Nearly two hundred Overwatch 2 developers have unionized
The Overwatch 2 team has unionized, including employees across all disciplines. This is the second Blizzard team to do so since the Microsoft acquisition.
Today, the Communications Workers of America announced that nearly two hundred developers on Blizzard’s Overwatch 2 team have unionized. The union includes developers across multiple disciplines, not any one area of game development. This is the second Blizzard union to form after the World of Warcraft team unionized last July. The news comes on the heels of the Federal Trade Commission’s appeal to block the company’s sale to Microsoft, which was rejected earlier this week.
The Overwatch 2 team has unionized, making it the second Blizzard team to do so
The news arrived today in a press release shared with and initially reported by Kotaku, who also shared comments from union members. Simon Hendrick, a test analyst at Blizzard, regarding the nearly two thousand employees laid off throughout Microsoft last year, said, “People were gone out of nowhere and there was nothing we could do about it… What I want to protect most here is the people.” UI artist Sadie Boyd, also part of the Overwatch 2 team, said, “We’re not just a number on an Excel sheet… We want to make games but we can’t do it without a sense of security.” The video game industry has faced unprecedented layoffs over the last few years while game and console prices continue to rise. Xbox’s historic $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard has put the console maker in a powerful position in the industry, at the cost of many studios and developers.
The team was reportedly driven to unionization when issues like pay disparity and work-from-home restrictions continued to be a problem. The team hopes for protections against crunch and guaranteed severance during layoffs. The employees pointed out that having this security can lead to better games. It’s not hard to understand that a team of underpaid workers worried they will be unceremoniously laid off tomorrow might be unable to produce the best product.
Now that the union is formed, the Overwatch 2 team will need to negotiate a contract. Kotaku notes that Microsoft has been notoriously slow in this process, leaving other Microsoft teams stuck in negotiations for years. But this is undoubtedly a good first step that hopefully inspires other teams within and outside the Blizzard and Microsoft umbrella. For now, we will have to wait to see what news comes out of this new union in the coming months.
Overwatch 2 had a rough start, and many fans have yet to forgive it for abandoning the promised story mode content. However, the team has introduced massive changes, including Season 16’s Stadium mode, which launched at the end of April, bringing a round-based battle mode where players can choose perks between rounds to adjust the abilities of their chosen hero. The team also announced a collaboration with Street Fighter 6 today, bringing iconic characters like Chun Li and Ryu to the game via new skins later this month. Plus, they finally got to the bottom of the 100 men vs 1 gorilla debate by pitting 100 Soldier: 76s against 1 Winston.
