All unionized Dragon Age: Dreadwolf QA workers have been laid off
All unionized quality control workers at Keywords Studios were fired from the studio in late September after Dragon Age: Dread Wolf developer BioWare declined to continue its contract in August.
QA workers, who were hired to help with game testing and quality assurance at BioWare Edmonton, won their union vote in June 2022. All 16 eligible voters said “yes” to joining to the United Food and Commercial Workers Union of Canada, Local No. 401. It was a historic vote, making the group the first union in Canada’s video game industry. Workers at Keywords Studios were in negotiations with the company when they were laid off following the announcement of 50 job cuts at BioWare itself.
A UFCW representative said 13 people were fired – all supporting BioWare. Liz Corless, global head of marketing at Keywords Studios, confirmed that 13 Edmonton-based quality assurance workers had been laid off.
“We can confirm that unfortunately all 13 employees based in Edmonton have left the company following the end of a fixed-term contract with a client,” Corless wrote in an email.
The group of workers was fired on September 27. Russwurm added that Keywords Studios “took the position that there was no more work available.” (Keywords Studios has several quality assurance job postings on its website, in Canada and around the world. Many, but not all, of these postings are language localization related and require specialties that licensed workers do not ‘may not have.)
Russwurm said the union filed an employment standards complaint against Keywords Studios this week. He added that Keywords Studios offered “minimal severance,” which the union disputes. Severance pay has not yet been paid, he said. (Several BioWare employees fired around this time are currently suing the company for “adequate severance.” These are, however, two separate issues involving two separate companies, although they are related to Dragon Age: Dread Wolf.)
Although unionized quality assurance workers do not yet have a contract with Keywords Studios, they can attempt to negotiate better severance packages.
Keywords Studios is headquartered in Ireland but has over 20 offices worldwide. The studio was founded in 1998 and does not publish or develop its own games. Instead, it provides art, quality assurance, audio, and other development support to other studios, like BioWare.
Correction: This story has been updated to correctly attribute a quote.