Blizzard Entertainment now has another union, this time comprising the nearly 200 developers behind Overwatch 2. The Overwatch Gamemakers Guild is organized under the Communications Workers of America, after an “overwhelming majority” of the game’s staff voted in support. Microsoft has already recognized the new union.
The new organization is the second wall-to-wall union at Activision Blizzard, following the formation of the World of Warcraft Gamemakers Guild in July 2024. Wall-to-wall means the union is made of Overwatch 2 developers from across all disciplines, as opposed to representing a single department.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to Inverse’s request for comment.
“Stability in the games industry is a roller coaster,” VFX artist and organizing committee member Frank Le Cocq tells Inverse. “After surviving my first layoff experience, there was an amount of stress and trauma that I didn’t want others to experience. The layoffs were definitely a big push for me to get involved in the movement.”
Microsoft has recently acquired several large game studios, most notably Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax Media, which owns Bethesda. A wave of new unions has followed those acquisitions, thanks in part to a neutrality agreement between the company and CWA, which legally bars Microsoft from interfering in unionization efforts.
“The neutrality agreement does feel like it made the experience smoother,” Le Cocq says. “It felt like there was less of a burden because I didn’t have that looming threat of being fired hanging over me.”
When the World of Warcraft Gamemakers Guild was formed in 2024, it became the developer’s first wall-to-wall union, and, at around 500 members, the largest at Microsoft.
“There aren’t a lot of games as big, successful, long-standing, and celebrated as World of Warcraft, and the place Blizzard occupies in this industry has a lot of influence,” Samuel Cooper, World of Warcraft senior producer, told Inverse at the time. “We hope we inspire other workers to organize and win a voice at the table.”
Other Microsoft-owned studios like Bethesda have also formed large unions since being acquired, but Activision Blizzard has been the site of the most union activity so far. Activision Blizzard was embroiled in a highly publicized lawsuit before its acquisition, which may have spurred the particularly large unionization push there. In 2021, the state of California filed suit against the company, alleging a toxic work environment, which former CEO Bobby Kotick denied. Following a walkout, workers organized an employee group called ABetterABK, which began the push toward unionizing. Activision Blizzard paid $54 million to settle the suit after being acquired by Microsoft.
The Overwatch Gamemakers Guild hasn’t specifically named these events as motivation for its formation, instead pointing to industry-wide trends of job insecurity and reportedly difficult work environments.
“After a long history of layoffs, crunch, and subpar working conditions in the global video game industry, my coworkers and I are thrilled to be joining the broader union effort to organize our industry for the better, which has been long overdue,” organizer Foster Elmendorf said.
The union will now need to negotiate a contract with Microsoft to codify the workplace protections its members are seeking. While Microsoft hasn’t interfered with union formation, workers at ZeniMax have called the company out for not agreeing to contract terms two years after the creation of a quality assurance testers’ union, which culminated in a strike vote in April 2025.
“The unionizing efforts on Overwatch have been very important to me and I think it would be great if other games industry workers would learn about what unions do,” Le Cocq says. “My experience in organizing has helped me as a person to put myself out there and meet my coworkers. It’s really helped our team as a whole.”
This story was updated on May 13 to include comments from organizing committee member Frank Le Cocq.
