Last week saw the formations of wall-to-wall unions within Blizzard and ZeniMax, which represent some of the biggest moves in the game industry's current unionization drive.On the newest Game Developer Podcast episode, Bethesda's Autumn Mitchell touched on several benefits won by union negotiators during discussions with Microsoft. One such benefit is "recall rights," wherein companies are required to offer to bring back employees they laid off if they need to refill their role two or three years after they're dismissed from the company.Mitchell explained that she'd seen these terms in other tech industry contracts, and their inclusion is a boon for employees and employer alike. "We're talking about eliminating that 'revolving door' at least to some degree," she said, alluding to the fact that high turnover obliterates institutional knowledge.In other words, the industry's swaths of layoffs could potentially be alleviated by studios having a fast method to re-hire new talent after their finances are stabilized.Fellow Bethesda developer Chris Lusco highlighted other unionization gains, such as converting some freelancers to…
Author: Elijah Turner
UK game development conference Develop will head to Liverpool in November for Develop: North.The one-day event will take place on November 14, 2024, at The Spine in Liverpool. Registration will open in September, when more details will be announced.Develop has become a mainstay on the UK game industry calendar and takes place in Brighton in July. The show attracted a record number of attendees this year, with 5225 people heading to the seaside earlier this month—an increase of 5 percent on last year.Organizer Tandem Events said there was also a "sizable increase" in the number of exhibitors across an expanded expo floor."Over the three days Develop:Brighton 2024 played host to over 100 sessions, from roundtable discussions to headline keynotes, as well as the biggest ever industry expo and the Develop:Star Awards—celebrating industry excellence over the past twelve months," it added in a press release.This year's keynotes were delivered by Sony's Shuhei Yoshida and Greg Rice, Interior/Night's Caroline Marchal, and Super Evil Megacorp's Kristian Segerstrale."The continued growth and success of Develop:Brighton shows the desire among t…