The Microsoft-owned Bethesda has apparently run into some conflicts with its employee union, as many workers have gone on strike and stopped working. According to a report from Inverse, the first-party Xbox studio has seen hundreds of employees simply walking off the job in multiple offices in the United States.
This includes both Maryland and Texas, where Bethesda employees have gone on strike because the leadership of the company isn’t addressing some of the remote work issues, and has recently opted to outsource quality assurance of its products, something the employee union never agreed on.
The employee union wants to limit the ratio of quality assurance testers who are being outsourced when compared to those who are full-time employees. This union is the largest in the United States when it comes to the video game industry. It’s also looking for a more flexible remote work policy since most remote work requests have been denied.
There have been some negotiations between the employee union and Bethesda, and according to the quality assurance test lead, Rhyanna Eichner, the union is giving the same proposal again and again and has not responded to the mobilization tactics.
The senior quality assurance tester Juniper Dowell says that striking isn’t fun for them either, but there is a serious need to do whatever they can to improve their working conditions, stating: “Hopefully, we can convince them to stop dragging their feet and meet us at the table.”
Bethesda is still working on updating the first DLC expansion for Starfield called Shattered Space, and in terms of upcoming games, the studio is working on Indiana Jones And the Great Circle, and Doom: The Dark Ages. It isn’t clear how much impact this strike will have on the development of these titles, but hopefully, it is minimal and the employees can get better working conditions once the strike is over.
