It would appear that another bout of brain drain is afflicting Blizzard as a whole and World of Warcraft in specific. One of the MMORPG’s game producers took to Twitter to bemoan losing another employee and remark aloud that upper management is to blame.
“Blizzard is losing amazing talent because someone in power doesn’t listen to the game directors who make his products,” Glaxigrav writes. “We are creating crisis maps of what we can or cannot ship. THAT is the loss of capacity we’re facing. I literally have a schedule I strike out as people hand in notice.”
Word of the studio seeing its employees leave en masse is probably not surprising. Last month year an annual report from Blizzard claimed the company was facing a higher turnover rate when compared to last year and “labor shortages, increasing competition for talent, and increasing attrition” spurred by its unearthed legal scandals, worker mistreatment revelations, and the “related media attention” these problems cause.
The hits to morale caused by president Mike Ybarra’s full-on villainous proclamations in a company meeting and lead dev Brian Birmingham being fired for not using a toxic stack ranking system while calling out ABK for putting the WoW team under pressure to release expansions early are also likely recent factors, to say nothing of all of the previous problems that still infect the studio, leading to a pitiable but not altogether shocking turn of events.
Being loud about it because I've lost yet *another* person this week.
Blizzard is losing amazing talent because someone in power doesn't listen to the game directors who make his products. DE&I also means diversity of thought, especially when it's backed by data and financials.
— Adam 💙 #ABetterABK (@Glaxigrav) April 18, 2023
