So now we know that if you are offered a promotion, do not do the job until you have the written agreement with pay included because companies are greedy and will screw you over
Well, considering last few years...one actually can legitimately believe anything in 2024... next year UFO will probably land at White house and nobody will be even surprised :D
@@leight9503 Aliens could come down and show us all that they are real and ask "Are you not shocked at the revelation?!" and everyone would be like "Bruh, we got some shit going on. I'm just tired."
@@KingKermitTheFrog to be fair they already lost like so many of the player base already. It’s just that basically all the people who are playing buy stuff enough to justify keeping the servers alive. And kids with parents credit cards don’t hurt either, since the game is F2P I’m sure that’s happening more now.
The sad thing is, this is not exclusiv to Blizzard, the entire systeme in the USA is fucked up. an HR what is only there to protect the Company, and unjustified firings and more.
As an ex-blizzard employee, I can say that yep this happens. It sucks. I also just noticed that Blizzard is re-posting roles that are now considered "temporary-contract roles" from the positions that the 1900 people were let go from. (Some of which were my friends). Another example: I had a meeting with my boss, who told me, "ya we wanna extend your 6 month contract." Then exactly two days later management told him, "um we don't have the budget." Fast forward and Diablo IV got released, and then suddenly they had a leadership role in my same department, posted on the website for a "Full-Time manager/leadership position." Management doesn't care what happens to their "junior" employees. (Update: To be clear my direct boss and team were amazing, but Management on the other hand... oh the tea...)
Exactly. They can off shore those roles and pay a LOT less money....especially to contractors who they do not need to pay benefits to. The problem is, they risk getting shit product created.
Let this be a lesson that HR is not your friend, they are not there to protect the employees of a company, they are there to protect the business from its employees
So what HR is to any company would be the equivalent of what Lifeweaver is to Overwatch? -Covering- ‘correcting’ the mistakes of others, and by others I mean the company themselves. Ye, sounds about right. 😂🤣
@@thawingkarma233 this is true for most corps...... HR is just the middle man between the big wigs and the angry employees..... they do damage control but always will side with the company.... i realized this at one of my last jobs where i was injured pretty badly and hr wouldnt give me any info for approved drs..... i had to see the "on site nurse"..... on site nurse told me i needed to wait for 5-10 days before i would be allowed to see a dr.... after two days of sitting at home and reading up about things i finally demanded to see a dr.... they only then after 2 hours of back and forth with the " head nurse" was allowed to go to a doctor
I am sure that isn't legal but the us justice system is backwards. Big companies or rich people can delay stuff. You would have to pay the lawyer upfront first. Not worth the effort and it could bankrupt you.
@@Nephaleit would likely be a hostile work environment (HWE) case, and in California employment law if an employee quits due to HWE, it reclassifies to a wrongful termination. That would mean the non compete was unenforceable. Damages for that alone can be up to 2 years salary. If it's also determined that he was promised a pay increase that was never given, it would be at the higher salary plus back pay. He would also be entitled to his contracted severance or a company standard severance if one wasn't contracted. Finally, in wrongful termination and HWE suits, you can add financial hardships to the damages (penalties for missed mortgage payments, cost to re-license to find work outside the non-compete, etc) as well as the ever nebulous "emotional damages ". Blizzard would likely settle for a couple hundred thousand before it ever saw the inside of a courtroom.
@@harinchetan4701 It wasn’t all bad when I started there. But that great management team that I started with either retired or got promoted within the company. Things just got worse over time. It was a shame. I was there for over 12 years.
It amazes me that there is a LEGAL way you can prevent someone from getting a job for 3 months. That is literally just a way for companies to blackmail you into staying. “Hey I know you can’t afford to not work for 3 months so if you even think of quitting, we’ll make sure you go into debt/get evicted cuse you cant pay rent anymore.” WTF MAN?!
This happens in all types of industry. You can get out of it if you are talented and another company wants you bad enough...that company can buy you out of the non-competition clause....or hire lawyers to represent you and take legal action to end it.
In theory it makes sense but in practice it just highlights how the little guy has no ownership over their own work or even life. At least make it so you have to fucking pay the employee for it, ffs.
I’d be willing to bet money it says “can’t work for another GAME company.” Not “you can’t work for anybody”. He is a VFX artist, so he probably only wants to work in gaming, but he is really stretching the facts to fit a narrative. I’m actually surprised it’s only 3 months, usually non-competes last for years.
You would think that, but turns out, as we just witnessed recently. A LOT of people think the layoffs are "justified" because they were people "that weren't being competent at their job and were LAZY.". They lack the brain to think that if this was the case, there would be new hires of which there have been non but only the Blizzard director.
for sure. in my case HR did nothing, even when over 10+ peeps went on long term sick leave another 5 left the department. What I've quickly learned is that Compliance is for stuff like that. Even Senior Managers left before going there, which also is a problem within a problem. So if you don't have ethics ambassadors around, don't even start the job or stay after probation period.
There was once a time when joining blizzard or being someone who worked at blizzard would give you prestige and open lots of doors for you... Now people are wondering why would anyone would want to join and if the people who worked there are okay
Always leave a paper trail when talking with the company. Summarize your phone calls with company leadership in follow-up email. Also, there is the danger of talent churn. People that work in games out of a passion for it will tolerate being fucked with once, maybe twice, before they say "screw it, I am changing out of this industry and do the boring but better paying job in another sector." And now the games sector has lost a talented worker forever.
There are people lined up to get a chance to work for the company that made their beloved games. Young people are constantly getting inspired and learning to develop games, and the young fresh batch will always be in a position where they want to take that chance. This is how it will be until massive reform happens to corporaations
I don't want to burst your bubble, but a company like blizzard would never be able to afford to hire someone like him. That's why it's a mistake to let someone like that walk.
@@bobothebob4716someone like him? Who exactly do you think he is? Everyone has a price and blizzard makes A LOT of money without overwatch being successful or not the game can die today and Diablo immortal and wow alone would be enough to keep them afloat for the next decade
@@Fuhknelan Well he literally helped create wow, and single handedley turned a multibillion dollar failure Titan into 10 billion dollar -new IP- success (not even counting revenue after he left, or the value of the asset itself). When you largely responsible for leading teams that make a company over 20 billion dollars in a very short period of time, you are worth a lot of money. I'd assume conservatively the man could literally ask any of the SEA companies for a hundred million and a team of devs and get it no questions asked.
