Games

Gaming is a huge industry, and workers are trying to unionize.

[pledged neutrality](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/03/business/video-game-workers-microsoft-union.html) when its workers moved to unionize. [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]). By leveraging the current moment, they hope to change the industry for good. [play video games](https://www.axios.com/2022/06/07/video-game-players-america-222). [highlighted the issue](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/25/opinion/work-culture-video-games-crunch.html) in Times Opinion in 2017. The total number of union members nationwide increased by nearly 300,000 last year, Activision Blizzard said that the accusations were a misrepresentation of the company’s inner workings, and that it had taken steps to improve its culture in recent years. In 2021, California sued Activision Blizzard for what the state described as the company’s “frat boy” culture in which women were underpaid and sexually harassed. The video game industry [was worth nearly $200 billion](https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/video-game-market) in 2021 — more than music, U.S. “We don’t want any of them to feel like they have to make unfair sacrifices.” “Corporate leadership know we’d rather be here testing a video game than another piece of software, so they can pay us way less.” A common refrain in the video game industry is that no one goes into it for the money; they could earn more doing similar jobs at other software companies, but instead passion drives them to games.