Dungeons & Dragons and Magic Teams Move to Expand United Wizards of the Coast Union

Workers involved with Dungeons & Dragons, D&D Beyond, Magic: The Gathering, and Duel Masters have announced an effort to unionize under the United Wizards of the Coast banner. The proposed group would expand a union formed earlier in 2026 by developers on Magic: The Gathering Arena in partnership with the Communications Workers of America.

The organizing effort has potentially broad implications for Wizards of the Coast, the Hasbro-owned company responsible for some of tabletop gaming's largest and longest-running brands. If recognized, the new group would place workers connected to nearly all of the company's major intellectual properties under union representation. Magic: The Gathering Online is the notable exception identified by the organizers.

On October 6, the Dungeons & Dragons team and Magic's Studio X informed leadership that they intended to unionize. Their announcement frames the campaign as an effort to safeguard both the people making these games and the work itself. The workers are requesting support from the public through a petition asking Hasbro to voluntarily recognize the union.

A growing labor effort at Wizards of the Coast

United Wizards of the Coast already has a recent organizing victory behind it. Earlier this year, workers on Magic: The Gathering Arena won their union election, establishing the initial represented group within the company. That result provided a foundation for the broader campaign now being pursued by teams tied to Dungeons & Dragons and other Magic-related work.

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The latest effort is significant because Wizards of the Coast's products are not confined to a single development discipline. Dungeons & Dragons is a tabletop role-playing game with a vast publishing history, while D&D Beyond serves as its online companion. Magic involves physical trading cards, digital games, game design, organized play, creative development, and a long-running ecosystem of supporting work. Duel Masters adds another established card-game property to the proposed unit's scope.

Bringing employees across those areas together would make United Wizards of the Coast an unusually expansive union effort within a major tabletop and gaming company. It would also mean that labor concerns affecting creative, technical, and support-oriented work could be raised under a shared organization rather than through disconnected individual teams.

"We are stewards of our games who deserve to be treated with all the respect and dignity that entails," the organizing workers said in a statement.

That language reflects a central theme of the campaign: the people behind these games view their work as long-term stewardship of communities and brands that have shaped gaming culture for decades. Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering in particular are sustained not only by new releases, but also by player trust, regular rules support, creative continuity, and the ability of teams to plan beyond the immediate launch cycle.

What the workers are seeking

The organizing group has identified several priorities it wants addressed through union representation. Those include stronger protections against layoffs, improved wages, protections related to artificial intelligence, safeguards for remote work, and full ownership of work workers create outside Wizards of the Coast offices.

Layoff protections have become an especially prominent issue across the broader games business. Studio closures, project cancellations, restructuring, and repeated rounds of job cuts have left many developers and other game workers concerned about the stability of their careers, including those working on successful or high-profile franchises. A union contract can create a formal process for bargaining over severance, notice periods, redeployment, and other terms connected to layoffs, though the details would ultimately depend on negotiations.

Wages are another straightforward but important part of the group's platform. The skills required to develop, maintain, publish, and support tabletop and digital games are specialized, and workers are seeking greater influence over compensation. The announcement does not set out specific wage figures or a proposed contract, but collective bargaining would give represented employees a mechanism to negotiate pay and workplace standards as a group.

The call for AI protections is equally notable. Artificial intelligence has become a major point of tension throughout games, entertainment, and creative industries. Workers have raised concerns over job displacement, the use of their work in training systems, the quality and authorship of generated material, and whether employers may introduce AI-related practices without meaningful consultation. The Wizards of the Coast organizers want contractual protections in this area, although the announcement does not specify the exact language they intend to seek.

Remote-work protections are also on the list. Many game-industry employees have experienced changing workplace policies in recent years, including return-to-office requirements and changes to hybrid arrangements. A negotiated agreement could potentially establish clearer expectations around where work is performed and how policy changes are handled.

Finally, the demand for ownership of work created outside company offices points to a concern common among creative professionals. Employees often want assurance that personal projects made on their own time, using their own resources and unrelated to employer work, will remain theirs. The organizers are seeking full ownership over such outside work.

Voluntary recognition is the immediate goal

Rather than beginning with an election alone, United Wizards of the Coast is asking Hasbro to voluntarily recognize the new organizing effort. Voluntary recognition occurs when an employer accepts a union after being shown that it has sufficient worker support. It can avoid a formal election process and can allow bargaining preparations to begin sooner.

Whether Hasbro will do so remains uncertain. The company's leadership previously sent letters to Magic: The Gathering Arena developers before that group's union election, encouraging employees to carefully consider whether unionization was what they wanted. That earlier approach suggests voluntary recognition may not be assured for the expanded unit.

Even so, the prior Arena election matters. It demonstrates that workers at Wizards of the Coast have already successfully completed a union drive, and it gives the current effort an existing organizational structure and public identity. The new campaign is not starting from scratch; it is an attempt to broaden an established union to encompass more of the company's best-known game lines.

Why this matters for tabletop gaming

Union activity has increasingly become part of the games industry conversation, particularly among video game developers, quality assurance workers, and staff affected by rapid corporate consolidation. The Wizards of the Coast effort stands out because it includes teams working on tabletop-focused properties as well as their digital extensions.

That distinction matters for fans as well as workers. Tabletop games depend on years of ongoing development: books, cards, balance changes, digital tools, organized play, customer support, editorial work, art direction, and community-facing communication all contribute to the health of a game. Stable, experienced teams can be especially valuable in an environment where players invest substantial time and money into an evolving game system.

The campaign's emphasis on stewardship speaks directly to that relationship. Workers are presenting unionization not as separate from the games themselves, but as a way to protect the conditions needed to make and maintain them. Their argument is that people entrusted with major franchises should have a meaningful voice in matters affecting their jobs, their creative work, and the future of the products they support.

There are still many unanswered questions. The announcement does not provide a timetable for recognition, negotiations, or a potential election if voluntary recognition is declined. It also does not reveal the eventual size of the bargaining unit, nor the precise job categories included. Those details may emerge as the organizing process develops.

For now, the immediate development is clear: teams connected to Dungeons & Dragons, D&D Beyond, Magic: The Gathering, and Duel Masters are seeking to join United Wizards of the Coast-CWA. If their effort succeeds, union representation would extend across almost every major Wizards of the Coast property, leaving Magic: The Gathering Online as the identified exception. It would mark a consequential expansion of organized labor at one of tabletop gaming's most influential companies.