Call Of Duty QA Testers Form Activision Blizzard's First Union:
Thirty-four quality assurance testers at Raven Software, the Activision Blizzard studio in charge of its massively popular battle royale, Call of Duty: Warzone, announced today that they are unionizing after weeks of striking over recently announced layoffs in their department. Calling themselves the Game Workers Alliance, they're asking the embattled publisher which recently announced a historic sale to Microsoft to voluntarily recognize the union.
"Today, I am proud to join with a supermajority of my fellow workers to build our union, Game Workers Alliance (CWA[sic])," Becka Aigner, QA functional tester II at Raven, said in a press release. "In the video game industry, specifically Raven QA, people are passionate about their jobs and the content they are creating. We want to make sure that the passion from these workers is accurately reflected in our workplace and the content we make. Our union is how our collective voices can be heard by leadership."
Game Workers Alliance has formed with the support of the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees by the Communications Workers of America. It currently has the support of 78% of eligible workers, a representative of CWA told Polygon. QA testers have historically been overworked and underpaid at Activision Blizzard, as they are at most game companies. Game Workers Alliance has given management by January 25 to voluntarily recognize the union before it files for an election with the National Labor Review Board.
"We ask that Activision Blizzard management respect Raven QA workers by voluntarily recognizing CWA's representation without hesitation," said CWA Secretary-Treasurer Sara Steffens said in a press release. "A collective bargaining agreement will give Raven QA employees a voice at work, improving the games they produce and making the company stronger. Voluntary recognition is the rational way forward."
A spokesperson for Activision Blizzard told Kotaku in an email the company is "carefully reviewing the request for voluntary recognition from the CWA, which seeks to organize around three dozen of the company's nearly 10,000 employees."
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Monday January 24 2022, @03:18AM (7 children)
Time to sign that contract now, because there's gonna be an influx of job seekers on the market soon.
Oh and by the way, "quality assurance testing" is called "quality control".
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @03:48AM
No, within the arena of finding software bugs it is almost universally called Quality Assurance. Quality Assurance and Quality Control are not exactly the same thing.
https://asq.org/quality-resources/quality-assurance-vs-control [asq.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @03:50AM (4 children)
Enh, I don't know about that. Activision/Blizzard/Microsoft may be leery of kicking them out because of potential NLRB interference.
Much more likely to just quietly sideline them by assigning them a static body of work, and shuffling other game work to other groups, or outsourced. Bear in mind that Microsoft has fingers in quite a few gaming pies, and can keep the CoD pony in the Blizzard stable until it dies while handing other projects to other groups.
Honestly, I half-expect Microsoft to be OK with this, in a sort of backhanded way. The union rules and general misery that go with this structure will sift out the real hotrods, while the time-servers sit there, punching the clock while waiting for retirement. It will become a posterchild for the typical reasons that unions don't do well in the software world, and a cautionary tale. Once it has served its purpose, they can close the office, archive the IP, and say to the rest of the world: "Yeah, CoD is a thing of the past, it didn't work out." Lord knows they have the money to absorb that move in the long run.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @04:22AM (3 children)
Just to be clear, they produce toys, entertainment for children. It's not a serious business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @08:08AM (2 children)
If games like Call of Duty are toys for children, what is it that you do for entertainment? Serial rape and murder?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @01:13PM (1 child)
Since you appear to have lost touch with the modern world: children nowadays play insanely inappropriate video games, watch/make insanely inappropriate videos on the internet, and are softer and nicer than ever before, except to their parents, who they will swear at and disrespect, because they've never been beaten.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @04:16PM
Pedophile alert!
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Monday January 24 2022, @07:32PM
Oh and by the way, "quality assurance testing" is called "quality control".
Yes, back in the last century when corporations weren't half as big of lying sacks of weasel shit like they are now. The difference between quality control and quality assurance is quality control doesn't let items that are too bad (or in the case of GE light bulbs in the 1970s, too good), while quality assurance makes it look like it's not crap no matter how badly it sucks. See:Microsoft. Today, only appearances count, not reality.
Impeach Donald Palpatine and his sidekick Elon Vader
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @04:29AM (1 child)
YOU WEAK PATHETIC FOOLS! I'VE COME FOR YOUR SOULS!
(Score: 5, Funny) by Kell on Monday January 24 2022, @05:03AM
Really? This recently? I dunno man, all the other demons, devils, ghouls and witches have already hit us up - you're late to the party and you'll be lucky if there's any soul left to take. Early bird gets the worm and all that. Seriously, dude, get your shit together.
Scientists ask questions. Engineers solve problems.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jasassin on Monday January 24 2022, @09:12AM (2 children)
A shitty (love the company you work for we are all great and positive here at Acme koom-bai-ah) inter-office memo makes front page news?
Does anyone give a single FLYING FUCK about these assholes corporate synergy?
FUCK no
jasassin@gmail.com GPG Key ID: 0xE6462C68A9A3DB5A
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @09:32AM (1 child)
It's all kumbaya until the megacorp jettisons the lowly QA testers into the furthest volcano.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24 2022, @03:15PM
hmm. the level floor was soft and burny, lensflare set too high, and all the noob bots did the same thing (sink into the floor while their faces melted). Reference problem id: 0001234567.