Blizzard Q&A With Leadership about Return to Office, WoW Hotfixes - February 17, 2023

[Zulggun]

What an irrelevant strawman.
.

I'm not a strawman. This is literally what you are saying, trying to make a point from "we used to do thing and not complain, so why we complain now??".

[qwerty123456]

Isn't he a hardcore raider? Never met one that wasn't a dick with the you need us we don't need you attitude so not surprised he would comment that way.

[kamuimac]

Is it false narrative when people are forced to work in order to survive? It's not a choice for the majority of people. Good for you that you can live your life. You sound like one of those people who think those protesting against 12 hour work days are just lazy bums.

true but then how you work is a culmination of years of your education and work experiences and life choices .

clearly companies dont want workers to work remotely 100 % of time. and the workers choice is either to commute to office or find different job .

times change but clearly not fast enough to some peoples liking.

[Alicianna]

Either Mr. Ybarra is not very good at negotiating salaries for himself, he is a notorious liar or he is totally oblivious to what the average employee earns. He probably spends to much time doings sell-runs instead of his job (or is that his job?).
I hope Bobby and his fanboys soon become a distant memory.

[Chapel]

I'm a nurse, and I've worked in Emergency. One doesn't need to be working construction to experience the "hard reality" of working jobs. Give me a break.

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Is it false narrative when people are forced to work in order to survive? It's not a choice for the majority of people. Good for you that you can live your life. You sound like one of those people who think those protesting against 12 hour work days are just lazy bums.

If you were a 'nurse', you would know that hard work is required and you can't complete it by lazing about at home pretending to do 8 hours of work over the course of 12-14 hours.

Everyone, who isn't a trust fund baby (or similar rich family situation), has to work. This isn't even remotely debatable. You must do your job, where your employer requires it, and during the hours they tell you to. This is real life, not The Sims.

If a company deliberates and determines that employees, who were pampered by the work from home policies set during the coof, were overall less productive since they were not working together with the other devs at the same time for quality corroboration, they would then implement a needed return to some level of direct interaction.

This is not some draconian policy. This is doing work to earn your income to support yourself and your lifestyle. If you do not like it, yes, go find somewhere else that will let you stay home to work. These Blizz employees just got too used to the lazy work ethic of randomly adding up 40 hrs per week of scattered poor quality work and don't want to be held to task.

It really is that simple.

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"Ok guys, I'm gonna level with you. We have a lot of people who wanna work here because they think it'd be cool to work on video games, and a dedicated customer base that keeps buying our regularly scheduled expansions. We think we can make more money by just paying you all shit and continuing to pump out mediocre expansions, because we can always find more people who think it's cool to work on video games to shove into the meat grinder. If you don't like it, well, that's on you."

Those poor Devs, making a minimum of $75/hr, not getting a $20k bonus this year and only getting $9800...

You should have got a 'Cheese of the month club' voucher in the mail.

[TheRevenantHero]

If you were a 'nurse', you would know that hard work is required and you can't complete it by lazing about at home pretending to do 8 hours of work over the course of 12-14 hours.

Everyone, who isn't a trust fund baby (or similar rich family situation), has to work. This isn't even remotely debatable. You must do your job, where your employer requires it, and during the hours they tell you to. This is real life, not The Sims.

If a company deliberates and determines that employees, who were pampered by the work from home policies set during the coof, were overall less productive since they were not working together with the other devs at the same time for quality corroboration, they would then implement a needed return to some level of direct interaction.

This is not some draconian policy. This is doing work to earn your income to support yourself and your lifestyle. If you do not like it, yes, go find somewhere else that will let you stay home to work. These Blizz employees just got too used to the lazy work ethic of randomly adding up 40 hrs per week of scattered poor quality work and don't want to be held to task.

It really is that simple.

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Those poor Devs, making a minimum of $75/hr, not getting a $20k bonus this year and only getting $9800...

You should have got a 'Cheese of the month club' voucher in the mail.

It's been proven that there is a dramatic increase to both productivity and morale when working from home. Companies also saw an increase in profits while people were working from home. It absolutely is a draconian policy because there is no reason for a lot of companies to ban working from home other than the need to exert complete and utter control over workers.

