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[IbizaPocholo]

Activision Reportedly Lays Off Multiple Raven Software QA Developers

Raven Software developers confirm that Activision Blizzard is laying off members of its QA department despite promises of pay raises.

gamerant.com

The news comes from Raven Software associate community manager Austin O'Brien, who is asking for developers from other studios to post any QA job listings they might currently have available. O'Brien says that "valuable members" of Raven Software's QA department are being called into meetings and let go, one by one.

O'Brien and several others describe the situation as unfair, infuriating, heartbreaking, and "bull****." O'Brien goes into detail about why this situation created by Activision Blizzard is so unconscionable. To start, O'Brien says that many of these developers moved to Raven Software's location in Madison, Wisconsin specifically for these jobs. As of January 28, they'll have to relocate to find work. Further, O'Brien explains that Activision up until recently had been actively "working towards" restructuring the pay for Raven's QA department. This was a promise made multiple months ago, only for Activision Blizzard to now decide to lay off these workers instead of rewarding them for their labor.

Raven Software gameplay engineer Tyler Trombley characterizes Raven's QA department as "some of the best QA I have ever worked with." Raven QA tester Molly Weaver explains that there are "lots of amazing, highly competent testers getting laid off," and further that these workers are being fired after "YEARS of crunch after crunch after crunch." The quality of the developers within Raven's QA that are being laid off is a consistent point being made within the online conversation.

 

[ultrazilla]

Activision Reportedly Lays Off Multiple Raven Software QA Developers

Raven Software developers confirm that Activision Blizzard is laying off members of its QA department despite promises of pay raises.

gamerant.com

The news comes from Raven Software associate community manager Austin O'Brien, who is asking for developers from other studios to post any QA job listings they might currently have available. O'Brien says that "valuable members" of Raven Software's QA department are being called into meetings and let go, one by one.

O'Brien and several others describe the situation as unfair, infuriating, heartbreaking, and "bull****." O'Brien goes into detail about why this situation created by Activision Blizzard is so unconscionable. To start, O'Brien says that many of these developers moved to Raven Software's location in Madison, Wisconsin specifically for these jobs. As of January 28, they'll have to relocate to find work. Further, O'Brien explains that Activision up until recently had been actively "working towards" restructuring the pay for Raven's QA department. This was a promise made multiple months ago, only for Activision Blizzard to now decide to lay off these workers instead of rewarding them for their labor.


Raven Software gameplay engineer Tyler Trombley characterizes Raven's QA department as "some of the best QA I have ever worked with." Raven QA tester Molly Weaver explains that there are "lots of amazing, highly competent testers getting laid off," and further that these workers are being fired after "YEARS of crunch after crunch after crunch." The quality of the developers within Raven's QA that are being laid off is a consistent point being made within the online conversation.

 

[bender]

Merry Christmas I guess.

 

[laynelane]

From "restructuring pay" to GTFO. It sucks that many actually moved for these jobs too.

 

[TransTrender]

Holy shit.
Absolutely brutal.
And just because they were expensive, and after being strung along when they relocated.

Bobby must get some sexual pleasure from this shit. He's a sick evil fucker. Of course his bonus just got $5 million larger.

With the amount of compensation Bobby gets, you think the company would make more money if they got rid of him and didn't even hire a replacement for like 10 years.

 

[Ozriel]

There’s probably some sick fucker at HR that jerks off to the thought of firing people. Because it’s always odd that they go on a firing spree when they’re making lots of money.

 

[Panajev2001a]

There’s probably some sick fucker at HR that jerks off to the thought of firing people. Because it’s always odd that they go on a firing spree when they’re making lots of money.

Not that much, it makes earnings seem even greater and it can help to manipulate the stock price. Still, sick as Fsck…

 

[Bernd Lauert]

I wonder what these job contracts looked like. If it's only temporary and you can get fired for whatever reason, I'd never move for that kind of job.

I moved for a job once and it was an unlimited contract and since I live in Socialist Europe™ firing me is almost impossible.

Stability.

 

[NikuNashi]

Anybody who moves location to work on QA, the absolute bottom rung and most expendable position is naive. They are easily replaced.

 

[N1tr0sOx1d3]

There’s probably some sick fucker at HR that jerks off to the thought of firing people. Because it’s always odd that they go on a firing spree when they’re making lots of money.

Usually around Christmas too for added pain. Bastards.

 

[ToTTenTranz]

Not that much, it makes earnings seem even greater and it can help to manipulate the stock price. Still, sick as Fsck…

Or they resort to the lower operating costs to hide disappointing sales revenue but show higher profits nonetheless - at the cost of not being equipped to start producing the next game in the pipeline.

