The team developing a video game based on Magic: The Gathering announced on Tuesday that they’ve unionized, describing the move as part of an attempt to improve working conditions at Renton, Wash.-based Wizards of the Coast and create better games.
United Wizards of the Coast, operating in partnership with the Communications Workers of America, specifically represents the team working on Magic: The Gathering – Arena, an online adaptation of the long-running collectible card game. UWOTC-CWA says it represents “the collective labor of over a hundred game designers, programmers, producers, artists, QA, and more.”
“We believe that, through our collective power, we can bring about better working conditions for ourselves and the industry at large,” the union wrote on its website. “United Wizards of the Coast is just one of an ever-increasing number of union efforts in the gaming world. We are not the first to fight for our rights, and we will not be the last.”
UWOTC-CWA’s stated goals include addressing “unfair decisions” by Wizards, which allegedly include forced return-to-office mandates, severe pay discrepancy, forced AI use, “crunch” (a games-industry term for significant mandatory overtime), and more.
According to Kotaku, the UWOTC-CWA’s efforts to unionize were initially spurred by the surprise layoffs that were implemented at Wizards December 2023.
GeekWire has contacted Wizards of the Coast and UWOTC-CWA for further comment.
The organization’s next step is to request that Wizards of the Coast and its parent company Hasbro voluntarily recognize the union, and requests that Magic fans sign its official petition. The deadline on the petition is May 1, International Workers’ Day.
Arena is a free-to-play digital version of Magic for Windows, MacOS, and mobile devices, which saw full release September 2019. It’s operated on a “freemium” model where players can play the game at no up-front cost, but have the option to acquire new virtual cards and in-game currency in exchange for real money.
According to official announcements from Hasbro, there were over 13 million registered accounts on Arena as of 2023. At time of writing, independent trackers such as SteamCharts have logged around 7,700 daily players on Arena for the last 30 days, which is both a respectable number for a modern live-service game and a significant year-over-year improvement.
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