A total of 461 employees of ZeniMax Online Studios have officially unionized under the Communications Workers of America banner, according to an announcement from the union yesterday.
The union consists of web developers, designers, engineers, and graphic artists at ZeniMax Online Studios working on massively multiplayer online role-playing game The Elder Scrolls Online. They are mostly located in Maryland, but are also based in various states including California, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.
Together, the new union will be known as ZOS United-CWA. ZeniMax owner Microsoft has formally and voluntarily recognized the union already, in accordance with its past Labor Neutrality Agreement.
“With a union, we are looking forward to collectively pushing for improvements to the workplace, including job security, protections against AI, better pay and benefits – in an industry that we’re so deeply passionate about,” the union said in a follow-up post on Bluesky.
ZOS United follows in the footsteps of a number of other game studios who have unionized in recent years, especially under Microsoft’s neutrality banner. Bethesda Game Studios in the U.S., Bethesda Games Studios Montreal, ZeniMax QA workers, Blizzard’s World of Warcraft team, and Activision QA workers all unionized just this year. And past years have seen workers at Blizzard Albany, Raven Software, Avalanche Studios in Sweden, and Sega of America unionize as well, among others.
Meanwhile, video game voice actors under SAG-AFTRA are currently on strike, demanding that video game companies bargain with them over a fair deal granting actors protections against AI being trained on their likeness without consent or fair compensation.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
