Almost 200 Overwatch Dev Team Members Have Just Unionized

Nearly 200 members of the Overwatch team have organized at Blizzard, forming a union with the Communications Workers of America (CWA). Parent company Microsoft has recognized the union, known as Overwatch Gamemakers Guild-CWA.

The new union is a “wall to wall” union, which means that it represents a wide group of employees and not a single sector. The first major union to form back in 2022, was Raven Software’s QA team. Several other QA teams at various companies later also did the same. Broader unions have also formed.

In a statement announcing the new union, one member, Frank Le Cocq, a VFX artist, said “When we began our union efforts, it was empowering to know that our coworkers next door at World of Warcraft had already successfully gone through the process” and reflected on mass layoffs as something that sparked interest in unionization more broadly.

Microsoft has recognized the union, although a different union recently reported frustration with Microsoft over the bargaining process in the efforts to get their first contract.

The announcement notes that more than 2,600 workers at Microsoft owned studios have unionized under CWA and the Overwatch team is just the latest.