Summary
- The unionized quality assurance testers working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf have been laid off, raising concerns over employment standards and severance.
- The decline of unions in North America contrasts with the increase in unionization efforts in the gaming industry, with North America's first games industry union forming in 2021.
- A lawsuit filed by former BioWare employees alleging wrongful termination, alongside recent layoffs at BioWare, highlights the challenges faced by workers in the gaming industry regarding job security and labor rights.
All unionized quality assurance testers working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf have been laid off. The fourth Dragon Age game's QA team originally unionized in mid-2022, thus forming Canada's first games industry union.
The popularity of North American unions has been on a steady decline since peaking in the '50s. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 11.3% of U.S. Workers were represented by a union in 2022, down 0.3 points year-on-year. Meanwhile, Canada's share of unionized workers currently sits at 29%, a 9-point decline since the early '80s. And while game developers never got to experience the golden era of organized labor by virtue of not existing at that time, recent years saw an increase in unionization efforts across the sector. One of the biggest milestones on that front happened in late 2021, when North America got its first games industry union.
But the recent success in labor organization efforts across the gaming space hasn't been linear, with setbacks being steep and common. The latest example of that trend comes from Keywords Studios, a Dublin-based developer that was previously assisting BioWare Edmonton on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf. After the Canadian company decided against renewing Keywords' contract in August, the Irish studio laid off its entire staff that worked on testing the upcoming Dragon Age game. Keywords Studios Global Head of Marketing Liz Corless confirmed as much in a statement to Polygon, revealing that 13 Edmonton-based employees from the QA team working on Dreadwolf were laid off.
While the cuts, which happened on September 27, were attributed to BioWare not extending Keywords' contract, the fact that every single unionized QA worker ended up being laid off as soon as the initial commitment expired still invited some scrutiny from the affected staffers. Their union consequently hit Keywords with a complaint over employment standards in early October, aiming to fight the "minimal severance" that was offered. The move's timing coincides with a lawsuit that seven former BioWare employees filed against the EA subsidiary earlier this week, alleging wrongful termination.
That litigation stems from an August round of layoffs at BioWare, which saw around 50 staffers lose their jobs. The redundancies were announced by BioWare General Manager Gary McKay following similar workforce cuts at Electronic Arts. McKay did not provide a detailed breakdown of the layoffs by team, but has insisted that the company remains fully dedicated to delivering the best possible experience with the fourth entry in the Dragon Age franchise. Apart from Dreadwolf, BioWare is presently also pursuing a new Mass Effect game, which is currently in pre-production.
Dragon Age: Dreadwolf is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S.