Declan Keane
ZA/UM
Declan is a UI Designer who has worked across the games industry for over 3 years for the likes of Creative Assembly, Dream Harvest Games and now ZA/UM.
With a wider history in brand design, fashion and marketing.
Declan's focus on utilising deep research on the projects he works on is clear, ensuring a game's subject matter to drive the visual style and direction of the game is paired with his experience in implementing UI in Unity, writing in-game content, and paper prototyping game mechanics.
Declan Keane is speaking at the following session/s
Fireside Chat with ZA/UM - How Unionisation Empowers Everyone!
The video games ecosystem has encountered many steep challenges recently with increasing redundancies, reduction in new talent entering the industry, and the rise of generative AI to name a few.
Such uncertainty would make anyone doubt the future and wonder where they stand. This was no different for the staff at the Disco Elysium studio ZA/UM. Yet there was a difference, such a difference that it brought employees together to talk, share their concerns and build the courage to address such matters to management. Time passed, yet as of October 2025, developers at ZA/UM formed the first officially recognized trade union in the UK video games industry. Represented by the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) as the "ZA/UM Workers' Alliance," the union secured a voluntary recognition agreement with management to negotiate on job security, pay, and conditions following industry-wide layoffs.
How did such development happen?
Join us for this eye opening session as we explore what it takes to build momentum towards unionisation amongst workers, examining the steps needed to make such change happen from start to finish, and go down the rabbit hole with members of the “ZA/UM Workers' Alliance” to discuss their experiences and the impact unionising has had throughout the studio.
Session Takeaway
- Firsthand telling what it takes to create collective action within a studio and strengthen resolve in having difficult conversations as a team.
- The process in breaking down barriers between staff and management to communicate on mutual grounds for the progression of the company.
- The benefits of unisonising as a video game company that provides advantages for everyone within the business, from empowering workers to meeting goals and compromises as management.
Session speakers
