Sega of Americahas officially unionized. There have been countless reports and allegations of low pay, long hours, and poor working conditions within the gaming industry over the past several years, especially when it comes to QA testing departments and other key areas of game development. As a result, a growing number of video game studios have decided to unionize, with some of themost publicized examples including Zenimaxand Activision Blizzard.
Sega of America announced its intention to join this list back in April, with a unionization vote gaining a supermajority of support from Sega’s workers in Irvine, California. This vote was cast in partnership with Communication Workers of America and spans multiple departments like QA testing, marketing, and localization. The workers forming this union, which is called the Allied Employees Guild Improving Sega, argue that unionizing is the best way to ensure thatSegaemployees are given due benefits like full-time status and paid leave - which in turn ensure that the studio is producing the best games they can.
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The final vote todetermine Sega of America’s unionizationtook place on July 10, as reported by IGN. More than 200 workers participated, with 91 voting “yes” and 26 voting no. Additionally, 19 ballots were challenged and three were rendered void. As a result, AEGIS-CWA is now the largest multi-department union of organized workers in the game industry, and will now enter contract negotiations with Sega of Japan. In the meantime, former Sega localization specialist and unionization supporter Katrina Leonoudakis took to Twitter to celebrate the outcome of the vote.
Sega of America’s localization efforts come after years of advocacy andunion-busting efforts from companies like Nintendoand Activision Blizzard. Sega itself has been accused of such tactics during the AEGIS’s push to unionize over the past couple of months, despite the union’s request that Sega maintain a neutral stance on the issue similar to the one Microsoft maintains during its work with labor unions.
In any case, this election marks the formation of the Sega of America worker’s union following much organization and deliberation. It remains to be seen how the AEGIS’s official formation willimpact the quality of working conditionswithinSegaof America, but hopefully, it means that the employees behind the company’s Brand Marketing, Games as a Service, Localization, Marketing, Product Development Ops, Sales, and Quality Assurance divisions will get better representation and fair treatment from this point onward.
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