"At least 200 Activision Blizzard workers join walkout in protest of layoffs", 6 December 2021

At least 200 Activision Blizzard workers across various studios and teams have walked out of work Tuesday as a continuation of a work stoppage initiated by workers at Raven Software Monday. Over 60 workers at Raven Software, an Activision Blizzard-owned game studio, walked out of work Monday in protest of their parent company laying off 12 of the studio’s quality assurance testers Friday...

On Tuesday, quality assurance testers...will join Raven Software contractors in solidarity, and in protest of the total of 20 people that Activision Blizzard laid off as of Monday...workers are demanding that all Raven quality assurance contractors...receive full-time positions and that the company reverses the past week’s layoffs at Raven...

...Activision Blizzard wrote in a Monday statement to The Washington Post, “We support their right to express their opinions and concerns in a safe and respectful manner, without fear of retaliation.”

Raven studio head Brian Raffel told employees...that he didn’t consider the terminations to be layoffs; instead he described them as temporary employment agreements that weren’t renewed, according to people who were present at the meeting. Raffel apologized and said that the communication could have been clearer, and that the meetings to hand out terminations took longer than expected due to having to meet one on one with individuals.

In regard to the layoffs, Activision Blizzard said in a Monday statement that it was “growing its overall investment in its development and operations resources,” and that it ended contracts with 20 temporary workers, including the 12 from Raven, across its studios as part of that change. The company also said that about 500 contractors would become full-time employees in the coming months...

Friday’s layoffs...were billed as part of a studio restructuring. More contractors will be informed by Wednesday about the status of their employment, current employees told The Washington Post. A third of the studio’s quality assurance testers have been laid off so far...