; protections on fair crediting; disability accommodations; immigrant worker protection; and restrictions on “mandatory ‘crunch time’ or excessive overtime hours.”
