On May 7, Double Fine—the developer behind Psychonauts, Keeper, and Kiln, which has been under Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios umbrella since 2019—filed a petition to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board on May 7 (via Aftermath). The push includes all 42 of Double Fine’s “regular part-time and full-time employees.”
The studio’s move to unionize is being organized with Communications Workers of America, the largest media labor union in the US. CWA has been vocal about workers’ rights issues at Microsoft, helped establish the first industry-wide videogame union in North America just last year, and has already helped organize locals within other Microsoft studios, such as Activision and Zenimax.
“On May 7, the workers at Microsoft studio Double Fine Productions announced their decision to form a union with CWA to preserve and extend the studio’s commitments to creative excellence, diversity and inclusion, and worker quality of life,” CWA told Aftermath. The statement explained that workers at Double Fine have requested voluntary recognition from Microsoft as well as representation through the National Labor Relations board via their petition.
“We appreciate that Microsoft has taken a neutral approach and agreed not to interfere in any way with worker’s rights to organize unions,” CWA continued.
Negotiations for better working conditions can go on for quite some time. Blizzard QA workers just secured a contract guaranteeing increased pay and layoff protections earlier this year, three years after negotiations began. It took the same number of years for QA workers within Raven to get the contract they won last August.
It’s all part of a broader videogame labor rights push by CWA. Two months ago, members of the United Videogame Workers of CWA led a march through GDC calling for higher standards across the entire industry in the form of a “Game Workers’ Bill of Rights.”
