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Call of Duty Devs Walkout After Surprise Layoffs at Activision Blizzard's Raven Software
Blizzard
Geposted
06.12.2021 um 21:10
von
Archimtiros
Activision Blizzard was beset by layoffs, outrage, and a slight silver lining over this past weekend, after
about a dozen temporary employees
from
Call of Duty
development studio Raven Software were surprised to find that their contracts would not be extended into the new year. Blindsided by the lack of warning and their new termination date of January 28th rapidly approaching, this sparked immediate outrage between fellow employees, who organized a walkout protest of some 60 employees demanding their fellows be reinstated. In response to an
article by Polygon
, Activision Publishing acknowledged the separations, saying that 500 temporary workers were being converted to full time employees, but at the cost of 20 whose contracts would not be extended.
Update
: As of Friday, December 10th, Raven Software's walkout is still ongoing - joined by some (but not all) developers from other studios across Activision Blizzard and a
Strike Fund
has been organized to help support participating employees as well as those who lost their jobs.
Raven Software QA Team, via Kotaku
In response to the events of Friday, the Raven QA team and other members of Raven’s staff will be walking out with a singular demand: Every member of the QA team, including those terminated on Friday, must be offered full time positions. Those participating in this demonstration do so with the continued success of the studio at the forefront of their mind. The Raven QA department is essential to the day-to-day functioning of the studio as a whole. Terminating the contracts of high performing testers in a time of consistent work and profit puts the health of the studio at risk. Additionally, these actions go directly against the positive culture that Raven has created over the years. The end goal of this walk out is to ensure the continued growth of Raven as a studio and to foster a positive community for everyone who works there.
Cut Twenty to Save Five Hundred
Activision Blizzard's response that ~500 temporary workers were being made full-time comes is a welcome development, though it's strange that the 20 being cut appear to come predominantly from one studio which is still maintaining their product. It's possible the studio grew too big in the management's eyes, as
Raven's staff increased by 50%
over the last year, though other sources
suggest that QA testing was handed off
. Maybe there is valid reasoning hidden somewhere... but nobody seems to have heard any.
Activision Blizzard, via Polygon
Activision Publishing is growing its overall investment in its development and operations resources. We are converting approximately 500 temporary workers to full-time employees in the coming months. Unfortunately, as part of this change, we also have notified 20 temporary workers across studios that their contracts would not be extended.
While the short statement lacks context as to why those 20 are being let go, cutting employees to pay for advancing others is a common tactic in nearly every industry - in 2019, Activision infamously
cut 8% of its workforce
to pay for
increasing the size of development teams by 20%
. We'd like to think these cuts were performative - at least one
member of the Texas QA team
was terminated for
violating the company's social media policy
- but it's just as reasonable to believe that many more were let go simply because they were in the unfortunate position to be. Though whether this is greedy, callousness, or just business, it's left a
sour taste in the mouth
of those who feel that their promotion came at the expense of others. Fellow employees insist that these contractors have done good work, are mission critical, paid their own way to move to the company's Wisconsin location, or were
promised pay raises
... but none of those things seem to matter once the proverbial pink slips are handed out.
The Washington Post
“I feel hurt and betrayed," said one Raven Software contractor who was informed on Friday he had been laid off. He and other Raven Software contractors spoke with The Post on the condition of anonymity, stating a desire to continue work in the video game industry. “The majority of individuals who have had their meetings were fired. ... Everyone was told, ‘You did nothing wrong,’ after being given the bad news."
Not Unique to Activision Blizzard
It's easy to get upset over this, as many have brought up
Call of Duty's profit margin
in order to vilify the publisher's cuts, although it's also important to remember that this isn't in any way constrained to Activision Blizzard or even the gaming industry in particular. Job cuts and restructuring are a rather routine part of corporate life, with few companies willing to pay for employees that they feel are no longer needed or profitable -
regardless of how horrible it looks
. In essence, that's what the idea of temporary contract work was designed for - jobs which can be spun up and down as needed, and without the commitment of full time contracts.
But the reality is that temporary work has become a convenient way of stringing people along, especially in high pace industries like tech, where crunch never really ends. These temporary employees are routinely brought on board to assist with the development of a new game or expansion, but kept on for years beyond that initial work, used in the exact same manner as their full-time counterparts, but at a fraction of the pay and benefits. In the best case, these workers get used as a long-term recruiting ground - kept on the leash with a promise of
eventual
advancement while benefiting from their lighter compensation, much in the same way that unpaid internships take advantage of collegiates who can't get a job without experience but can't get experience without a job.
Temporary employees did gain a win in the form of
improved pay and holiday benefits
, and the announcement that some 500 temporary workers would be promoted to full-time comes as great news for them, but the loss of their peers is not forgotten.
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