The Dark Side Of Working For Blizzard

[ekske1]

Sounds a lot like a few places I've experienced locally while doing software development myself. Especially the larger corporations. Would be interesting if we had a glass door like for South African companies, perhaps not a bad idea to start one locally for locals.

 

[voldoverse]

thought im the only saffa watching the quartering

 

[cguy]

I know one or two people who work there. From what I hear, for a software engineer, it’s pretty competitive for the games industry. Even more so, for the people writing the serious backend stuff.

The main source of complaints appears to be QA - it’s not typically a nice job, and the pay is usually meh at best. It’s much better than working for say, Starbucks, but being on the lowest rung of a big company often makes one lose perspective.

 

[PoppieChoffel]

A Saffer is the Franchise PR Manager for Europe at Blizzard, and I don't think he's ever been happier in his life. But then that's arguably a far more "fun" and prestigious position than, say, a QA person.

 

[Barbarian Conan]

I've only watched the first video so far, and sure, the pay sounds a bit low. I also think the severity of the "low pay" is a bit sensationalist.

During my first job in Jhb as a software dev, with a degree, earning more than any of my friends at the time, I had to live in a commune to afford rent.
I had to live 30 - 45 minutes away from work if I wanted to make it in peak hour traffic.
Hell, I could turn up the sensationalism a bit more... I slept on a thin sponge mattress on the floor until I got my first increase a year later.

Is there some sort of expectation that you will be able to afford your own place close to work without help from your parents during your first two years of working?

Edit: But yes, you will be paid more if it's work few people can do or want to do. With working for a gaming company being a dream job, I don't doubt that they are underpaid for the work they do.

Edit 2: And then someone complained about their TCC being listed as their pay. Oh, the horror!

 

[cguy]

I've only watched the first video so far, and sure, the pay sounds a bit low. I also think the severity of the "low pay" is a bit sensationalist.

During my first job in Jhb as a software dev, with a degree, earning more than any of my friends at the time, I had to live in a commune to afford rent.
I had to live 30 - 45 minutes away from work if I wanted to make it in peak hour traffic.
Hell, I could turn up the sensationalism a bit more... I slept on a thin sponge mattress on the floor until I got my first increase a year later.

Is there some sort of expectation that you will be able to afford your own place close to work without help from your parents during your first two years of working?

Edit: But yes, you will be paid more if it's work few people can do or want to do. With working for a gaming company being a dream job, I don't doubt that they are underpaid for the work they do.

Edit 2: And then someone complained about their TCC being listed as their pay. Oh, the horror!

How low was the pay BTW? I skipped through the videos a bit - they are somewhat long winded. Glassdoor suggests around $60-65k.

 

[CamiKaze]

Would be interesting if we had a glass door like for South African companies, perhaps not a bad idea to start one locally for locals.

I fully agree with this.

 

[Ancalagon]

How low was the pay BTW? I skipped through the videos a bit - they are somewhat long winded. Glassdoor suggests around $60-65k.

I haven't watched the videos listed above, but other recent videos that I have watched on Blizzard suggested that compensation had declined significantly due to cost cutting efforts by Activision. This more notably affected more senior staff, who previously got large bonuses.

But I don't know details, the video did not mention figures. It sounds like, before, monthly salary was low but bonuses made up for it. Now the bonuses have been nerfed.

 

[cguy]

I haven't watched the videos listed above, but other recent videos that I have watched on Blizzard suggested that compensation had declined significantly due to cost cutting efforts by Activision. This more notably affected more senior staff, who previously got large bonuses.

But I don't know details, the video did not mention figures. It sounds like, before, monthly salary was low but bonuses made up for it. Now the bonuses have been nerfed.

Eish. I have quite a few friends who insisted on going the game development route. Most barely scrape a living, claim to want to do what they love, yet seem pretty miserable for it. A lot of sunk cost fallacy reasoning there.

I have some friends that pivoted from senior roles elsewhere into game development, and at least they do ok, although their increases have since been frozen for years.

 

[Ancalagon]

Eish. I have quite a few friends who insisted on going the game development route. Most barely scrape a living, claim to want to do what they love, yet seem pretty miserable for it. A lot of sunk cost fallacy reasoning there.

I have some friends that pivoted from senior roles elsewhere into game development, and at least they do ok, although their increases have since been frozen for years.

Yeah, they mention that because everyone wants to do game development, they can get away with paying low salaries. At least, low in comparison to other software development fields.

I considered going into game development earlier in my career but I think I am glad I didn't.

 

[DMNknight]

Yeah, they mention that because everyone wants to do game development, they can get away with paying low salaries. At least, low in comparison to other software development fields.

I considered going into game development earlier in my career but I think I am glad I didn't.

Thing is, like there are a LOT of pop musicians, there are a LOT of potential game developers. However even the really talented musicians hardly ever reach critical mass.
Free Lives, hit critical mass with their title Broforce, like PlayerUnknowns BattleGrounds and both can essentially retire from game dev if they want.

On the flip side, the game market is now saturated with talentless creators and asset flippers that creates a lot of noise for a new game to stand out from.

Back to Blizzard. The day they got bought out by Activision, is the day they started their decline. No original IP left their stable from that day forward.
They've either simply redone what others have done and put the blizzard spit and polish on top of it.
The talent is there, you can see it in the character creation of Overwatch and the gameplay elements that make HotS interesting.

Let me contrast it this way. Their original IP games, spawned off multiple branches of different game types. Warcraft3 -> Dota, Tower Defense.
They were a driving force in the industry.
Now they're outsourcing companies to reskin their IP and pretend like it's theirs.

Blizzard used to be a good Game Dev company, now it's a money making company that uses games to do so.

 

[cguy]

Thing is, like there are a LOT of pop musicians, there are a LOT of potential game developers. However even the really talented musicians hardly ever reach critical mass.
Free Lives, hit critical mass with their title Broforce, like PlayerUnknowns BattleGrounds and both can essentially retire from game dev if they want.

I would actually love to know how Free Lives come out from the whole thing. I know that Broforce sold 1-2m copies. At ~$5 each (since most of these sales are typically when on sale), one would expect ~$7.5m gross revenue or ~R100m.

R100m is obviously great (most successful SA title ever probably?), although they went through both a publisher (Devolver Digital) and their platform distributor (steam, sony, etc.). I would expect that they came out with R20-50m, but then, apart from office (house in this case) expenses and taxes, to what extent were their employees pure base salary vs. royalties, minor partners, etc?

I've been asked to fund indie SA titles before, but have always been too wary to invest, since it roughly appears as though one needs record breaking sales just to break even. It's a pity that the numbers and expenses from those who have done well are always so opaque.