"No amount of hard work is enough to protect us": Over 450 Diablo devs sick of "the constant pressures of layoffs, passion tax, and crunch" under AI-obsessed Microsoft vote to unionize

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"I've witnessed the dread"

Key art for Diablo 4, Season 4 - Loot Reborn.
(Image credit: Blizzard Entertainment)

Hundreds of Diablo devs have just voted in favor of union representation, joining a fleet of Microsoft game developers seeking the same after recent layoffs axed 9,000 jobs and pushed some to constant paranoia.

"With every subsequent round of mass layoffs, I've witnessed the dread in my coworkers grow stronger," Blizzard game producer Kelly Yeo says in a Communications Workers of America (CWA) press release, "because it feels like no amount of hard work is enough to protect us." Earlier this month, both 19 Call of Duty quality assurance testers and members of Blizzard's narrative team shared similar worries while also voting strongly in favor of union representation with CWA, weeks after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella assured terrified employees that their parent company "is thriving."

Key art for Diablo 4 Season 3

(Image credit: Blizzard)

"My entire career as a developer has seen my peers and I paying the 'passion tax' for working in an industry that we love," senior software engineer at Blizzard Nav Bhatti says in the CWA press release. "At some point you have to choose between fight or flight, and forming a union is us doing just that – standing our ground in the industry."

"None of us should have to live with that constant worry that we might be let go at the drop of a hat," agrees Diablo game designer Ryan Littleton. "A union allows us to organize across the industry to make great games and protect the developers who create them from the constant pressures of layoffs, passion tax, and crunch."

"I grew up playing Diablo," recalls Blizzard senior software engineer Skye Hoefling. "But passion can't protect us."

Tired Microsoft employees say layoffs impacting 9,000 people could've been avoided by reducing spending on AI instead: "I can't believe how deep the cuts run."

Ashley Bardhan
Ashley Bardhan
Senior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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