Holy. Full props to Chris. If i was lied to for 3 months, then forced out of working for 3 more months, all while not getting paid, I wouldve lost it. The amount of strength needed to even survive that situation is insane- let alone talk about it. I hope Blizzard rots.
I’m so glad you cover stuff like this Sty, seriously. You’re absolutely right that these stories do need to be told. I worked for a company (not game dev related) that had a VERY similar vibe shift to full on villain mode and it really does feel awful even on that small scale. Cannot imagine it happening at a company in your desired field. Legitimately, the ONLY way things can change or we as customers can hit them back is to stop giving them money at all. This shit is so gross.
I used to work for a high end retail company, as an assistant manager. One of our sister stores lost their manager due to health complications. Corporate office decided to take our manager and relocate him to that store as a quick fix, leaving me as acting manager of my location. All the Wyle being told that they would find a replacement asap. It took them nearly a full year of me running that store at assistant pay rate before they approached me for a promotion. It's not just Blizzard it's the Corporate mindset, profit over people and year to year growth at any cost.
@@brynmorgan9356 Just the ones who don't follow up on promotions. It was a company-side issue not a worker one. They even tried to strong-arm him into staying.
He has grounds to sue. You can only restrict someone from working in the same industry or for a direct competitor. Even with a sign contract. California employment laws tend to favor the employee. Blizzard can’t keep dude from working at a gym or something just because he signed a no compete.
His posts needs to be shared to anyone even thinking of starting a career at Blizzard or Activision in order to save their future. What a god-awful place to work at. I’d rather be a janitor at a overpopulated McDonalds in the middle of New York than work at Blizzard after reading this. I feel bad for the developers under this incredibly evil and souless corporate management.
Nearly every AAA studio treats people this way, and honestly nearly every corporate job. I have worked at resteraunts both fancy and fast-food that do these things as well. Until people demand massive reform, his is the future we live in.
Thank you, Sty, for using your platform to bring behavior like this to light. I have worked in the game industry for 15+ years and have stuck mostly to small to mid sized companies for this reason. I have worked briefly for EA and Capcom and experienced the corporate speak and full studio shut downs/layoffs firsthand and it sucks.
I hope this reminds people that HR is not there to help employees but to protect the company. If something like this ever happens to anyone, make sure to record, and save every evidence. Emails, phone calls, write down discussions immediately after happening, etc.
PVE was not the teams fault, it came out less than mediocre because of the direction upper management forced upon them, whether that was redirecting resources into other things that made money, creating projects only to fail them, and then distribute new projects wasting time and time over and over to ensure that it would fail. Those who do not develop or work on games should not have their greasy nasty palms in them, they are only for the profit, and that is what destroys the heart and soul in video games. I am deeply saddened that the entire PVE team was scrapped, I’m sure we all felt like there would’ve been a little bit of a redemption arc for PVE when Microsoft took over, but unfortunately that seemed to be only wishful thinking. Our hearts go to that entire team, all the best to them and their families, and good luck to the future of overwatch.
It's like that meme "we've tried nothing and we're all out of options". Well they did try something, but it's so easy to go "see that failed" from the corporation's side when it's clear they've never provided appropriate resources to the team and were completely uninterested in something that doesn't drive MTX, as well as being so hostile that Jeff Kaplan just straight up quit.
@@ExValeFor It's not really coping, sure there may be some truth in that, but It's not the entire team's fault, most of them were put at the head of the ship used to drive revenue. There were definitely some members of that team that really didn't know how to do their job, I'm sure. They were most likely hired because the team needed someone to fill in the gaps and some of them to be model mokey's to push out skins asap and make as much money as possible. Now those guys are let go, which this probably sounds bad, but that's probably a good thing - cutting the fat off the team, especially when the original visionaries of PVE were pretty much all gone. It's sad to see this sort of thing happen, but it was already being poorly managed and being pulled in every which way that plummeted the time, effort, and efficiency that could have driven a great game, but we all know how that went... Hoping that this year has a more positive and greater path so that we can all start enjoying Blizzard games again.
As a former software engineer, also did some game development, this story is unfortunately too common. HR tells you one thing but doesn't mean it, they give you the jobs of multiple people while paying you as little as possible, and the company prides itself on "family" as a means to make business decisions that only serve the top brass. They use the nostalgia of these IP's and passion from devs as a tool to give them as few benefits as possible, while giving them as much work as they can to maximize profits. They never cared about the game. They don't care about integrity. They only care about making money, even if it means destroying the mental health of their workers, or having them fly out to work in-person just to lay them off. The worst part is it often works. People still apply to work since they either have nostalgia for the IP or just need a job in a time where tech jobs are hard to get, and games like Diablo Immortal which have horrendous microtransactions perform better than multi decade-long running games.
“I saw corps ... transform Night City into a machine fueled by people's crushed spirits, broken dreams and emptied pockets. Corps've long controlled our lives, taken lots... and now they're after our souls! ... I've declared war not 'cause capitalism's a thorn in my side or outta nostalgia for an America gone by." - Johnny Silverhand. Why is this so relevant to blizzard.
Why is that only the most useless people at a company make it to the highest roles? They can’t even develop a video game and yet they’re wasting my Earth’s oxygen.
Because extracting capital and giving profits to shareholders is managements job. Not making games. This is late state capitalism when nobody challenges corporate interests.
Unfortunately, that kind of shit happens all too often in the Japanese gaming companies. Interesting but maybe obvious enough, the old always gets the power only to ruin the young. I've lost count on seeing so many multi talented younger employees being mistreated by the managements who do nothing but to impose their power upon them.
This is standard at most tech companies. Management is a different job track. I think it’s a good thing. For people that want to stay ICs and not go into management, you still have growth opportunities. The model of forced IC->Manager means we just get bad managers. Being a manager does not equal more work necessarily. Good ICs should be allowed to stay ICs if they want. He just completely misunderstood this, but it’s something in the industry we all already know, so usually we don’t need to explain it to people. Chris is really warping the truth to fit a narrative. He was probably never offered a promotion, he was offered to go down the management track, and completely misunderstood it.
Where Chris says he has to leave for his mental health and that he had been doing 4 other peoples jobs speaks out to me in so many ways it hurts, I left my job because of this reason I even went to a doctor for my mental health and the company I worked for did not take it seriously. I also had a fake promotion since someone had left the company, no title change and no pay increase, just more work and more pressure. I hope this guy is alright.
Chris Sayers with the great Hearthstone reference. UGH the pain that these devs went through. I can't believe this is the same blizzard i grew up with.
