Quality assurance testers at Activision Blizzard’s Wisconsin-based Raven Software studio – where strike action has been ongoing since December, following the firing of 12 members of the developer’s QA team – have announced their intention to form a worker’s union.
The instigating incident – which came amid an already troublesome time for Activision Blizzard management, who had been repeatedly criticised following the California state lawsuit calling the publisher a “breeding ground for harassment and discrimination against women” – took place in December when around a third of the QA team was laid off. The firings, coming after a five-week period of overtime and anticipated end-of-year crunch, occurred despite Activision allegedly promising the team it was working on a pay restructure to increase wages.
