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News Call of Duty made $3bn in 2020, so of course Activision Blizzard is laying off QA

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Haziqonfire

Haziqonfire

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Reading this article infuriated me.

Hopefully these folks can get back on their feet asap, just terrible.
One of the studios responsible for Call of Duty’s success is laying off QA testers that are reportedly earning $17 an hour for their work on the franchise Activision Blizzard saidbrought in $3 billion dollars in 2020. Raven Software, known for its work on Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and CoD: Warzone has now laid off a third of its contract QA testers, according to reports by Kotaku and The Washington Post.

Raven’s Associate Community Manager Austin O’Brien said that team members were being called into individual meetings to be told whether or not they would still have a job come January 28th. So far, the company has reportedly laid off about a third of its QA testers, or around a dozen people, but it’s possible more could follow. The Post quotes an anonymous Raven contractor who said that “everyone was told, ‘you did nothing wrong,’ after being given the bad news.”

A Better ABK, an employee advocacy group, says many of the employees moved to Wisconsin for the job, without receiving assistance from Activision Blizzard. O’Brien also tweeted that the company had been promising team members they would get raises after Activision (Raven’s owner) completed a pay restructure, and that may be coming true in a cruel way: Kotaku reports that the workers who get to stay will receive a raise from $17 an hour to $18.50 an hour, along with better benefits and bonuses.
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And Uncle Bobby just can’t wait to tell his shareholders how much their profits soared to record hights
 
Sadist said:
And Uncle Bobby just can’t wait to tell his shareholders how much their profits soared to record hights
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Yup. In America’s current system, if you aren’t increasing profits EVERY SINGLE YEAR, no matter the human cost, you have failed.
 
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If they really want less people working for no apparent reason, why don't they sell their studios? Nintendo could be the new home for Toys for Bob or Beenox. I'd definitely buy a Beenox made Diddy Kong Racing remake.
 
I wonder how long people can think capitalism is sustainable. Until the planet is completely destroyed and one person is left to rule the ashes?
 
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This makes me angry even if I keep telling myself to ignore all the shit that is happening.
But the people who are responsible will remain comfortable forever.
 
Cruel, callous, and completely in line with what I expect from this garbage company.

I hope those affected land on their feet.
 
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9-Volt said:
If they really want less people working for no apparent reason, why don't they sell their studios? Nintendo could be the new home for Toys for Bob or Beenox. I'd definitely buy a Beenox made Diddy Kong Racing remake.
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They are SO many studios and developers I wished Nintendo would just buy out. It could diversify their 1st party offerings which imo would be welcomed and needed.
 
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Yavga said:
This makes me angry even if I keep telling myself to ignore all the shit that is happening.
But the people who are responsible will remain comfortable forever.
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I feel you. We shouldn't ignore this but, honestly, we can't do much besides voting with our wallet and spreading this information on social media.
But you're right, even then those responsible will remain comfortable (and let's be honest, the typical CoD gamer doesn't care about this).
 
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9-Volt said:
If they really want less people working for no apparent reason, why don't they sell their studios? Nintendo could be the new home for Toys for Bob or Beenox. I'd definitely buy a Beenox made Diddy Kong Racing remake.
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They want the studios working to churn out CoD content, they just cut where they think positions are redundant with extreme ruthlessness.
 
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Absolute garbage company continues to be garbage.

It’s an easy boycott for me given that I’m not a fan of any of their series but happy to keep it up.
 
9-Volt said:
If they really want less people working for no apparent reason, why don't they sell their studios? Nintendo could be the new home for Toys for Bob or Beenox. I'd definitely buy a Beenox made Diddy Kong Racing remake.
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They want as few as people as possible working on call of duty to increase profit. We know that Raven and all the other studios are being used at this point as Call of Duty asset workhouses so expect other studios to start being purged of workers until the reach skeleton crews just barely able to keep pace with the constant churn of CoD games and spin-offs. This is why the board won’t actually do anything about Bobby Kotick being an abusive predator while covering for other abusive predators; they don’t view the devs making the games as actually human, just machines to grind into dust producing product.
 
It is such shameful and despicable behaviour from Activision to fire these QA testers after promising to increase their wages.
I am at a loss of words.
 
It honestly hurts me to not buy and play Diablo but I don’t want to support this shitty company.
 
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This is actually evil. It´s like every week Activision wants to outdo themselves on how evil and stupid they were the previous week and so forth.
 
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Hey folks, this isn't an official moderation post but just as a heads up, moderation will be looking this thread over once more of the team are awake and I would suggest that everyone just try and bring the temp down a little and post in good faith if engaging in conversation.
 
Zaimokuza said:
Do you believe the tone and the personal attack of your comment are appropriate?

It's clear that this is a matter of worker protection laws, not of some nebulous ideology that's useful as just a simple buzzword scapegoat
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It's a matter of worker protection laws, but capitalism really does foster this kind of behavior. Especially when there's a place where no really cares about worker protection laws (US). Both can be right.
 
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Zaimokuza said:
Do you believe the tone and the personal attack of your comment are appropriate?

It's clear that this is a matter of worker protection laws, not of some nebulous ideology that's useful as just a simple buzzword scapegoat
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I didn't appreciate your tone or implication that those that find capitalism repulsive are "Americans" who don't know any better. I don't believe anyone that is that dismissive and smug as your comment was warrants courtesy.
 
Why have QA when people willingly pay full price to beta test games these days.
 
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Full Bloomberg Article On The Walkouts
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    • Abzeronow said:
    I'm encouraged by this new push for collective action in the video games industry. As always, Bobby Kotick needs to leave Activision Blizzard.
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    Thanks for that, I added a threadmark.

    The Bloomberg story can be found here.
    A group of workers at an Activision Blizzard Inc. division supporting the Call of Duty franchise plan to call out of work Monday in protest of job cuts that took place last week. The move reflects a broader labor movement taking hold at the embattled video game publisher.

    The workers sent a letter to management of their studio Raven Software, which is owned by Activision and works on Call of Duty: Warzone. In it, they ask the company to reinstate the dozen people who were terminated, according to a copy of the email reviewed by Bloomberg. “Those participating in this demonstration do so with the continued success of the studio at the forefront of their mind,” they wrote.
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