Blizzard Workers Share Salaries in Revolt Over Wage Disparities

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Capitalism is an abstraction of evolution.

If your skills are useful, if the work you do is useful, and if you occupy a niche unique enough that you don't make the environment barren of resources, then you will prosper.
What sort of person expects capitalism to treat the "unfit" nicely? Evolution is significantly more brutal than capitalism can ever be. So let's not scoff at the nature of reality, and wish for something better than reality.

Evolution is the truth of life. So let's not look at capitalism with hatred: If you don't fight with tooth, nail, and mind, then of course you will suffer and perish.

In order to survive and thrive, you must justify your existence.
 
"Just move" and "You chose to work there" really shouldn't be the responses adults should give to this. That's the reaction I'd expect from a teenager. The fact that a company as rich as ActiBlizz, that pays no taxes and is given millions in tax payer dollars refuses to pay employees a decent living wage is fucking ridiculous. Yes, people can leave, but they shouldn't have to. They shouldn't have to pick between being able to buy food and working at a job they clearly enjoy. This shit isn't capitalism, it's not how the system was ever supposed to work.

This. Companies make more money when employees are happy and productive. That short-term greedy mentality turns away talented people even if they themselves are paid well, in my opinion.

Here is a cool positive (opposite) story: https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-51332811
 
Ok, looks like another case of misleading headlines


The city council has voted to study a housing proposal
So first it's a STUDY.

that would essentially subsidize new housing for what qualifies as middle-class nowadays, families making from $150,000 to $250,000 a year.

The plan would focus on building smaller, downtown units for people who live near transit and don’t own cars, along with mixed-use retail and residential developments.
And if passed, not sure if it did since the article you linked is over 4 years old, it would create a stock of "below market value" housing which it would then rent out most likely to those who fit that income range. That in no way translates to "income assistance", plans like this are not like section8 housing. They simply are ways for cities to make sure it controls an amount of housing so that it's not allowed to go to market where typically investors will outbid anyone and everyone who actually just wants to live there all because it will typically never decrease in value, and will keep making money
 
So how exactly do we give money to the wealthy? Cuz I am looking at my tax bill and so far this year I have paid more in taxes than the average American makes in a year. Id like some of this so called free cash.
You are no Jeff Bezos. You must make billions before you get to pay no taxes. Ford and other companies are getting tax credit during COV19. Let me know if kju1 is some sort of acronym for a business you own that makes millions because you maybe able to get free government money like the good socialist you are.
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That's you having lofty expectations for an expensive area. Why do you NEED a 3-4 bedroom home? It's just a case of you driving up your own expenses, you chose to have kids, a wife and a dog or whatever and now you think $100k is poverty level when it's not. You just raised your own personal costs and I suspect this is the same thing Blizzard employees are doing. A cursory look at game developer pay in the bay area shows a pay of around $100-140k a year depending on experience/level. Say you get an average of $120k/yr and a net of 66% take home after taxes, you're looking at around $6k/month. You could rent a 2-3 bd place in the bay area for about $2500/mo and still be able to afford a relatively decent car with health insurance etc. It's people who inflate their costs to include a wife, kids, dog etc that think $100k is't doable and for them it isn't and it's why they need a dual income household like everyone else these days. But is that Blizzards fault that people choose a certain lifestyle and raise their costs? No it isn't.

Raising a small family shouldn't be such a financial burden. Especially when the long term growth of the economy and stability of the country depends on it. A dog - sure. But one or two children? Come on... they might be helping support your small portion of social security income in 30 years. That's if we have enough children born to follow up in the workforce.
 
I wonder how much of a non-story this is just to rile up people like it's doing here. There were no specifics in the article, it mentions people making over 100k/year but doesn't say if those are the ones complaining about not being able to start a family, eat, etc. The article does however mention that there are a number of "low skill" jobs such as game testers or customer service that earn very little, near minimum wage. There's the "veteran Blizzard employee" who only got 50 cents raise" and made less now than he did back when he had a lot of OT, is this "veteran" one of said minimum wage employees? I mean the guy who cuts the grass outside if he's done it a while is a "veteran employee".

