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Several developers at Call of Duty Warzone studio Raven Software have staged a walkout last night protesting recent job cuts at the company.
As noted by GamesIndustry.biz, the walkout was announced by members of the ABK Workers Alliance. They say 12 workers were told on Friday that their contracts would be terminated by the end of January. This was despite these workers being “in good standing” with the company. The group says that these cuts came after five weeks of overtime and before an anticipated end of year crunch for the QA department following the launch of the new Pacific map.
The statement reads: “In response to the events of Friday, the Raven QA team and other members of Raven’s staff will be walking out with a singular demand: Every member of the QA team, including those terminated on Friday, must be offered full time positions. Those participating in this demonstration do so with the continued success of the studio at the forefront of their mind.”
“The end goal of this walk out is to ensure the continued growth of Raven as a studio and to foster a positive community for everyone who works there.”
A spokesperson for Activision Blizzard responded to the announcement to Polygon. “Activision Publishing is growing its overall investment in its development and operations resources. We are converting approximately 500 temporary workers to full-time employees in the coming months. Unfortunately, as part of this change, we also have notified 20 temporary workers across studios that their contracts would not be extended.”
The ABK Workers Alliance previously staged a walkout in protest of Bobby Kotick, following allegations the CEO was involved in and aware of multiple counts of employee abuse at the company under his watch.
The termination of high-performing testers, while workload and profits are soaring, is an unacceptable action by the company and contradicts Raven's goal of being an exemplary workplace in our industry.
— ABetterABK 💙 ABK Workers Alliance (@ABetterABK) December 6, 2021
To our leadership, we hope you'll abide by our policy to lead responsibly. To our community, we hope you'll join us today in demanding better working conditions for QA in the industry. Let's raise our #VoicesForChange
— ABetterABK 💙 ABK Workers Alliance (@ABetterABK) December 6, 2021