 

[TheKratos]

Whoever played WZ knows Raven's QA was poor but I doubt that's the reason they're going out.

 

[MrFunSocks]

Anybody who moves location to work on QA, the absolute bottom rung and most expendable position is naive. They are easily replaced.

I think you’re thinking about testers. QA aren’t the same as game testers.

 

[Saucy Papi]

Activision Reportedly Lays Off Multiple Raven Software QA Developers

Raven Software developers confirm that Activision Blizzard is laying off members of its QA department despite promises of pay raises.

gamerant.com

The news comes from Raven Software associate community manager Austin O'Brien, who is asking for developers from other studios to post any QA job listings they might currently have available. O'Brien says that "valuable members" of Raven Software's QA department are being called into meetings and let go, one by one.

O'Brien and several others describe the situation as unfair, infuriating, heartbreaking, and "bull****." O'Brien goes into detail about why this situation created by Activision Blizzard is so unconscionable. To start, O'Brien says that many of these developers moved to Raven Software's location in Madison, Wisconsin specifically for these jobs. As of January 28, they'll have to relocate to find work. Further, O'Brien explains that Activision up until recently had been actively "working towards" restructuring the pay for Raven's QA department. This was a promise made multiple months ago, only for Activision Blizzard to now decide to lay off these workers instead of rewarding them for their labor.


Raven Software gameplay engineer Tyler Trombley characterizes Raven's QA department as "some of the best QA I have ever worked with." Raven QA tester Molly Weaver explains that there are "lots of amazing, highly competent testers getting laid off," and further that these workers are being fired after "YEARS of crunch after crunch after crunch." The quality of the developers within Raven's QA that are being laid off is a consistent point being made within the online conversation.

I saw this. How incredibly sad. They were told they would get raises for months but ended up getting fired instead. Disgusting.

 

[Notabueno]

I think you’re thinking about testers. QA aren’t the same as game testers.

They sorta are

 

[Fake]

Vão em paz my friends.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

The amount of money this company makes could keep everyone employed there for life

Fuck this company.

 

[MrA]

Hi guys were losing some money because we were covering up bad behavior in a different subsidiary so we need to fire some of you to make up for it

 

[MrFunSocks]

They sorta are

They aren’t.

 

[K' Dash]

Anybody who moves location to work on QA, the absolute bottom rung and most expendable position is naive. They are easily replaced.

what? do you work on Software development? cause that statement is completely untrue, specially when QA analysts right now are required to code to work on automated tests, they are not only required extensive experience on manual testing but also code on Java and JavaScript to use automation tools.

You must know shit about software development and quality assurance, stop spreading stupidity.

 

[nush]

How many of them signed the petition?

Seriously I feel for the guys as I worked for a game company that did the exact same "String along for a coming pay rise" only to be hit with a redundancy. It's part of the playbook.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Considering that so many open positions nowadays, I believe they will find new jobs soon enough.

 

[EDMIX]

I'm sorry to hear that and fucking hate contracted work myself, I'm sure they'll be able to find jobs anywhere as Call Of Duty on your resume is a solid IP to have.

Oh wow, just looked up they fucking made like 3 billion from Call Of Duty last year, even after all that fucking money that Cold War made and still this.....smh


But hey everyone

tRiCkLe dOwNz

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I dont know the context of this whole moving to WI and getting fired, but if an employer asked you to move to work, I don't think labour boards would look kindly if suddenly the company fired you the first day you moved into your new house.

The biggest factor will probably be duration of stay.

Just as if a company asked you to move and you did, it's not like they have to guarantee you a job at the new city for 10 years.

 

[recursive]

I used to live in Madison. Not really the video game capital of the world. Hopefully they can find some new work.

 

[The_Mike]

Sounds like kotick wanted a raise before closing time.

 

[renzolama]

How dare they treat contract workers like contract workers. Everyone who gets a job should have it forever and the company should just keep employees on the payroll that they don't have work for since they have the money to do it.

Jesus I can't imagine any other industry where a dozen people get laid off as part of the standard upscaling and downscaling around a product release and it gets reported on every media site for that industry as a vile corporate act.

News flash, in the world of tech laying off a dozen extremely low level contract workers is nothing - big tech companies are routinely restructuring out hundreds of jobs every couple years based on revenue and market direction. You can be the best engineer in your company but if the product you're working on is canned due to some bad product decisions at the upper management / executive level or you get a new CEO who thinks a different sector is more valuable to invest in then you'll be laid off just the same as the low paid QA team in eastern europe. This is how every major corporate industry has functioned since the 80s.

