In 2020, Activision Blizzard closed its location in Versailles. A former employee reports that in the months prior, reasons were sought to dismiss employees. One such pretext for a dismissal was the playtime in WoW.
Where does the information come from? The information comes from former Blizzard employees who were guests on the current episode 7 of the podcast “Tobis Gaming Café”. Benedikt Oehmen worked at Blizzard for nearly 17 years, most recently he worked in the localization team until 2022.
In the podcast, Oehmen reports about the beginning of the end of the Blizzard branch in Versailles, France. The location was closed in October 2020. The closure was seen at that time as a sign of the growing corporate influence of Activision.
Already in the months leading up to the closure, there had been mass layoffs as part of a restructuring of Activision Blizzard.
The entire episode can be found on the website of Tobis Gaming Café.
Battlenet data became a downfall for employees
What does the ex-employee report? As Oehmen reports, it could already be felt in Versailles in 2019 that things were slowly coming to an end. At that time, they apparently looked for pretexts to dismiss employees.
They evaluated the data from the in-house Battlenet launcher: Those who played too much during work hours were fired.
It affected among others the then manager of Oehmen – one of the best he ever had, recalls the Blizzard veteran. His boss was fired due to his playtime in World of Warcraft.
However, Oehmen explains that his superior usually took a two-hour lunch break and played during that time, but he also regularly stayed two hours longer in the office to hold meetings with employees in the USA.
Due to the time difference, the manager had to stay longer at work anyway and thus presumably took a longer break. In any case, he always did his job very well. The responsible parties, however, did not care. Other employees were demoted.
Fortunate were those who played on Steam
This is what was behind it: According to Oehmen, this was a preparation for a larger wave of layoffs, during which about a third of the workforce was ultimately terminated. The handling on the part of Activision Blizzard felt “very dirty and wrong”.
This approach also led, according to Oehmen, to many HR employees voluntarily leaving the company. Subsequently, employees from other areas had to be “promoted” to the HR department to coordinate further layoffs.
Oehmen recalls that even in the “old Blizzard” there were regulations not to play too much during work hours. Back then, however, one was only taken aside briefly.
Oehmen particularly regrets that, through these layoffs, it was precisely the employees who “loved their own games too much” that were affected. Because Activision Blizzard only had access to the Battlenet data. Those who played via Steam, for example, were at least safe in this regard.
Other former Blizzard employees have also reported questionable practices regarding layoffs. Jason T. Hall, who is now an indie developer and Twitch streamer, said in early 2024 that his time at Blizzard included some of the best and worst experiences of his career. Back then, psycho games were reportedly held with employees – Those who lost were fired.
