The USA’s gaming industry union wave just got a little larger.
WoW Wednesday: Activision Blizzard’s Proletariat Acquisition Leads to Another Gaming Union Effort
Last year, Activision Blizzard acquired Proletariat, the developer responsible for the fun (yet now defunct) Spellbreak, among others, to aid in the development of World of Warcraft. Now, less than six months later, Proletariat has decided to make the next gaming industry union effort. Go figure.
It wasn't hard to miss the Activision Blizzard drama over the last year. Which is probably why it didn't take very long for Proletariat workers to get together and announce that they will be forming a union with the Communications Workers of America. Well, that, and the fact that their name is "Proletariat".
As first reported by Bloomberg, Proletariat wasted no time in discussing unionization upon hearing that Activision Blizzard was planning to acquire their studio of just 100 workers. Out of those 100, 57 have now officially filed for union representation.
If successful, they will follow Raven Software and Blizzard Albany to become the third group within Activision to unionize, and the first to comprise workers outside of quality assurance. They will also add to a wave of gaming industry union efforts within the USA.
The move has prompted Activision to respond, stating that they will soon provide "a formal public response" to the National Labor Relations Board. Our money is on their response to include a gentle bit of dissuasion, but who can say?
Microsoft, meanwhile, who are themselves in the process of acquiring Activision (as a great man once said: "There's always a bigger fish"), has already made their tacit support of unions known. In fact, their response to the Microsoft-owned ZeniMax Studios starting their own unionization efforts was decidedly welcoming, with a spokesperson stating "We remain committed to providing employees with an opportunity to freely and fairly make choices about their workplace representation."
As for the results of the Proletariat unionization efforts, we believe that software engineer Dustin Yost summed it up nicely with this: "By forming a union and negotiating a contract, we can make sure that we are able to continue doing our best work and create innovative experiences at the frontier of game development."