I’m proud of all the folks sharing their negative experiences with their employers. I work in the archival field where the same red flags are flown over and over again. The main mantra being that “you should be happy to work on this because it’s such a privilege to work here on this historical material.”
when you said it was gonna be bad, I didnt think it would make me feel sick with disgust. i don’t know how people can live with themselves after treating other people like how HR treat employees 😭😭
FYI: noncompete clauses are often unenforceable, especially if you aren't being compensated in any way for the duration. Companies will try to convince you otherwise, and throw them into employment agreements, but that doesn't mean they hold up in court.
If you were born in the USA I just feel sorry for you if you need to be employed to get by, you have literally no rights compared to any state in Europe. The USA is only a good place to be when you own a company.
Honesly, this is not true. Originally when Blizzard was booming it was known to be a place where talented artists were celebrated, paid well, and got promoted. By the time that the original staff had all left, things started to go to shit. ESPECIALLY once they got purcahsed by Activision. Activision is also a powerhouse of villainy and greed .... at that point it was too late.
While working a job, I was given more responsibilities and eventually became the operations lead. That meant that I was managing 12 people in a 24 Hour operation Center. I was making $65,000 a year and found out that all of the new engineers that were working below me were making $90,000 a year. I was told that they could not increase my salary so I quit and got a call a month later asking for me to come back. I told them I would come back for a $50,000 increase and initially they said they couldn’t do that but the next day they called back and said they could. Companies will screw you over you owe them no loyalty because when the chips are down, they will not be loyal to you.
Thanks for spreading this information Stylosa! It is sad that this is a common thing for one organization but even sadder to know it expands to others.
In companies I have worked at, leadership can be a lateral move from a senior position. HOWEVER, lateral does not mean equal pay and benefits. There is a raise and a higher bonus eligibility to accept a leadership position. Sad that Blizzard is not like that.
So glad I stopped supporting this game and Blizzard when they revield that the PVE that was promised was never coming all those moths ago, and the fact the they laid off the PVE department recently put the final nail in the coffin for me.
I am by no means a law expert, but if he is saying that his agreement to these additional responsibilities and subsequent performance of these responsibilities was because of their promise of a pay rise and title change, the latter of which was announced and acknowledged within the company, then he may have some sort of remedy. It's incredibly fact dependent, but actions such as quantum meruit come to mind. From what I can tell, he had legal advice regarding the non-compete and not the unrealised pay increase, so perhaps the latter would be worth some reconsideration.
Taking on legal battles against massive corporations is an uphill battle, it takes a long time and costs a lot of money. The most likely result is loss of money and wasted time.
Dawg, I had a guy on a ticket bring up religion and say I got a 2-week ban because I asked Lucio to swap multiple times in a comp game. He also said having to swap is the reason people quit the game so it's bannable. I'll believe anything about them at this point.
I’ve come to expect whenever Blizzard releases a new trailer or make an announcement, it usually means someone probably exposed the management and it got the attention of news outlets. Just as if they had a panic button to announce something to divert mass public attention.
They make product WE WANT then WE BUY product that we like. At the end of the day it's purely business. A lot of people don't really care at the end of the day what the work environment is like besides the employees, shit like this happens in every other field of work. If you're not happy with your job then you leave and find a new job.
I wonder why he worked 3 mounth at new role without payment increase and signing any shit. Thats not only blizzard most companies want to fool you to pay less money. And that all around the world. Do get fooled guys and be carefull. Im currently working as freelance becouse i got sick of companies promises, now I know when my job will done ill get exact amount immidetly.
Do people find this strange? I mean 95% of all business in the world are doing these kind of practises. the other 5% either will not make or get bought out by the other 95%. i have been working for a little more then 20 years in diverse companies in also diverse fields and it has never been different then the story in this youtube post.
Fun fact. In Britain a non-compete clause is almost never upheld in court. They are considered unfair in the eyes of the British government and only realistically get upheld if you were within senior roles within large corporations and have a large amount of savings or steady revenue stream that allows you to live without working for the requested length of time in the given industry. So basically unless you are a board member or know incredibly sensitive information on a possible competitors business (such as the exact process on making Coca-Cola for instance) they are considered irrelevant and unlawful. Most companies know this and are just hoping you don't and as such rarely contest when someone breaks these clauses. (Again for non executive/ confidential job roles) These clauses also even when upheld in court only are allowed to restrict employment in the same industry as the company in question. So again for the most part they are kind of irrelevant and ignored
Same shit happened to me in another company lol manager quits, I become the new manager, double the job, 4 months go by I ask again for confirmation on my promised raise, next day they hire someone else lol😂
I was honestly looking into blizzard as a company to work for just today because shit, the bar is so low there's no way they wouldnt take me now. But damn, no way am I going near them now
To all of those people that said people got fired for "Being LAZY", I'm looking at you. Stop trying to make us all accept workplace abuse like it's normal.
Would be 1000x more powerful of a message if a current dev says something like this. Until someone actually puts their job on the line to speak out, no ones really going to listen. They can just brush it off as a disgruntled ex-employee. It's more of an empty sentiment when it comes from someone who has a gripe with the company right off the bat.
No, this is on Aaron Keller and the rest. If I'm leading a team such as T4, I am responsible for everyone under me. It's wild to me he didn't go to Keller and the rest to solve this. If they won't stand up for their teams and devs then they are just as corrupt as the HR and the management.
It wasn’t Phil Spencer’s doing in the layoffs it was already going to happen to be fair. I think we still have to give the Microsoft acquisition time to see how things turn out
People are hellbent on making Phil out to be the problem in the case of Microsoft's layoffs when there's been nothing said by anybody, and no stock should be put into anything unless they put out a statement to quash the rumours that have been spreading like wildfire that have no credible backing.
they are not preventing him from getting hired anywhere, they are most likely preventing him from working in a place that is considered competition to the company but he can still get a job somewhere else, its actually very frequent to see this in contracts when you get a new job
@@marc-andreblais5818 I don't personally see the difference, this is his area of expertese. This is a pretty insane business practice to prevent employees for leaving for better alternatives by threat of losing their livelyhood.
I never got shagged this hard by my company, but I had multiple times where my manager (who's awesome) got into negotiations for a salary increase and the top management said "yes" verbally in the meetings just for them to backtrack between then and the contract signing. It always feels like those people don't value your time and try to assert their power over you at every turn it's soul crushing.