Edit: That came out a little aggressive due to coffee overload, it's a bummer that people get laid off particularly at the end of the year and I guess there's nothing wrong with pointing out that some corporate practices are shitty even if they've always been that way. I'm just pointing out that it happens in almost every revenue driven industry (and in most cases is a lot worse than this) but is just accepted as part of the game you have to play to work in those industries.

 

[demigod]

I’m being told these folks are contract people who do game testing to find bugs and now that the game is released their time is done. Why would you relocate if you’re just a contract worker??? Your job is never secured. They should be blaming themselves.

Also 1/3 of the department was let go and the department had a whopping 12 people. So yeah 4 contract workers were let go. The news is making it sound bigger than it is. It sucks for them but that’s the life of a contract worker.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

I’m being told these folks are contract people who do game testing to find bugs and now that the game is released their time is done. Why would you relocate if you’re just a contract worker??? Your job is never secured. They should be blaming themselves.

Also 1/3 of the department was let go and the department had a whopping 12 people. So yeah 4 contract workers were let go. The news is making it sound bigger than it is. It sucks for them but that’s the life of a contract worker.

It doesn't even have to be giant life changing moves like relocation.

If any of us on this board had a low level job that was near home and you took a bus, and then the company said they are moving offices across town requiring you to buy a car because its too far, how many people here would peel out money and buy a car even though its the same low level contract job?

Who knows. Depends how committed you are and how well you think rolling the dice you'll keep your job or get a promotion for FT tenure.

But if the company never said on paper there were protections and guarantees, you're kind of on your own to make the decision or not.

In this WI case, it definitely looks like nothing was stated on paper. So unless Activision burned them by firing them right away when they moved into town, they probably got no case assuming it's normal course of business and they did their job for a reasonable amount of time.

 

[JimRyanGOAT]

Which one are they? Vanguard or Cold war?

Cause cod games have been BUGGY AF lately

Cyberpunk even tried to claim they didn't catch most of the bugs people ran into during their "testing" after launch

 

[JerryinSoCal]

I was a Q/A tester at Activision back in 2005 for a few days (pay wasn't worth the time in traffic) and at that time very few testers were actually employees they were all hired in by temp agencies, the one they used at the time I was there was Volt. I do wonder if these are actual employees or people who's jobs were just ending and not needed anymore.

 

[renzolama]

what? do you work on Software development? cause that statement is completely untrue, specially when QA analysts right now are required to code to work on automated tests, they are not only required extensive experience on manual testing but also code on Java and JavaScript to use automation tools.

I've worked in software engineering for two decades, what you're describing is a test engineer role not a QA tester role. They're very different roles with a massive knowledge / compensation gap. You can't create meaningful user-level automated tests for a massive application like a video game, you have to manually fuzz it by having humans test scenarios manually. You don't get any additional value by having a manual tester who is also a proficient programmer, if the tester knows how to write code then they can leave at any time to go make 10x as much in an engineering position. This myth that manual QA testers are so technically proficient now and should be treated and valued at the same level as the product engineers is just silly, the company literally only needs the low level contract QA testers to be competent enough to use the product according to the prescribed scenarios and record what happens. I'm not saying that QA testers are dumb, I'm saying that the company doesn't really need the people pushing the buttons to be particularly clever or technically proficient and is actually incentivized to hire lower skill workers who will work for lower wages because the lead / manager or test engineer will be the one doing the critical thinking work to direct their testing.

Test engineers on the other hand should be very experienced and technically knowledgeable because they're the ones working directly with the product engineers while the system is being designed to ensure that whatever can be tested with automated testing is properly designed to be testable and the system is outputting the most effective debug information to quickly identify / isolate the source of problems when they occur. If you're doing test engineer work in a low paid QA position then you're being taken advantage of.

 

[isoRhythm]

Anybody who moves location to work on QA, the absolute bottom rung and most expendable position is naive. They are easily replaced.

This is bullshit, the biggest disasters in the gaming industry so far are the result of poor QA teams.

what? do you work on Software development? cause that statement is completely untrue, specially when QA analysts right now are required to code to work on automated tests, they are not only required extensive experience on manual testing but also code on Java and JavaScript to use automation tools.

You must know shit about software development and quality assurance, stop spreading stupidity.

