Bethesda union joins Save Our Devs rally as artist says layoffs became yearly under Microsoft

Bethesda Game Studios OneBGS and the Communications Workers of America joined the Save Our Devs rally across the United States and Canada and on Twitch to call out industry layoffs and press for fair first contracts at Microsoft’s gaming studios, organizers said.

Bethesda artist Alex Nguyen told Kotaku that employees at Bethesda feel the studio changed after the Microsoft acquisition, adding, "Since we’ve been under Microsoft… it feels like something has changed. We didn’t have layoffs before, and now all of a sudden we have yearly layoffs." He said those cuts have eroded institutional knowledge and damaged morale when small teams lose the few people who understood key systems.

Nguyen also told Kotaku that projects which need time and steady staffing to improve, such as Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Online, are less able to "bloom into successful fan favorites" without sustained labour and time. He contrasted that with an older culture at Zenimax and Bethesda where staff felt a shared long-term commitment, a dynamic he said is being squeezed by current corporate tactics.

The OneBGS union and the Communications Workers of America framed the Save Our Devs rally as a response to layoffs and broader corporate behaviour across the games industry, and as part of ongoing efforts to secure first contracts at Microsoft's studios, the unions said.