Happened to me but in other field of work: small typography firm. Except i found out that i were paid less at the day i were quitting (boss asked me not to discuss my payment with colleagues after promotion 2 years prior)
“Horrible” doesn’t cut it. I hope Chris and everyone else who had to go through this BS are okay now. Forbidden from working for 3 months wtf… This makes me not want to play OW2 ever again, but it’s not Team 4 that did this and that’s not fair to them. Whatever we as players can do if management is still like this, I’m all ears. Thanks for covering this. 💕
I completely agree...it has been my experience, too...outside of gaming. It is the very reason companies look to off shoring engineers...or expensive states looking for remote workers in cheap states. ETC. I have seen it soooo many times. It has been this way since Y2K, at least.
A thought using a cake I have recently discovered called a “smash cake”, which has a chocolate dome filled with treats on the top. Blizzard gave this guy a smash cake, and like anyone else, thought “fuck yeah, cake” and went for it, but blizzard was hesitant and kept holding it back from him. After he asked “where’s my fucking cake”, they then proceeded to smash the dome, revealing it was filled with nothing but shit and cardboard.
While such behavior is common in the tech and gaming industry.. (former EA employee here) I have so to say some of this wreaks of "I did everything right and nothing wrong" he started by saying he made sure everyone was on the same page about the promotion and pay increase. If this was true there is no way the internal review would come back everything was done correctly. Then there is the added work on top of his old work.. there is a phrase for that.. constructive termination. legal would be flipping over themselves to offer compensation to prevent a law suit here if it was as written. Again I fully believe such things happen.. hell I have take one of my former employers down the legal path and even though they wanted to fight be their lawyer was like no.. settle as he knew how bad things looked for them. So I know such things can happen, but that just it.. legal too MY side... there is no way legal would not be on his side if this was true.
dont ever do anything different or more than what your initial contract says when you were hired. any promotion etc. make it official and with a new contract etc. and AFTER that, you can go and do whatever the new contract says your duties are. I mean, its still effed up and bad, F Blizzard etc. but he should have known better imho. I would never do work I am not supposed to do without it having written down in a new contract with both parties signing it. You cant do shiet without legal stuff.
“Why would we pay you more than we have too?” Is such a short sighted, short term way of thinking. Producing shot games only lasts so long and the companies eventually downfall is because of managements decisions.
Full sympathy to all ex employees that were fired but what do the community and supporters of these individuals with these absolutely demoralizing statements for a company as ABK, What can we do? We can't just stop supporting games we have literal years of time put into. It's absurd to expect change without any action from the community but what can we do?
So now we know that if you are offered a promotion, do not do the job until you have the written agreement with pay included because companies are greedy and will screw you over
100%
This is good advice for basically anything important - always have every exact detail in writing.
I mean people have known this for forever. South Park even made an episode about reading things before you agree to them lol.
100000%
Actual pro-tip
“You will not believe…”
Stop right there my man, I believe it.
My first thought too
Well, considering last few years...one actually can legitimately believe anything in 2024... next year UFO will probably land at White house and nobody will be even surprised :D
@@leight9503 Aliens could come down and show us all that they are real and ask "Are you not shocked at the revelation?!" and everyone would be like "Bruh, we got some shit going on. I'm just tired."
Blizzard employee harassment roadmap release when?
Weird to believe something without evidence
I love it when ex-employees spill the tea.
what's the tea sis
@@I_Dont_Believe_In_Saladpipin hot tea!!!!
@@I_Dont_Believe_In_SaladOoh, make mine an orange pekoe 😌
😑
Yeah, but I hate the path it took to spill said tea.
Stop paying for those shitty overpriced skins and mediocre battlepasses. That's it, that's the only thing that matters.
or don’t play the game at all.
I’m curious, I only really play Overwatch. What’s a good battle pass? I haven’t played another game with a battle pass other than OW2
Sadly easier said than done. They’d really have to do something that MASSIVELY pissed off the collective playerbase before that happens imo.
@@KingKermitTheFrog to be fair they already lost like so many of the player base already. It’s just that basically all the people who are playing buy stuff enough to justify keeping the servers alive. And kids with parents credit cards don’t hurt either, since the game is F2P I’m sure that’s happening more now.
Yes, and no, if you don't pay, funding decreases and more layoffs (at the lower levels) happen
"F*ck it, let's go in on Blizzard." We need more transparent content like this. Thanks Sty!
The sad thing is, this is not exclusiv to Blizzard, the entire systeme in the USA is fucked up. an HR what is only there to protect the Company, and unjustified firings and more.
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
As an ex-blizzard employee, I can say that yep this happens. It sucks. I also just noticed that Blizzard is re-posting roles that are now considered "temporary-contract roles" from the positions that the 1900 people were let go from. (Some of which were my friends). Another example: I had a meeting with my boss, who told me, "ya we wanna extend your 6 month contract." Then exactly two days later management told him, "um we don't have the budget." Fast forward and Diablo IV got released, and then suddenly they had a leadership role in my same department, posted on the website for a "Full-Time manager/leadership position." Management doesn't care what happens to their "junior" employees. (Update: To be clear my direct boss and team were amazing, but Management on the other hand... oh the tea...)
Exactly. They can off shore those roles and pay a LOT less money....especially to contractors who they do not need to pay benefits to. The problem is, they risk getting shit product created.
This is why HR is NOT a replacement for Unions.
Baffles me how well the anti union propaganda worked in the us.
HR is to protect the company, not the employee.
@@ushwallman2070that’s flat out incorrect. An HR professional appropriately doing their job should be protecting both.
HR is not a replacement for unions anyway. You still have HR even in union environments
Layoff the uppers
Let this be a lesson that HR is not your friend, they are not there to protect the employees of a company, they are there to protect the business from its employees
So what HR is to any company would be the equivalent of what Lifeweaver is to Overwatch? -Covering- ‘correcting’ the mistakes of others, and by others I mean the company themselves. Ye, sounds about right. 😂🤣
@@thawingkarma233 this is true for most corps...... HR is just the middle man between the big wigs and the angry employees..... they do damage control but always will side with the company.... i realized this at one of my last jobs where i was injured pretty badly and hr wouldnt give me any info for approved drs..... i had to see the "on site nurse"..... on site nurse told me i needed to wait for 5-10 days before i would be allowed to see a dr.... after two days of sitting at home and reading up about things i finally demanded to see a dr.... they only then after 2 hours of back and forth with the " head nurse" was allowed to go to a doctor
It's not called HR because it's resources for humans, it's HR because they view humans as resources.
@@snoot39facts
Yh u should turn to the/a union instead! HR is not there to help u, only yo help the company.
