Blizzard’s Story and Franchise Development Team Votes to Unionize

Blizzard’s Story and Franchise Development team (SFD) has voted in favor of unionization with the Communications Workers of America, according to a press release

SFD consists of Blizzard workers producing in-house cinematics, animation, trailers, promotional videos, in-game cutscenes, and other narrative content across Blizzard franchises, in addition to archival workers and historians.

These workers join thousands of others at Microsoft and specifically within Activision Blizzard who have voted to unionize with their departments and teams under Microsoft’s labor neutrality agreement in the last few years. Just last year, the entire World of Warcraft team unionized, and the Overwatch developers followed just this past May. Other unions within the company include Raven Software workers who just won their first contract earlier this month, Zenimax QA workers who got a contract in May, the Bethesda union, and several others.

“After more than a decade working at Blizzard, I’ve seen all the highs and lows,” said organizing committee member and principal editor Bucky Fisk. “For years, Blizzard has been a place where people could build their careers and stay for decades, but that stability’s been fading. With a union, we’re able to preserve what makes this place special, secure real transparency in how decisions are made, and make sure policies are applied fairly to everyone.”

Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. You can find her posting on BlueSky @duckvalentine.bsky.social. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.