How Activision Blizzard Testers Work: Low Salaries, Overwork and Discrimination

The “Alliance of Workers” ABK (Activision Blizzard King) told Kotaku about the conditions in which the company’s testers work. According to employees, QA specialists receive almost the lowest salary and at the same time are forced to work overtime regularly. They also do not have access to benefits, and representatives of minorities face discrimination.Overwatch

The main thing from the statement of the “Alliance of Workers”

Many employees of the QA department work 50-60 hours a week, and some even 70.

• The Alliance of Workers did not name the exact salaries of testers, but noted that they are at a “low” level.
• According to one of the employees, they are paid $14 per hour. Another called the figure at $15-17 per hour.Also, one employee noted that many specifically went to cut salaries, just to work at Blizzard.
• The salary in this case could reach only $7 per hour. According to him, it took such employees seven years to return to the salary they had before joining the company.One of the testers said that he could not afford his own housing.
• He also noted that many employees cannot go on vacation because they basically do not have enough money for basic necessities — including food.Activision Blizzard testers are also deprived of many benefits.
• We are talking about the lack of insurance, paid days off and vacations. It is worth noting that in the USA there is no federal law obliging employers to pay for sick leave — it all depends on the state.Minority representatives from the QA department often face discrimination.
• In most of Activision Blizzard’s internal programs and chats, the real names of employees are displayed (except for Slack, it is problematic to use nicknames in them). Because of this, transgender people, for example, are afraid that colleagues will publicly tell about their gender and orientation against their will.One of the transgender testers named Andrew noted that most colleagues do not discriminate against them.
• However, QA specialist Billy stated that part of the male team regularly makes jokes because of the request to use the pronoun “they”.According to Billy, many people do not pay attention to problems because they think:
• “You work at Blizzard, aren’t you already lucky?”. However, in reality, representatives of minorities often face misunderstandings and problematic people who harm their mental health.Activision Blizzard’s Official Response

According to Glassdoor, in the US, testers receive an average of $50,000 a year.

• A representative of Activision Blizzard in a conversation with Kotaku noted that the rate of QA staff depends on location, experience and efficiency. However, the average salary for this position in the company is not called.Activision Blizzard also commented on the statements about crunches among testers.
• According to her, most of the overwork is “voluntary”.In response to claims about benefits, a company representative stated that QA staff still receives paid sick leave with a system of distributing hours that are transferred from year to year.
• He also noted that Activision Blizzard is currently working on implementing this policy for temporary employees in states where the law does not oblige companies to pay for such vacations.Answering the question about discrimination, the representative of the company stressed that all new employees must undergo special training.
• They must also repeat their training annually and attend other courses related to compliance with corporate rules.Since the end of July, Activision Blizzard has been at the center of a major scandal related to a lawsuit about discrimination against women and harassment in the workplace.

This led to a drop in the company’s shares, an employee strike, the resignation of Blizzard president J. Allen Brack and a lawsuit from investors. Also recently, three key developers of Diablo IV and World of Warcraft were fired from the company.