Psychonauts Developer Double Fine Is Forming a Union

Double Fine Productions, the San Francisco-based developer behind the Psychonauts series and recent titles Kiln and Keeper, has filed a petition with the National Labor Relations Board on May 7, 2026, to form a union. The unionization effort, organized with the Communications Workers of America (CWA)—the largest media labor union in the US—covers all 42 of the studio’s full-time and part-time employees.

According to a statement from the CWA, the union aims to “preserve and extend the studio’s commitments to creative excellence, diversity and inclusion, and worker quality of life.” The move comes amid significant changes in Xbox leadership and reflects broader unionization efforts within Microsoft’s gaming studios.

Double Fine joins a growing wave of unionization in the video game industry. In August 2025, 450 Blizzard Entertainment staff voted to unionize, followed by 165 developers at id Software. The CWA, which has been increasingly vocal about workers’ rights at Microsoft, helped establish the United Video Game Workers union in 2025—an industry-wide union for laid-off or unemployed game developers.

Microsoft acquired Double Fine in 2019, adding it to its Xbox Game Studios portfolio. The timing of this unionization effort, following new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s recent appointment, suggests workers are seeking protections in response to ongoing strategic shifts within the Xbox division.

Psychonauts Developer Double Fine Is Forming a Union

Sources