Everything about your post is objectively wrong.

[Nymrohd]

I think there are plenty of jobs were full WFH is entirely reasonable especially in the context of gaming. E.g. I don't see why you need to show up in the office for most of the visual arts posts. The work product is very clear and as long as deadlines are met the collaboration required can easily be done over the internet. Heck if the demand wasn't practically constant I'd expect almost everyone to be contracted instead of salaried and be paid per asset but it's probably cheaper for Blizzard this way. At the same time I think other disciplines probably work much better in an office environment because the communication needs to be constant and it's not easy to adapt that online.

And that is the crux of the problem; if you are having employees in a variety of disciplines were there is no clear delineation for a physical presence requirement, ending WFH for some disciplines but not others would seem very problematic. So it is easier to just take a single position as a company instead of a more complex one, allowing for health restrictions as needed. Like, we kept WFH for people in back office tasks at my job but it was very clear how things were divided.

That said, people who were hired to work from home while possibly not even living in the same state are getting a very raw deal and they should be entitled to severance if they can no longer come to work because of a change in policy; the implicit terms of employment when they were hired did not require their physical presence after all. I think in plenty of places in the world, they'd have a great shot at court in demanding that severance.

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It's been proven that there is a dramatic increase to both productivity and morale when working from home. Companies also saw an increase in profits while people were working from home.

For the first one, is it true for all fields and disciplines? I mean we kept getting the excuse in video games about how everything was delayed because of adapting to WFH. I am not saying it is not true on average (and it definitely should hold true for morale everywhere, just the time and money saved). If ATVI's productivity increased, where the fuck was my Shadowlands raid tier that went missing and why was Korthia bought on Black Friday discount? For the second argument here, that likely has far less to do with productivity and far more to do with cost saving. Just the electric and heating bill for office spaces alone would improve your profits, not even considering companies that had the flexibility and were able to cut down on rental costs.

[Very Tired]

Kinda agree with everyone. Ending a WFH policy when you really don't have to is a huge dick move by Blizzard.

[Chapel]

It's been proven that there is a dramatic increase to both productivity and morale when working from home. Companies also saw an increase in profits while people were working from home. It absolutely is a draconian policy because there is no reason for a lot of companies to ban working from home other than the need to exert complete and utter control over workers.

Everything about your post is objectively wrong.

Objectively...

Exactly. Objectively (taking into consideration all work environments) not every career is capable of performing to a 100% quality standard with 100% work from home.

That is why hybrid work policies have been proven to be even better for performance in industries that can support it.

And a majority of career paths do not function well at all without 100% 'in office' corroboration.

[Xilurm]

If you were a 'nurse', you would know that hard work is required and you can't complete it by lazing about at home pretending to do 8 hours of work over the course of 12-14 hours.

Everyone, who isn't a trust fund baby (or similar rich family situation), has to work. This isn't even remotely debatable. You must do your job, where your employer requires it, and during the hours they tell you to. This is real life, not The Sims.

If a company deliberates and determines that employees, who were pampered by the work from home policies set during the coof, were overall less productive since they were not working together with the other devs at the same time for quality corroboration, they would then implement a needed return to some level of direct interaction.

This is not some draconian policy. This is doing work to earn your income to support yourself and your lifestyle. If you do not like it, yes, go find somewhere else that will let you stay home to work. These Blizz employees just got too used to the lazy work ethic of randomly adding up 40 hrs per week of scattered poor quality work and don't want to be held to task.

It really is that simple.

I understand that. What I don't understand is why there's people like yourself who try to stop the pushback for better work conditions in general. Just boggles the mind. There's never going to be any change if you want to stand against the change, seemingly for no reason at all.

As for me, I understand perfectly well I can't ever work from home. Which is why I've decided that I'm not going to spend my entire life in this kind of career. There's just no way.

