World of Warcraft developers say that Activision Blizzard's plans to force developers back into the office later this summer is already pushing people to leave, including some of the talent that made Dragonflight great.
"Being loud about it because I've lost yet another person this week," WoW producer Adam 'Glaxigrav' says on Twitter. "Blizzard is losing amazing talent because someone in power doesn't listen to the game directors who make his products. DE&I also means diversity of thought, especially when it's backed by data and financials."
Earlier this year, Activision Blizzard announced that employees would soon be required to return to the office for at least three days a week, a move that met with a quick, vocal backlash from employees on social media. The company partially backtracked on its plans to relax COVID-19 vaccine mandates in response to employee backlash earlier this month, but Blizzard employees are apparently still set to be forced back to the office in July.
By many accounts, Dragonflight was the best WoW expansion in years, and Glaxigrav says that the prospects for future expansions are diminishing with these departures. "I just want to make video games. I want to make amazing best sellers that are critically acclaimed. I want to make better Dragonflights. I want to make better experiences. Can't do that if we get rid of everyone who made it."
Glaxigrav says the talent bleed has gotten to the point where the studio is "creating crisis maps of what we can or cannot ship. THAT is the loss of capacity we’re facing. I literally have a schedule I strike out as people hand in notice."
A Blizzard representative tells IGN that the aforementioned 'crisis maps' are "not a team practice for WoW. However, making decisions around priorities, iterating, and ensuring quality are everyday parts of game development."
Another WoW developer, senior game designer Allison Steele, adds that "forced [return to office] has cost us some amazing people and will continue to cost us more in the coming months," calling it a "terrible, shortsighted, self-destructive policy that is only weakening our ability to deliver the kind of game we want to make and our players deserve."
As Activision Blizzard's return-to-office policy courted controversy earlier this year, Bungie was happy to note how it delivered Destiny 2's best season ever "entirely remotely."
