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Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

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Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#31

Post by wayne-li2 »

bagacrap wrote: post #15
runlevel1 wrote: post #6

> Why it matters: Walkouts are a drastic measure for developers in a largely non-unionized field, a testament to just how angry employees currently are. It sends a message, but I wouldn't say it's _that_ drastic considering the demand for developers and difficulty hiring in the Orange County area.

Yeah I don't think Blizzard is going to be able to bring in scabs to replace software devs. This comment reveals how poorly the industry is understood by outsiders, or at least this one journo.

If devs aren’t unionized, there’s no such thing as scabs right? Blizzard can just terminate all the disgruntled employees and hire other devs, perhaps more desperate or entry level or morally ambiguous, whatever.

Of course the institutional knowledge lost will be drastic.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#32

Post by Alupis »

bagacrap wrote: post #15
runlevel1 wrote: post #6

> Why it matters: Walkouts are a drastic measure for developers in a largely non-unionized field, a testament to just how angry employees currently are. It sends a message, but I wouldn't say it's _that_ drastic considering the demand for developers and difficulty hiring in the Orange County area.

Yeah I don't think Blizzard is going to be able to bring in scabs to replace software devs. This comment reveals how poorly the industry is understood by outsiders, or at least this one journo.

> Yeah I don't think Blizzard is going to be able to bring in scabs to replace software devs

The game industry is overflowing with college educated, computer science degree wielding, software developers eager to work on a big game project. Few will ever touch Engine code - the rest are easily replaceable.

This is part of the reason companies like this are able to get away with things that other industries aren't able to. Everyone wants to work on the next AAA title - few want to toil away making ads more clickable...

So yes, they'll replace the walk-outs with "scabs" in short time, and move on.

Not to mention - this is a tiny percentage of Blizzard employees - and seems to have morphed into a beef with the binding arbitration agreement - not better employment treatment. "As of Tuesday, signatures surpassed 2,600 current and former employees" - and later on the article states "A group of roughly 300 employees across Activision Blizzard". That's out of 9,500 employees at Activision - you can find 3% of any workplace that's outraged by anything. My guess... wait it out a couple months and everyone forgets this ever happened.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#33

Post by beebeepka »

Blizzard is done for. Everyone important left. There's no one to work on StarCraft 3 / WarCraft 4 and their reputation is deservably not what what it used to be only a few years ago. Like almost until the "you all have phones, right" moment.

Activision ruined the company. Sure, the market changed but Blizzard was doing much better under Vivendi.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#34

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

908B64B197 wrote: post #27
j_walter wrote: post #18

> The suit was followed by an outpouring of current and former employees saying they’d been harassed or mistreated at the company. I never understand why in the world we currently live in there are so many people willing to be silent for so long. Weinstein did his crap for years, the US gymnastics assaults went on for years. This probably isn't a popular opinion...but when victims choose to remain silent they are com…

> Weinstein did his crap for years, the US gymnastics assaults went on for years. Both gatekeepers for Hollywood and the Olympics.

Yeah, it's almost like people keep silent because of the power imbalance that leads to the abuse and blaming the weak because they aren't able to stand up to the strong is the wrong thing to do.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#35

Post by void_mint »

dleslie wrote: post #24
bagacrap wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't think Blizzard is going to be able to bring in scabs to replace software devs. This comment reveals how poorly the industry is understood by outsiders, or at least this one journo.

I don't think they'll introduce "scabs" simply because it would be a marketing _disaster_. However, I work in the industry, and I think you'd be shocked by how replaceable American developers are. Huge amounts of artistic labour _is_ done cheaply, and in relatively decent quality, oversees in countries like South Korea, China, Japan, and to a lesser extent, Thailand. Here in Canada, we have a thriving industry that i…

Also work in the industry (but in the US as an employee, not a subcontractor), totally opposite opinion. Outsourced labor is similar to Associate-level responsibilities. The reasons assholes don't get fired in the games industry is because experience and skill is so difficult to find.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#36

Post by TameAntelope »

dleslie wrote: post #24
bagacrap wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't think Blizzard is going to be able to bring in scabs to replace software devs. This comment reveals how poorly the industry is understood by outsiders, or at least this one journo.

I don't think they'll introduce "scabs" simply because it would be a marketing _disaster_. However, I work in the industry, and I think you'd be shocked by how replaceable American developers are. Huge amounts of artistic labour _is_ done cheaply, and in relatively decent quality, oversees in countries like South Korea, China, Japan, and to a lesser extent, Thailand. Here in Canada, we have a thriving industry that i…

Having worked with overseas contractors on a number of projects, I can say my personal experience is that the work product varies wildly in quality, shop to shop. I wouldn't say it's "relatively decent quality" in any universal or guaranteed sense.

Not that American developers are necessarily more skilled, just that the lack of a culture and sometimes language barrier is pretty evident in the resulting work product, in my experience.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#38

Post by shadowgovt »

dleslie wrote: post #24
bagacrap wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I don't think Blizzard is going to be able to bring in scabs to replace software devs. This comment reveals how poorly the industry is understood by outsiders, or at least this one journo.

I don't think they'll introduce "scabs" simply because it would be a marketing _disaster_. However, I work in the industry, and I think you'd be shocked by how replaceable American developers are. Huge amounts of artistic labour _is_ done cheaply, and in relatively decent quality, oversees in countries like South Korea, China, Japan, and to a lesser extent, Thailand. Here in Canada, we have a thriving industry that i…

To my mind, the hardest part of scabbing a game studio is picking up where dev teams left off.

Game engines and pipelines are savage beasts, and often heavily customized and under-documented (everybody using them "just knows how they work;" internal cultural knowledge and on-the-job training are the standard operating procedure). You'll need a particular type of developer or artist to come up to speed quickly on the pipelines and toolchains studios in-house develop, even given the relative standardization of the Activision space.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#39

Post by kook_throwaway »

madamelic wrote: post #21
0x500x79 wrote: post #13

This seems to largely match a lot of the same things that happened with Riot Games over the last couple of years. I am hoping that these actions can help spread awareness of any issues that may be present at Blizzard and past, current, and future employees won't face the same issues. It is a long road to be traveled to get there. I hope that the current WFH situation doesn't detract from the walkout. A lot of the vis…

> is the DFEH out of line, or is the industry just that broken? No chance DEFH is out of line. The tech industry is strongly biased in the favor of white men in my opinion and video games even more so, considering women playing video games only became socially acceptable a few years ago. It's still common for men to talk down to women on video games, to the point where the overwhelming majority of women do not use vo…

>It's still common for men to talk down to women on video games, to the point where the overwhelming majority of women do not use voice comms or make their gender known.

Gamers talk down to everyone on video games and have since they have been invented. This sounds like a new group of people entering an existing space and not understanding the dynamic (namely incessant shittalking). I can't even count how many strangers have not so kindly informed me of their sexual adventures with my parents. Am I missing something here?

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#40

Post by TameAntelope »

beebeepka wrote: post #33

Blizzard is done for. Everyone important left. There's no one to work on StarCraft 3 / WarCraft 4 and their reputation is deservably not what what it used to be only a few years ago. Like almost until the "you all have phones, right" moment. Activision ruined the company. Sure, the market changed but Blizzard was doing much better under Vivendi.

What would, "Blizzard is done" look like? Are you suggesting that the IP (Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft) would be shut down, all employees laid off or incorporated into Activisions other departments?

I could not imagine any business abandoning billions of dollars of IP like that.

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