Blizzard fires WoW Classic lead after he protests employee evaluation policy

[Osmeric]

https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-fir...uation-policy/

Brian Birmingham was fired before he could quit. He refused to go along with "stack ranking".

Active Thread Warnings:

This thread is getting derailed into unrelated and tangential arguments. Return to the topic at hand, and let's drop the nation-bashing and interpersonal snark.

[Killersoxfan]

Typical toxic blizzard still being toxic to employees

[arandomuser]

the same ppl who always shit on blizzard though are also the same ones who are all like anti pc as their persona and think that society needs more things like the policy he left over

[Exkrementor]

Huh, nothing changed and the greedy, toxic company is still shit even though they named male/female to body type 1/2 and made chromie trans? Man, but what else can they do?

But ABK is a problematic parent company. They put us under pressure to deliver both expansions early. It is deeply unjust to follow that by depriving employees who worked on them their fair share of profit. The ABK team should be ashamed of themselves.

Yeah, no shit. Wotlk is running worse than a polish private server.

[Arrowset]

I have mixed feelings here. On the positive side, he seems to have been fired for being a stand-up guy towards his employees.

On the negative side, he was a terrible Classic dev. He didn't make a tweet or blue post about Classic WOTLK for like three months and the whole WOTLK Classic xpac seems to be on maintenance mode. He obviously cared more about the whole "woke" and "body type 1/2" thing than he did making a fun game and keeping his promises like race/faction change.

[Flatspriest]

He was probably one of the people who would get a bad evaluation in the first place which is why he was against it. Being a lead, he still has to go to the devs for his eval.

[callipygoustp]

Turned down jobs that had a stack rating procedure.

[Foolicious]

He was probably one of the people who would get a bad evaluation in the first place which is why he was against it. Being a lead, he still has to go to the devs for his eval.

I mean obviously he is being evaluated as well. The only ones that are not are the corporate boomers that put this rule into place and are doing more damage to blizzard then the "bottom 5% performing" emplyoees ever could.

Honestly good for him. Hope he finds a place to work where he can be happy.
Also Blizzard terminating his contract when he was telling them he will resign is just a shitty move on their part. No idea if something like this is handled different in the states, but where i come from thats a big no no.

[Shadowroxxor]

https://twitter.com/BrianBirming/sta...88536983175168

I wasn't intending to make this public, but apparently its in the news already, so I'd at least like to set the record straight. I am no longer an employee of Blizzard Entertainment, though I would return if allowed to, so that I could fight the stack-ranking policy from inside.

https://twitter.com/BrianBirming/sta...88538568622084

I'm told the forced stack-ranking policy is a directive that came from the ABK level, ABOVE Mike Ybarra. I don't know for sure, but I suspect it's true. Everybody at Blizzard I've spoken to about this, including my direct supervisors, expressed disappointment about this policy.

https://twitter.com/BrianBirming/sta...88557367488512

But ABK is a problematic parent company. They put us under pressure to deliver both expansions early. It is deeply unjust to follow that by depriving employees who worked on them their fair share of profit. The ABK team should be ashamed of themselves.

[xenogear3]

I worked at a company that did stack ranking. How it worked was they basically gave you 60 hours of work per week to do as part of your basic job duties, then rated you on how much “above and beyond” you did.

It reduced down to: work 75 hours a week and you get promoted. Work 60 hours a week and you stagnate. Wasn’t really about how good you were, just about how much they could squeeze out of you.

In theory, it seems a good idea.
In reality, it only works when the job market is very bad.

Even that, there are always people only work when the job market is good.

[Pratt]

Companies are desperate to find ways to fire people without firing them, and this forced fail grading is the new toxic consulting hotness. It's everywhere.

[Flatspriest]

I mean obviously he is being evaluated as well. The only ones that are not are the corporate boomers that put this rule into place and are doing more damage to blizzard then the "bottom 5% performing" emplyoees ever could.

Honestly good for him. Hope he finds a place to work where he can be happy.
Also Blizzard terminating his contract when he was telling them he will resign is just a shitty move on their part. No idea if something like this is handled different in the states, but where i come from thats a big no no.

Them firing him actually gives him the ability to get unemployment to where if he quit/resigned, he would not be eligible.

[SinR]

The Twitter Thread he had was a good read.

https://twitter.com/BrianBirming/sta...88536983175168

[Lorgar Aurelian]

It was obvious that blizzard was still a toxic work place with there continued obstruction of the workers forming a union.

They got some youtubers to give them good press about how great they are now while not actually changing much.

[Khaza-R]

First of I've heard of stacked ranking but wow is that a shit policy. Especially for developers who already put in long hours.

[Relapses]

Capitalism... uh... finds a way.

[khazmodan]

This looks like something the sociopath Bobby Kotick would impose, this is the kind of policy that punishes honest leaders and sets the company on the path of social implosion.

- - - Updated - - -

Capitalism... uh... finds a way.

Either find a way to make capitalism work or watch 50+ million die under a communist dictatorship, and dictators kill the best of the human race because they are talented and motivated, therefore a threat to the dictators power.

[Swnem]

Typical toxic blizzard still being toxic to employees

If you read the article, this is actually the doing of Activision. Comes from Bobby and his lackeys.

[varren]

Disgusting.

[Ave07]

Blizzard just can't stop taking all these Ls.