It’s been an uneventful week for the gaming industry. Waves of layoffs happened last week, especially at Telltale Games when the studio officially announced they removed a substantial amount of developers, plus CEO Tim Sweeney admitted Epic Games had a “financial problem.”
CD Projekt RED, however, isn’t without its fair share of layoffs. The employees are unionizing with other developers in the Polish gaming industry after a third wave of layoffs happened from the Cyberpunk 2077 studio, according to Eurogamer‘s report.
The staff over at CD Projekt RED started to talk about “unionizing” after the third wave of layoffs happened in the company, according to the FAQ page of the Polish Gamedev Workers Union. The page further explained in a Q&A fashion that having a union means having “more security, transparency, better protection, and a stronger voice in times of crisis.”
In addition, the Polish Gamedev Workers Union is part of the OZZ IP, a Polish-based Union that covers many different sectors. The Polish Gamedev Works Union gets to have access to “legal support, experience, and network of a larger union while being able to independently,” as stated on the FAQ page.
It’s always been a huge concern in the video games industry when layoffs happen. The livelihood of people working is negatively affected, especially when they have families to support. But that’s the reality of capitalism, without any union to protect employees from unruly internal policies and unjust removals, companies can easily get away with such actions.
Sources: TheGamer, Eurogamer, GameDevUnion.pl