Bioware's quality assurance testers working on Dragon Age: Dreadwolf have voted to form the first unionized workplace for the video game industry in Canada. The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 applied to become the certified bargaining agent for Keywords Studios, the contracting company through which the testers are employed, back in April. Now, Kotaku says the election has resulted in a 16-0 vote in favor of unionization. Before working on the fourth major game in the Dragon Age franchise, they also supported the development of Mass Effect: Legendary Edition and Legacy of the Sith, an expansion for Star Wars: The Old Republic. The testers, who work out of BioWare's Edmonton office, started organizing after Keywords Studios announced that they'll be required to return to office, whereas direct BioWare employees were give more options.

This week we speak to Andrew Day, chief executive of computer games developer Keywords Studios. Andrew Day knows from personal experience just how addictive some computer games can be. "I have one of those horrible personalities, that if I open a game, I find, before I know where I am, that I have spent tens of hours on it," says the 56-year-old. I went for a little break, I was lying beside a swimming pool with nothing to do. So I picked up my phone and started playing Candy Crush.

Keywords Studios PLC (LON:KWS) supplies a range of technical services to computer games developers and publishers. Some of the services it provides include art services, software engineering, audio services, functionality quality assurance (QA), localisation (enabling games to be published in several languages), localisation QA, and player support. Among its clients are Sega, Nintendo, Google, Microsoft and Warner Bros. Established in 1998 it now has studios in more than 42 locations in 20 countries across four continents. Keywords employs a buy-and-build strategy and has been expanding rapidly since its first acquisition in 2014. The list of what Keywords owns is long and will most likely to continue to grow as the company aims to make six small bolt-on acquisitions each year and one or two larger purchases.

An Irish video games company has snapped up a Japanese business as it continues an ambitious acquisition spree. The Dublin-based Keywords Studios bought Yokozuna Data from Silicon Studio Corporation, a Japan-based games engine developer. Yokozuna Data makes artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Keywords acquired the business and assets of Yokozuna Data for $1.5 million (€1.3 million). Andrew Day, chief executive of Keywords, said that it had been looking for opportunities to establish a foothold in the area of video games analytics "for a few years".