Activision Blizzard just can’t catch a break. Blizzard Entertainment, in particular, keeps on losing talent. Now, one of its most prominent members couldn’t help but air his grievances.
World of Warcraft producer, Adam Glaxigrav, went on Twitter to air Blizzard’s dirty laundry, blaming the company’s stance on remote work as the reason why it keeps on losing “amazing talent.”
As Adam puts it simply, the development team can’t “make better Dragonsflights…if we get rid of everyone who made it.”
This isn’t isolated within Blizzard. Christina Pollock, a programmer for Call of Duty, claims this is a problem within Activision Blizzard King, which implies that the company is in much rougher shape than most people thought.
It’s unclear how Microsoft will solve this as it closes in on completing its $70 billion purchase of the company. It’s a problem worth keeping an eye on, especially since it’s a bigger issue than expected.
For now, Activision Blizzard King will have to try and weather the storm on their own. As for audiences, it’s tough to see the beloved gaming company struggle. Activision Blizzard and the rest of the gaming industry should know better by now than to lose the trust of its employees and fans alike. As the rest of the world suffered from the COVID-19 pandemic, the gaming industry posted record highs in profit and revenue. Thus, the move to revert the work-from-home policies, when it was clearly working for all parties involved, is perplexing, to say the least.
Activision Blizzard definitely needs to step up their game if they want to retain key talent. Maybe it can ask the Prime Evil to lure its best employees in with a pot of gold and have them stay forever. We’re not saying this is standard practice, but hey, desperate times call for desperate measures, right?
Blizzard is currently hard at work at releasing Diablo 4 on June 6, which had just gone gold. Finally, the studio is working on a survival game as well.