Basically I'm curious if this is a case of minimum wage employees who work for some larger company where there are higher paying jobs are the main source of complaint, or if this really is a case of the $100k/yr employees complaining about "not being able to" afford eating.
 
Why single out minorities? There is enough of 'La Blanche Garbage' that was imported over the centuries from Europe in the racist south that does the exact same thing.

Yeah, I'm not sure why race enters into "survive and thrive" at all.

It's not YOU or ME who can judge another's worthiness of existence. It's nature itself.
Trying to claim the power to judge the existence of others is a game that you cannot win without venturing into the darkest of philosophies.
 
Minorities?

Mate...
I don't think "minority" is ever a relevent word. It doesn't matter how numerous or scarce a thing is.
Instead, let's focus on our own endeavors, and leave nature to judge others. Not us.

Talking about race is generally unproductive, no matter if you're left or right.
That's why I'm here talking about hardware and technology. This is productive because it builds a future for people.
 
I guess it reflects in the quality of their games. I haven't been really drawn into a blizzard game since SC2.

The rest of their games felt as easy to put down as they were to pick up.
 
Raising a small family shouldn't be such a financial burden. Especially when the long term growth of the economy and stability of the country depends on it. A dog - sure. But one or two children? Come on... they might be helping support your small portion of social security income in 30 years. That's if we have enough children born to follow up in the workforce.

Well like it or not, raising a family with a 4 bedroom home and 2 car garage in the bay area with premium real estate is a luxury. Expecting it and thinking $100k is poverty level because you can't meet your expectations of baseline is asinine and reeks of entitlement. Many people in the bay area make due with less than that and even have kids.
 
I wonder how much of a non-story this is just to rile up people like it's doing here. There were no specifics in the article
Ya think? Having some insider knowledge of this company, some of the comments here are definitely amusing and ultimately way off the mark.
 
Well like it or not, raising a family with a 4 bedroom home and 2 car garage in the bay area with premium real estate is a luxury. Expecting it and thinking $100k is poverty level because you can't meet your expectations of baseline is asinine and reeks of entitlement. Many people in the bay area make due with less than that and even have kids.

Section 8 housing and living in Richmond is not what most are thinking of. You cant live in the Bay area on 100K a year, unless your getting assistance have roommates or live in fear of your neighborhood. https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/richmond/ I make 100K and live in the central valley and dont commute to bay area and even the central valley is now getting expensive from all the people fleeing from the massive cost of living in the bay.
 
Section 8 housing and living in Richmond is not what most are thinking of. You cant live in the Bay area on 100K a year, unless your getting assistance have roommates or live in fear of your neighborhood. https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/richmond/ I make 100K and live in the central valley and dont commute to bay area and even the central valley is now getting expensive from all the people fleeing from the massive cost of living in the bay.

It's not section 8 housing, go look on any zillow listing, rent of $2500 is easily manageable on $120k avg for these devs in the bay area. As for the valley, I was born and raised here, the prices have gone up but not enough to make it hard to live here either.
 
Activision Blizzard Inc recorded a profit of $4.395B in 2018. The fact that employees are going hungry, and choosing not to have kids is disgusting ... and really should be criminal.

Just to add to this Activision Blizzard inc is an incredible tax dodger. Activision Blizzard paid out royalties to the Activision Blizzard outfits in tax havens, like ATVI C.V. ATVI C.V. The Bermuda-based outfit has no employees, but received €5 billion ($5.59 billion) in royalty payments between 2013 and 2017. In 2017, ATVI C.V. sold some of its intellectual property to the Barbados-based ATVI International SRL, information for which is not publicly available.

