According to Engadget, a majority of employees at id Software, the legendary studio behind Doom, have voted to form a “wall-to-wall” union, a term meaning it includes every worker regardless of role. The union will work with the Communications Workers of America (CWA), the same organization involved with parent company ZeniMax’s recent unionization. Microsoft, which owns ZeniMax, has already recognized the union due to a labor neutrality agreement it struck with the CWA and ZeniMax workers last year. The organizing effort began around 18 months ago and gained momentum after Microsoft closed several Bethesda studios in the middle of last year. From the start, the union’s key goals will be protecting remote work and establishing worker protections regarding the responsible use of AI.
A shift in the industry culture
This is a big deal. We’re not talking about a small, struggling indie studio here. This is id Software, a foundational pillar of the entire first-person shooter genre and a crown jewel in Microsoft‘s gaming empire. Their successful, majority-vote unionization, with Microsoft’s pre-negotiated blessing no less, sends a seismic signal through the industry. It basically tells every other developer at a major publisher: “This is possible, even here.” The fact that it’s “wall-to-wall” is particularly powerful—it means artists, programmers, producers, and QA are all standing together, which prevents management from dividing and conquering different job families.
The real motivators: remote work and AI
Look, the union‘s stated priorities are incredibly telling of the modern game dev workplace. They’re leading with the defense of remote work, calling it a “necessity” for health and accessibility, not a perk. This is a direct, organized pushback against the industry-wide trend of rigid return-to-office mandates handed down from executives. And then there’s AI. The lead programmer specifically mentioned negotiating protections around its “responsible use.” That’s huge. Developers are clearly scared of how AI might be used to displace jobs or undermine creative roles, and they want a legally binding say in how it’s implemented. They’re getting ahead of a problem that’s only going to get bigger.
Microsoft’s calculated move
Here’s the thing: Microsoft’s labor neutrality agreement, which smoothed the path for this, wasn’t born from pure altruism. It was a strategic concession, likely made to avoid bad PR and regulatory scrutiny during its massive Activision Blizzard acquisition. By agreeing to a framework for peaceful unionization, they’ve largely insulated themselves from the bitter, public fights we’ve seen at other companies like Activision or Amazon. So now, when a studio like id unionizes, Microsoft can say, “We support our workers’ choice,” and avoid a nasty fight. It’s a pragmatic, maybe even cynical, corporate strategy, but it’s one that’s demonstrably enabling worker organization. The CWA’s statement about looking forward to negotiating a contract will be the real test of that “support.”
What this means for gaming
For gamers, the immediate impact might be invisible. But in the long run, this could be profoundly positive. Happier, more stable, and more secure developers tend to make better games with less brutal crunch. Union contracts can protect against the kind of sudden, devastating studio closures that hit Bethesda last year—the very event that sped up id’s own organizing. This is part of a much larger wave, as seen in the CWA’s growing presence in gaming. The dam is breaking. After decades of viewing unionization as impossible, developers at the industry’s most iconic studios are now proving it’s not just possible, it’s happening. And that changes everything.
