Sounds like the employees are organizing and documenting. Good stuff, they need to unionize, it's the only real way to fight inequality.
Removed
I'd like too see the spreadsheet aswell. If one of the biggest companies denys fair wages their games will in the end suffer and make the company less worth.They are shooting temselves in their foot it seems like.
good luck with that. in a country, were employes have like no rights at all.
So glad I don't live in the US.
US Labour Code is almost nonexistent. The employees have almost no protection. I worked for US corporation (but in EU) and what I heard about the state of things there, I was very glad that I live where I live.
Yeah no !@#$? Don't need Bloomberg for that.
Exactly, programming in the gaming industry is a real roller coaster, most people don't realize how it can kill you fast.crunchs over month not paid.low salary.huge pressure from almighty manager who don't give an absolute &*!@ about people.it happens in normal programming as well but never at such intensity.i might like gaming but i will never switch to gaming industry ever, you literately became a slave under Stalinien regime. It has to STOP ! it's unhealthy both for company and devs people who will desert this sector one day.One of the few profession that is really really lack of all -> recognition, salary, treated like a normal people. and we are in a western company in the 21th century, unbelievable.
Well duh. It's Activision. They're a plague to the world of gaming. Cheap, half-butt games, lacking inspiration, all bottom-line about the money. They don't plan to make good quality or original games, they plan to make games they think will sell the most. It's 100% business, 0% art, and 0% about giving the gaming community something to enjoy. They'd sell you meth if they could. They sell you poopoo because you buy it. I remember when they shut down Call of Duty servers on PS3 because they had a new CoD coming out and they didn't want people to just play the old one. This was right around when they realized that they could just recreate the game over and over and sell it at full-price rather than maintain and update the one they had. I'm surprised World of Warcraft patches are still free. Bet Blizzard had to fight Activision pretty hard for that one. World of Warcraft expansions stopped being good right after the merger too. They immediately tried to capture a casual audience by ruining everything the existing fans enjoyed. The game is still recovering from this and Activision's hands are no-doubt deep in its current design (but Blizzard has got some more control back in recent years, which is why Legion onward has been good quality).
Once a company goes public you're at the mercy of the execs and investors. The best gaming jobs are in successful indie companies, which is a paradox in itself since those companies go public as soon as they release a worthy title.
They have that 5% pay variance as well for that sweet rpg feeling that we all want
Why are companies like Blizzard able to get away with paying low wages? Because people apply for these jobs, accept them, and then stay for years without speaking up. Salaries at Blizzard will not change as long as they can find employees to fill jobs. The salaries will change if they cannot find people to fill positions. As the article points out there are many other companies in surrounding areas that pay much more than Blizzard, so if a Blizzard employee is unhappy with their salary they should apply to one of these companies and try to land a job that pays more. It is not rocket science.
Small indie company.If they can't afford this century's servers, it's no wonder they underpay workers. But who knows, if one day they earn billions of dollars or whichever currency things MIGHT change.