19 quality assurance testers at Call of Duty developer Raven Software have ratified a union contract with parent company Microsoft, barely a month after the publisher laid off 9,000 workers, including thousands at Xbox, in a serious bet on AI technology.
Inverse editor Shannon Liao reports in an interview on her Substack that the QA testers' contract will guarantee 10% raises over two years, require seven days' notice for mandatory overtime in an effort to ameliorate crunch, and will allow work from home. The contract – the fruit of three years' worth of negotiation – will also more sharply define testers' job descriptions and their possible promotions.
