Blizzard Workers Begin Revolting As They Anonymously Share Their Pay Data

@blaznwiipspman1: Well, Valve hasn't exactly escaped the greed frog. They've done their fair share of shady stuff.

sure, $60k in most parts of the US makes you well off. But making that much in cali, qualifies you to be a bum.

they are one company I will always support

@solidsolo: I would normally agree with you. However, I know people that work there. And this came AFTER the massive layoff so their CEO could get his 15 million dollar bonus last year.

With that less that 10% raise, which is about dollar an hour but with "perks", they were picking up the work of 2-3 other people they laid off. Also, the 10% is not necessarily accounting for actual accrual of "in game items" as their staff is already getting free game time to their MMO's like WoW.

They created an online forum that was anonymous and leaked that one of my favorite streamers got ahold of, Asmongold. https://youtu.be/Anolmt8klyQ

They were paying these poor people with artificial monetary items such as mounts and gold!!! That does not pay bills.

that doesnt work when the company hires indians for pennies on the dollar. Funny, corporations and those executives don't have to compete because of all the government protections...but when it comes to the little guy, the actual employee, then outsourcing to middle of bumfuk india is fine. How about we get rid of patents, trademarks, intellectual property rights and let the free market do its thing? The customer would all be the winners, the losers would be those CEOs

@boardsport311: you are looking at the world through rose tinted glasses. In reality thats not how it goes down.

@gaijin: They are shell of the company they used to be.

@illegal_peanut: You werent wrong in worshiping them. When Metzen left about 5 years ago. That is when they were having internal struggles.

You could tell at the blizzcon when they were touting Cataclysm. That was about the time that Activision got their claws into them.

See, what happened was is Blizzard got financed from Vivendi way back when they were something. Then Vivendi was starting to go belly up, and Activision bought them out. However, there was a clause that Blizzard had to be left alone for X amount of years or whenever they hit some number that Activision did not agree with (the time around Cataclysm).

This is the timeframe when you started to see more microtransactions, buying gold, levels, etc. Activision has always been about that model.

All of the founders: Pierce, Metzen, Morheime, Adhame...All left after Metzen. Morheime was the last to leave. Reading alot of stuff and people I know that work there state he was trying to fend off Activision "styles" as much as possible. Even a majority of the original artists and storyboard creators and programmers left and went to other companies. They all site the same thing. "Not the same company as when they started." or "Company has lost its way".

This company is a perfect example of what happens with corporate greed. Just like DICE and EA. They made PHENOMENAL Battlefield Games before EA made all of the calls. Now, they are riddled with bugs and just.....broken.

I LOVED blizzard. I like you thought they could do no wrong. LOVED every game they made. The last 4 WoW expansions have sucked and have been lackluster at best. They made them easy, and took out the friend/community mechanic from the game. I really hope at the end of all of this the founders take their money from leaving Blizzard, start another company and leave the big firms out of it. I imagine they have NDA or non-competes they have to abide by for a couple of years. We as gamers can only hope and pray for these guys to come back.

@illegal_peanut: to be fair, they probably weren’t like this in their heyday. Once they merged with Activision, it was all downhill from there. Same thing goes for Activision. They got shitty after the merger too.

@kikook: sounds like he did some good.

@djezhel619: 30 an hour? Shi....I used to work for a cable company in 2012 making 10 as an installer and had sales quotas to make on top of that. Poles, attics and crawlspaces included at no extra pay :) I know cost of living differences are a big thing but jeez.

@djezhel619: Because when they have a great profit margin, that money goes to the upper level executives when it should be distributed amongst everyone. At least that’s how my company works (Genentech). High pay attracts better candidates and incentivizes them to stay. Hence why I’ll never leave my job. The benefits are insane here.

@djezhel619:

Like you said, I was under the impression that core devs get paid very well. Who exactly are we talking about here? The minimum wage people? Well, yeah, of course you're not going to paid well.

@Pyrosa: this is an industry wide issue, should they give up on their entire career because they are getting mistreated?

There is 0 reason that makes any sort of logical or rational sense that a CEO should make $30 million a year. Ever. Its idiotic to think they should.

That is amplified 100 times over if that same CEO is presiding over a company that is laying people off to cut costs and under valuing their remaining employees.

Last I checked, Bobby doesn't make games. Bobby doesn't create products. Bobby doesn't add to the bottom line. His employees do. Those "cut costs" could have contributed to company products and profits.

His salary contributed nothing to the company or society.