Right. I work as an SDET and the QAs I work with are generally required to do as much work, sometimes more, when compared with front-end/back-end devs. Strong QA teams are extremely underrated.

 

[renzolama]

Right. I work as an SDET and the QAs I work with are generally required to do as much work, sometimes more, when compared with front-end/back-end devs. Strong QA teams are extremely underrated.

If your QAs are working at the same level of technical effort / complexity as your product engineers then you have incompetent product engineers. Good product engineers are highly paid / valued specifically because their work directly and massively impacts the effort required for the QA testers downstream.

the biggest disasters in the gaming industry so far are the result of poor QA teams

No they're the result of poor product engineering teams working off tempo from the QA teams and creating too many new problems too quickly for the QA team to effectively identify and prioritize. And that's probably the the result of poor middle management.

If you spend the money to hire highly skilled product and test engineers then you don't need to spend money hiring massive highly skilled QA teams. That's why product and test engineers are valued 10x higher than QA testers, it's just basic economics and process management.

 

[StormCell]

I've worked in software engineering for two decades, what you're describing is a test engineer role not a QA tester role. They're very different roles with a massive knowledge / compensation gap. You can't create meaningful user-level automated tests for a massive application like a video game, you have to manually fuzz it by having humans test scenarios manually. You don't get any additional value by having a manual tester who is also a proficient programmer, if the tester knows how to write code then they can leave at any time to go make 10x as much in an engineering position. This myth that manual QA testers are so technically proficient now and should be treated and valued at the same level as the product engineers is just silly, the company literally only needs the low level contract QA testers to be competent enough to use the product according to the prescribed scenarios and record what happens. I'm not saying that QA testers are dumb, I'm saying that the company doesn't really need the people pushing the buttons to be particularly clever or technically proficient and is actually incentivized to hire lower skill workers who will work for lower wages because the lead / manager or test engineer will be the one doing the critical thinking work to direct their testing.

Test engineers on the other hand should be very experienced and technically knowledgeable because they're the ones working directly with the product engineers while the system is being designed to ensure that whatever can be tested with automated testing is properly designed to be testable and the system is outputting the most effective debug information to quickly identify / isolate the source of problems when they occur. If you're doing test engineer work in a low paid QA position then you're being taken advantage of.

I would expect that game developers should be seeking QA who are very good at uncovering bugs and figuring out exploits.

But most manual testers I've met are more of the uninspired variety.

 

[MrFunSocks]

I was a Q/A tester at Activision back in 2005 for a few days (pay wasn't worth the time in traffic) and at that time very few testers were actually employees they were all hired in by temp agencies, the one they used at the time I was there was Volt. I do wonder if these are actual employees or people who's jobs were just ending and not needed anymore.

Again, big difference between testers and Q/As. Testers just play games to find bugs. They’re the lowest employees in the company. Q/A are the ones doing full on testing of every pull request, feature, regression testing, making automated tests, etc. They’re often paid as much as developers.

Do we actually know if these people were legit QAs or more just testers?

 

[wipeout364]

Can’t understand why they would get people to relocate then lay them off. Also These guys were probably not a huge expense not sure why they would lay them off before Christmas.

 

[isoRhythm]

Again, big difference between testers and Q/As. Testers just play games to find bugs. They’re the lowest employees in the company. Q/A are the ones doing full on testing of every pull request, feature, regression testing, making automated tests, etc. They’re often paid as much as developers.

Do we actually know if these people were legit QAs or more just testers?

His title on LinkedIn was "Quality Assurance Specialist". So far more involved than a tester.

 

[NikuNashi]

what? do you work on Software development? cause that statement is completely untrue, specially when QA analysts right now are required to code to work on automated tests, they are not only required extensive experience on manual testing but also code on Java and JavaScript to use automation tools.

You must know shit about software development and quality assurance, stop spreading stupidity.

20 years in the industry. You know fuck all son. QA, testing, call it whatever you want, it's easily outsourced and the absolute bottom rung in any games company. You know nothing or are a tester trying to make yourself feel important.

 

[NikuNashi]

His title on LinkedIn was "Quality Assurance Specialist". So far more involved than a tester.

Lol you are joking? You mean people big themselves up on LinkedIn, jeez it's par for the course these days.

 

[isoRhythm]

20 years in the industry. You know fuck all son. QA, testing, call it whatever you want, it's easily outsourced and the absolute bottom rung in any games company. You know nothing or are a tester trying to make yourself feel important.

QA & testers are very different things. Especially in the video game industry.

