Microsoft owned ZeniMax recently had 300 developers move to unionize a little more than a month ago, and today it was revealed that Microsoft had recognized the union without any pushback, as it previously said it would.
https://twitter.com/ZeniMaxWorkers/status/1610336457876439042?s=20&t=5potGEkSQuO_90WVmc4gEg
This new union is now the largest North American video game industry-based group, with the developers forming a union through Communication Workers Of America, similar to QA developers at Blizzard and Raven Software.
The precedent set here by Microsoft is important to see, as more developers across departments in the industry could begin to move towards unionizing. Hopefully this behaviour will be looked to as an example for other North American based publishers and developers.
Activision Blizzard has already set a more negative precedent when it opted not to voluntarily recognize Raven Software QA developers unionizing, though that didn’t stop the union from being recognized.
If Microsoft were to acquire Activision Blizzard, then moving forward in relations with the unions now active at Activision Blizzard owned studios could potentially improve.
Source – [Kotaku]