Xbox Game Pass (Image: Microsoft)
Unionized developers at Bethesda Game Studios greeted Xbox CEO Asha Sharma with a giant inflatable rat and a field of 800 red flags outside the company’s Rockville, Maryland, headquarters this week, timing the protest to coincide with her visit to play a current build of The Elder Scrolls VI.
The inflatable rodent — a decades-old union tactic nicknamed “Scabby the Rat” — was deployed by members of OneBGS-CWA, the union representing Bethesda Game Studios workers, alongside flags representing every employee laid off since July 2025. “Each flag was a public reminder of how many people management cut from our teams — not just our colleagues and coworkers, but our friends at the end of the day,” union member and technical producer Nathan Hahn said.
Workers also posted protest signage outside their cubicles; when management asked them to take the posters down, employees replaced them with balloons instead.
Part of a Broader Xbox Layoff Backlash
The protest comes after Microsoft’s Xbox division laid off roughly 3,200 employees as part of what Sharma has called a “great reset” meant to return the gaming division to profitability, with cuts hitting union jobs across Bethesda Game Studios, ZeniMax and id Software. The Communications Workers of America (CWA) says it brought “common-sense layoff protections” to the bargaining table months ago, but that Microsoft has yet to meaningfully respond.
That frustration is set to boil over on Aug. 18, when the CWA and allied unions hold simultaneous “Save Our Devs” rallies across the U.S. and Canada — spanning Xbox and Bethesda studios in Irvine, Redmond, Montreal, Maryland, and both id Software and Activision’s Texas offices. Organizers say the rallies aim to “call out layoffs and corporate greed in the industry” and press for fair first contracts across Microsoft’s gaming studios.
Sharma’s Bethesda visit drew added attention online after she praised the Elder Scrolls VI demo as “incredible” without publicly acknowledging the protest unfolding just outside.
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