Employees at Bethesda Games Studios have announced they are joining the Communication Workers of America (CWA), in what they call “the first wall-to-wall union at a Microsoft game studio”.
According to Sky News, 8,000 video game employees lost their jobs between January and March in the UK alone.
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The union was voted on by 241 “artists, engineers, programmers and designers” across three offices, the CWA said, a first of its kind for a Microsoft-owned studio.
“We are so excited to announce our union at Bethesda Game Studio and join the movement sweeping across the video game industry,” Mandi Parker, a senior system designer at Bethesda, said in a statement.
“It is clear that every worker can benefit from bringing democracy into the workplace and securing a protected voice on the job,” Parker added.
Bethesda Game Studios, a spin-off from publisher Bethesda Softworks, is a well-respected developer of giant video games such as the Fallout series.
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By GlobalDataTalking to VentureBeat, a Microsoft spokesperson said that it supports its “employees’ right to choose how they are represented in the workplace”.
In January, Unity Software, known for its software used by video game creators, announced it would cut 25% of its workforce, amounting to approximately 1,800 jobs. The decision, part of a broader “company reset”, was aimed at improving long-term profitability, the company said.
In April, Grand Theft Auto publisher Take-Two Interactive Software said it would lay off around 5% of its workforce.
Take-Two also announced it would be halting development of several projects in order to save costs. The cuts are expected to result in more than $165m of annual savings, the company said.