Three sidestep every story, their truth, the others sides truth, and the real truth in the middle of all the BS. When I hear of people going hungry, not having families, etc... Genereally ends up being who overvalued their skills, live way outside of their means, refuse to move/leve the place they grew up in to seek job opperunities. The list goes on and on. Hell a Blizzard employee at this point could be a mail room worker, coffee maker, receptionist. There is no way in hell they should be paid the same as sysadmins, engineers or developers.

Paragraph two is just garbage behavior and they should be penlazed for that, damn Tax loopholes should be closed/made illegal.

Edit: Now I dont think people should be going hungry, I think people should have acess to home/food/medical. For food that means to maintain a healthy life style, I know i it is more expensive than processed foods. As for medical, I dont think people should lose everything to medical issues (unless they are purposely self inflicted, smoking, drugs, alcoholism etc...). The home, just big enough to live in uncomftably.

The biggest tragedy of the current economic system is that corporations have convinced the general public to support unethical behavior like paying employees peanuts while they rake in billions and then they turn around and don't pay taxes on those billions.

I don’t think the general public supports this, but the politicians have the backs of the people paying them so... I dont see that changing in a very long time, to be honest I‘ll bet I die and my kids wont see changes in the current Tax system. As for paying people peanuts, soon some of thone companies wont be paying people at all as they automate the low skill jobs out of existence.

So I read another article about this and it’s mainly QA testers and CSR people who are upset about their pay. Well their job is something an untrained monkey can do and they work in an expensive area, what do they expect? If any developer making $100k+ is crying then they should absolutely relocate because there’s plenty of opportunities for them.

The problem with a lot of people in my experience is they choose to have multiple kids and other added expenses in life and expect their pay to rise to cover those changes and when it doesn’t, they start whining. I bet if you examined the finances of those crying at Blizzard they probably waste a lot of money.

I see this being a bigger part of the picture, living in a houe larger than needed, buying a Model S when a used Mini would get you to and from your destination, owning boats and jet skis for that once a year ocean visit, having kids... Shits expensive.
 
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I think you mean communism. Most western european countries are socialist and it works pretty well.
No they are not and no they don't. And again you compare 300 Million ppl to countries between 5 and 40 Million. You don't have choice in Communism. What country are your talking about in Euroland? Hmmm. Greece that was Bankrupt twice in 10 years, where the unemployed out numbered the workers that lead to said bankruptcy? Oh your referring to Finland and its population of 4 Million. Yeah because trying to run a country with FREE INSURANCE and HANDOUTS of 325 Million ppl is equivalent to just 4 Million? Of which 2.88 Million Finlander's are employed for now and can support the lower half? Or is Venezuela's Socialism program leading the world? Is it like Canada's Awesome Medical?? You know, where surgery can take you up to 6 months to get an appointment and why many come to the states to get procedures? Or was it Sweden where you are lucky to see 30-35% of your paycheck after the government takes its support of you out? Where is the choice in that again? The last time Socialism Rocked Europe Butt off, it was Germany and the Nazi Party. True Story, look it up!
 
Only responding to the notion that the US is some sort of pure capitalism environment, when in reality there are government subsidies promoting farming, oil, etc., and of course bailouts of banks and corporations with taxpayer dollars any time trouble strikes.

Socialism for the common man? Pure failure. Socialism for corporations? Why that's called capitalism, dummy!
Thanks for the non answer.

A company paying less taxes is better then them leaving the country and paying no taxes, duh.
 
I think you mean communism. Most western european countries are socialist and it works pretty well.

LOL no....look at your history. Socialism does not work pretty well. For all the faults of capitalism the US has pretty much the best country on earth to live in.
 
Sounds like a bunch of whining trying to jump on the (rightfully deserved) Blizzard hate still going on.

Blizzards been crappy for many reasons the last few years, but game testers earning minimum wage and software engineers earning 100k is not at all Blizzard specific and is not news worthy.