This shouldn't be legal and those scums should be sued
I don't know if those laws can even be enforcable in EU or in UK (or are even legal there). In all case it's massive bullshit.
I am sure that isn't legal but the us justice system is backwards. Big companies or rich people can delay stuff. You would have to pay the lawyer upfront first. Not worth the effort and it could bankrupt you.
@@Nephalein a clear case, many lawyers will work on contingency for a % of the damages you would win.
@@ianlandseadel9989 But what would you win? You could sue for wage theft and maybe the anti compete agreement. Is there a lot of money to be made?
@@Nephaleit would likely be a hostile work environment (HWE) case, and in California employment law if an employee quits due to HWE, it reclassifies to a wrongful termination. That would mean the non compete was unenforceable. Damages for that alone can be up to 2 years salary. If it's also determined that he was promised a pay increase that was never given, it would be at the higher salary plus back pay. He would also be entitled to his contracted severance or a company standard severance if one wasn't contracted. Finally, in wrongful termination and HWE suits, you can add financial hardships to the damages (penalties for missed mortgage payments, cost to re-license to find work outside the non-compete, etc) as well as the ever nebulous "emotional damages ". Blizzard would likely settle for a couple hundred thousand before it ever saw the inside of a courtroom.
Big businesses always treat their employees like a number, not a person. Boy, do I have some Wal-Mart stories that I could share.
Actually had management that protected employees and gave time off to the sick ones
And people wonder why theres a growing anti capitalist sentiment...
Bro, same. I worked for Wal-Mart too, and B O I can I relate to this.
And that backfired in germany hard. Lawsuits coupled with bad press were not good for business.
@@harinchetan4701 It wasn’t all bad when I started there. But that great management team that I started with either retired or got promoted within the company. Things just got worse over time. It was a shame. I was there for over 12 years.
It amazes me that there is a LEGAL way you can prevent someone from getting a job for 3 months. That is literally just a way for companies to blackmail you into staying. “Hey I know you can’t afford to not work for 3 months so if you even think of quitting, we’ll make sure you go into debt/get evicted cuse you cant pay rent anymore.” WTF MAN?!
This happens in all types of industry. You can get out of it if you are talented and another company wants you bad enough...that company can buy you out of the non-competition clause....or hire lawyers to represent you and take legal action to end it.
In theory it makes sense but in practice it just highlights how the little guy has no ownership over their own work or even life. At least make it so you have to fucking pay the employee for it, ffs.
I’d be willing to bet money it says “can’t work for another GAME company.” Not “you can’t work for anybody”. He is a VFX artist, so he probably only wants to work in gaming, but he is really stretching the facts to fit a narrative. I’m actually surprised it’s only 3 months, usually non-competes last for years.
Imagine being shocked that blizzard mistreated their employees
I am SHOOK
its not necessarily shock, its outrage that they're mistreated in the first place.
I am honestly SHOOK...this is on a different level....this is angering.
You would think that, but turns out, as we just witnessed recently. A LOT of people think the layoffs are "justified" because they were people "that weren't being competent at their job and were LAZY.". They lack the brain to think that if this was the case, there would be new hires of which there have been non but only the Blizzard director.
@@hoshi-15always there is gonna be some people to bootlick in this society
HR isn’t there to help the employees, they’re there to make sure the company does get sued or damaged by the employees
for sure. in my case HR did nothing, even when over 10+ peeps went on long term sick leave another 5 left the department. What I've quickly learned is that Compliance is for stuff like that.
Even Senior Managers left before going there, which also is a problem within a problem. So if you don't have ethics ambassadors around, don't even start the job or stay after probation period.
@@RyNiuu sorry to hear. Hope it got sorted. Ppl need to understand that HR is just there to cover the companies arse
@@Zhorithno, that’s generally a lawyers job.
There was once a time when joining blizzard or being someone who worked at blizzard would give you prestige and open lots of doors for you... Now people are wondering why would anyone would want to join and if the people who worked there are okay
Says a lot about how much the industry has tanked.
Always leave a paper trail when talking with the company. Summarize your phone calls with company leadership in follow-up email.
Also, there is the danger of talent churn. People that work in games out of a passion for it will tolerate being fucked with once, maybe twice,
before they say "screw it, I am changing out of this industry and do the boring but better paying job in another sector." And now the games sector has lost a talented worker forever.
They would have to leave the engineer role behind. It is the same in Insurance as in Gaming, or any other sector....minus the "what promotion?" crap.
There are people lined up to get a chance to work for the company that made their beloved games.
Young people are constantly getting inspired and learning to develop games, and the young fresh batch will always be in a position where they want to take that chance.
This is how it will be until massive reform happens to corporaations
Imagine Jeff would speak out
Jeff is remaining quiet so he can be in good graces and come back in 5 years
He signed an nda for life probably 😂
I don't want to burst your bubble, but a company like blizzard would never be able to afford to hire someone like him. That's why it's a mistake to let someone like that walk.
@@bobothebob4716someone like him? Who exactly do you think he is? Everyone has a price and blizzard makes A LOT of money without overwatch being successful or not the game can die today and Diablo immortal and wow alone would be enough to keep them afloat for the next decade
@@Fuhknelan Well he literally helped create wow, and single handedley turned a multibillion dollar failure Titan into 10 billion dollar -new IP- success (not even counting revenue after he left, or the value of the asset itself). When you largely responsible for leading teams that make a company over 20 billion dollars in a very short period of time, you are worth a lot of money. I'd assume conservatively the man could literally ask any of the SEA companies for a hundred million and a team of devs and get it no questions asked.
Holy. Full props to Chris. If i was lied to for 3 months, then forced out of working for 3 more months, all while not getting paid, I wouldve lost it. The amount of strength needed to even survive that situation is insane- let alone talk about it.
I hope Blizzard rots.
I’m so glad you cover stuff like this Sty, seriously. You’re absolutely right that these stories do need to be told. I worked for a company (not game dev related) that had a VERY similar vibe shift to full on villain mode and it really does feel awful even on that small scale. Cannot imagine it happening at a company in your desired field.
Legitimately, the ONLY way things can change or we as customers can hit them back is to stop giving them money at all. This shit is so gross.
I believe that in California not only are non-compete clauses unenforceable, but you can actually sue a company that makes you sign one.
Might have to check on UK laws cause I think that’s where the guy was working from.
I used to work for a high end retail company, as an assistant manager. One of our sister stores lost their manager due to health complications. Corporate office decided to take our manager and relocate him to that store as a quick fix, leaving me as acting manager of my location. All the Wyle being told that they would find a replacement asap.
