Ahead of Activision Blizzard being acquired by Microsoft at some point either later this year or next year, the company has announced that it's giving nearly 1,110 of its quality assurance workers full-time jobs and pay rises.
In a statement, Activision Blizzard’s vice president of corporate communications Jessica Taylor enthused that QA team members "are a critical part of our development efforts," and there are "ambitious plans for the future".
Here's the statement in full (via The Verge):
"Across Activision Blizzard, we are bringing more content to players across our franchises than ever before. As a result, we are refining how our teams work together to develop our games and deliver the best possible experiences for our players. We have ambitious plans for the future and our Quality Assurance (QA) team members are a critical part of our development efforts."
"Therefore, today we announced the conversion of all US-based temporary and contingent QA team members at Activision Publishing (AP) and Blizzard - nearly 1,100 people in total - to permanent full-time employees starting July 1. Additionally, we are increasing the minimum hourly rate for these team members to $20/hr or more effective April 17. These employees also will be eligible to participate in the company’s bonus plan and will have access to full company benefits."
"This change follows a process that began last year across AP and Blizzard of converting temporary and contingent employees, including 500 at AP’s studios, to permanent full-time employees."
Unfortunately for Raven Software QA testers, they won't be getting similar raises right now due to what Raven says are "legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act" that prevent "new kinds of compensation changes at this time." You may remember that Raven was also in the news recently for laying off a portion of QA contractors, which led to some people going on strike along with the formation of a new worker's union.
Here's a bit of what the vice president at Raven Software had to say to employees in an email:
"As part of today’s news, those Activision QA teams will receive an increase in minimum hourly rates. In addition, when the conversions take place, those QA employees will have access to full company benefits and eligibility to participate in the company’s bonus program, the same way our Raven QA teams have already been able to. Due to our legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act, we are prohibited from making new kinds of compensation changes at Raven at this time."
Elsewhere, Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard shows no signs of completion as of yet, but they've got until June 2023 to get the deal done. Let's hope some ActiBlizz Game Pass games are added in the meantime...
What do you make of this? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below.
[source theverge.com]
Comments 8
Sign me up…. Dream job
Googles Activision/blizzard staff reviews:…….
Ah I’m busy sorry.
Glad to hear that they're finally getting some of the issues addressed.
Remember when Sony held that contest to "win" a job as QA tester? No thanks
@PhileasFragg hahaha yeah. I have not seen that but that show must make someone feel uncomfortable.
Great for the workers btw.
Its about time. The companies treatment of those staff was absolutely disgusting and they wont get any plaudits from me for giving those staff the bare minimum they should always have had.
If this is in any way related to the potential MS buy out, then its at least achieved some good whatever else happens!
If any here honestly believes that being a QA tester is a great job, then they have no experience of the role and what it involves. Though there might be the odd occasion where a play tester gets to play a game, most of their job involves a huge list of things they need to test that has no relation to enjoying playing the game, or they need to crash into every barrier on a track, filling in a spreadsheet to show which they've tested as they go. It can be demanding and not always fun at all. I've always had a lot of respect for the QA teams.
@Titntin
Frankly the entire technology industry is treated this way.
It is a bit about the nature of the work. How do you stay faster and better then any competition? The easiest way is to work more hours and hire a bunch of cheap people to do the more mundane tasks.
To me, the tech industry is starting to mature. I have worked in it since 1991. And a lot has changed since then. In the early days we just wanted to show everyone what tech could do, then as things went to the .COM days, it was a rush to the internet, then, there was the big days of innovation that followed the internet. We are still in those innovation days but it is more on the tail end then at the front. The industry is starting to mature and it is becoming (if it hasn't already) the largest professional industry on the planet. I expect to see more and more maturity... Better working hours, better treatment of people, and longer timelines for companies to deliver their products. There will still be innovation, but nothing like when we went from 2D games, to 3D games, to open world games, to VR. The innovations will be more subtle now. Bigger worlds, more graphical detail, finer sound, etc.
@NeoRatt Thanks for the reply, it was well written and an interesting take.
I started work for IBM in 1985 and was there as this 'new fangled thing called a PC' was starting to get used. I installed many high end early PC's to enable distributed processing rather than dumb terminals, in many major banks in the city of London at that time, so I've certainly seen the rise of tech use and the huge changes it brings from a pretty early point in terms of IT. I only left IBM to become a games dev, and that lasted me another 20 years, so I was part of the games industries growth and I'm proud to have several gold discs on my walls from big hits I helped to create.
My experiences in IBM showed me that if you approach things with quality at the forefront, and you invested heavily in people, you got better outcomes and better work, resulting in better product. I release they were different days, but I'm still convinced this is a universal truth.
Maybe your right and its only now that the industry is finally maturing. You can imagine that from my perspective the industry is already an old man (like me), it was not my first profession, and despite being a developer for 20 years its been at least 12 years since my last published title
Now I'm just a punter like everyone else, but my passion for gaming has never died
I'd like to think everyone who helps create this content gets a good deal, but all too often lower levels are left struggling for a living wage while people like Koteck grab obscene sums that just cannot be justified. Capitalism can create some great injustices..
Take care!
We don't recognize your union but we can't give you a raise because your in a union
@Would_you_kindly I agree it is one of the dumbest things I have heard. Their basically doing this because their scared of everyone unionizing. Here is an idea treat people better then animals and maybe they will not want a union.
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