Workers at Beast breaker developer Video games unionized, creating the first union of video game studios in North America. Vodeo management has voluntarily recognized the union, which includes both full-time and contract workers.

Vodeo was founded this year by Three creator Asher Vollmer, with the studio’s first game, Beast breaker, released in September. The studio intends to release one video game per year. He describes his games as comfortable and crisp: “They are small, intimate games in which you can curl up and lose yourself completely. At the same time, these are games filled with complex, nested systems that can take years to fully master. ” Beast breaker, for its part, is a turn-based strategy game that has been compared to Peggle.

The company is fully isolated, with a staff of approximately 13 employees and contractors located in both the United States and Canada. The union, called Vodeo Workers United, represents all eligible employees, more than half of whom are independent contractors.

“We were really inspired by what a lot of our colleagues were doing in the gaming industry and the tech industry and beyond – the tension organized workers, the united workers of Paizo… there was a lot going on. Vodeo designer Carolyn Jong told Polygon. “It seemed like a natural next step for us to talk about ‘Hey, maybe we should get unionized’ and help set a positive precedent for the digital games industry as well. “

With the voluntary recognition of Vodeo’s leadership, Vodeo Workers Unite will not have to force a vote from the National Labor Relations Board. The group will soon begin contract negotiations to ensure a fair and equitable workplace and to lock in the perks they already have and love, like a four-day work week.

Vodeo Workers United is now the first officially recognized union of video game studios in North America. Its staff are following in the footsteps of other workers in the gaming industry who have marked the history of workers’ rights. This includes workers organized by tension, the Lovestruck: Pick Your Romance developers who went on strike for 21 days in 2020 and won without official union recognition, and United Paizo Workers and Cards Against Humanity Workers United, who made history as the first table game unions.

The video game industry has seen increased momentum towards organizing, with video game studios overseas – such as workers at Paradox Interactive in Sweden and Nexon workers in South Korea – form groups of workers. Collective bargaining and union efforts have also intensified in North America in recent years, as studios began to count with accusations of workplace misconduct and unfair conditions.

Game director Chris Floyd said workers at Vodeo are focused on creating a level playing field in a studio they love to work in, but also on being an example for workers at other companies interested in organizing.

“We are looking at the industry at large, and we all knew how necessary these types of steps are for our industry,” Floyd told Polygon. “Looking around, it’s really obvious. “

CODE-CWA campaign manager Emma Kinema told JeuxServer that organizing and workers’ rights are not goals that are incompatible with loving your job and wanting to make amazing video games or being proud of your studio. She cited Vodeo as an example of this. “They don’t organize themselves because there’s a big, scary boss, like Bobby Kotick or someone else,” Kinema said. “They organize themselves because they care so much about the work they do, and they want to have more of a say in how it’s done – the conditions under which they work to create the games they care about. heart.”

Myriame Lachapelle, producer of Vodeo, continued: “We’re here to say, ‘Hey, that’s doable.’ It’s often said that the digital gaming industry is special – that unions are good for other industries, like film, that it wouldn’t work for games, especially small independent teams. […] But everyone deserves a union, like three, 10 or 200 or thousands of people. “

Image: CODE-CWA

Vodeo Workers United has partnered with Communications Workers of America, specifically the Campaign to Organize Digital Employees (CODE-CWA), a group that supports the efforts of organizations in the gaming and tech sectors. (Some Vodeo developers are also members of the Game Workers Unite Group in Montreal, too.) The CWA as a whole represents more than 700,000 public and private workers in education, technology and media. CODE-CWA is involved in organizing efforts across the gaming industry, including at Activision Blizzard, where some QA workers are still on strike over layoffs at the Raven Software subsidiary. A group of Activision Blizzard workers, called the ABK Workers’ Alliance, announced a union campaign in December. Over $ 300,000 has since been lifted for the strikers. Workers are still calling on Activision Blizzard to make sure its workplace is safe for workers, following allegations – and multiple lawsuits – of a sexist workplace harmful to women and minorities.

“Over the past few years we’ve been in a phase of groundwork, educational and storytelling work on why people should organize and why game workers are like everyone else,” Kinema said. from CODE-CWA to Polygon. “All workers deserve a union.

She continued, “We’re starting to see a qualitative shift in a new phase of this, where you see workers en masse, whether it’s thousands of workers at Ubisoft or Activision Blizzard, or, again, the workers at Paizo. and Vodeo organizing a union. We’re seeing a change where it goes from talking about this thing – pushing for this thing – and actually seeing it come to life and weaving the workers’ organization out of thin air. ”