The developers behind Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft have officially voted to unionize. The World of Warcraft Game Makers Guild, or WoWGG, which includes the game’s developers, artists, engineers and more, is part of the Communication Workers of America (CWA).
Together, the 500-plus person team formed the first “wall-to-wall” union at the company rather than unionizing a single department. Prior to this, QA Testers at Activision’s Raven Software formed a union in 2022 and 600 QA testers at Activision Publishing unionized earlier this year.
The majority of its members are based at Blizzard’s HQ in Irvine, California, but also includes a smaller team in Massachusetts.
In an interview with IGN, World of Warcraft senior producer Samuel Cooper said the group’s organizing efforts began three years ago. In June 2021, Blizzard employees staged a walkout to protest the company’s response to a now settled lawsuit from the State of California alleging harassment and discrimination.
Once Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the employees leveraged the tech giant’s commitment to labor neutrality with the CWA. This allowed the World of Warcraft development team to organize openly.
The unionization movement is spreading quickly in the gaming industry. Earlier this week, employees at fellow Microsoft subsidiary Bethesda Game Studios also voted to unionize. Similarly, Sega developers formed a union in April.
World of Warcraft’s next expansion, The War Within, releases on August 26, 2024.