WoW Classic Lead Developer Leaves Blizzard over Stack-Ranking Policy

[mbit2]

Because if it were a government they'd be operating via laws and actually forcing people to do things under threat of violence or penal punishment. If you could just choose not to follow a government's mandates the way that you can just choose not to buy a company's products or work for them, far fewer people would take issue with problematic regimes. The key word there is totalitarian.

The difference is superficial. Companies exist as they are due government laws. The requirement to profit minmax came from government as court ruled in favor on a lawsuit of one car company (forgot who) against ford who didn't minmax profit and gave better worker benefits because he thought it would ultimately pay back more in long run. So instead of competing they simply used government to force regulations upon everyone demanding to squeeze their workers dry.

[Al Gorefiend]

When the sexual harassment lawsuit was revealed later that year, we saw some change following that as well, and it felt like we could make an impact on ABK policies. The realization that there's still a minimum quota for "Developing," despite our objections and sternly worded letters leads me to believe I was operating under an illusion. I hope Blizzard's positive culture can overcome ABK's poison,

Uh, what? Blizzard had the international spotlight pointed at them at this time proving it was absolutely not a positive culture.

[Hctaz]

The gist that I got of it is that even if everyone is going above and beyond in work, a certain percentage of them have to be given a "needs improvement" kinda review, despite that they're already exceeding expectations.

There's a number of ways people can do this. I've seen companies go from using a metric based system that is like... set in stone (you're expected to perform at this level to be proficient) to removing that system and just saying that everybody is competing with everybody else- there are no metrics that say whether or not you're proficient, the bottom rep in your company is now a problem even if they would have been proficient otherwise.

Really lame IMO.

[Kathranis]

wouldn't a smart capitalist want a system that works well long term?

lol

Almost every corporation chases short term profits instead of long term stability because they're pursuing quarterly growth to make the stockholders happy. Every quarter they need more growth than the last.

None of it is sustainable. That's why inevitably they start cutting wages or laying off workers, raising prices of products, etc., even when turning record profits. Gotta find that growth wherever they can. Make fewer employees do the same amount of work for less pay. Charge more. Add more microtransactions.

And in the end, when things start going downhill because the product quality starts to suffer, they'll just get acquired by some bigger company, or file for bankruptcy, or get bailed out. And the worthless do-nothing executives will keep their bonuses and if they get fired will get their big juicy severance packages that are baked into their contracts, so they always have a golden parachute even when they're the reason everything went to shit.

Edit: Just to be clear, this is all good for the capital owner. That's why this kind of thing happens in a capitalist system. They get to reap all the rewards while the workers and customers are carrying the burden. And in the end they'll just move on to another company and repeat the process. The capital owner is the person who benefits in a capitalist system.

Like, Bobby Kotick, even though he's to blame for a lot of the cultural problems at Blizzard, and it's ultimately his responsibility, he's not really taking a fall. After the merger when he gets ousted, he'll take a $300m buyout and will just go join some other board, get hired as CEO again by another company, or get a massive low interest loan to invest in something else without risking his own hoard of accumulated wealth.

[velspine]

At this point, it would be smart for RIOT to capitalize on this situation and bring these devs over that are clearly passionate. LoL Lore could be expanded to a turn based tactical system (Baldur's Gate, FF Tactics) and expand the story to an MMO and create a new era of love and care to a game. Sad Sad day.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Uh, what? Blizzard had the international spotlight pointed at them at this time proving it was absolutely not a positive culture.

He’s saying that it became positive as they started making some changes when all of that came to light and he thought the positive changes would continue, they did not.

[Wrecktangle]

I worked for a company that used this "forced developing" nonsense. They strung me along for 1 additional year when they outright came out and said "unfortunately because you are the newest to the team, and as long as your colleagues stay in their roles you'll be marked developing year over year and not be eligible for raises/bonuses."

I was like so to be clear you're saying that my financial compensation is not tied to my performance, but rather my seniority in the team, and if that never changes (hiring/firing/leaving) I am not eligible for any raises or bonuses.

