Blizzard Entertainmenthad some shade thrown its way when executives from Monolith, ArenaNet, and other game development studios offered career paths to disenfranchised workers. These job offers were made in response toBlizzard’srecent edict which will force employees back to the office soon.
Recently, reports from within Blizzard indicated almost every employee would have to return to the office by summer. Though some remote employees might be able to retain their work-from-home status, and others might only have to report in a few times a week, the decision to end most remote work would affect almost everyone. As one might imagine,Blizzard employees were not happywith this sudden revelation.
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Several other game studios took this opportunity to offer another alternative to these displaced employees. Lori Hyrup, design and narrative department manager for Monolith Productions and creative leader for thedevelopment team working onWonder Woman, was one such company. In a quote retweet of a Twitter post pertaining to the Blizzard decision, Hyrup asserted Monolith’s stance on giving its employees the choice of remote, office, or hybrid work.
Josh Davis, game director forGuild Wars 2at ArenaNet, joined Hyrup in the quote retweets.Guild Wars 2just revealed ambitious plansfor the future of its long-running MMORPG, and is looking to hire remote, office, and hybrid employees in a variety of fields ranging from game design to QA. Like Hyrup did with Monolith, Davis shared the ArenaNet careers page alongside his post.
Plenty of other game development studios joined ArenaNet and Monolith in extending a hand toBlizzard employees affected by its recent decision to end remote work. The coronavirus pandemic had a profoundly harmful effect on the game industry, but it did force many studios to adapt for remote work. Though some studios are now trying to return to the way things were before, it seems plenty of others plan on keeping work-from-home options available.
Recently,Blizzard president Mike Ybarra held a meetingpertaining to company issues that left many developers frustrated. During the meeting, he downplayed grievances about the return-to-office mandate, reduced profit sharing, and stack ranking of employees. Dismissive comments and corporate doublespeak crippled developer morale, and began to unravel much of the good faith Blizzard had earned since the sexual harassment controversies began in 2021. At this rate,Blizzardmay end up pushing some of its best talent into the hands of competing companies like Monolith and ArenaNet.
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