Call Of Duty Developers Begin Third Week Of Striking Following Raven QA Layoffs

This week marks three weeks since employees across Activision Blizzard went on strike to show solidarity with twelve Raven Software QA employees unexpectedly laid off late last year and, subsequently, three weeks of silence from the company’s leadership regarding the incident. In an attempt to initiate conversation with Activision Blizzard once more, the former Raven QA team sent the company a letter Monday, January 3 outlining the conversations they hope to have with the company. Following the letter being sent to Activision Blizzard management, ABetterABK (A Better Activision, Blizzard, and King)–a Twitter group which was formed after reports of sexual harassment and sexism at the publisher surfaced earlier this year–shared the piece online.

Among the topics of discussion listed in the letter were the details of the Raven QA team’s demands (as well as what the expectations were from both sides going forward), relocation packages for the Raven QA team who had previously moved for their position, and additional context regarding the situation from the leadership’s side. The team emphasized these conversations were in the interest of making a positive change in the company, and had the company’s best interest in mind. They then went on to write it was their hope that together they could “foster a transparent and trusting relationship” in the future.

The strike first began last December, when management at Raven Software informed their contracted QA staff that several of their contracts would not be renewed the following year. By the end of the day, it was revealed that 12 employees–or approximately 1/3 of the team–would ultimately be losing their jobs. To make matters worse, the news came after the team had spent the past five weeks working overtime to launch the new Call of Duty: Warzone Pacific map, and was reportedly promised by Activision “positive departmental changes” in the future after they were denied promotions and raises. While the strike began solely among the Raven QA team, several other QA teams operating under Activision Blizzard’s umbrella were quick to join the walkouts, backing the studio’s demand of permanent positions for the laid off QA testers.

In a statement given to GameSpot last December, Activision wrote that the layoffs were a part of an “internal restructure,” during which it plans to convert around 500 temporary employees to full-time employment.

“Activision Publishing is growing its overall investment in its development and operations resources,” the statement read. “We are converting approximately 500 temporary workers to full-time employees in the coming months. Unfortunately, as part of this change, we also have notified 20 temporary workers across studios that their contracts would not be extended.”

Since then, the company has provided no further comment.

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