THE VIDEO GAME INDUSTRY AND UNIONIZATION
Summary of the State of the Unions
The video game industry is changing. Long celebrated for its creativity, artistic and technological achievements, it is now becoming a battleground for labor rights. In the last couple of years, unionization efforts have intensified, not just in North America, but throughout the world. Game developers, quality assurance testers, artists, writers, actors and other industry workers are increasingly organizing in response to longstanding issues: long hours, low wages, job security, "crunch" time pressures and workplace misconduct.
This has led to the formation of new unions, high-profile organizing campaigns at major studios, and the emergence of industry-wide movements in an intensifying effort to safeguard workers against challenging working conditions. Some are fighting against what they consider to be exploitative practices and a “boys club” mentality as the gaming demographic is changing, including the individuals playing and making the games.
At the forefront of this movement is the United Videogame Workers-CWA (UVW-CWA), which was launched in March 2025 as the first direct-join union for game workers across the U.S. and Canada. They were present at the most recent Game Developers Conference, at which time the surveyed developers and concluded that, in 2024 alone, over 10% of surveyed developers were laid off. This is a stunning development for an industry that recently is reported to have surpassed $180,000,000 in revenue following the pandemic. It may also be evidence that the industry is contracting a bit.
But whether due to layoffs, misconduct, long hours or low pay, one thing is clear: the last couple of years has seen an explosion in union organization efforts, which is permeating virtually every level of the video game industry, from small indie studios to some of the largest multinational developers. Thus, e.g., the following are some of the recent reportedactivities:
Keywords Studios (Bellevue, WA): Quality assurance testers working under Microsoft unionized in 2024.
Workinman Interactive (Rochester, NY): Employees organized in late 2024 due raising concerns over low pay and intense “crunch” periods.
Paizo Inc: Organized in 2021, their unionization was credited with inspiring labor movements among smaller hybrid and indie studios working on visual novels, digital RPGs, and tabletop-digital crossover content.
Activision Blizzard: In March 2024, over 600 QA testers at Activision studios formed Activision Quality Assurance United-CWA, the largest video game union to date in the U.S.
ZeniMax Media: Unionized in 2023 before more than 300 QA workers voted in April 2025 to strike over stalled contract negotiations with Microsoft, the studio's parent company.
Sega of America: Employees at the Irvine, California office unionized in July 2023.
Electronic Arts: Reports from late 2024 indicate QA teams are pursuing union campaigns.
Ubisoft: Employees in U.S. Ubisoft offices began union discussions.
Take-Two Interactive / Rockstar Games: With reports of a return to "crunch culture" during the development of Grand Theft Auto VI, organizing discussions have begun.
Epic Games: Despite laying off 900 employees in late 2023, labor advocacy persists.
Globally, unionization is also occurring: Bethesda Game Studios’ Montreal office achieved union certification in August 2024, becoming one of the first unionized AAA studios in the country; Developers at CD Projekt Red in Poland formed a union in October 2023 in response to layoffs and corporate restructuring, advocating for greater employment stability and transparency. And in October 2024, employees at King in Sweden (the studio behind Candy Crush), formed a union club to push for improved working conditions.
Potential Issues leading to Greater Union Activities
While certainly not the sole cause, much of this may be the result of a change in workplace culture, where workers are pushing back against workplace misconduct. Recent years have seen serious accusations against some of the biggest gaming companies in the world. Thus, e.g., major gaming companies that have faced workplace harassment allegations. The following have been reported:
Activision Blizzard. In July 2021, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard alleging a “frat boy” culture, widespread sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination, and retaliation. Female employees were allegedly subject to inappropriate comments, groping, and unequal pay and promotion opportunities. Multiple employee walkouts occurred.
Ubisoft. Employees accused senior management of sexual harassment, misconduct, and enabling a toxic work culture.
Riot Games. A Kotaku exposé reported sexism and gender discrimination. Female employees described enduring inappropriate behavior, being overlooked for promotions, and retaliation for complaints.
Quantic Dream. French newspapers ostensibly reported a toxic environment including racist, sexist, and homophobic behavior.
Bungie. IGN published a report detailing a toxic work environment, especially for women and marginalized employees. Issues included poor HR handling of complaints, unequal treatment, and leadership failing to address problems.
Paradox Interactive. A survey was reported to have leaked suggesting 44% of female employees reported mistreatment. Accusations focused on gender discrimination, managerial abuse, and systemic HR failures.
Issues Driving Game Workers to Unionize
The following represents what game development workers are hoping to address:
Crunch. Many game workers endure excessively long hours to meet product launches in a practice known as crunch. Surveys show that about 25% of developers have worked over 60 hours per week during crunch periods, and others have claimed logging 100-hour weeks. Often this results in unpaid overtime and contributes to burnout. Workers argue that collective bargaining can set more reasonable schedules or require compensation for overtime. One can further argue, however, that the concept of crunch is outdated. While it may be understandable in the era of physical product releases with hard launch deadlines to meet, in today’s environment most games are released digitally, which allows for a full version to be released, after which it is constantly updated anyway with patches, downloadable content and post launch modification capabilities. Thus, crunch may be less relevant today than in the pre-digital era.
