Little by little, then suddenly.
Ernest Hemingway was talking about how people go broke, which certainly gives this quote a somewhat sombre tone, but it is often used as an apt description for all kinds of change, from political and social movements to personal success.
It's really an encapsulation of the concept of a tipping point; that there can be many years of seemingly fruitless work when it seems like change is impossible, only to suddenly reach a tipping point where everything accelerates and change now seems inevitable.
These tipping points often seem very obvious in retrospect, but they are notoriously difficult to spot in the moment when they are happening. So with a note of caution, I say that this week could mark a turning point for unionization in the video game business, a process that has so far been slow and drawn out, but which has now seen the formation of two major unions (around 250 workers at Bethesda and over 500 at Blizzard) in the space of a week.
Perhaps, in a few years, we will look back and see this as the moment when things finally changed, but caution is still required and the mere existence of these unions, while important, will have far less long-term consequences than what they do next.
It’s probably helpful to give a little backstory. The reason unionization efforts are succeeding at these studios after years of struggling to gain traction in the industry is largely due to a deal Microsoft reached with the Communication Workers of America union when it was negotiating its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2022.
The agreement forced Microsoft to take a neutral stance toward unionization efforts (which have generally met with strong opposition from major employers in the video game industry) and initially applied only to former Activision Blizzard staff at the company, but was extended to cover Zenimax staff a couple of months ago.
While there have been some small victories in unionization efforts under this labor neutrality agreement so far, the major new unions formed at Bethesda and Blizzard this week are by far the most significant outcome to date.
This is no doubt an especially satisfying moment for Blizzard workers who have unionized: it's worth taking a moment to remember that the current move toward unionization at the studio was initially a response to revelations about poor working conditions and various forms of harassment that rocked Activision Blizzard prior to its acquisition.
The successful unionization of more than 500 World of Warcraft employees is an important symbolic milestone in the overthrow of the old regime at Activision Blizzard, which had previously aggressively opposed any attempts at labor organizing even as new information about its shocking mismanagement seeped into the public consciousness week after week.
The successful unionization of more than 500 World of Warcraft employees is an important symbolic milestone in the overthrow of the old regime at Activision Blizzard.
So is this a turning point? There are certainly arguments for that.
While the neutrality agreement with the CWA is specific to Microsoft-owned studios, the high visibility of these major unionization successes could start to send the dominoes scattering elsewhere. I don’t know if anyone had the phrase “tipping point for game creator unionization” on their bingo card because of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard, but if these unions are successful, it will certainly make it much harder for other companies to resist their workers’ unionization efforts.
The fundamental question underlying that statement, however, is what we mean by “success.” The act of forming a union is an important milestone (and one that has often eluded workers in the games industry, meaning this week will be cause for celebration for many), but it is not, in and of itself, the same thing as union success.
There are plenty of unions that do little for their members; the real test for Microsoft's new unions will come in the next stage, when they engage in collective bargaining with Microsoft on behalf of their members. The perceived success or failure of that process is what will really make the difference in how workers in other parts of the world view the value of unions in this industry.
What do unions intend to achieve, and what can they realistically hope to achieve with their collective agreements? There are some objectives within reach – at least, areas where there is not so much distance between employers and workers – so it will probably be fairly easy to find a compromise that both sides are happy with.
Some of the key points we can expect to see in initial CBAs (which are binding contracts typically covering three years before renegotiation) include a schedule of regular, above-inflation pay increases, improvements to severance packages, agreed-upon procedures for handling harassment and other workplace issues, and locking in benefits like health care and vacation time for all workers.
The major employers in the video game industry are pretty decent on these issues anyway, so there is plenty of room for compromise. This is not to say that their inclusion in the CBA isn't significant; it is noteworthy that these new unions are “end-to-end,” meaning that people like quality control and administrative staff are included in the bargaining and can gain significant benefits simply by being treated equally to the rest of the staff in these respects.
The high visibility of these major unionization successes could start to cause the dominoes to fall elsewhere.
However, there are other issues that present greater obstacles, precisely because they are issues that many development workers care about, but employers are much more likely to strongly oppose them in negotiations. I see three main areas where developers will want their unions to win big victories, but employers will be determined to stand their ground: namely, protections against dismissals, reduced work pressure, and remote working.
Also at the bottom of that list is an agreement on how generative AI will be used, but it is likely to be pushed aside in the first round of CBA negotiations, given that the other three issues are far more pressing for many employees.
The difficulty for negotiations on all these issues is that they represent areas where compromise with unions is likely to be seen by employers as risking imposing an unacceptable restriction on the way they do business.
Protections against termination – beyond the basic protection offered by better severance packages – limit an employer’s ability to treat its workforce as flexible and fungible.
Similarly, extreme working conditions agreements take some tools out of management's hands, or at least make them much more expensive and difficult to use — which is of course the point of such agreements, which are supposed to ensure that extreme conditions are an expensive option of last resort, so that workers are less likely to be subjected to them and, should they become necessary, are compensated with more than just a free pizza for their extra work.
Meanwhile, for many people, remote work is largely ideological right now. Facts and data about productivity have been lost in the context of a broader conflict between skilled and valuable staff who have grown accustomed to being able to work remotely and certain managers and executives who dislike not being able to supervise their workers in person.
I see three main areas where developers will want their unions to score big wins, but employers will be determined to hold the line: namely, layoff protections, de-escalation, and remote work.
Microsoft and other employers are certainly limited in how far they are willing to go on these issues, and there will likely be significant resistance to anything other than the most basic commitments in the initial collective agreement. The danger is that if they fail to achieve meaningful results on these issues, which are incredibly important to many developers and will be closely watched, these nascent unions could inadvertently undermine the broader organizing drive.
If a unionized workplace experiences a harsh round of layoffs, a severe crisis phase, and/or a unilateral return-to-office diktat is imposed, workers elsewhere will reasonably ask what advantage exactly the union was conferring on them.
New unions need to demonstrate successes on issues that matter to developers, otherwise hindsight may show us that this was not a turning point, but simply another hurdle in the long and difficult road this process has taken so far.
None of this is to say that newly unionized workers should not celebrate the success of having reached this point. I do not mean to spoil the party: these are significant and important steps in a process that has been too slow and halting for too long.
However, a union is not successful simply by existing. All eyes will be on the next stage of this process and the results that these unions can deliver for their members, because that is what will really determine the future of unionisation in the sector.