Nearly 1,900 employees across multiple divisions of Microsoft subsidiary Blizzard Entertainment have ratified a union contract with the video game developer, following two years of bargaining.

Communications Workers of America, which is representing the unions at Blizzard, announced Wednesday that the contracts had secured artificial intelligence guardrails, layoff protections and hybrid work benefits for employees.

The developer is behind popular video game franchises like World of Warcraft," "Diablo" and "Overwatch," which all have separate unions. "World of Warcraft" workers became the first wall-to-wall union at the company in 2024, two years after quality assurance employees at Blizzard had voted to unionize.

Microsoft's first recognized union came in 2023, when video game testers for ZeniMax voted to unionize.

Blizzard's largest offices are in Albany, N.Y., and Irvine, Calif., but the company does have an undisclosed number of remote employees in Washington state.

Paul Cox, a senior quest designer for "World of Warcraft," said his union had been through at least 80 bargaining sessions, setting up the contract that workers believed would be a blueprint for the other unions.

But the contracts ended up consolidated, creating a united front across Blizzard. Mahreen Fatima, a senior environment artist for "Diablo," said the consolidated contract was a "culmination of so many things that we dreamed about for the last few years."

"I feel like the future is quite bright for us as we continue our labor movement," Fatima said. "Not just at Blizzard, but across this industry."

Blizzard didn't respond immediately to a request for comment.

One of the key points of the contract that workers highlighted was guardrails around the use of AI at the company. Cox and others interviewed by The Seattle Times acknowledged that they use AI at work, but Blizzard has a policy against player-facing AI technology. As Blizzard looks to adopt more AI technology, the company will have to bring those uses to the bargaining table, due to the contract.

"Using AI for things that go into players' hands is a real concern for us, because that's where Blizzard's quality shines," Cox said. "If (using AI) is going to be the case going forward, we get a voice at the table to say how we believe it should be and shouldn't be used."

The contract also elevated pay floor. Across the board, workers secured a 1.25% pay increase, but some workers who were paid below $50,000 per year will walk away with pay increases that are as much as 34%.

Another piece of the contract that workers heralded as a win was recall rights, which gives laid-off workers the right to be recalled into open jobs across Blizzard's union-represented teams.

"If 'World of Warcraft' has a layoff but 'Diablo' is hiring, then you can get recalled into that team," Cox said. "That's huge.

The video game industry, like the broader tech industry, has been hammered with layoffs. In July, Microsoft laid off 3,300 workers, with many of them in the company's gaming division. That same division runs Xbox and owns Activision Blizzard, the former parent company of Blizzard.

Microsoft purchased Activision Blizzard in 2023 for almost $69 billion. Before the acquisition closed, Microsoft announced in June 2022 that it had signed an agreement with the Communications Workers of America, promising that it wouldn't oppose unionization drives at the developer.

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