They said yes, directive from the CTO. I started applying and had an offer 2 weeks later. I notified my people manager about it and he begged me to stay and said he will talk to the CTO about the issue, and I said no thank you.

Fun fact, the company went under a while back and they were a VERY large company.

[Allstarme]

One thing that I don't particularly like because I've seen the consequences firsthand is what he said about them trying to apply uniform policies amongst all three companies. This is something that sounds like a very good idea in practice. I think when it comes to things like benefits, profit sharing, and other examples I can't quite think of this can be good.

But even profit sharing is tricky. How do you compare profit sharing at one part of the company to another? They aren't the same. Even things like vacation time policies might need to be different. That isn't to say the amount of time should be different. But the policies regarding requests off might not be able to work the same department to department.

On paper you want to have consistent practices company wide. It looks good when you get in trouble. But sometimes it isn't even best for your employees. My company actually started making us use FMLA in 4 hour increments because we had to use PTO in 4 hour increments. YTO and FMLA are not the same....they are completely different. To compare them is pretty insulting. I'm the type who only needs to use about 1 hour of FMLA at a time. So I ended up having to burn through it all since I couldn't use less than 4 hours a time and lost my job in record time.

I would probably still work there today if they didn't make that change in the name of making policies consistent.

[MoanaLisa]

It was an ABK policy, not a Blizzard policy as such, and managers (especially) are never going to be allowed to buck the system too hard. The firing is wrong (I think) but is unsurprising given the circumstances as explained by the lead developer in his twitter thread. It's a very bad thing for morale some when members of a large team who have all performed well are forced into a "bottom 5%" category. The theory behind it is to lose dead wood employees but I do not believe that in reality it works that way and is a detriment to team-building as the team is now forced to compete instead of co-operate. It's just destructive of the kind of thing that makes teams excel. It also leads to moronic, outdated metrics like comparing lines of code created. All that happens there is you end up with bloated, inefficient code.

Come to think of it, the way WoW has introduced and doubled-down on competitive over co-operative aspects in PVE, perhaps it's karma.

[Nymrohd]

The thing I don't get is, ABK is under the process of being acquired and the parent company to my knowledge has tried this policy and rescinded relatively swiftly cause the outcomes on productivity were largely negative. Why implement it if it will be taken out soon after?

[kranur]

Shocking ... turning women to fruit, renaming genders in their titles and making a few blog posts did not solve the toxic work culture.
Rank stacking sounds like such a retarded concept, like if you have a great team why the hell would you want to just shaft some of its members and only allow a few of them to be successful? It's not like not using it doesn't allow you to give negative performance reviews where applicable.
On another hand, leaving Blizzard is probably not even a bad thing, especially after the management failures of classic which he can partially pin on blizz forcing releases of unfinished products, which is probably true anyway.

[Rageonit]

wouldn't a smart capitalist want a system that works well long term?

If you run your own business, yes.

But corporations often aren't run by the actual owners. The owners are the stockholders, who may know nothing about running a business; and the business is ran instead by a CEO assigned by the board. So the person that has an actual influence on how the business is working is someone who can be fired at any point in time and replaced by a new CEO (and being a CEO is a rather lucrative job). It doesn't take a genius to predict what will happen next. The CEO will work the employees into the ground to show growth for as long as possible. It doesn't matter that it's unsustainable for a long period of time, because the guy is there to cash in; he's not the company owner and doesn't care two shits what will happen with the company when he gets his severance pay and fucks off to Bahamas.

[kamuimac]

oh no - all CSRs are nothing but marketing and PR ?

who would have guessed

they all knew the name of the game - corporations are ruthless machines but they pay you like double or tripple what small companies do.

so every corporate worker shoudl work on his "Exit trategy " the moment he signes for work there.

2-3 years and swapping jobs - that should be norm - we are long past era of working for one company for liek 15-20 years.

you can see that boomers dont understand it.

