At GDC 2025, workers announced an industry-wide union with open doors allowing game developers, employed or not, to join. The United Videogame Workers, which organized under the Communications Workers of America, aims to empower games industry workers to collectively push for industry-wide benefits and protections.
The UVW launched with 100 members, reaching a total of 200 on the first day as more workers joined. Right now, the union is focused on growing its membership to achieve the eventual goal of an industry-wide contract, much like the one from the US actors' union SAG AFTRA that covers all its members.
The UVW is fighting for greater protections in the games industry, whose publishers, studios and companies laid off over 25,000 employees in the last two years, according to the UVW's announcement. But the effort to improve the quality of life of the people who make games also affects the games themselves, leaders said.
"What does [UVW] mean for them in the long run? I think it means better games and better art," said Kaitlin Bonfiglio, narrative designer and union leader at UVW. "Gamers are workers too, and so I would love to believe that all workers would support a movement like this."
Brian Ostrander, senior software engineer and union leader in the UVW, noted, "We got into this industry because we have a passion for it. There are other places to go [where] we could make more money, but we love making games," he said. "We're gamers at heart as well."
At GDC 2025, video game developers go public with the United Videogame Workers, an industry-wide union. They marched in front of San Francisco's Moscone Center convention center, home to GDC.
The games industry has tried varying unionization efforts at individual companies, including Microsoft's Zenimax Online Studios in December, a process that can change conditions by securing a binding contract. But it can take years to bargain for and win a contract, and momentum can stall in an industry experiencing record layoffs and turnover.
In contrast, the UVW is a "direct join" type of union rather than one linked to a single company, Bonfiglio explained, where all a worker needs to do to join is pay dues. Tying the UVW to the industry instead of individual workplaces also ensures the union -- described as a "movement" by leaders Bonfilio and Ostrander -- isn't affected when a singular workplace folds. "An industry-wide union is about building momentum that becomes stronger than any boss can stop," Ostrander said.
Joining the UVW doesn't immediately grant protections, but it does serve as a stepping stone for workers to organize, unite and work toward greater protections across the entire industry.
Leaders from the UVW deemed the time was right to launch an industry-wide union at GDC 2025 because the National Labor Relations Board has been tumultuous under the Trump Administration, after a member was fired by the President and then reinstated by a federal judge, as NBC News reported. In lieu of a stable board of labor arbitration, the UVW went public.
"Now what we're seeing is with the attack on the National Labor Relations Board, if they're going to change the rules of the game, then we need to change how we play as well," Ostrander said.
The UVW held a panel on Wednesday at San Francisco's Moscone Center, timed with GDC after going public with the union. During the panel, other games industry workers expressed both concern for the industry and hope for the union. When Bonfiglio asked the room full of attendees to raise a hand if they knew someone in the games industry who had been laid off, nearly everyone in the room raised their hand.
At GDC 2025, video game workers unveiled their new industry union, United Videogame Workers (UVW), and marched in Moscone Center.
Afterward, the UVW leaders led members and panel attendees, chanting protest slogans, down the street toward Yerba Buena Gardens, an outdoor area, to rally developers. The day ended with a second panel, during which Tom Smith, CWA's senior director of organizing, was interviewed by Bloomberg games industry reporter Jason Schreier.
King framed the UVW as about providing workers the capability to reshape their industry, especially to resist layoffs and poor working conditions like crunch (infamous periods of mandatory extended work hours).
"This feels flippant, but I say it with all earnestness in the world: games need to have the equivalent of the American Humane Society thing at the end of them that 'no game developers were harmed in the making of this product,'" King said in the interview.
While Schreier questioned the strength of a union that didn't yet have the power to bargain, Smith referenced a famous 1937 United Auto Workers sit-down strike in Flint, Michigan, that, despite making up 2% of the workforce, still won concessions from owner General Motors. Remembering the history of the labor movement, from sit-ins of the Civil Rights Movement to workplace strikes, can be empowering and reminds game developers that tactics like workplace takeovers, picketing, boycotts and solidarity coordination have won labor victories in the past.
"We've gotta become ungovernable in that way," Smith said in response to an audience member's question. "We do not have the muscle to do that overnight, but the only way we're gonna get to that muscle is by more folks having the courage to do what you're doing [in unionizing]."