Published , by Donovan Erskine
Published , by Donovan Erskine
Updated on 1/25/23 at 11:20 a.m.PT: Shacknews has received the following statement from Dan Ogles, a co-founder of the studio who stepped down into an engineering role after the Blizzard acquisition last year:
The rest of the article remains as originally written.
We learned last week that Spellbreak developer Proletariat would be the latest video game studio to make a unionization push. Acquired by Activision Blizzard in 2022, workers at the studio had partnered with the Communication Workers of America (CWA), the same group that helped Raven Software unionize. Unfortunately, it looks like those unionization dreams won’t materialize. Proletariat employees have withdrawn their union petition, citing confrontation from the studio.
Proletariat workers announced yesterday that it would be canceling its vote to unionize. The company blamed this on strong pushback from CEO Seth Sivak, who was adamantly against the notion. Parent company Activision Blizzard refused to acknowledge the union, deciding to leave it up to a vote with the NLRB. The workers felt that it was unlikely they’d be able to win this vote given the circumstances.
CWA has withdrawn its request for a representation election at Activision Blizzard’s Proletariat studio. Unfortunately, Proletariat CEO Seth Sivak chose to follow Activision Blizzard’s lead and responded to the workers’ desire to form a union with confrontational tactics. Like many founders, he took the workers’ concerns as a personal attack and held a series of meetings that demoralized and disempowered the group, making a free and fair election impossible.
As we have seen at Microsoft’s Zenimax studio, there is another path forward, one that empowers workers through a free and fair process, without intimidation or manipulation by the employer. We will continue to advocate alongside workers in the video game industry for better working conditions, higher standards and a union voice.
It’s an unfortunate conclusion to one of the latest attempts to unionize within the video game industry. Most recently, Proletariat aided in the development of World of Warcraft’s latest expansion, Dragonflight. We’ll be waiting to see what’s next from the team under its new parent company.