 

[MrFunSocks]

20 years in the industry. You know fuck all son. QA, testing, call it whatever you want, it's easily outsourced and the absolute bottom rung in any games company. You know nothing or are a tester trying to make yourself feel important.

20 years in the industry and you don’t know the difference between QA and testers in the video game world?

 

[NikuNashi]

20 years in the industry and you don’t know the difference between QA and testers in the video game world?

Because their is no difference, OA are testers, usually brought in externally on temp contracts in the last phase of development, their are a lot of confused people on this thread, take it from someone on the inside.

 

[NikuNashi]

20 years and 6 different game companies, what you guys are saying is simply untrue.

 

[renzolama]

Again, big difference between testers and Q/As. Testers just play games to find bugs. They’re the lowest employees in the company. Q/A are the ones doing full on testing of every pull request, feature, regression testing, making automated tests, etc. They’re often paid as much as developers.

Do we actually know if these people were legit QAs or more just testers?

I don't think that terminology association is an industry standard. In my experience working at multiple big tech companies as well as smaller shops, 'QA' roles are understood to be low-skill remote (often overseas) manual testing work and the automated testing framework is built, maintained, and extended by either engineers on the product team or a dedicated role with some variation of 'Test Engineer' title. The QA team lead will often be a higher skill / experience individual with some programming background and work experience with automated testing, but they're absolutely never anywhere near the technical proficiency of even a mid level product engineer. Even a junior / associate product engineer could step into the QA lead role and be doing it at the same level of proficiency 24 hours later, the skill gap between QA and product engineering is massive. And that's for the lead role, the actual QA testers on the team are just running inputs on the system based on a list of scenarios they've been told to test for.

Once you work in the industry as an engineer for a couple years you learn that in most companies 'QA' is just CYA for management to have someone sign off on releases and pin responsibility on for release bugs that impact revenue. They're almost never going to find a tricky bug you didn't consider as an engineer, they're just putting checkmarks in boxes. They're just going down a list of use cases from the product requirements document or scenarios from the tech spec created by the engineer, they're not independently analyzing and investigating the functionality for tricky edge cases or creating new automated tests because if they had that level of motivation and skillset then they would quickly get hired as a product or test engineer.

 

[MrFunSocks]

I don't think that terminology association is an industry standard. In my experience working at multiple big tech companies as well as smaller shops, 'QA' roles are understood to be low-skill remote (often overseas) manual testing work and the automated testing framework is built, maintained, and extended by either engineers on the product team or a dedicated role with some variation of 'Test Engineer' title. The QA team lead will often be a higher skill / experience individual with some programming background and work experience with automated testing, but they're absolutely never anywhere near the technical proficiency of even a mid level product engineer. Even a junior / associate product engineer could step into the QA lead role and be doing it at the same level of proficiency 24 hours later, the skill gap between QA and product engineering is massive. And that's for the lead role, the actual QA testers on the team are just running inputs on the system based on a list of scenarios they've been told to test for.

In my experience in the the software dev/web dev industry that's absolutely not true.

Video games have testers and they have QAs. Testers are the ones that do it for peanuts to get a foot in to the industry. QAs are not. At my work we've got some QAs on more $ than the junior and mid range devs, and they have far more responsibility and accountability.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

You guys fighting over job titles and roles are probably both right - because your companies are naming the job titles that way.

I've seen my share of job titles being the exact same even in competing companies, but the people do different tasks.

The smaller the company the more misleading the job title as they'll have to do more things than working at a giant company where tasks are spread out across more people.

At one company an old coworker went to he got a VP title..... there were about 10 people in the entire company and 6 of them were VPs. He had nobody even reporting to him.

 

[renzolama]

You guys fighting over job titles and roles are probably both right

Impossible - there can be only one

 

[Shifty1897]

QA always gets the shaft. You might as well be a temp. Hope these guys find work elsewhere.

 

[K' Dash]

20 years in the industry. You know fuck all son. QA, testing, call it whatever you want, it's easily outsourced and the absolute bottom rung in any games company. You know nothing or are a tester trying to make yourself feel important.

Holy shit, what kind of mom and pop shit have you been working on? You know jack shit about anything related to project management, team management and software development.

And yeah, I started as a junior tester 15 years ago, moved up to QA Lead, then had the opportunity to get a development position, after a few years there I was offered a project management role and now I work as a Scrum Master, all of this on fortune 500 companies.

Your statements just show that you're blatantly lying or your fucking terrible at your job... Or both, which is incredibly hilarious and sad.

Edit: I actually started in tech 17 years ago... Holy shit, where does the time go?