Raven Software who developed Call Of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and Call Of Duty: Warzone will fire more than a third of its QA testers.
As reported by The Washington Post, the studio announced a restructuring of the quality assurance department, where contracted testers would either be promoted to full-time or laid off. The company began contacting those affected from December 3 and will continue until December 8. The changes will take place from January 28.
Speaking anonymously to the website, one Raven Software QA contractor said “The majority of individuals who have had their meetings were fired.- Everyone was told, ‘You did nothing wrong,’ after being given the bad news.” With the backdrop of the allegations of abuse at Activision Blizzard, parent company of the development studio, another QA tester Evan Avillanoza bemoaned the company’s shattered reputation, and the conflicted emotions working there.
“Our team is destroyed and absolutely no one is going to want to work even if they got promoted. – I was looking to leave because of the reputation Activision has had lately and I don’t want to support the company any longer. – It’s an embarrassment working for Activision, in my opinion.”
✨NEW QA JOB OPPORTUNITIES✨
I’ll be updating this thread with any QA roles I see open! If you have vacancies at your company, or find any elsewhere that sound cool, please feel free to message me or reply to this thread with links. 😊
— Steph McStea 🏳️🌈 (@TeaAndMonsters) November 22, 2021
Among other twitter users in the industry, Steph McStea, QA Lead for Double Eleven the team behind Rust, has created a thread listing QA positions currently open for all those who are affected by the layoffs.
Those who will be promoted during the restructure will reportedly receive a pay rise of $1.50 (£1.10) per hour. This would raise their hourly working rate to $18.50 (£14). Employees were also informed that they would receive more benefits and bonuses as a result of the move to full-time.
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In other news, Geoff Keighley has said that Activision Blizzard will not be featured at The Game Awards outside of its nominated games.