Autumn Mitchell is a QA Tester at ZeniMax Media and is a member of ZeniMax Workers United of the Communications Workers of America (ZWU-CWA). She is currently an elected member of the union’s bargaining committee, which is negotiating the terms of their first contract with the company.
Thursday morning, before my first sip of coffee, the alerts started flooding my phone. My employer, Microsoft, laid off 1,900 employees and it was all over the news. I work at the video game company ZeniMax, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2021, so I felt a familiar, sick feeling take hold.
But I can’t say it came as a surprise. So many people in our industry have lost their jobs this way recently. At least in 2023 6,500 video game workers were fired (unofficial trackers have that number much higher). And even before this last round, 2024 had not shown any sign of improvement.
The video game industry is huge. It was bigger than the film and music industries combined after the 2020 pandemic wave, and while it has dropped slightly since thenit remains a multi-billion dollar industry. However, it is still relatively young and lacks a history of successful employee organization.
This is what allowed Hollywood writers and actors to take over streaming services and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) last summer and get most of what they bargained for. Video games are subject to many of the same pressures: the waves of industry consolidation and disruption, ever-accelerating release schedules, and working conditions such as crisis periods that can last up to 100 hours a week, along with toxic workplaces, all of which seem tailor-made to employees to destroy. Like the concerns of entertainment workers, AI is a growing problem. Although it is not yet widespread, the more companies invest, the more we worry.
Image: Bethesda Game Studios/Bethesda Softworks
Not long ago, I was one of thousands of video game workers feeling gnawed by this competitive, volatile industry. It felt like things were quickly becoming untenable. But something happened. During this round of layoffs, I felt something besides the familiar sadness and fear: I felt powerful.
When I first joined ZeniMax as a part-time QA contractor in 2022, it was immediately clear that there were cultural and systemic issues in the department and in the industry. The pay was scandalously low and there were no clear paths to professional development or promotion.
I eventually became a full-time employee and was not shy about my belief that we should form a union. One day I mentioned it to a colleague, who said, “I’ll send you a private message.” In that message, she explained that a group of our colleagues had been organizing tabletop gaming meetups in a colleague’s basement for over a year, sharing their grievances about the company’s leadership, the dwindling bonuses and losing good people due to bad policies. together to do something about it.
It was incredibly encouraging to hear that I wasn’t alone, but we were scared. We didn’t know how the company would react if we went public with our intention to form a union. We have seen workers at other companies face demoralizing union busting campaigns. When I joined the effort, my colleagues were looking for a union that could help provide the structure and knowledge to overcome that kind of opposition. We contacted union representatives and ultimately chose Communications Workers of America (CWA) because it best fit what we wanted, knew exactly what we were dealing with, and had proven strategies for success. We were especially inspired by the example of QA testers at Raven Software, who crossed the finish line with the help of CWA.
It wasn’t long after we selected the organization that Microsoft signed a labor neutrality agreement with the CWA. So we knew, at least in theory, that it was possible to form a union without having to deal with the kind of belligerent union abuses we had heard of at other companies. Yet no Microsoft employees had ever done this. The company was committed to following the law, but would it find other ways to make our lives miserable? We were a small group of low-wage workers in a small town making demands on a giant multinational corporation. And we took a new path.
We were sure that if we did nothing, nothing would change. Things could get even worse, and the only way forward was to stand together and stand up for each other.
And we won! Microsoft and our managers at ZeniMax stayed out of it and let us decide for ourselves whether or not we wanted to have a union. That shouldn’t be unusual, but it is. Now we are negotiating our first contract and making good progress. We have already gotten ZeniMax to agree to include our subcontractor colleagues in our union and have won the right to negotiate how AI is integrated into our work. And we were all spared during the last two layoffs. While it is unclear whether that is entirely due to our organization, our union status probably saved us.
We have something more certain than happiness, something more powerful than hope: we have a union.
My heart breaks for my colleagues affected by these layoffs. If you work in video games and feel anxiety today, it’s time to talk about it with your colleagues. These may seem small and trivial, but they will lay the foundation for a video game industry where workers have the power to protect each other from their employers’ worst impulses.
Each of us deserves a say in what the future of the industry looks like. The people who put their energy, skills and time into creating incredible, immersive experiences that generate billions in business revenue deserve dignity and respect.
If you’ve ever thought about how you and your coworkers could have more input at work, look up a union online and talk to people who have experience building unions. See if this is a solution that can work for you and your colleagues. . CWA continues to support us as we negotiate our first collective contract. It works for us and we continue to involve our employer in solutions to the problems at work.
If you are a company with employees who organize their labor, do the right thing and let them exercise that right without interference. Your employees are the people who provide you with ideas and solutions every day to grow your business. Give that energy back by respecting their rights. Who knows? You might be surprised what you learn about your business at the negotiating table.