Blizzard struggling to attract and retain workers.

[Soon-TM]

Title.

This bit particularly caught my eye:

"We have observed labor shortages, increasing competition for talent, and increasing attrition. We are experiencing increased difficulty in attracting and retaining skilled personnel," [...]

"For example, we observed a significantly higher turnover rate of our human resources function in 2021. Additionally, recent litigation involving the Company relating to workplace and employee concerns [...] and related media attention can be expected to have an adverse effect on our ability to attract and retain employees and has resulted in work stoppages"

On the bright side, they have apparently added 300 people to their staff over a year, from 9500 to 9800. The thing is, the number still looks quite... Meager for a company the size of ABK. Coupled with the high turnover rate they themselves are admitting, it doesn't seem that things will get more or less stabilised in the near future.

[relaxok]

Every company is having trouble hiring, and especially hiring engineers in particular.. nothing unique to Blizz

[Val the Moofia Boss]

At an Overwatch panel at Blizzcon, the devs talked about how the project was salvaged from Titan, and how demoralized most of the Titan team was. They spent years working on a game that never shipped and nobody ever got to appreciate their work. That must be what Blizzard as a whole looks like. Their production output dropped like a rock in the 2010s. Every game that isn't WoW or Hearthstone was either put into maintenance mode, cancelled, or is stuck in development hell. The only teams putting out anything is a mobile game team, and the WoW team that struggles to push out a laughable amount of content once a year. Blizzard stopped being a prestigious game dev to work at years ago. Living expenses in Irvine California are astronomically high, and employees have to carpool in ubers together and struggle to pay their rent, even when rooming with other people. All to barely put out work, when you could be working at literally any other company and getting better pay, better living situation, and put out more work that people actually get to see. It's no wonder why people don't want to work at Blizzard anymore.

[Soon-TM]

Every company is having trouble hiring, and especially hiring engineers in particular.. nothing unique to Blizz

I guess that the um... Events of the last few years, and especially 2021 have at least something to do with it. Yep, maybe I'm reaching, but...

[dope_danny]

Inb4 the blizzard fanboy [everything is blamed on covid when its blizzard] catch all but quantic dreams star wars game is in trouble purely because their bad rep as a toxic workplace has made hiring a nightmare. When Blizzard is no longer a gold standard on your resume AND you get underpaid and have the whole "living in off campus housing packed like sardines and using coffee as an apatite suppressant" situation its no shock people aren't applying in the numbers they used to. Its not the Blizzard people used to imagine anymore.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

It's a rough time for businesses across the board, in terms of staffing, yes.


It does not particularly help a business when for 2 years your company's name is at the forefront of workplace harassment, sexual harassment, and overall toxic work culture stories.


inb4 Eric Andre shooting Hannibal Buress meme in regards to the situation.

[Super Kami Dende]

When you aim to only want to hire based on diversity, your pool of candidates shrinks immediately.

[Niwes]

Every company is having trouble hiring, and especially hiring engineers in particular.. nothing unique to Blizz

thats exactly why Blizzard, for 100% sure, is personel-wise in big trouble now. because what you said is horrible true since years (i am in the sw development business since 25 years) and now think about the „Blizzard as a workplace“ problems, they struggle with since a year or more“ ON TOP of above fact.

Some explanation what in reality happens and how things go typically:

1)
the ppl a company like Blizz wants is not the average joe it student. they want ppl with a specific knowledge AND a specific job history. they wanna have ppl already worked for big (even when open source) project X or company Y, ideally additional to 10+ years of specific knowledge in Z or younger ppl made a name with something. in short: they wanna hire stable and experienced ppl from that top level business. let keep that general fact in mind for a moment and lets call these ppls „Pearls“.

2)
If someone reached the levels and job path of being a pearl, Blizzard is not the only company, these ppl wanna be or have access too. some „normal“ developers in some normal mid class companies often think „but when they could work at Blizz…, nobody would deny that“. thats wrong. when you reached the level you could work for Blizz, you could also work for Bioware, EA, MS and so on. example: someone that is „able“ to be hired by Google, asks hisself if he better wanna aim to work at MS, or Apple, or Google. and what his career path, and the cheese cover he puts his full life in, should be. in short: ppl that are eligible for Blizz hiring has at exact the same moment a lot of other good options.

3)
this means Blizz have the same difficulties to get Pearls as the normal mid class companies have to get a „good“ average joe developer. and this leads us to another thing: why should a Pearl work at Blizz? whats the bonus they offer that tops the other great giant companies? and here is where it gets VERY VERY difficult after the last year. Blizz just cant pay simply way much more money. because the other companies also pay much money. and the Pearls have to make sure to stay Pearls. working in a harassment company that has some bad reputation, is something NO Pearl want, because it may kill their career and make em stuck there at Blizz. so the Pearls avoid Blizz as its poison.

4)
for this reason, to not loose all their ppls to other companies, Blizz for sure will actually pay every developer there absurd amount of money, to keep them at Blizz. thats what normally happens in such situations. because recruiters of other companies standing instantly at Blizzards door when saw the harassments. so they pay absurd amounts to the ppl they have, so they not leave. while at the other hand find zero new Pearls. EXACTLY this is the situation at Blizz now. and is also exactly 1 part/reason for the MS selling. Management knows exactly what would happens next, if they don’t sanitize the name (keyword „ exsanguinate“).

in short: Blizz are stucked at the moment in horrible hiring hell and in my experience will find ZERO ppls and have extreme hiring problems which leads to big problems. its not the sole reason for the MS deal, but its also a big part of it. there is no other way out of the downward spiral of „no upper level (pearls) ppl available vs. hold-what-we-have with absurd payments. they brought themselfes in a horrible situation and have factor 10 bigger problems to find employees than the normal „too less engineers“ problem, every company has.

