Developers at Bethesda Game Studios have elected to unionize with the Communications Workers of America, a national labor organization that has also worked with Activision Blizzard employees on collective bargaining efforts.
Unlike some games industry unions whose membership is isolated to QA departments—ZeniMax QA workers unionized last year, for instance—this is a “wall-to-wall union,” says the CWA, and was formed by votes from 241 “artists, engineers, programmers, and designers” across three offices. It’s the first of its kind at a Microsoft-owned studio.
Bethesda Game Studios, which was spun off from publisher Bethesda Softworks, is the company most people are referring to when they say “Bethesda”: The Todd Howard-led developer of the modern Fallout and Elder Scrolls games, as well as last year’s Starfield.
Microsoft acquired ZeniMax Media in 2021, a purchase which included not just the two Bethesdas, but also a number of other subsidiary studios, such as id Software. Earlier this year, Microsoft shuttered four of those studios, including Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks.
In the run-up to Microsoft’s other huge recent acquisition—its purchase of Activision Blizzard—the tech giant strategically positioned itself as union-friendly. In this instance, it doesn’t appear to have put up a fight: The CWA says that Microsoft has already recognized the union. The next step will be for Microsoft and the union members to agree on a contract, which may or may not go as smoothly.
“As a democratic organization, we seek to empower the collective wishes of our studios’ workers; having a safe, sustainable, and equitable work environment for all,” announced the newly formed union, which is calling itself OneBGS. “Having a proper seat at the discussion table allows us to turn those wishes into reality.”
The new union includes developers at three Bethesda Game Studios locations in the US. A fourth BGS studio in Montreal voted to unionize with CWA’s Canadian branch in June.