Over the past few years, we’ve seen an unprecedented rise in layoffs within the video game industry. We’ve also seen an unprecedented rise in the formation of unions across the industry with unions formed at Vodeo Games, Raven Software, BioWare, Activision, the World of Warcraft team at Blizzard, Blizzard Albany, ZeniMax, SEGA, CD Projekt Red, Bethesda, IGN, and more. Now, new, unprecedented industry-wide union has been formally announced with Communications Workers of America at GDC 2025, the United Videogame Workers-CWA.
The UVW-CWA’s mission statement reads”Our mission is to take back our lives, our labor, and our passion from those who treat us like replaceable cogs; to empower our fellow workers; to link up arms with the laid off, with the freelancer, with the disillusioned contractor, with the disenfranchised and the marginalized, with the workers laboring invisibly to keep this industry afloat. We are going to create a game industry that works for us, one that nourishes its talent and invests in its future, rather than constantly seeking short-term profits. We are the ones that make the games, so we must be the ones that set the terms of how we work.”
This new union is just one of many other historic union campaigns with CWA that have organized within a direct-join organizing model including United Campus Workers-CWA, Texas State Employees Union-CWA Local 6186, and Alphabet Workers Union-CWA. Direct-join organizing, sometimes referred to as pre-majority unionism, enables workers – including freelancers and the thousands of video game workers who were laid off in recent years – to build power across the industry without the obstacles and delays that employers can impose during the traditional union certification process., It also makes it easier for workers to address shared concerns beyond just one video game studio.
The UVW-CWA will include video game workers across the United States and Canada, as well as video game freelancers, indie developers, workers who are currently unemployed, and workers who are already organizing their workplaces.
“The creation of this union was not done in isolation; it’s a cumulative effort by the thousands of video game workers who have been fighting for years to redefine what it means to stand together and reclaim power in one of the largest and highest-grossing industries on the globe,” said Tom Smith, CWA’s Senior Director of Organizing. “These workers are taking a bold stand, joining together to build power for the workers behind the games we all know and love.”
“The formation of United Video Game Workers-CWA is an exciting next step in our union’s work to help video game workers build power in their industry,” said CWA President Claude Cummings Jr. “As video game studios have consolidated, the workers whose creativity, dedication, and skill bring the games to life have become more an afterthought. They are subject to endless cycles of layoffs and rehiring as corporate executives pursue short-term profits at the expense of a sustainable future.”
Alongside the launch of UVW-CWA, members of the new union will be gathering signatures for a petition demanding dignity and job security for all video game workers, particularly those facing layoffs.
Across the industry, over 10,500 jobs were lost in 2023 and an additional 14,600 jobs were lost in 2024. According to the GDC 2025 State of the Game Industry, more than 10% of surveyed game developers reported being laid off in 2024. Over 30 studios have laid off their entire staff and were closed by their parent companies, including some of the largest and most profitable corporations like Microsoft and Sony Interactive Entertainment. The full petition can be found here.