Yea, running around a mountain for 8 hours trying to find a place to jump up is not particularly challenging. Start getting too high above minimum wage and you'll start seeing alot more AI driven testing.
 
I think you mean communism. Most western european countries are socialist and it works pretty well.

They are all free market economies actually. One of their leaders even addressed this earlier in the year when Bernie kept referencing them.
 
100 posts in and people are still discussing developers. Article is about CSRs and Testers. It's not about the devs or anyone making even above 100k

When a company pays you minimum wage, they're actually saying "If we could pay you less, we would"

Who's making minimum wage these days at game companies? Mostly young people, people starting out in industry etc. These are the types of jobs we've created for kids and others starting out careers
 
A company paying less taxes is better then them leaving the country and paying no taxes, duh.
If Democracy was working properly and elected officials were working to benefit the people then you tax companies looking to leave by 40% of their value and you tax them to operate in your area. Why you think Google operates in Europe despite that Europe is looking to tax them more and more each year?
 
The thing that really bothers me in this debate about capitalism / socialism is how both are vague terms with multiple definitions, both used incorrectly to refer to broad topics, and both taken out of context to make uninformed remarks in opposition to someone else's red or blue politics.

You frequently hear "but the free market!" The US isn't free market capitalism, it has a mixed economy verging on command economy in some sectors. Likewise, all those "socialist" countries in Europe actually have a form of social (welfare) capitalism in place. In some ways they are more "free market" than the US is.

Look at industries that received massive bailouts in the past / recently - large banks, car makers, airlines... In any of those cases, allowing old, inefficient companies to fail would drive innovation, new competition, spur growth - generally all positives long-term. Hands-off, free market capitalism works... but we don't have that. Instead we have corporate welfare for big industries thanks to crony capitalism and spineless politicians (can't let those companies fail and lose the voters and campaign contributions!). An actual free market system requires short term pain, cuts the BS, is more ruthless to companies and workers, but it is an actual meritocracy that doesn't favor bloated old companies and entrenched wealth.

So if you're going to argue for capitalism, I say go for it, but stop arguing for the shitty version we currently have.
 
Raising a small family shouldn't be such a financial burden. Especially when the long term growth of the economy and stability of the country depends on it. A dog - sure. But one or two children? Come on... they might be helping support your small portion of social security income in 30 years. That's if we have enough children born to follow up in the workforce.
It isn't... when you move somewhere cheaper to live and take your marketable skills with you. If you are planning a family one would think you would take into consideration whether you can afford it or not even though we know no one does.
 
one of the downsides to living in cheaper areas is they tend to be more crime ridden, have worse schools, less options once out of school and are less likely to be even interviewed for jobs they would much more easily get in person at companies that dont exist where they are having to live.

You combine that with a young workforce that expects the real world to work idealistically, while at the same time they're growing up looking at the day to day life of the 1% on facebook and twitter and snapchat every moment, and it's a recipe for dissatisfaction. Even if they're being paid more than they're worth. Plus it's hard to feel satisfied about working at blizzard in Irvine when the people at Chik Filet down the street make more than you (Not that fast food workers shouldn't be paid more than game testers, they absolutely should...it's just probably not good for someone at a major software company's ego)
 
one of the downsides to living in cheaper areas is they tend to be more crime ridden, have worse schools, less options once out of school and are less likely to be even interviewed for jobs they would much more easily get in person at companies that dont exist where they are having to live.

You combine that with a young workforce that expects the real world to work idealistically, while at the same time they're growing up looking at the day to day life of the 1% on facebook and twitter and snapchat every moment, and it's a recipe for dissatisfaction. Even if they're being paid more than they're worth. Plus it's hard to feel satisfied about working at blizzard in Irvine when the people at Chik Filet down the street make more than you (Not that fast food workers shouldn't be paid more than game testers, they absolutely should...it's just probably not good for someone at a major software company's ego)
Don't forget complaining about student loans they agreed to and are paying while trying to live in insanely high rent areas.
 
one of the downsides to living in cheaper areas is they tend to be more crime ridden, have worse schools, less options once out of school and are less likely to be even interviewed for jobs they would much more easily get in person at companies that dont exist where they are having to live.

