Diablo Developers at Blizzard Vote to Unionize

More than 450 developers working on Blizzard's Diablo have voted to unionize with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

According to a press release, the newly formed union includes game developers, artists, designers, engineers, and support staff for the Diablo franchise, and has received formal recognition from parent company Microsoft.

"With each new wave of mass layoffs, I've seen the fear among my colleagues grow—no amount of hard work seems enough to secure our jobs," said Kelly Yeo, a game producer and organizing committee member. "I'm thrilled we’ve formed a union. This is only the beginning of joining a movement that's gaining momentum across an industry sick of living in fear. We’re ready to fight for meaningful change alongside our Diablo teammates."

Microsoft laid off approximately 9,100 employees earlier this year, including staff from its gaming division at Activision Blizzard.

The Diablo team follows hundreds of other Activision Blizzard and wider Xbox coworkers who have unionized in recent years, benefiting from Microsoft's labor neutrality agreement. Last year, the entire World of Warcraft team unionized, and Overwatch developers followed suit this May. Other unionized groups within Xbox include Raven Software workers, who secured their first contract this month, Zenimax QA staff who reached an agreement in May, the Bethesda union, the story and franchise development team, and several others.

To date, more than 3,500 Microsoft employees have organized with the CWA.