by ArenaNet, Monolith, and other game studios shadow Blizzard for forcing developers back into the office by offering them career opportunities.
BlizzardEntertainment had some shadow when executives from Monolith, ArenaNet and other game development studios offered career paths to disenfranchised workers. These job offers were made in response to Blizzard’s recent decree that will soon force employees back into the office.
Recently, reports from Blizzard indicated that almost all employees would have to return to the office by the summer. Although some remote workers may be able to maintain their home office status and others may only need to check in a few times a week, the decision to end most remote work would affect almost everyone. As you can imagine, Blizzard staff weren’t happy about this sudden revelation.
Several other game studios took this opportunity to offer another alternative to these laid-off employees. Lori Hyrup, director of design and storytelling at Monolith Productions and creative lead of the development team working on development wonder woman, was one such company. In a quoted retweet of a Twitter post related to Blizzard’s decision, Hyrup reiterated Monolith’s stance on giving its employees the choice of remote, office, or hybrid work.
Josh Davis, Game Director for Guild Wars 2 at ArenaNet, joined Hyrup in the quote retweets. Guild Wars 2 has just announced ambitious plans for the future of its long-running MMORPG and is seeking remote, office and hybrid collaborators in a variety of roles ranging from game design to QA. Like Hyrup did with Monolith, Davis shared the ArenaNet careers page alongside his post.
Many other game development studios joined ArenaNet and Monolith to shake hands with Blizzard employees impacted by the recent decision to end remote work. The coronavirus pandemic has had a deeply damaging impact on the games industry, but it has forced many studios to adapt to working remotely. Though some studios are now trying to go back to how it was before, many others seem planning to keep work-from-home options available.
Recently, Blizzard President Mike Ybarra held a meeting related to corporate matters, which frustrated many developers. During the meeting, he downplayed complaints about the return-to-office mandate, reduced profit-sharing and staff rankings. Derogatory comments and corporate double entenders crippled developer morale and began to snuff out much of the goodwill Blizzard had garnered since the sexual harassment controversies began in 2021. blizzard could end up forcing some of its best talent into the hands of rival companies like Monolith and ArenaNet.