- - - Updated - - -

If you run your own business, yes.

But corporations often aren't run by the actual owners. The owners are the stockholders, who may know nothing about running a business; and the business is ran instead by a CEO assigned by the board. So the person that has an actual influence on how the business is working is someone who can be fired at any point in time and replaced by a new CEO (and being a CEO is a rather lucrative job). It doesn't take a genius to predict what will happen next. The CEO will work the employees into the ground to show growth for as long as possible. It doesn't matter that it's unsustainable for a long period of time, because the guy is there to cash in; he's not the company owner and doesn't care two shits what will happen with the company when he gets his severance pay and fucks off to Bahamas.

small business operate exackly like this too. you just dont see it because if johnny the small business owner who employes like 10 people fires 1 person nobody cares

but when a corporation which employes 200 000 people (and with contractors probably like 400-500k ) reduces 6 % ofc its visible when like 12k people instantly looses their jobs.

we are in global recession - we are in one for last 2 years you just didnt feel it because IT companies were ripping benefits from covid and remote work .

now recession is in full swing and everyone can loose their job.

as someone who has been laying of people for years now because thats also part of my job - everyone is shocked and devastated when it happens to them . i would be devastated too even though i have really nice "golden parachute" ready for when it happens. still it would without doubt suck.

[Azerox]

Blizz as a corp is just cancer it seems...

[kamuimac]

It was an ABK policy, not a Blizzard policy as such, and managers (especially) are never going to be allowed to buck the system too hard. The firing is wrong (I think) but is unsurprising given the circumstances as explained by the lead developer in his twitter thread. It's a very bad thing for morale some when members of a large team who have all performed well are forced into a "bottom 5%" category. The theory behind it is to lose dead wood employees but I do not believe that in reality it works that way and is a detriment to team-building as the team is now forced to compete instead of co-operate. It's just destructive of the kind of thing that makes teams excel. It also leads to moronic, outdated metrics like comparing lines of code created. All that happens there is you end up with bloated, inefficient code.

Come to think of it, the way WoW has introduced and doubled-down on competitive over co-operative aspects in PVE, perhaps it's karma.

ye never have all employees performing "equaly well" or "equaly competent"

thats just nonsense of people who never had to manage people.

he just clearly wasnt fit for the job if he just wanted to give everyone A grade or 5 grade or whatever they use. this just shows he was dishonest with his yearly review.

- - - Updated - - -

Blizz as a corp is just cancer it seems...

every corp is " cancer" - more so - most of jobs peopel do are "cancer"

you are not there to have fun time or to spend time with your buddies. you are there to work .

so work - log off and focus on your life.

work is just work - its meant to give you money .

and always look for new / better job . after 2-3 years on your position if you wont move up you have to just change companies.

[Shadowferal]

And still we're given reasons why unions should still exist...

[Alkizon]

Come to think of it, the way WoW has introduced and doubled-down on competitive over co-operative aspects in PVE, perhaps it's karma.

Made me a light smile...

[Osmeric]

Fun fact, the company went under a while back and they were a VERY large company.

I'm curious now -- which company was that?

- - - Updated - - -

Come to think of it, the way WoW has introduced and doubled-down on competitive over co-operative aspects in PVE, perhaps it's karma.

The evolution of WoW can be understood as the developers stack ranking the players.

[sam86]

guess that's the last nail in coffin, if anyone ever doubted that Bobby Kodick hates video games this is the proof
The only 'new' info here it is that entire leaderboard are copy-paste versions of Kodick, he isn't different, he is just under spotlight, and unless an actual fresh blood come (like Metzen or Mike) get in power and actually control blizz, forget it, blizz will stay activision bitch existed only to be milked out of IP until it is dry

[vincink]

I like how the replies go from a half-page of commenting on the original article plus some genuine back-and-forth to attacks on capitalism, social justice, and ad hominem provocations. Never change, MMO Champion. Never change.