Game developers behind the popular trading card game Magic: The Gathering plan to unionize amid concerns over layoffs and a return-to-work mandate.

Employees with the Renton, Washington-based game studio Wizards of the Coast, which also owns tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, announced Monday they are forming a union in affiliation with the Communications Workers of America.

Last year's layoffs at WotC are the main motivation for game designers, programmers, producers and artists at the company to unionize, said Xib Vaine, a WotC game producer who is supporting the efforts to join a union.

“Essentially, everything we had heard up to that point was we were doing great, everything was super successful, and Magic: The Gathering was making a ton of money,” Vaine said. “And then the layoffs hit.”

Big Tech companies, including Seattle’s Amazon and Redmond’s Microsoft, have been rapidly shedding jobs due to artificial intelligence spending and pandemic overhiring.

The trend has extended to the video game industry, which has experienced widespread studio closures and project cancellations driven partially by higher development costs. A recent survey by Game Developers Conference found that one-third of the industry’s U.S. employees were laid off in the past two years.

Wizards of the Coast hasn't been immune to the layoff trend, despite the company’s financial prosperity.

In March 2025, WotC employees posted on LinkedIn that the company had laid off roughly 30 employees working on the virtual tabletop game Sigil. Two years earlier, its parent company, the toymaker behemoth Hasbro, slashed around 1,100 jobs (around a fifth of its workforce at the time) amid soft sales.

WotC revenues grew by a record 45% in 2025, driven by standout performance of Magic: The Gathering and growth in licensed digital gaming, according to Hasbro’s investor page. That helped lift Hasbro’s profitability and revenue while its other sectors suffered losses.

Vaine said WotC employees dread more layoffs, despite the company’s success.

“It feels like a sort of Damocles just looming over us. We’re constantly living in fear of, 'OK, are we next?'” Vaine said. “It feels like no matter how well we do, that fear will always be there if we don’t unionize or protect ourselves.”

A phased return-to-office mandate that began last year “added fuel to the fire,” Vaine said.

The policy means remote employees living far away must move to the Seattle area or resign, according to the unionizing group’s news release.

WotC and Hasbro did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The unionizing employees are also asking for WotC to create a robust AI policy, as they say the company pushes them to use the technology.

Vaine said WotC artists aren’t using AI but are concerned the company may pressure them to experiment with it, as it has done with its software engineers.

Damien Wilson, a WotC senior software engineer, said the company has pushed using agentic AI to significantly increase output.

“The burnout is real,” he said. “A lot of people are struggling to stay in software.”

The employees are also seeking creative rights to the projects they do in their free time, sustainable workloads and defined career progressions.

The group has already filed an election petition with the National Labor Relations Board, according to the news release.

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