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When you aim to only want to hire based on diversity, your pool of candidates shrinks immediately.

put that on top of above explanation and you will quickly realize Blizz gives a high society like WeeeeeeHaaaaaaa afterhour party if they just find ONE apropriate candidate.

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It's a rough time for businesses across the board, in terms of staffing, yes.


It does not particularly help a business when for 2 years your company's name is at the forefront of workplace harassment, sexual harassment, and overall toxic work culture stories.


inb4 Eric Andre shooting Hannibal Buress meme in regards to the situation.

the bottom line is: NOBODY that is „able“ or „eligible“ to work at Blizz WANTS to work at Blizz (at the moment). Blizz stuck like fuck at the moment, for 100% sure.

[Jester Joe]

At an Overwatch panel at Blizzcon, the devs talked about how the project was salvaged from Titan, and how demoralized most of the Titan team was. They spent years working on a game that never shipped and nobody ever got to appreciate their work. That must be what Blizzard as a whole looks like. Their production output dropped like a rock in the 2010s. Every game that isn't WoW or Hearthstone was either put into maintenance mode, cancelled, or is stuck in development hell. The only teams putting out anything is a mobile game team, and the WoW team that struggles to push out a laughable amount of content once a year. Blizzard stopped being a prestigious game dev to work at years ago. Living expenses in Irvine California are astronomically high, and employees have to carpool in ubers together and struggle to pay their rent, even when rooming with other people. All to barely put out work, when you could be working at literally any other company and getting better pay, better living situation, and put out more work that people actually get to see. It's no wonder why people don't want to work at Blizzard anymore.

And this is what we call a perfect example of "jumping to conclusions".

You say this as if no video game company has ever canceled projects. And do you actually have a source on that, because as far as I recall the person who came out and talked about the stress of Titan was only Chris Metzen, saying how it led to his retirement because he was running himself into the ground (and the hospital) trying to outdo the success of Warcraft. And that's why Overwatch was his last hurrah.

You also say this as if Blizzard ever put out more than 2-3 titles in the first place, so really weird to claim that it's a lack of projects when they're working on about the same as they always have. It's just that it used to be Warcraft, Diablo, and Starcraft. Now it's Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch, and Diablo. Again, also really weird to call "development hell" as if we didn't see many companies delay games over how much COVID set them back.

And as pointed out, having problems hiring isn't exactly unique to Blizzard at the moment. It just doesn't help that in the middle of a worker shortage, they're also under some pretty terrible PR. Your weird theories aren't really needed to realize why they'd have issues hiring at the moment.

[Theangryone]

Title.

This bit particularly caught my eye:



On the bright side, they have apparently added 300 people to their staff over a year, from 9500 to 9800. The thing is, the number still looks quite... Meager for a company the size of ABK. Coupled with the high turnover rate they themselves are admitting, it doesn't seem that things will get more or less stabilised in the near future.

9500-9800 is where the company has always been according to various articles over the years, 4000 of which at Blizzard. And keep in mind that even with the law suit only 40 ish people have been let go. There may be more that would deserve something, but I’m skeptical that all the recent game issues come down to working with dickheads.

[Daymanmb]

When you aim to only want to hire based on diversity, your pool of candidates shrinks immediately.

Its interesting that this is all you ever have to contribute. Not surprising, but interesting.

[Tyris Flare]

Blizzard obviously has some unique issues with this like the scandal, but it is a problem literally everywhere. Even Microsoft et al are having trouble keeping and finding people.

Labor has a lot of power for the first time in....well, most of our lifetimes.

[Super Kami Dende]

Its interesting that this is all you ever have to contribute. Not surprising, but interesting.

Because it is one of the more pervasive bullshit things in Society and by Extensions Video Games and has been detrimental to the Hobby I enjoy.

[Daymanmb]

Because it is one of the more pervasive bullshit things in Society and by Extensions Video Games and has been detrimental to the Hobby I enjoy.

Yeh some games suck because some qualified brown were hired

[cuafpr]

Given the current state of things, the events at blizzard this is not shocking. for years they were even able to play industry average wages due to their brand and number of applicants that is simply no longer the case. It's an employee's job market right now, and blizz is a tarnished brand if they want talent they have to make up for it in other ways.

[Darkguyver2020]

Go woke, go broke.

[Jester Joe]

Go woke, go broke.

Because a company that just underwent a huge scandal for abusing women is definitely under the category of "woke".

Not to mention, they're still very clearly not broke and got bought out by one of the biggest companies, which is hardly something Microsoft would do if the ActiBlizz was broke.

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I think the point of criticizing diversity hiring is that people are hired for their skin color and not because they are qualified.

Which just shows ignorance if that's the claim.

And is hardly relevant anyway to the topic, because if they were hiring unqualified people they wouldn't have an issue with hiring workers. Retaining, sure, but not hiring.

[KOUNTERPARTS]

Go woke, go broke.

Oddly enough, woke culture seems to do more harm towards the people it supposedly offends versus those actively engaging in it. Curious...

[Polybius]

Why is “woke culture” suddenly a problem? Is it to paint a political narrative? Nevermind the obvious culture that’s been brewing for a decade at their workplace. It’s definitely not the reason despite applicant and workers testimony.

[Video Games]

Who knew a society pushing men out of college, women not caring about stem, and companies activley trying to not hire the largest demographic in the us would lead to this in a world where investors require yoy growth?

Anyway, post-diversity western gaming is garbage and not worth saving so if it dies I'd be more than fine with it