How ’World of Warcraft’ Devs Launched One of the Biggest Unions in Video Games

They started with fliers. The group of World of Warcraft developers at Activision Blizzard, determined to unionize, were testing the waters after Microsoft’s $69 billion acquisition. Microsoft had pledged to honor a labor neutrality agreement, active 60 days after the deal’s close, that would allow workers to explore collective bargaining without fear.

Even with that agreement on their side, developers were still nervous about even showing interest in a union, says Paul Cox, a senior quest designer who served on the union’s organizing committee. “Prior to [the agreement], we had a lot of people who were like, ‘I'm interested, but I'm really worried about retaliation. I am terrified about getting my name put anywhere.’” he adds.

That fear wasn’t unfounded. Prior to Microsoft’s acquisition, when they were still under Activision Blizzard’s leadership, unionized quality assurance workers at a studio in Albany, New York, accused management of engaging in union busting tactics. According to one QA tester WIRED spoke to at the time, management was hostile to their efforts, pulling employees into “spontaneous meetings” and “spread[ing] misleading or false information about unions and the unionization process” in a company Slack channel.

On July 24, Microsoft voluntarily recognized the World of Warcraft developers’ union, a wall-to-wall unit of over 500 employees spanning multiple departments—an achievement that has long been unthinkable in the video game industry. Due to its size and breadth of departments involved, it’s the first of its kind at Activision Blizzard. Those QA testers in Albany eventually managed to establish their union, but they were just one relatively small group.

The Warcraft developers follow in the footsteps of Bethesda Game Studios, another Microsoft-owned company, which created the first union at a major studio across its entire team with 241 members. Microsoft also voluntarily recognized that union.

“It was really only after the Microsoft acquisition that the ball started racing down the hill,” Cox says of union efforts. “The lack of fear of retaliation really helped.”