It’s the night of the 2025 Game Awards, a major industry event where the best games of the year are crowned and major publishers reveal forthcoming projects. In the shadow of the Peacock theater in Los Angeles and next to a giant, demonic statue promoting new game Divinity, which would be announced on stage later that evening, stands a collection of people in bright red shirts. Many are holding signs: a tombstone honouring the “death” of The Game Awards’ Future Class talent development programme; a bold, black-and-red graphic that reads “We’re Done Playing”; and “wanted” posters for Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick and Microsoft CEO Phil Spencer. This is a protest.
The protesters, who were almost denied entry to the public space outside the Peacock theater (“they knew we were coming,” one jokes), are from United Videogame Workers (UVW), an industry-wide, direct-join union for North America that is part of the Communications Workers of America. “We are out here today to raise awareness of the plight of the game worker,” says Anna C Webster, chair of the freelancing committee, in the hot Los Angeles sun. “Our industry has been strip-mined for resources by these corporate overlords, and we figured the best place to raise awareness of what’s happening in the games industry is at the culmination, the final boss, as it were: The Game Awards.”
Webster is referencing several things here. More than 40,000 layoffs have decimated the industry over the past few years; just last month, Grand Theft Auto developer RockstarGames was accused of union-busting after firing more than 30 staff (the studio denies this, saying the employees were leaking confidential information), and AI is being rapidly injected into game development processes. The industry seems unwilling to reckon with these issues.
“I recently read that a three-minute trailer at The Game Awards costs more than $1m,” says the union’s local secretary, Kaitlin “KB” Bonfiglio. “[Despite] the pomp and circumstance of all of this, they never seem to acknowledge the historic amount of layoffs that have happened in the industry.”
For the UVW, there is a core issue here. “It’s all about greed,” Webster insists. “Anyone who works in the games industry can identify that our art form is being sold for parts to make a few people a lot of money. And they don’t care about the games. They don’t care about the art. They just want their money.”
For those working in games, the problems plaguing the industry are obvious. But how can UVW make it clear that the issues industry workers face affect players, too? “If you’re someone who loves video games, if you are frustrated by games that launch buggy and are delayed messes, if you’re frustrated by games you’re excited about getting cancelled without warning, all of that ties back to what we’re doing here,” treasurer Sherveen Uduwana says. “Giving us layoff protections, making sure bosses can’t take away our healthcare, making sure they can’t replace us with AI – that is going to lead to better games for players and more ambitious, interesting, creative projects. It’s really a win-win for players and a win-win for workers.”
There’s a clear love for the industry permeating through this group, a desire to make the medium and the work they cherish even better. The Game Awards is a major night, one that can help prop up smaller independent studios and highlight incredible voice actors. The UVW team recognises that.
“Have a good time today, and tomorrow, let’s wake up and start organising for better workers’ rights and a better games industry,” Uduwana says.
