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241 game developers at Bethesda Game Studios (BGS) have unionized with the Communications Workers of America (CWA).
This includes artists, engineers, programmers, and designers. Microsoft, the parent company of Bethesda Games Studios, has recognized the union.
According to the CWA press release on the topic, this marks the first Wall-to-wall union at a Microsoft games studio, meaning all eligible job titles are being represented by one union, rather than just one job class/title. This sets it apart from previous unionization efforts in Microsoft-owned studios, which were centered around QA workers.
A post on X from OneBGS_USA said that members are “ecstatic,” and they hope to “advocate for the betterment of every developer at BGS, setting the new standard for our industry.”

We, a majority of developers at Bethesda Game Studios Dallas, Rockville, and Austin, are ecstatic to announce the formation of our union with @CWAUnion. Together as #OneBGSUSA, we advocate for the betterment of every developer at BGS, setting the new standard for our industry.
— OneBGS_USA (@OneBGS_USA) July 19, 2024

The union’s statement continued, “As a democratic organization, we seek to empower the collective wishes of our studios’ workers; having a safe, sustainable, and equitable work environment for all. Having a proper seat at the discussion table allows us to turn those wishes into reality.
“Joining in solidarity with our fellow members at @ZeniMaxWorkers, @OneBGS_MTL, and all of @CWAUnion, we push for increased job security, compensation transparency, and flexibility to continue creating the games we love.”
This has been met with happiness and excitement across the video games industry and labor unions generally. Johnny Brown, the President of CWA Local 2108 (the chapter of the CWA Bethesda’s Maryland members will be part of) described it as a “groundbreaking achievement, and said, “Workers are taking a step forward to negotiating better working conditions, helping to raise standards across the industry.”
Unions are coming to the video game industry
The video game industry is increasingly turning to organization in the face of existential threats like artificial intelligence. Zenimax union members have previously said that an agreement was reached that “AI would not be used to replace a person’s job.” There have also been unionization efforts in the UK and the IWGB Game Workers Union has spoken out about anti-worker practices at Rockstar as development for Grand Theft Auto 6 reaches a fever pitch.
Video game journalist for Bloomberg, Jason Schrier, said about the Bethesda union, “We’ll likely see many more announcements like this in the coming months and years. Labor in the video game industry has reached a tipping point.”
Featured image credit: Bethesda Game Studios
The post Over 200 Bethesda Game Studios staff have formed a union appeared first on ReadWrite.

Time is ticking m’hearties and the Cursed Sails Pirates of the Caribbean event is well and truly underway in Fortnite. Now if you are the kind of player who likes to max out their rewards from these types of shenanigans you will definitely want to add both available skins for Captain Jack Sparrow to your locker.
Getting one is far easier than getting the other – as long as you are not broke – so let’s have a poke around and see exactly what you need to do to pick them both up before the end of the event at the start of next month.
How to get both Captain Jack Sparrow skins

So, on offer during Cursed Salls are both the regular Captain Jack and the Cursed Jack Sparrow skins. The Cursed Jack Sparrow skin is the skeleton version with the ragged clothes as opposed to the Johnny Depp and his boyish good looks variety (well, back when the film came out anyway – he’s a little more old in the tooth these days of course).
Getting the original Jack Sparrow skin is as simple as getting your wallet out and purchasing the Cursed Sails pass. Doing so will instantly unlock Jack for you and you can be on your way around the island.
The Cursed Jack Sparrow skin, well that is a different kettle of fish that is going to take a fair amount of Fortnite grind on your behalf over the next week or so.
You will need to check out our Cursed Sails Quests page and make sure you complete the quests which will come thick and fast every couple of days in order to accrue Cursed Gold. You are going to need 11,000 in Cursed Gold to be able to get the skin, and you do need to be on the Premium Reward Track in the first place as it is unlockable there, not on the freebie one.
Once you manage to get Cursed Jack it will also unlock his skin for Lego Fortnite as well.
The post Fortnite Cursed Sails: How to get both Jack Sparrow skins appeared first on ReadWrite.

Tesla’s Cybertruck is probably one of the most divisive product launches of all time. You either hate it or love it, and some of that choice may be down to your views on Tesla and Elon Musk.
Whatever your views on Terminator-esque machine, if you play Fortnite it’s looking quite likely you will not be able to avoid it as, according to a prominent Fortnite leaking expert, Epic Games Battle Royale is set to get a Cybertruck collab which will see the angular truck racing around the island and anywhere else you can drive a car in the Fortnite universe.
The image that HypeX posted on X featured some tire tracks and part of what looks like the Cybertruck logo, alongside the words, “NEW TEASER — Cybertruck x Fortnite drops tonight.”

NEW TEASER — Cybertruck x Fortnite drops tonight pic.twitter.com/KNDpA5sgmv
— HYPEX (@HYPEX) July 21, 2024

HypeX is pretty reliable so we would be amazed if this was not a legit leak but it’s fair to say it’s not one that has been universally welcomed by the fan base, who are also playing through a somewhat old tie-in with the Pirates of the Caribbean event that is going on right now as well.
An example of some of the more publishable responses to the news breaking can be found below:
“I speak for everyone when I say that we don’t care at all.”
“first collab that makes me wish on this game’s downfall.”
“But I just spent all my money on Pirates of the Caribbean ”
“First item shop item with 0 sales lets gooooo”
It does seem as though as games add more and more outlandish tie-ins such as this K-Pop one in PUBG or Ghostbusters in Destiny companies are increasingly risking the wrath of the fanbase who don’t care about these commercial product drops.
While Epic has enough goodwill to get away with a lot, commercial product placement which is designed to attract fans of the product being placed into the game is clearly beginning to irritate current players.
Like that will stop anybody.
The post Elon’s Cybertruck speeds into Fortnite according to leak appeared first on ReadWrite.