More than 500 team members working on World of Warcraft have voted to form a union. They named it the World of Warcraft Game Makers Guild.
World of Warcraft
The union was created with the assistance of the larger Communications Workers of America, which has previously helped form unions for other teams within Microsoft's gaming division.
According to activists, they had been considering the formation of a union for a long time. They decided to organize it back in 2021 after becoming disillusioned with Activision Blizzard's management response to the lawsuit alleging discrimination and harassment at the company. Many Blizzard employees, including World of Warcraft developers, went on strike at that time, which sparked their unionizing efforts. The final decision to form a union was made after other labor unions emerged within Activision Blizzard.
Currently, 1,750 Microsoft employees are members of various unions. The World of Warcraft Game Makers Guild became the second largest union within Microsoft and the largest within Blizzard. It is only surpassed in size by the Activision QA testers union, which includes 600 members.