It took them nearly a full year of me running that store at assistant pay rate before they approached me for a promotion.
It's not just Blizzard it's the Corporate mindset, profit over people and year to year growth at any cost.
The only person that will protect you is you.
Never do something you aren't actively being paid for
These ex developers ain't no baby and spilled the beans like a chad🗿
Basically shut down any chance he had at working for another big developer with a HR department. Not that he would want to after this I guess.
@@brynmorgan9356 Just the ones who don't follow up on promotions. It was a company-side issue not a worker one. They even tried to strong-arm him into staying.
@@brynmorgan9356The fact that people talk about mistreatment, doesn't implicate that they'll never work for another large studio.
He has grounds to sue. You can only restrict someone from working in the same industry or for a direct competitor. Even with a sign contract. California employment laws tend to favor the employee. Blizzard can’t keep dude from working at a gym or something just because he signed a no compete.
@@brynmorgan9356hopefully not
Same happened to me, and i learned a good lesson. NEVER do anything before its on paper. NEVER accept anything unless there is a paper.
His posts needs to be shared to anyone even thinking of starting a career at Blizzard or Activision in order to save their future. What a god-awful place to work at.
I’d rather be a janitor at a overpopulated McDonalds in the middle of New York than work at Blizzard after reading this. I feel bad for the developers under this incredibly evil and souless corporate management.
Nearly every AAA studio treats people this way, and honestly nearly every corporate job.
I have worked at resteraunts both fancy and fast-food that do these things as well.
Until people demand massive reform, his is the future we live in.
Thank you, Sty, for using your platform to bring behavior like this to light. I have worked in the game industry for 15+ years and have stuck mostly to small to mid sized companies for this reason. I have worked briefly for EA and Capcom and experienced the corporate speak and full studio shut downs/layoffs firsthand and it sucks.
In other news: *the sky is blue*
I hope this reminds people that HR is not there to help employees but to protect the company. If something like this ever happens to anyone, make sure to record, and save every evidence. Emails, phone calls, write down discussions immediately after happening, etc.
just because something is in a contract doesn't make it legal. a non-compete agreement where they don't pay you is not enforceable.
…what? I’ve signed non competes for every job I’ve ever had. There are no laws forcing companies to pay you during non-compete terms?
PVE was not the teams fault, it came out less than mediocre because of the direction upper management forced upon them, whether that was redirecting resources into other things that made money, creating projects only to fail them, and then distribute new projects wasting time and time over and over to ensure that it would fail. Those who do not develop or work on games should not have their greasy nasty palms in them, they are only for the profit, and that is what destroys the heart and soul in video games.
I am deeply saddened that the entire PVE team was scrapped, I’m sure we all felt like there would’ve been a little bit of a redemption arc for PVE when Microsoft took over, but unfortunately that seemed to be only wishful thinking.
Our hearts go to that entire team, all the best to them and their families, and good luck to the future of overwatch.
It's like that meme "we've tried nothing and we're all out of options". Well they did try something, but it's so easy to go "see that failed" from the corporation's side when it's clear they've never provided appropriate resources to the team and were completely uninterested in something that doesn't drive MTX, as well as being so hostile that Jeff Kaplan just straight up quit.
Nope, it was still their fault. Quit coping. Team 4 had bad conditions but they were also completely clueless.
@@ExValeFor It's not really coping, sure there may be some truth in that, but It's not the entire team's fault, most of them were put at the head of the ship used to drive revenue. There were definitely some members of that team that really didn't know how to do their job, I'm sure. They were most likely hired because the team needed someone to fill in the gaps and some of them to be model mokey's to push out skins asap and make as much money as possible. Now those guys are let go, which this probably sounds bad, but that's probably a good thing - cutting the fat off the team, especially when the original visionaries of PVE were pretty much all gone. It's sad to see this sort of thing happen, but it was already being poorly managed and being pulled in every which way that plummeted the time, effort, and efficiency that could have driven a great game, but we all know how that went... Hoping that this year has a more positive and greater path so that we can all start enjoying Blizzard games again.
As a former software engineer, also did some game development, this story is unfortunately too common. HR tells you one thing but doesn't mean it, they give you the jobs of multiple people while paying you as little as possible, and the company prides itself on "family" as a means to make business decisions that only serve the top brass.
They use the nostalgia of these IP's and passion from devs as a tool to give them as few benefits as possible, while giving them as much work as they can to maximize profits. They never cared about the game. They don't care about integrity. They only care about making money, even if it means destroying the mental health of their workers, or having them fly out to work in-person just to lay them off.
The worst part is it often works. People still apply to work since they either have nostalgia for the IP or just need a job in a time where tech jobs are hard to get, and games like Diablo Immortal which have horrendous microtransactions perform better than multi decade-long running games.
“I saw corps ... transform Night City into a machine fueled by people's crushed spirits, broken dreams and emptied pockets. Corps've long controlled our lives, taken lots... and now they're after our souls! ... I've declared war not 'cause capitalism's a thorn in my side or outta nostalgia for an America gone by." - Johnny Silverhand. Why is this so relevant to blizzard.
HR: We investigated ourselves and found we did nothing wrong.
Why is that only the most useless people at a company make it to the highest roles? They can’t even develop a video game and yet they’re wasting my Earth’s oxygen.
Because extracting capital and giving profits to shareholders is managements job. Not making games.
This is late state capitalism when nobody challenges corporate interests.
Can we get any leakers on who pushed 5v5?
Unfortunately, that kind of shit happens all too often in the Japanese gaming companies. Interesting but maybe obvious enough, the old always gets the power only to ruin the young.
I've lost count on seeing so many multi talented younger employees being mistreated by the managements who do nothing but to impose their power upon them.
I literally aloud said holy f’ing s*** when they said it was a lateral move I mean there are no words how evil that is career wise
This is standard at most tech companies. Management is a different job track. I think it’s a good thing. For people that want to stay ICs and not go into management, you still have growth opportunities. The model of forced IC->Manager means we just get bad managers. Being a manager does not equal more work necessarily. Good ICs should be allowed to stay ICs if they want. He just completely misunderstood this, but it’s something in the industry we all already know, so usually we don’t need to explain it to people. Chris is really warping the truth to fit a narrative. He was probably never offered a promotion, he was offered to go down the management track, and completely misunderstood it.
You're the realest OW content creator I watch. Good on you for calling Blizz out on their heinous bs, Sty. 👍
Hes a hater dont get how they stil give him stuff early
@@gamerbeast3616Pointing out all the horrible shit Blizzard does doesn't constitute as being a hater, it makes you a realist.
