Activision Blizzard has been in crisis for months. A strike by those responsible for Call of Duty: Warzone seems to be hitting players directly.
In the stress about the Microsoft purchase, one forgets the chaos that reigns at Activision Blizzard.
Since December, Activision Blizzard’s developer studio Raven Software has been on strike. The reason: 12 testers have been dismissed and dozens of colleagues have paused their work in order to force their reemployment.
According to research by the (Washington Post), the bug tester department and quality control in the Call of Duty: Warzone game have been dormant for around seven weeks. The news comes almost immediately after content creators and the community have also been complaining about the state of the game for weeks.
WP quoted an anonymous Raven employee as saying, “Games having more bugs is definitely because of the strike.” You can’t lose a few of the best people and expect nothing to happen after that, he said.
We’d like to provide an update regarding Warzone performance on console platforms. 🎮
With the mid-season patch tomorrow, we will be shipping initial fixes in order to help alleviate a number of different issues encountered on both Xbox and PlayStation.
– Raven Software (@RavenSoftware) January 11, 2022
Activision Blizzard has been in court since the summer, facing charges of sexual assault and other misconduct. On 7 December last year, there was even a mass strike in which 200 employees did not show up for work. Various business partners such as LEGO have already reconsidered their relationships because of the toxic company culture – this is contrasted with the current buyout by Microsoft.
In addition, CEO Bobby Kotick is said to still be withholding figures that show the extent of the problems at Activison Blizzard. In a letter, the company is also said to have pre-empted the formation of a union and declared that the problems could be solved without employee representation.
In any case, Warzone fans have been suffering for months from the internal problems surrounding Warzone, Activision Blizzard and Raven Software.
