UK video game developer union membership has been on the rise

The IWGB Game Workers union saw its membership increase by nearly half from December 2022 to December 2023. As reported by The Observer, people have joined in response to the mass wave of layoffs across gaming. Austin Kelmore, chair of the IWGB Game Workers branch said, ‘With this wave, I’ve seen people saying ‘we need to join unions’. Our membership went through the roof. We had the largest growth of new members in any month in our five-year history at the end of last year.’ The report adds that trade body Ukie says that roughly 900 of an estimated 11,100 games industry redundancies were based in the UK. Regarding layoffs within the video games industry, UK recruitment firm One Player Mission closed its doors after 26 years. Meanwhile, Riot Games also announced job cuts of 530 staffers.