Diablo Devs Unionize Following Layoffs And Dissatisfaction With AI, Pay - Aftermath
This is interesting news. The unionization of the Diablo team means that three of the four main game teams at Blizzard have unionized, leaving the Hearthstone and Battle.net teams the remaining non-unionized teams there. I suspect that they may follow suit soon. I wish them all the best of luck moving forward.
This is only the first step - the only game developer union I know of that has actually secured a contract with their employer so far is the RavenSoft QA union. Unions notably fight for better working conditions and compensation for their members, but don’t have much leverage when it comes to big layoffs. The best they can do in those situations is usually to negotiate better severance packages if there are any to be had. I shouldn’t have to tell you that layoffs are currently the biggest looming threat in the game industry today, and tend to be at the forefront of everybody’s mind these days.
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