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Microsoft CEO of Gaming Indicates Support For Unionization of Quality Assurance Testers


Last month, a union election was held amongst quality assurance testers that work at Raven Software, a subsidiary of the video game publisher Activision.

All told, approximately 28 quality assurance testers at Raven were eligible to vote in the election with 24 actually choosing to participate.  After the results were announced, a resounding 19 voted in favor of unionizing with 3 votes against and 2 votes being challenged.  As a result, these workers at Raven formed the Game Workers Alliance union, marking a watershed moment at video game companies which for years have been able to keep unions out of the industry.

With that being said, this successful unionization is noteworthy in that Activision is in the process of being acquired by Microsoft.  In recent days, Microsoft CEO of Gaming Phil Spencer indicated that he would recognize the Game Workers Alliance after the acquisition of Activision is complete.  While Activision has indicated it would challenge the results of the election, it might be for naught with Spencer’s statement.


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