[TheRevenantHero]

I think there are plenty of jobs were full WFH is entirely reasonable especially in the context of gaming. E.g. I don't see why you need to show up in the office for most of the visual arts posts. The work product is very clear and as long as deadlines are met the collaboration required can easily be done over the internet. Heck if the demand wasn't practically constant I'd expect almost everyone to be contracted instead of salaried and be paid per asset but it's probably cheaper for Blizzard this way. At the same time I think other disciplines probably work much better in an office environment because the communication needs to be constant and it's not easy to adapt that online.

And that is the crux of the problem; if you are having employees in a variety of disciplines were there is no clear delineation for a physical presence requirement, ending WFH for some disciplines but not others would seem very problematic. So it is easier to just take a single position as a company instead of a more complex one, allowing for health restrictions as needed. Like, we kept WFH for people in back office tasks at my job but it was very clear how things were divided.

That said, people who were hired to work from home while possibly not even living in the same state are getting a very raw deal and they should be entitled to severance if they can no longer come to work because of a change in policy; the implicit terms of employment when they were hired did not require their physical presence after all. I think in plenty of places in the world, they'd have a great shot at court in demanding that severance.

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For the first one, is it true for all fields and disciplines? I mean we kept getting the excuse in video games about how everything was delayed because of adapting to WFH. I am not saying it is not true on average (and it definitely should hold true for morale everywhere, just the time and money saved). If ATVI's productivity increased, where the fuck was my Shadowlands raid tier that went missing and why was Korthia bought on Black Friday discount? For the second argument here, that likely has far less to do with productivity and far more to do with cost saving. Just the electric and heating bill for office spaces alone would improve your profits, not even considering companies that had the flexibility and were able to cut down on rental costs.

The pandemic was nothing but a convenient excuse. Companies that blamed the pandemic for the delays were definitely going to delay their releases anyway but the pandemic gave them something to blame the delay on so they didn't get hit with backlash. That raid tier you mentioned was probably never going to happen anyway. As for companies saving money, that's only a portion of it. The heating bill comment is irrelevant because it wasn't turned on year round either. Also, IIRC, numerous companies didn't get reduced rental costs. Even with that factor, they still made A LOT of money because productivity increased and therefore got more product out.

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-relea...rest-pay-price

https://ilostat.ilo.org/why-would-la...ng-a-pandemic/

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Objectively...

Exactly. Objectively (taking into consideration all work environments) not every career is capable of performing to a 100% quality standard with 100% work from home.

That is why hybrid work policies have been proven to be even better for performance in industries that can support it.

And a majority of career paths do not function well at all without 100% 'in office' corroboration.

But the vast majority of them can and this was proven during the pandemic. A lot of career paths literally have no reason to be in an office. The turnover rates were also dramatically reduced because offices weren't draining their soul while they got work done. Very few career paths require people to be on site to get work done in this digital age. Sure, there are still jobs that don't function without a human element at the location but they're jobs that also don't involve working in an office.

[Eosia]

Every single one was working in the office prior to the pandemic. These arguments don't fly. It is not unreasonable to ahve workers in the office full time because that is the way it was before the pandemic.

Ok, so you think people didn't relocate, lose childcare, and other such events happening that would make the shift back difficult if not impossible.

What is unreasonable is workers thinking they should be able to do whatever the hell they want while getting paid for it. If the company is paying you to work for them, they have the right to set the ground rules. IF you don't like the ground rules, you can find an employer who has ground rules that you can work with in.

Well, we found the HR White Knight.

I guess you missed the part where this becomes a DOUBLE* PAY CUT that Activision Blizzard is subjecting them to. First there's the literal one and then there's the added cost of the commute even if other factors above are not in play.

* This becomes a triple pay cut when the cost of child care for employees that need to suddenly find it comes into play as well.

[MoanaLisa]

NOBODY had a problem with commuting to work before the pandemic, now it is all of a suden "anti worker"? That ia a textbook definition of being lazy and entitled. You give an inch and this generation takes a mile.

This isn't true at all and of course it depends on where you are and where you need to get to. From personal experience a commute from one side of a medium-size city like Portland, Oregon can easily take 45-60 minutes one way at rush hour. Seattle is worse. Phoenix little better than Seattle. Never mind cities like Chicago, L.A., or New York.

