Testers at Activision-owned Raven Software have voted to form the U.S. video game industry's first major union.
- Thread starter Deleted member11191
- Start date
- News Activision/Blizzard
I believe 28 people were allowed to vote, 24 actually voted, and 2 votes were "called into question" (whatever that means) so 22 officially counted. I assume those 2 votes would have been actually counted somehow if the result wasn't already clear.
So the union covers the 28 people working in Raven's QA department.
Totally possible, but I have to wonder how much ABK is actually interested in fighting this full force when Microsoft is just about to take the reigns. Maybe Microsoft is pressuring them behind the scenes to take the PR hit of breaking up the union before the deal goes through, but there have been big walkouts at Blizzard in recent times for much less, so they will have to deal with that too, on top of slowing COD's development way down.
Hopefully, but it's still just 22 employees out of around 350 in the whole company. Not sure they'll have enough weight to really throw around.
Such great news! Happy for the Raven QA testers, and I hope this will lead to more game developers joining, bettering the industry.
The time of massive corporations treating their workers like shit is slowly coming to an end. Thanks to endeavours like this. Management should take heed that their power is waning, and that they better start taking care of their employees like they are fucking human beings. They're not automatons.
The time of massive corporations treating their workers like shit is slowly coming to an end. Thanks to endeavours like this. Management should take heed that their power is waning, and that they better start taking care of their employees like they are fucking human beings. They're not automatons.
While we're on the subject:
Microsoft, Please, #FreeRaven.
This developer doesn't deserve to be a support studio for CoD for the rest of eternity. They did their best work alone.
Microsoft, Please, #FreeRaven.
This developer doesn't deserve to be a support studio for CoD for the rest of eternity. They did their best work alone.
Congratulations. Hope more do the same.
My hope is that Microsoft allows them to continue with Heretic and Hexen. With idTech 7 or the current idTech at the time of development.
Happy for the cause, but if it is a small team...Activision will probably just move their QA to another company. 🤷🏻
Would also like to add...my celebrating is cut short...JUST a test team? Why would Raven not do the entire company? Just so I am clear, this "test" Team at Raven is the only "group" that will be part of a union while the rest of the company isn't? 🧐
Would also like to add...my celebrating is cut short...JUST a test team? Why would Raven not do the entire company? Just so I am clear, this "test" Team at Raven is the only "group" that will be part of a union while the rest of the company isn't? 🧐
Fuck yes, about damn time. Testers are among the most mistreated and unsung heroes of game development. Having had to do my own testing for many, many years during my development career, it's the worst and most grueling work, both in games and non-game development.
Just assume they don't and you are probably right. haha. The US has pumped millions upon millions of dollars in the anti-union campaign for decades.
However, it would be neat to see some sort of list.
The proto-union (ABK Workers Alliance) was created in August of 2021. There's no way this wasn't known considering how quickly the deal was put together.
This is the second union in the United States for a video game developer. The first for a major developer/publisher.
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Activision Blizzard subsidiary wins union vote
Despite multiple concerted union-busting attempts.www.theverge.com
Wow. I found the story about Vodeo but I felt like there must be a dozen other small/indie studios who do the same thing. It's wild that this is only the second one in the country.
Yeah, I'm mainly interested because of how production schedules and the number of staff needed on-hand can shift a lot for video games and that this traditionally leads to a lot of crunch and a lot of contractors. Obviously, those would be two things a union would be involved in managing so it would be interesting to see how game output (speed + quality), cost, and employee welfare are at the game companies that actually have unions.
They have a legal obligation to bargain in good faith
Bargaining in good faith with employees' union representative (Section 8(d) & 8(a)(5)) | National Labor Relations Board
Employers have a legal duty to bargain in good faith with their employees' representative and to sign any collective bargaining agreement that has been reached. This duty encompasses many obligations, including a duty not to make certain changes without bargaining with the union and not to...
NLRB even specifically states this is not allowed
Because the testers were the most mistreated group in Raven and so the testers proposed to organize their department.
Shit on "support" all you want, it's not sexy from a consumer perspective sure, but from a business perspective, support and port studios have stability. Also, Raven isn't JUST a support studio. Warzone was a creative project, regardless of being tied to CoD and it was a massive success.
Also, if Infinity Ward finds success with Warzone 2, Raven may need the support work to carry on.
Nothing you said really contradicts my asking point. I know Raven is a kickass support studio, and I know that the best Call of Duty has to offer comes from their support as it were. But I'm also old enough to remember that some of the all-time great FPS games came from Raven Software pre-CoD; Heretic, Hexen, Soldier of Fortune 1 and 2, Quake Expansions, Wolfenstein and Wolfenstein 2009, Quake 4, Singularity, the list goes on because they did.
All I'm asking is that they get a chance to do something with the kind of freedom they once had. If they choose to become a support studio again, then by all means. Hell, if they don't want to do anything unique again, fine. But give them that chance because they deserve it.
Brilliant news. Hope this gives other workers in the industry the confidence to form their own unions as well
Kinda. They can't be specifically targeted, but if AB or MS happens to decide to, you know, close down all of Raven for completely unrelated reasons (cough cough), that would be A-OK.
I hope this is the start of great stuff. The games industry has been a haven for insane worker abuse for too long. I hope people working in games will be happier and healthier.
Activision can announce that they're moving testing to another studio for reasons.
