In Might 2026, staff at Double Wonderful Productions—then a subsidiary of Microsoft—filed a petition to unionize. It appeared on the time to be the most recent in a string of union petitions that proved profitable at sibling organizations like Blizzard Entertainment, ZeniMax, and different Xbox-owned recreation studios. However a brand new report from Kotaku means that from the second union organizers stepped into the highlight, they turned embroiled in a studio-wide battle that ended with them withdrawing their petition.
What drove the battle? Sadly, as Kotaku’s report lays out, it appears to be a conflict between Double Wonderful’s unfastened organizational tradition and the eligibility necessities for unionization as decided below US federal regulation. This led some staff to allegedly minimize off communications with their coworkers and fueled quite a lot of antagonistic interactions between union supporters and staff who felt Double Wonderful “did not want” a union.
This union drive was apparently the second to happen at Double Wonderful, as one other had begun to choose up steam in 2019 after studio founder and CEO Tim Schaefer delivered an affirming comedy set celebrating unions at GDC 2019. That drive was stymied partly by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The query of eligibility proved thorny as a result of below US regulation, managers with hiring and firing energy are unable to affix unions. However Double Wonderful’s flat organizational construction meant many staff had, at one level or one other, been managers. Makes an attempt to clear up this confusion have been hampered by some staff’ prediction that unionization would destroy Double Wonderful’s distinctive work tradition. All this passed off below the shadow of what’s identified inside Double Wonderful as “The Dangerous Assembly,” an occasion documented within the 2023 documentary Double Fine PsychOdyssey, the place a bunch dialogue over potential crunch turned heated.
Sources instructed Kotaku that the assembly was much more hostile than what was portrayed onscreen, and was emblematic of a reported social divide in Double Wonderful’s work tradition. This hostility apparently surfaced once more within the union drive, with one unidentified worker (who was eligible to affix the union) reportedly voicing their opposition loudly and publicly within the office, at one level “yelling at” a colleague over the union and “bringing them to tears.”
Studio founder and CEO Tim Schaefer acknowledged this battle in an hour-long interview with Kotaku, which you’ll be able to learn the full transcript of here. When pressed about why he or different leaders did not intervene as arguments between staff apparently escalated, he pressured his need to remain uninvolved in unionization conversations attributable to his position as CEO.
“I felt like I couldn’t intervene between eligible staff speaking,” he instructed Kotaku. When pressed about why the eight union organizers at Double Wonderful have been amongst the 23 employees laid off in July 2026, he denied any hyperlink between the failed union drive and that call.
“That’s undoubtedly not the rationale,” he stated. “We didn’t goal individuals for layoffs.” He intimated that the corporate’s precedence was to retain “who we most desperately must make these video games.” The laid-off staff instructed Kotaku they did obtain a beneficiant severance package deal. “I believed it was essential to match Microsoft,” stated the CEO.
The total story—which it’s best to take time to read in its entirety—paints an image of what occurs when honest questions on union rules collide with people who seem keen to escalate these issues into interpersonal battle.
“The conversations simply made me really feel astounded on the immense dysfunction I used to be seeing,” stated one supervisor who hadn’t been eligible to affix the union. One other ineligible employee instructed the outlet that they witnessed pro-union staff do their finest to reply questions on procedures and eligibility in non-official channels, whereas anti-union staff (each eligible and ineligible) fought in opposition to the trouble in firm channels.
“Seeing how rapidly individuals who supported unions in different corporations turned in opposition to their colleagues who’re pro-union made me suppose {that a} union was very a lot wanted at Double Wonderful” this particular person stated. “It was clear that these anti-union individuals under no circumstances would have the again of their colleagues if something unhealthy occurred and it turned an us-versus-them state of affairs.”
Sport Developer and GDC Competition of Gaming are sibling organizations below Informa Festivals.