Job Security. The mid-2020s brought waves of layoffs, which unionization seeks to mitigate. Reports have circulated that, in 2023, over 10,000 game jobs were lost; and 2024 saw roughly 14,000 more across at least 182 gaming companies. Union supporters view collective bargaining as means by which to demand job protection such as advance notice, paid time off and health insurance.
Low Pay, Pay Equity, and Benefits. Workers claim the existence of stagnant wages and inequitable pay structures. Near-minimum wage with few benefits is not uncommon. Some workers start as contractors with no paid time off or health benefits. Workers claim unions will address these disparities, including pay equity or pay scales with transparent salary ranges (similar to a new California law that requires transparency). Union contracts also typically secure improved benefits.
Temporary Contractors and Lack of Career Stability. Game companies often rely on contract workers or temps, especially in QA and localization. There is no assurance of future or ongoing work. Contractors claim they do identical work as full-timers but without the same job security, healthcare, or vacation pay.
Workplace Harassment and Discrimination: As noted, this has been reported as a pervasive issue. Many game workers now demand better workplace safety and accountability. Employees alleged that management and HR both have failed to address toxic behavior and retaliation. They claim a union contract can enforce strong anti-harassment policies and require transparent, impartial processes for handling complaints.
Artificial Intelligence. The rise of generative AI tools has raised job security and ethical concerns. Companies are investing in AI for tasks like art creation, coding assistance and voice acting ostensibly to “save development time and enhance creativity”. Workers fear that AI could replace human roles or undermine the creative quality of games. And this is a significant concern with several modern-day examples. In fact, it is on this point that the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has been on the front line.
Recently SAG-AFTRA commenced a strike on the grounds that unregulated AI poses a direct threat to their members’ careers. The union insists on ironclad protections to prevent AI from undermining human performers’ rights and job opportunities. They demand the “right of informed consent” and “fair compensation” for any use of a performer’s voice, likeness, or performance to create a digital replica. Specifically, that a game studio must seek the actor’s permission before cloning their voice or motion via AI, disclose how the AI clone will be used, and pay the actor appropriately for that use. Their concern is that, without strong contractual limits, game companies could potentially replace human actors with AI-generated characters or continue using an actor’s likeness indefinitely.
The video game publishers and developers involved, however, including Activision, Electronic Arts, Take-Two, WB Games, Disney’s game division, and others have acknowledged the need for some AI guidelines, but have advocated for more flexibility in how it is utilized. Basically, they advocate for allowing game creators to efficiently incorporate new technology, which presumably could also reduce development time and costs. They argue against a requirement to seek permission to use AI replicas by having to bargain on a case-by-case basis resulting in constant “micro-negotiations” and their need to keep game production agile. This is in addition to the other concerns about unionizing that have been raised by companies.
Company Concerns and Opposition to Unionization
Several U.S. studios and publishers have expressed concerns or outright opposition to unions, such as:
Loss of Flexibility and Agility. Among the claims is that union work rules could make the development process less flexible. Known as “agile” development, companies argue that flexibility is required to rapidly adjust plans, shift team members, or ask for extra effort when a deadline looms. They argue that a union contract might introduce rigid structures that limit this agility. For example, some unions prevent workers from doing tasks outside their defined roles, which could result in the need to hire in the middle of a demanding release schedule rather than utilizing existing talent. And, if overtime or weekend work must be negotiated, a studio might not be able to “crunch” spontaneously to meet a milestone, fix bugs and implement new features immediately.
Complexity of Legal Negotiations and Processes. Some companies are concerned about the delays involved in complex labor law and formal bargaining, especially the time and expense involved in complying with NLRB procedures and threat of unfair labor practice charges. Their position seems to be that formal and legal procedure and compliance undermines their core function as creative and entertainment enterprises. Basically, they have expressed a preference to solve problems in-house directly with employees rather than through outside agencies. Significantly, many (most?) companies are relatively small and may not be able to afford the high cost and complexity of NLRB or other compliance requirements.
Higher Labor Costs. Companies contend that unionization will drive wages and benefits to an unsustainable level. From the company’s perspective, unions will understandably fight for raises, better healthcare, bonuses, pensions, etc., which increase the studio’s expenses per employee and, ultimately, the cost of games, which will need to be passed onto consumers. Increased labor costs could also require hiring fewer people, delaying projects, or cutting other expenses. Some have argued this will result in offshoring development to lower-cost countries and regions.
Potential for Production Delays and Disruptions. Game companies also express concern that unions could lead to strikes or work stoppages and generally make the production timeline less predictable resulting in missed deadlines. This, in turn, could hamper flexibility and the ability to quickly modify or add new game features; or even worse, the need to cut planned features.
Conclusion
Regardless of the specific issues, it may just be that the video game industry is maturing and evolving. While it is true that it has been around for half a century, dating back to at least the era of “Pong”, the fact that the industry recently hit $180,000,000.00 in revenue, three times the revenue of the music and motion picture industry combined, means this business is truly global. It includes workers from many countries and different levels of background, education and experience. The demographic has expanded so that, not only are there more diverse players than ever before, but the workers are more diverse as well. But, regardless of whether unionization is the solution, one thing is clear: If workers feel they are treated fairly, receiving fair compensation, in a positive workplace environment, the industry as whole should benefit by attracting and retaining top-tier career professionals to produce World-class content. That is a win-win for everyone involved.