Overwatch devs have formed an almost 200 person strong union with the CWA called The Overwatch Gamemakers Guild

There's a new union in town. Yesterday, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) announced that almost 200 developers at Activision Blizzard working on Overwatch have joined the union. They're doing so as the Overwatch Gamemakers Guild-CWA (OWGG-CWA), described in a press release as a "wall-to-wall unit that includes game developers across all disciplines, including design, production, engineering, art, sound, and quality assurance."

Importantly, Microsoft has recognised the union. This doesn't mean that there isn't any kind of fight on the OWGG-CWA's hands, but it does make the first step of getting their foot in the door a bit easier. This also isn't the only games union Microsoft has recognised in recent years. QA workers at Bethesda parent company ZeniMax also formed a union in 2023, and they've recently been preparing to strike against Microsoft due to the company not meeting the union's needs of livable wages.

In a statement, senior test analyst II on Overwatch and organising committee member Foster Elmendorf said "After a long history of layoffs, crunch, and subpar working conditions in the global video game industry, my coworkers and I are thrilled to be joining the broader union effort to organize our industry for the better, which has been long overdue."

One of the most impressive parts about the formation of the union is it being cross-discipline. As mentioned, the ZeniMax union is just for QA workers, it's a lot harder to get multiple divisions to form such a big union considering they'll have different needs. Big kudos to all of the workers involved.

The CWA also noted in the press release that more than 2600 workers at Microsoft have formed a union, again no small task considering what a massive company it is. Good luck to all those involved getting the compensation they deserve.