Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Call of Duty: Warzone studio Raven Software unionizes

Otto Kratky
By

Weeks into a walkout, workers at Activision’s Raven Software are reportedly forming the first-ever AAA North American game workers union.

BREAKING: Testers at Raven Software, a division of Activision, say they've formed a union and are asking for voluntary recognition. The 34-person unit is the first-ever union in the big-budget video game industry. Filed to Bloomberg Terminal, story coming shortly.

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) January 21, 2022

Raven Software workers, mostly QA testers, walked off of the job in early December following a mass layoff of other QA testers at the studio. While it has carried on since, the walkout has had no effect, with none of the previously fired QA testers, who had been contractors, being rehired.

Recommended Videos

Seemingly in response, a 34-person group of workers, also QA Testers, at Raven Software is forming a union. Called the Game Workers Alliance, the group has already taken to Twitter to explain its principles. Through the union, workers at Raven Software, the primary developer behind the massively popular battle royale title Call of Duty: Warzone, are seeking to reduce crunch, create transparency between leadership and workers, and ensure that Quality Assurance testers receive “respect, appropriate compensation, and career development opportunities.”

Related

Before the newly formed union can accomplish any of its goals, it has to be recognized by Activision. In the same thread on Twitter, the union asks that “Raven Software and Activision leadership voluntarily recognize our union and respect our right to organize without retaliation or interference.”

Coming on the heels of Activision Blizzard’s acquisition by Microsoft, it’s not clear what the response to the Game Worker’s Alliance will be. In the terms of the acquisition, both Activision Blizzard and Microsoft confirmed that neither is engaged with unions and refused to acknowledge any ongoing strike or walkouts, including at Raven Software.

Our Principles:

-Solidarity: The voices of workers should be heard by leadership. By uniting in solidarity, we can ensure our message is further reaching, and more effective. (1/8)

— Game Workers Alliance 💙#WeAreGWA (@WeAreGWA) January 21, 2022

It’s worth noting that none of Microsoft’s employees are unionized, and that leadership at the company, including the CEO of Microsoft Gaming, Phil Spencer, doesn’t have much experience with them. In an interview with the The Washington Post, Spencer admitted to as much, saying, “I’m going to be honest, I don’t have a lot of personal experience with unions. I’ve been at Microsoft for 33 years. So I’m not going to try to come across as an expert on this, but I’ll say we’ll be having conversations about what empowers them to do their best work, which as you can imagine in a creative industry, is the most important thing for us.”

A union forming despite the acquisition is unsurprising, at least to those advocating for workers’ rights within Activision Blizzard. In an interview with Digital Trends, Jessica Gonzalez, founder and community organizer of the ABetterABK workers’ alliance, said “the news doesn’t change unionizing efforts. We are still pushing forward.”

Activision Blizzard has reached out to Bloomberg regarding the union’s formation, emphasizing its relatively small size within the company. According to Bloomberg, the publisher is “carefully reviewing the request for voluntary recognition from the GWA, which seeks to organize around three dozen of the company’s nearly 10,000 employees.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Otto Kratky
Otto Kratky
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Otto Kratky is a freelance writer with many homes. You can find his work at Digital Trends, GameSpot, and Gamepur. If he's…
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is official and it’s coming this November
call of duty modern warfare iii release date makarov mwiii

Activision has confirmed a November 10 release date for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III with a teaser trailer following a barrage of leaks.
The shooter, which is going to be a direct sequel to 2022's Modern Warfare II, was the subject of lots of reports and leaks prior to this announcement. Reports from Bloomberg revealed that this game was originally going to be a Modern Warfare II expansion, but it later got upgraded to a full game. Then, over the summer, more game details started to leak before some Monster Energy advertisements revealed the game's title prematurely. Activision coyly acknowledged this leak on Twitter at the time, but finally pulled the curtain back on the project today with a video titled "Modern Warfare III is Coming."
Modern Warfare III is Coming
It begins with some green soundwaves on-screen and a lot of radio chatter in the background. Then, the soundwaves turn from green to red before the perspective then pushes into them, creating a trippy red void. In there, we briefly see waveform images of a snake and Captain Price before he says, "Never bury your enemies alive" over the silhouette of a new character. This is believed to be Vladimir Makarov, the villain of the original Modern Warfare trilogy, who was teased in the post-credit scene for last year's campaign. After all of that, the title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III is confirmed, as is the release date of November 10.

This date falls right in line with the late October to early November window in which Call of Duty games usually come out. It also places its launch after Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition is expected to be complete, so it looks like this may be the first Call of Duty game released under Microsoft. Other than that date, official details on the game are fairly scarce. Thankfully, we shouldn't have to wait too much longer to learn more.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III launches on November 10. 

Read more
Call of Duty: Warzone devs share the design secrets of the best battle royale map
Overhead shot of Vondel map in Warzone.

The Vondel map in Call of Duty: Warzone is one of the best battlegrounds in the history of the battle royale genre. It's a small-scale, densely packed map with a wide variety of points of interest (POIs) that feel distinct. Modeled after European cities, Vondel is a feat of level design as it simultaneously feels fun and functional. It's a city that you can truly imagine as a real place, with a slew of different shops to enter, a canal, and even a water taxi service that moves throughout the map.

But behind the scenes, there are countless design choices that help the flow and pacing of the map. To get a better sense of just what makes this map work so well, I spoke with Beenox Senior Level Designer Fred Wilson and Lead Artist Guillaume Alain. The duo revealed how Vondel's composition seeps into the players' subconscious, with intuitive design choices that work better than any Warzone map that's come before.
Pacing is king

Read more
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III has seemingly leaked thanks to Monster
Five main characters from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.

It looks like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III will be the title of this year's Call of Duty game. Following several leaks, including an undeniable one connected to Monster Energy, a joking tweet from the official Call of Duty Twitter account appears to confirm that this is true.
Leaks suggesting that 2023's Call of Duty game is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III have existed for months, but ramped up recently. On July 17, the Call of Duty Twitter account put up tweets asking if Operators, weapons, and bundles from Modern Warfare II should carry over to this year's game and teasing that a big reveal would happen alongside the unveiling of Season 5. Later that day, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier stated that this is a Sledgehammer Games-led project that started as an expansion and morphed into a full game.
Then, Monday morning, images of Monster Energy promotional materials connected to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III emerged on Twitter, giving us confirmation of the name and our first look at the game's logo.

A leak like this is pretty difficult to deny, so Activision decided to play along with it. "Whew. Mondays," the official Call of Duty account tweeted. "Anyone have an energy drink they can spare?"
While not a traditional, explicit announcement, this tweet confirms the validity of the Monster Energy leak and affirms that this year's Call of Duty will be a direct follow-up to 2022's Modern Warfare II. Now, we'll just have to wait and see when Activision decides to officially reveal more about Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III itself. 
Because it's not officially announced yet, we don't know what Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III's release date or launch platforms are. Still, it's likely that it will launch across PC, PlayStation, and Xbox sometime this October or November after Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition closes. 

Read more