He tells the truth that other creators are too reluctant to tell, or dive into. Incredible respect to him for the effort, honestly
Where Chris says he has to leave for his mental health and that he had been doing 4 other peoples jobs speaks out to me in so many ways it hurts, I left my job because of this reason I even went to a doctor for my mental health and the company I worked for did not take it seriously. I also had a fake promotion since someone had left the company, no title change and no pay increase, just more work and more pressure. I hope this guy is alright.
Chris Sayers with the great Hearthstone reference.
UGH the pain that these devs went through. I can't believe this is the same blizzard i grew up with.
Blizzard's management is like "The Office," but without the laughs and with more stress. Hearing about this mistreatment in the industry is just sad.
“You shouldn’t have signed the contract then” Whoaaaaaaaaaa that is far beyond the pale. Far, far beyond the pale.
"VFX pipeline in China" that is interesting, I wonder exactly what and how much of the work on Overwatch might be outsourced to China.
All the while people are throwing money at blizz buying stupid crap like cosmetics
Cry
@@gamerbeast3616 Why did you cry
Yeah never buying a new skin tbh
@@xaviergoodwin4806 well rn is a bit too late, considering this has been happening for a long time but yeah I guess it still counts?
I’m proud of all the folks sharing their negative experiences with their employers. I work in the archival field where the same red flags are flown over and over again. The main mantra being that “you should be happy to work on this because it’s such a privilege to work here on this historical material.”
In other news: the floor is apparently made out of floor
Exactly. Corporations have permission to screw us, and they have no feelings. They are going to.
Remember, everyone: for every skin you buy, you're funding this company and corroborating with this type of behavior.
Art and corporations are just incompatible imo
when you said it was gonna be bad, I didnt think it would make me feel sick with disgust. i don’t know how people can live with themselves after treating other people like how HR treat employees 😭😭
Never accept a promotion until you see the money.
Mafia rules, bros.
FYI: noncompete clauses are often unenforceable, especially if you aren't being compensated in any way for the duration. Companies will try to convince you otherwise, and throw them into employment agreements, but that doesn't mean they hold up in court.
They mistreat us too with this 5v5 bs.. smh
What about the years of no content 😂
@@Suicidalsheep that too.. the 5v5 was spitting on us while we were down. Smh
6v6 was not that good lol
"You would not believe this!" Nah, this is Blizzard. I would not believe it if they WERENT doing something absolutely horrific and awful.
If you were born in the USA I just feel sorry for you if you need to be employed to get by, you have literally no rights compared to any state in Europe. The USA is only a good place to be when you own a company.
Blizzard was always known for underpaying their employees, and it apparently only ever got worse.
Honesly, this is not true. Originally when Blizzard was booming it was known to be a place where talented artists were celebrated, paid well, and got promoted. By the time that the original staff had all left, things started to go to shit.
ESPECIALLY once they got purcahsed by Activision. Activision is also a powerhouse of villainy and greed .... at that point it was too late.
How we know he's telling the truth? I need proof and not another Hellena Taylor
Because It's Blizzard 😂 The Scumiest Company On The Planet! They Let A Game of The Year Award Game Die Due To Greed! OW2 Is A Failure!
It isn’t just him complaining about this kind of treatment at Blizzard
While working a job, I was given more responsibilities and eventually became the operations lead. That meant that I was managing 12 people in a 24 Hour operation Center. I was making $65,000 a year and found out that all of the new engineers that were working below me were making $90,000 a year. I was told that they could not increase my salary so I quit and got a call a month later asking for me to come back. I told them I would come back for a $50,000 increase and initially they said they couldn’t do that but the next day they called back and said they could. Companies will screw you over you owe them no loyalty because when the chips are down, they will not be loyal to you.
This is why unions, and powerfull ones at that, are a must!
Unions do the same.
@@ghoulbuster1No they don't Unions are what cause better wages and better environments.
@@ghoulbuster1 source?
@@sillysputnikIt depends, some unions are really bad and some are good
Unions that don’t charge money you mean.. bc that’s just another tax scheme that leads to political donations you might not agree with
Thanks for spreading this information Stylosa! It is sad that this is a common thing for one organization but even sadder to know it expands to others.
Blizzard should never be given any respect. Awful.
i'm so glad people share their stories & experience because it's so so so important. if more people have similar stories, i hope they talk about it.
Who could’ve possibly seen this coming
In companies I have worked at, leadership can be a lateral move from a senior position. HOWEVER, lateral does not mean equal pay and benefits. There is a raise and a higher bonus eligibility to accept a leadership position. Sad that Blizzard is not like that.
So glad I stopped supporting this game and Blizzard when they revield that the PVE that was promised was never coming all those moths ago, and the fact the they laid off the PVE department recently put the final nail in the coffin for me.
They promised nothing
I am by no means a law expert, but if he is saying that his agreement to these additional responsibilities and subsequent performance of these responsibilities was because of their promise of a pay rise and title change, the latter of which was announced and acknowledged within the company, then he may have some sort of remedy. It's incredibly fact dependent, but actions such as quantum meruit come to mind. From what I can tell, he had legal advice regarding the non-compete and not the unrealised pay increase, so perhaps the latter would be worth some reconsideration.
Taking on legal battles against massive corporations is an uphill battle, it takes a long time and costs a lot of money. The most likely result is loss of money and wasted time.
"You will not believe" Yes, yes I will. I believe everything bad coming out of that studio
Dawg, I had a guy on a ticket bring up religion and say I got a 2-week ban because I asked Lucio to swap multiple times in a comp game. He also said having to swap is the reason people quit the game so it's bannable. I'll believe anything about them at this point.
As a chemist in the Industrie segment i can say we get treated the same by the management...😢
I’ve come to expect whenever Blizzard releases a new trailer or make an announcement, it usually means someone probably exposed the management and it got the attention of news outlets.
Just as if they had a panic button to announce something to divert mass public attention.
lmao this is wild.
is it actually you
They make product WE WANT then WE BUY product that we like. At the end of the day it's purely business. A lot of people don't really care at the end of the day what the work environment is like besides the employees, shit like this happens in every other field of work. If you're not happy with your job then you leave and find a new job.
I wonder why he worked 3 mounth at new role without payment increase and signing any shit. Thats not only blizzard most companies want to fool you to pay less money. And that all around the world. Do get fooled guys and be carefull. Im currently working as freelance becouse i got sick of companies promises, now I know when my job will done ill get exact amount immidetly.
