Developers at the long-running game studio Double Fine, which was acquired by Microsoft back in 2018, are forming a union. The group, which is best known for Psychonauts and just recently released the pottery battle game Kiln on Game Pass, filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board on May 7 on behalf of 42 regular and part-time workers. As first reported by Aftermath, they’re seeking an election alongside a request for voluntary recognition from Microsoft.
“On May 7, the workers at Microsoft studio Double Fine Productions announced their decision to form a union with CWA to preserve and extend the studio’s commitments to creative excellence, diversity and inclusion, and worker quality of life,” the Communications Workers of America, which is representing Double Fine employees, said in a statement. “In tandem with requesting voluntary recognition from the company, workers have also filed an election petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to secure union representation. We appreciate that Microsoft has taken a neutral approach and agreed not to interfere in any way with worker’s rights to organize unions.”
The union push within the U.S. games industry first picked up steam at Activision Blizzard following a workplace reckoning that began in 2021. Microsoft’s acquisition of the publisher years later accelerated labor organizing thanks in large part to a neutrality agreement it made with CWA to help grease the wheels of the sale. Unions have since sprouted up across the Overwatch and Diablo teams at Blizzard, as well as ZeniMax Online and Bethesda Game Studios. Doom maker id Software also recently unionized.
Double Fine, founded by Tim Schafer after his departure from LucasArts back in 2000, expands the union movement within Microsoft’s gaming division to its standalone game studios. Unlike teams which were added to the Xbox first-party family through big acquisitions, Double Fine, Undead Labs, and others were added through one-off purchases of previously independent studios. The only tier of Xbox first-party development teams that unionization hasn’t yet spread to are Microsoft’s more homegrown teams like The Coalition and Halo Studios.
Schafer’s team is also the first to unionize at Xbox under its new CEO, Asha Sharma. The CWA is currently trying to re-establish its prior labor neutrality agreement which expired in 2025. Double Fine’s bid will show if Sharma is as amenable to unions as her predecessor, Phil Spencer, seemed, at least in public. The petition was filed just two weeks after the launch of Kiln, Double Fine’s most recent genre mash-up. It’s fun, but hasn’t gained much traction on Steam, much like last year’s eclectic adventure game Keeper. It’s possible both games have been much more widely played on Game Pass.
Are there concerns Double Fine could be on the chopping block as Sharma re-evaluates Microsoft’s gaming business. Chief content officer Matt Booty signaled the studio remains a key part of the Xbox portfolio back in February. “Our ecosystem is built to be a portfolio of everything from small games, to ongoing franchises, to the big blockbusters,” he said at the time. “We’re built at our core to build everything from Kiln to Call of Duty, everything from Minecraft to South of Midnight. That’s core to how we’re set up.”
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