Monday, May 23, reports Bloomberg, “19 testers from the Raven Software subsidiary, who ensure the quality of the game in the highly lucrative series Call of Duty, voted for legal recognition of the union they created in January. Three voted against.
If the news is causing a stir in the sector, it is that Raven Software is part of the giant Activision Blizzard (being acquired by Microsoft), and that it is, in North America, the first union officially established in a large video game company. There is also only one other example of its kind in the United States, recalls the economic magazine. It is less than six months old and concerns a small independent studio, Vodeo Games.
A symbolic victory
In the video game industry, QA services (for quality assurance, or quality assurance) have a reputation for demanding particularly grueling work, often under difficult conditions.
Admittedly, the twenty or so Raven Software employees concerned, based in Wisconsin, “represent a tiny part of the company, which employs almost 10,000 people worldwide”, concedes The Guardian. Nevertheless, “this vote is a symbolic victory for labor rights, in a sector increasingly undermined by accusations of harassment and deplorable working conditions”, continues the British daily. A symbol all the more important for those concerned that the very organization of the vote was not obvious.
sticks in the wheels
The studio has therefore just opened this collective under the name Game Workers Allian