Testers of Call of Duty: Warzone staged a strike amid layoffs. Earlier they were promised raises

What happened?

According to The Washington Post, on December 3, Raven Software fired a dozen testers — almost a third of the entire QA team consisting of 40 people.

• We are talking only about temporary employees, contracts with whom it was decided not to renew.The studio will hold similar meetings with employees until December 8.
• Some of them will be fired, and the rest will be hired and offered a promotion. In the latter case, contract employees will receive an increase of $ 1.5 per hour — their hourly rate will be $18.5.The cuts came as a shock to many testers.
• Raven community manager Austin O’Brien noted that Activision had promised to raise the salaries of QA specialists for several months, but instead simply fired them.The exact reasons for the cuts are not given.
• It is known that Activision Blizzard terminated the contract with the personnel company Tapfin. Now some of the contractors will become employees of another employment firm — Volt.On December 6, a representative of Activision Blizzard noted that the publisher was increasing costs related to development and operational activities.
• “In the coming months, we will transfer approximately 500 temporary employees to the staff.
• Unfortunately, as part of the current changes, we had to notify 20 temporary employees in different studios that we would not renew contracts with them,” the company said in a statement.All dismissed Raven Software testers worked on Call of Duty: Warzone support.
• According to Bloomberg, the game now generates about $5.2 million a day. Employee reaction

On December 6, more than 60 Raven Software employees went on strike, Axios reports.

• They demand to reinstate the dismissed testers and hire them on staff.“These cuts were announced after five weeks of overwork and shortly before the expected crunch before the end of the year,” Raven employees said in a statement.
• According to the organizers of the strike, Raven’s QA department will not be able to fully function without dismissed employees.
• At the same time, some of them have already moved to Wisconsin at their own expense, relying on guarantees of stability from Raven.The employees also stated that none of the QA team received the promised increases scheduled for March this year.
• In return, the studio management noted that “positive changes” were waiting for them soon.Employees plan to continue the strike until the company reviews its decision.
• Activision Blizzard itself has not commented on the new protests.