God forbid your commute is necessarily on public transit. That can easily double or triple the time required getting from home to office.

Lots of people complained about the expense and non-productive time wasted in commuting prior to the pandemic. Hyperbole in the form of "NOBODY" doesn't serve you well.

Many employees detest the commute.

Dissatisfaction with the daily drive is easy to understand. After all, who wants to spend hours of their week on an unproductive task before and after their 9-to-5?

Commuting’s unproductive nature can make work itself harder. A 2020 Springer survey of 26,000 workers uncovered a negative correlation between commute length and job satisfaction. The survey uncovered the same correlation between commute length and leisure-time satisfaction. In other words, the longer the commute, the less people feel like they enjoy their time outside work.

How much do employees resent their commute? According to a RingCentral report, 40% of Americans would rather clean their toilets than commute to a physical office or pre-pandemic workplace.

Link: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15...f-commute.html

[Mastacow]

You should have got a 'Cheese of the month club' voucher in the mail.

I believe its a Jelly of the month club.

[TheRevenantHero]

This isn't true at all and of course it depends on where you are and where you need to get to. From personal experience a commute from one side of a medium-size city like Portland, Oregon can easily take 45-60 minutes one way at rush hour. Seattle is worse. Phoenix little better than Seattle. Never mind cities like Chicago, L.A., or New York.

God forbid your commute is necessarily on public transit. That can easily double or triple the time required getting from home to office.

Lots of people complained about the expense and non-productive time wasted in commuting prior to the pandemic. Hyperbole in the form of "NOBODY" doesn't serve you well.



Link: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15...f-commute.html

He won't look at the link so it's wasted time. I posted two links that proved him wrong and he outright ignored it.

[unfilteredJW]

Damn, there's more than I'd expected just straight throating late stage capitalism here.

[Stickiler]

For the first one, is it true for all fields and disciplines? I mean we kept getting the excuse in video games about how everything was delayed because of adapting to WFH. I am not saying it is not true on average (and it definitely should hold true for morale everywhere, just the time and money saved). If ATVI's productivity increased, where the fuck was my Shadowlands raid tier that went missing and why was Korthia bought on Black Friday discount? For the second argument here, that likely has far less to do with productivity and far more to do with cost saving. Just the electric and heating bill for office spaces alone would improve your profits, not even considering companies that had the flexibility and were able to cut down on rental costs.

There's two aspects of the pandemic, there was the one-time massive delays and trouble with moving everyone to WFH, purchasing equipment for workers to use at home, setting up remote working tools, dealing with the legal aspects of workplace insurance for workers who're now in varied work environments etc. This caused a lot of the pandemic delays that we saw across the industry.

Once everyone was settled in to WFH, however, we got to see what effect that has on productivity, which is where the studies came in to compare productivity after the initial pandemic issues, to productivity from before the pandemic, and where you see the increased productivity results.

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Damn, there's more than I'd expected just straight throating late stage capitalism here.

Hey, if they throat goat their bosses enough, maybe they'll get a 50c pay rise and can afford an extra avocado toast each week!

[Elbob]

Damn, there's more than I'd expected just straight throating late stage capitalism here.

I don't think anyone here is like OMG full blown capitalism!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but there are no other successful modern system that don't use it as a base. Social style controls on a capitalism based economy is kind of uncontested best system atm. While we clearly, in most the western world, seeing the downsides of markets probably too far into capitalism we are net to see even a semi functioning system work in the modern era that doesn't implode on itself in little to no time.

to be clear i like social controls on the market but capitalism as a base to be built on seems to be the best starting point for a functional economy.

[Byleth]

Return to office policies are bullshit.

I personally disagree with having to spend X% of my salary on unnecessary transport for BS reasons like team cohesiveness and collaboration.

When my company tried it with me I put my foot down, and after some head-butting I got my way.

[relaxok]

Sorry he’s right - people have gotten far too entitled at work. Asking you to COME INTO WORK is not unreasonable. And QA/Support staff in the game industry has always been mostly young kids in their first job, it’s not meant to be well paying.