Bethesda Game Studios who are best known for developing popular games like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4 have recently announced they’ve unionized. Acquired by Microsoft back in 2021, Bethesda Games Studios is also the first developer owned by Microsoft to have fully unionized under them. Under the Communications Workers of America or CWA for short, the unionization covers 241 workers including developers, artists, designers, engineers, and programmers. While Bethesda isn’t the first game developer to unionize, they’re no doubt one of the biggest which is sure to make waves.
Announced Via X (Then Twitter)
https://://gty.im/1154903718
The unionization of Bethesda Games Studios was announced yesterday on X/Twitter via the handle OneBGS_USA which covers the Bethesda studios located in Austin, Dallas, and Rockville. The news comes less than a month after Bethesda Montreal revealed they were filing for certification to unionize under CWA Canada. Senior System Designer Mandi Parker for the CWA said “We are so excited to announce our union at Bethesda Game Studio and join the movement sweeping across the video game industry.” The Code-CWA said in a press release that it’s a “wall-to-wall union” and that “Microsoft also recognized it.”
Dire Year For Developers But Also Hope
To say 2024 has been a bad year for game developers would be an understatement considering all the layoffs and studio closures that have happened so far this year. Reported by gamesindustry.biz, Pieces Interactive who created the Alone In the Dark remake was closed down by Embracer back in June due to the game failing to meet sales expectations. Even studios with successful games under their belt such as Tango Gameworks who released Hi-Fi Rush last year were closed down earlier this year. The industry has also suffered massive layoffs with studios such as Ubisoft laying off workers from its Toronto branch.
Luckily, Bethesda unionizing shows not all hope is lost for developers though, and that hopefully, this will cause even more of the bigger game studios out there to unionize. Zenimax, which was also acquired by Microsoft when they bought Bethesda, had its quality assurance team unionize back in January 2023. They weren’t the only quality assurance workers to unionize though as back in March of this year, 600 workers from Activision’s QA team also unionized, and in December 2022, Blizzard Albany’s staff 20 QA workers unionized as well. While Bethesda isn’t the only game developer to unionize, they’re certainly one of the biggest ones out there.
Bethesda’s Future And Other Unions
While it’s anyone’s guess what Bethesda’s future holds in store, it’s more than likely to be good for current and future employees of Bethesda Game Studios. President of CWA Local 2108, Johnny Brown said, “We are incredibly proud to welcome these workers into our union and are confident that together, we will secure a brighter future for all workers in the video game industry.” In October 2023, CD Projket Red best known for being the developers of the Witcher video games and Cyberpunk 2077, unionized after suffering layoffs. IGN reported that the creators of the Just Cause games, Avalanche Studios had 100 employees unionize back in October 2023.
Going forward, it’ll be interesting to see how this impacts the gaming industry and if more studios, especially the bigger ones out there will unionize or not. What do you think of this story? Let me know in the comments below!
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