5. Activision Blizzard’s Treatment of Raven Software Staff
It’s been about three weeks since Raven Software QA employees walked out. Activision Blizzard, the parent company of Raven Software, still hasn’t addressed the biggest demand of the Quality Assurance Department: rehire the twelve people that they fired in late November 2021. Management did not give a reason why they had fired the people, after all the QA work they did for the Call of Duty franchise. It is suspected that Activision Blizzard did this to trim the bottom line, despite stringing the whole department along with promises for months about benefits, full-time employment, and higher pay.
That’s the scummy part: that employees were misled so the studio wouldn’t lose them until they felt like using them up.
4. Ubisoft’s Clumsy Attempts at NFTs
Ubisoft isn’t the only one trying NFTs, but they were the ones doing it in the most clumsy way. Trying to put them on helmets that had little barcodes on them? And then giving non-answers when to came to FAQs? It seems to be asking for a lot while giving a whole lot of nothing in return. Thanks, but no thanks Ubisoft Quartz. We’re not interested in something that will harm the environment and be something we can’t even own outright.
3. Ubisoft’s Ignoring of Their Worker’s Pleas to Have a Say
Ubisoft hasn’t been as under fire as Activision Blizzard, but then again, no one would want to be. However, it’s been pretty bad overall for Ubisoft. So many employees have left that it’s been called the ‘Great Exodus’. But during this year, it seems that the employees of the company have really had enough. They had a pretty simple demand: they wanted to have a say in the company. Toxic managers have been shuttled back and forth through different studios, and HR problems have not been addressed, or at least, have been put on a cooling period. While management has said that they have been making big strides with reform, employees are not so sure. They’ve since asked fans for help, hoping with enough public attention, Ubisoft management will listen.
2. Roblox’s hand-off treatment of its player base, despite being “family-friendly”.
There are some game communities that are extremely active when it comes to making mods and the like. Some fans even make a modest income from it. Usually, this comes in the form of using Ko-fi, commissions, etc. But with Roblox, there is a growing concern over the Corporation’s methods. There’s the belief that they may be using minors to make games. Not only that, but Roblox then profits off of the minors’ efforts. Roblox is a sandbox-type platform, with many options for those who want to play. However, some of those games are paid content, and there is no protection for minors or adults who make the games, either when it comes to enforcing the rules to protect minors from harassment, or from being scammed out of the money they made in-game. Game creators may even find their games copied or banned, and Roblox will not go out of its way to protect them.
The suit against one YouTuber, who supposedly had been repeatedly banned for inappropriate behavior — which ranged from sexual harassment to death threats — goes to show that Roblox needs a push to step up to the plate, despite being one of the top-grossing video game companies in North America in 2021.
1. Activision Blizzard keeping their CEO
When it comes to Activision Blizzard keeping their current CEO, Bobby Kotick, it’s a disgrace. He is the one who has encouraged a toxic workplace, then denied the fact that he knew. Not only that, but Kotick used the fraternity culture to his advantage. At least, when he could get away with it. The big question is why the board of directors has let him keep his big boy chair. And moreover, why they’ve continued to support him.
Maybe he is behind some of their rise to power. Or maybe they just don’t want to take their heads out of the sand. The fact that they face multiple suits by the government, by employees, and that their stock numbers have been dropping should have been some sort of indication that people are not happy with him. There’s even been a petition by employees to ask for Kotick to just leave.
It seems their strategy so far is to let Kotick give a half-hearted promise that he would leave if he couldn’t fix things, and extend the holidays when their employees walked out.
Guess we’ll have to see how that works out for him and the board come 2022.
Thank you for keeping it locked on COGconnected.