Blizzard employees anonymously complained about salaries

It became known from the Bloomberg material that some employees had to make ends meet and save on lunches, while top managers received millions in compensation.Journalist Jason Schreier studied a table that was created by one of Blizzard’s employees after numerous complaints in a work chat in Slack.

In the document, dozens of colleagues anonymously shared their salaries and changes to them.

This table was a response to an internal survey conducted at Blizzard in 2019. He showed that more than half of the employees are dissatisfied with their salaries. After that, the company massively raised salaries. That’s just not as significant as the employees hoped.

Back in 2018, it became known that some workers were forced to skip lunches and drink free coffee instead to have enough for rent. Another employee also noted that he stopped thinking about having children: he would not be able to provide for them.

And the increase does not change the situation for them. One of the veterans of the studio said that his increase was less than 50 cents per hour. According to Schreier, a number of Blizzard employees began to receive more, only after leaving for competitors like Riot Games.

At the same time, the representative of the company Jessica Taylor (Jessica Taylor) said that the best specialists received an increase, which is 20% more than in previous years, and even more employees received promotions. According to her, Activision Blizzard tries to support and invest in its employees.

Some producers and developers actually earn more than $100,000 a year. However, the dissatisfaction of ordinary employees is not caused by the salaries of colleagues, but, first of all, by the huge bonuses of top managers, which look unfair against the background of a 10% increase and a constant increase in the company’s revenue (according to the financial report, last year the company’s net income amounted to $ 6.489 billion).

According to Bloomberg, the head of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, received compensation in the amount of $40 million in 2019 alone. Since then, his package, including bonuses in the form of shares, has only increased. 

Last year, the company also saw a wave of layoffs — hundreds of people were left without work. As a result, the remaining employees were forced to take on the duties of former colleagues, while not receiving additional compensation for processing.

• Activision Blizzard has a new president. He was the former head of Google’s global tradeActivision Blizzard assessed the possible consequences of massive cuts
• Activision Blizzard has replaced its Director of Communications.
• He didn’t work in game development beforeIs there any news?