That's it. Out of thousands of game studios worldwide, you can count the unionized ones on one hand. The industry has actively resisted unionization for decades, often through aggressive union-busting tactics.

What Does This Mean Under Microsoft Ownership? This is the fascinating part. Microsoft has taken a relatively neutral stance on unions compared to other tech giants. When Raven Software's QA team unionized, Microsoft recognized the union rather than fighting it.

That doesn't mean Microsoft loves unions—it means they've done the math and decided fighting them publicly isn't worth the PR damage. Which, pragmatically, is actually a win for workers. A company that won't fight unionization is a company where unions can actually form.

If Double Fine's union leads to better working conditions, better pay, and healthier work-life balance without tanking the studio's output, that becomes a model other Microsoft-owned studios can point to. Obsidian, Ninja Theory, InXile—these studios are watching.

Why This Matters for Gamers Here's the part that directly affects you: crunch culture makes games worse.

Exhausted developers make mistakes. They cut corners. They ship buggy, unfinished games because they physically don't have time to fix everything. Every disastrous launch, every game that needed six months of patches to be playable—crunch culture contributed to that.

Games made by developers with reasonable hours, job security, and sustainable workflows are better games. They're more polished, more creative, and less likely to launch as a broken mess.

You know what game famously didn't crunch? Baldur's Gate 3. Larian Studios has publicly stated they avoid crunch, and they just shipped one of the best RPGs in a decade.

The Pushback You'll Hear "Unions will make games more expensive!" No, they won't. AAA games are already $70. The money exists—it's just going to executives and shareholders instead of the people actually making the games.

"Unions protect bad workers!" In an industry with 60% annual turnover due to burnout, protecting workers from being ground into dust by crunch culture is the point.

"It'll slow down development!" Good. Maybe we'll get fewer half-baked live service disasters rushed out to meet arbitrary deadlines.

What Happens Next? Ideally, more studios follow Double Fine's lead. Realistically, most publishers will continue fighting unionization tooth and nail. But every studio that successfully unionizes makes the next one easier.

The game industry is young compared to film, television, and other entertainment sectors—all of which are heavily unionized. This is where gaming is headed, whether publishers like it or not.

My Take I love video games. I've spent my entire adult life playing them, writing about them, speedrunning them. But I don't love them more than I care about the people who make them being treated with basic human dignity.

Double Fine unionizing is a small step, but it's a step in the right direction. If you care about the future of this industry, you should be rooting for more studios to follow.

Would I speedrun a game made under healthy working conditions? Every single time.

Jun 5, 2026