Staff who are members of ZeniMax Workers United-CWA are on a one-day strike to call out Microsoft for an alleged lack of progress at the bargaining table over remote work and for allegedly unilaterally outsourcing quality assurance work without bargaining with the union.
In January 2023, ZeniMax Workers United-CWA formed the first video game studio union at Microsoft, representing over 300 quality assurance workers in Maryland and Texas. Today’s strike takes place at four ZeniMax locations across Maryland and Texas, with workers set to return to their desks tomorrow, November 14.
A Microsoft spokesperson told IGN, “We respect our employees’ rights to express their point of view as they have done today. We will continue to listen and address their concerns at the bargaining table.”
ZeniMax is the umbrella organization that includes The Elder Scrolls and Fallout maker Bethesda and Doom developer id Software, among other studios. It also owns Indiana Jones and the Great Circle developer MachineGames and Marvel’s Blade developer Arkane Lyon.
Last month, Communications Workers of America Union (CWA) filed an unfair labor practice charge against ZeniMax for contracting out work without notification. ZeniMax Workers United-CWA members have raised concerns that ZeniMax’s recent unilateral decision to outsource quality assurance work threatens job security amid record layoffs across the video game industry.
The strike comes hot on the heels of Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer’s insistence that “the Xbox business has never been more healthy.”
After splashing out $69 billion on Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard last year, Microsoft has cut more than 2,500 jobs from its gaming business and closed three ZeniMax studios. Sales of Xbox Series X and S continue to plummet, and Game Pass subscriber numbers are flat, although Microsoft said it enjoyed a record bump from the recent day one launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Spencer said 2025 is looking brighter for Microsoft’s gaming effort. “The Xbox business has never been more healthy,” he said, citing growth in cloud and PC gaming as well as console usage. “The business is performing right now, and I think that means a more healthy future for hardware and the games we build.”
Spencer is even optimistic about the growth of mobile games, despite cutting staff from the teams behind the underperforming Call of Duty Warzone Mobile and Warcraft Rumble. “I feel pretty good about where this industry is going,’’ he said. “To reach new players, we need to be creative and adaptive of new business models, new devices, new ways of access. We’re not going to grow the market with $1,000 consoles.”
Spencer is of course under pressure to deliver following the Activision Blizzard acquisition, and is in the middle of a big multiplatform push that may end up seeing Halo launch on PlayStation.
“We run a business,” Spencer said in August. “It’s definitely true inside of Microsoft the bar is high for us in terms of the delivery we have to give back to the company. Because we get a level of support from the company that’s just amazing and what we’re able to go do.
“So I look at this, how can we make our games as strong as possible? Our platform continues to grow, on console, on PC, and on cloud. It’s just going to be a strategy that works for us.”
Update: This story has been updated with a statement from Microsoft.
I think the most important takeaway is that MS is growing and expanding their games division, with record profits and a bright future - AND they just laid off 2500 people.
In other words, corporate fuckery to abuse workers and funnel the profits directly to the executives.
Labour creates wealth. There is power in the union.