The huge company behind, among others, World of Warcraft, Overwatch and Diablo has had a storm lately after reports of questionable conditions in the workplace. A couple of days ago, the next stinging blow came when producer Adam Glaxigrav went out on Twitter and lamented how the company is bleeding skills after several employees have chosen to abandon ship due to management that simply does not listen to what staff have to say.
Being loud about it because I’ve lost yet *another* person this week.
Blizzard is losing amazing talent because someone in power doesn’t listen to the game directors who make his products. DE&I also means diversity of thought, especially when it’s backed by data and financials.
He is also not alone. Allison Steele who works as a senior designer at Blizzard believes that a direct cause of the shortfall is a consequence of the introduction of a so-called RTO policy. In short, it stands for “Return To Office”, which means that the possibility of working from home, which became common during the pandemic, has now been withdrawn and that people are forced to return to the office.
forced rto has cost us some amazing people and will continue to cost us more in the coming months.
it is a terrible, shortsighted, self-destructive policy that is only weakening our ability to deliver the kind of game we want to make and our players deserve.
What do you think, is it time to review who is in charge at Blizzard?