I'm not gonna trust anyone who has the need to list their pronouns. Pass.
Do people find this strange? I mean 95% of all business in the world are doing these kind of practises. the other 5% either will not make or get bought out by the other 95%. i have been working for a little more then 20 years in diverse companies in also diverse fields and it has never been different then the story in this youtube post.
First buff mauga
they did, but we all know how that turned out
buff orisa
This is why you document EVERYTHING!!!!
Fun fact. In Britain a non-compete clause is almost never upheld in court. They are considered unfair in the eyes of the British government and only realistically get upheld if you were within senior roles within large corporations and have a large amount of savings or steady revenue stream that allows you to live without working for the requested length of time in the given industry. So basically unless you are a board member or know incredibly sensitive information on a possible competitors business (such as the exact process on making Coca-Cola for instance) they are considered irrelevant and unlawful. Most companies know this and are just hoping you don't and as such rarely contest when someone breaks these clauses. (Again for non executive/ confidential job roles)
These clauses also even when upheld in court only are allowed to restrict employment in the same industry as the company in question. So again for the most part they are kind of irrelevant and ignored
Same shit happened to me in another company lol manager quits, I become the new manager, double the job, 4 months go by I ask again for confirmation on my promised raise, next day they hire someone else lol😂
Find a lawyer based in California that is willing to pick this case up pro bono. Microsoft should settle. I hope OP sues.
I was honestly looking into blizzard as a company to work for just today because shit, the bar is so low there's no way they wouldnt take me now. But damn, no way am I going near them now
To all of those people that said people got fired for "Being LAZY", I'm looking at you. Stop trying to make us all accept workplace abuse like it's normal.
Same, they were taking the heat for the poor management
They were fierd for being lazy
Would be 1000x more powerful of a message if a current dev says something like this. Until someone actually puts their job on the line to speak out, no ones really going to listen. They can just brush it off as a disgruntled ex-employee. It's more of an empty sentiment when it comes from someone who has a gripe with the company right off the bat.
Well sadly if they did they will go to jail. Cause nda is a thing
No, this is on Aaron Keller and the rest. If I'm leading a team such as T4, I am responsible for everyone under me. It's wild to me he didn't go to Keller and the rest to solve this. If they won't stand up for their teams and devs then they are just as corrupt as the HR and the management.
Wow, this exact same story happened to me at Facebook.
It wasn’t Phil Spencer’s doing in the layoffs it was already going to happen to be fair. I think we still have to give the Microsoft acquisition time to see how things turn out
People are hellbent on making Phil out to be the problem in the case of Microsoft's layoffs when there's been nothing said by anybody, and no stock should be put into anything unless they put out a statement to quash the rumours that have been spreading like wildfire that have no credible backing.
thank you so much for this video. it was REALLY necessary to talk about it
How they could prevent him from getting hired anywhere for 3 months is just baffling. Another example of law =/= justice.
they are not preventing him from getting hired anywhere, they are most likely preventing him from working in a place that is considered competition to the company but he can still get a job somewhere else, its actually very frequent to see this in contracts when you get a new job
@@marc-andreblais5818 I don't personally see the difference, this is his area of expertese. This is a pretty insane business practice to prevent employees for leaving for better alternatives by threat of losing their livelyhood.
I never got shagged this hard by my company, but I had multiple times where my manager (who's awesome) got into negotiations for a salary increase and the top management said "yes" verbally in the meetings just for them to backtrack between then and the contract signing. It always feels like those people don't value your time and try to assert their power over you at every turn it's soul crushing.
Well said Sty. Thanks for covering this. Speaking as a former Blizzard tech artist.
Happened to me but in other field of work: small typography firm. Except i found out that i were paid less at the day i were quitting (boss asked me not to discuss my payment with colleagues after promotion 2 years prior)
“Horrible” doesn’t cut it. I hope Chris and everyone else who had to go through this BS are okay now. Forbidden from working for 3 months wtf… This makes me not want to play OW2 ever again, but it’s not Team 4 that did this and that’s not fair to them. Whatever we as players can do if management is still like this, I’m all ears. Thanks for covering this. 💕
The region based pay is a standard across tech. It has been questioned and goes with every company I hav worked for
I completely agree...it has been my experience, too...outside of gaming. It is the very reason companies look to off shoring engineers...or expensive states looking for remote workers in cheap states. ETC. I have seen it soooo many times. It has been this way since Y2K, at least.
Imagine being shocked a company in the worst country for workers mistreated as worker
A thought using a cake I have recently discovered called a “smash cake”, which has a chocolate dome filled with treats on the top.
Blizzard gave this guy a smash cake, and like anyone else, thought “fuck yeah, cake” and went for it, but blizzard was hesitant and kept holding it back from him. After he asked “where’s my fucking cake”, they then proceeded to smash the dome, revealing it was filled with nothing but shit and cardboard.
All this to me sounds like the gaming industry devs need to unionize.
While such behavior is common in the tech and gaming industry.. (former EA employee here) I have so to say some of this wreaks of "I did everything right and nothing wrong" he started by saying he made sure everyone was on the same page about the promotion and pay increase. If this was true there is no way the internal review would come back everything was done correctly. Then there is the added work on top of his old work.. there is a phrase for that.. constructive termination. legal would be flipping over themselves to offer compensation to prevent a law suit here if it was as written.
Again I fully believe such things happen.. hell I have take one of my former employers down the legal path and even though they wanted to fight be their lawyer was like no.. settle as he knew how bad things looked for them. So I know such things can happen, but that just it.. legal too MY side... there is no way legal would not be on his side if this was true.
dont ever do anything different or more than what your initial contract says when you were hired. any promotion etc. make it official and with a new contract etc. and AFTER that, you can go and do whatever the new contract says your duties are. I mean, its still effed up and bad, F Blizzard etc. but he should have known better imho. I would never do work I am not supposed to do without it having written down in a new contract with both parties signing it. You cant do shiet without legal stuff.
“Why would we pay you more than we have too?” Is such a short sighted, short term way of thinking. Producing shot games only lasts so long and the companies eventually downfall is because of managements decisions.
"you will not believe what im about to tell you" are we sure about that?
tl;dr he didn't read his contract
Certainly there is no way that a non compete clause could be legally enforced for ALL work. That is insane.
Full sympathy to all ex employees that were fired but what do the community and supporters of these individuals with these absolutely demoralizing statements for a company as ABK, What can we do? We can't just stop supporting games we have literal years of time put into. It's absurd to expect change without any action from the community but what can we do?