Activision User Research Staff Forms First-of-Its-Kind Union in Their Field

A supermajority of user research workers at Activision has voted to unionize under the Communications Workers of America (CWA), forming the Activision User Research Union-CWA. With Microsoft recognizing the union, these employees become the first video game user researchers to formally organize a union in their field.

This new unit joins over 2,000 Microsoft studio workers who have unionized since the company signed a labor neutrality agreement with CWA in 2022. The researchers, now part of CWA Local 9400 in Los Angeles, are pushing for better wages, job protections, and career transparency, especially in the wake of massive industry-wide layoffs over the past two years.

“Many of us were mobilized to do something about the layoffs in 2023 and 2024,” said Nicolaas VanMeerten, a quantitative user researcher and member of the union’s organizing committee. “Now we can look out for each other with a union.”

In the video game industry, user research plays an important role in studying player behavior and feedback to help developers fine-tune their games.

“Workers should not feel punished for pursuing a career that they love,” added Pat Dimaandal, a user research moderator. “That’s why we’re organizing toward long-term, sustainable careers in this industry.”

CWA Local 9400 president Maurice Washington welcomed the new unit, stressing that unionization is about creating a “protected voice” to secure fair treatment on the job and declared that the next step is negotiating a union contract with Microsoft.The move comes on the heels of another major labor moment in the gaming industry as United Videogame Workers-CWA (UVW-CWA), a direct-join union open to freelancers and laid-off developers, was launched during GDC 2025 and gained more than 350 paying members within days.