A tyrannical Trump employee is hired by Blizzard and praised by the CEO, insiders report. What’s going on at Blizzard again?
In recent months, there have been repeated reports casting a negative light on Blizzard. A major report with many insider details from IGN revealed further information a few days ago and raises even more questions:
- Will Blizzard lose more employees?
- Why is everyone gradually disappearing?
- And was it really a wise decision to hire a former Trump employee?
Ex-Trump employee to drive growth
A comprehensive article on IGN regarding the current status at Blizzard has uncovered some details. The magazine spoke with several current and former Blizzard employees while also highlighting the issues of recent years. It became clear how Blizzard moved from one mess to another.
One of the last small scandals: Blizzard has hired a former government official from the Trump administration, who was labeled a “tyrant” during an inquiry.
This involves Brian Bulatao. He worked directly under Trump ally Mike Pompeo (Secretary of State) during the last administration in the USA. Not long ago, accusations against Bulatao surfaced. He allegedly bullied officer Steve Linick while he was conducting investigations to determine whether Pompeo (Bulatao’s boss) misused state funds (via gamasutra.com).
The Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick praised Bulatao upon his hiring for his experience in government and military work. Kotick called him an “exceptional talent”.
Kotick stated: Brian Bulatao represents Blizzard’s efforts to hire veterans. He is well suited to “accelerate the company’s transformation and create great opportunities for future growth.”
Bulatao has since been working as Chief Administrative Officer at Blizzard.
However, many employees may not understand how someone labeled a tyrant and “bully” can advocate for the values that Blizzard supposedly stood for.
“Call of Duty makes the money – Call of Duty determines the culture”
The end of internal discussions seemed to have been reached when the suspicion emerged that Blizzard had little say in the hiring of Bulatao. The thought behind this is that his hiring was initiated by Activision to align Blizzard more with the other major departments of Activision Blizzard.
After all, Blizzard is currently the area that generates the least revenue for Activision Blizzard (via IGN.com). IGN quotes a source:
“In reality, big companies operate under the motto: If you make money, you determine the culture. And Blizzard isn’t making the money – Call of Duty is, and they determine the culture.”
An anonymous source
The bleeding continues – until the release of new games
Even though Blizzard undoubtedly consists of many more employees than just the well-known faces, the departure of the “big heroes” from Blizzard is poison for the morale of the remaining employees, according to the insider report. Especially Jeff Kaplan was valued across the company. However, the fact that more and more developers are disappearing has many reasons, the insider report states.
One reason is the lack of major releases in recent years, leading to increasing frustration.
It feels like the company is bleeding and taking hits, and realistically, the only thing that can stop this is the release of Diablo 4 or Overwatch 2. We keep talking about how, for example: ‘We’ve really ruined long-term planning, you know? Our release plans and so on.’
If you look at how long it takes to make games, and Diablo 4 and Overwatch [2] are likely to be released around the same time or in consecutive years, it’s hard to imagine that this won’t happen again.
Blizzard insider to IGN
Whenever a new title is released and well-received, the positive mood spreads to the entire team. This has been missing for a while: Overwatch 1 was the last new title in 2016. This only creates more breeding ground for dissatisfaction.
Currently, it seems that the trend of several employees leaving Blizzard will continue. However, Activision Blizzard has also announced plans to significantly ramp up hiring over the next few years and bring in up to 2,000 new developers.
Whether this transition from “old Blizzard” to “new Activision Blizzard” will be completed soon remains to be seen. And time is running out for the company.