You combine that with a young workforce that expects the real world to work idealistically, while at the same time they're growing up looking at the day to day life of the 1% on facebook and twitter and snapchat every moment, and it's a recipe for dissatisfaction. Even if they're being paid more than they're worth. Plus it's hard to feel satisfied about working at blizzard in Irvine when the people at Chik Filet down the street make more than you (Not that fast food workers shouldn't be paid more than game testers, they absolutely should...it's just probably not good for someone at a major software company's ego)

No. Cheaper areas in CITIES. Rural areas are cheaper and have A LOT less crime than cities. Schools can be just as good.
 
So if you're going to argue for capitalism, I say go for it, but stop arguing for the shitty version we currently have.

Pure capitalism is as stupid and unviable as pure communism or pure socialism. There's a reason we have the mixed type (and why most nations have mixed kinds of economies) ... because people dont play by the rules, play with the interests of society at heart, or play with the same opportunities as others.

We may have a shitty economic model, but pure capitalism would be worse. In fact, a lot of what you'd consider shitty about our economy has to do with the things we allow to be more like pure capitalism. Because unlike imagination land, capitalism breeds monopolies and oligopolies, and nepotism. All things that work to undermine all the benefits of capitalism for all but the few people at the top. Where capitalism works in the real world is at the small scale. There's a tipping point where it needs to be seriously man handled and watched to keep it from corrupting and we're far from being great at making that part happen across the board.
 
No. Cheaper areas in CITIES. Rural areas are cheaper and have A LOT less crime than cities. Schools can be just as good.

Yea, lots of companies with jobs in rural areas. I'm always hearing about how it's booming in west virginia and whatever other rural area you can think of.

There's lots of differences between a "city" like irvine and a city like LA or philly or manhatten. In this sense, city is more like a slightly more active suburb.

Lots of us dont move to more densely populated areas because we want higher cost of living. The lower (rural) areas failed us and we got tired of living pay check to paycheck as jobs moved away.
 
They are all free market economies actually. One of their leaders even addressed this earlier in the year when Bernie kept referencing them.

There is nothing about the word "socialism" which precludes a market driven economy.

Socialism does not mean "state owned planned economy". It just means that tax revenues are utilized to better make sure that all can live a more dignified existence, not the "winner take all" approach we have here.


For all the faults of capitalism the US has pretty much the best country on earth to live in.

For whom? The 1%? Sure. Great place to live for them.

For everyone else it's pretty much a constant game of trying to avoid catastrophe, always being one incident of bad luck (winding up in the hospital, losing a job, etc.) away from financial ruin.

I'm U.S. born, but grew up in Sweden and meet up with Swedes here all the time. I can't tell you how many Swedish expatriates I have known living in the U.S. who decided to give up and go back to Sweden because it is comparatively impossible to raise a family in this country.

Just about everyone who earns less than $250k a year would probably be better off in a country like Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark or Norway.

They might take a slightly larger chunk of income in taxes, but the peace of mind of not constantly having to worry about "what if" makes that all worth it.

I was running the numbers a while back to see if I could swing it and move back to Sweden. Sure their income tax is higher, but once I subtract out all of the things I have to pay for here that I wouldn't have to there (health insurance, copays, etc. retirement savings, etc.) financially it was actually pretty much equivalent.

So no. All the statements about the U.S. being the best place to live in the world, the most free, etc. are mostly false views held by people who don't know better and have never experienced the alternative, out of some foolish sense of national pride.

But now we have gone thoroughly down the rabbit hole, so I am going to stop here.
 
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There is nothing about the word "socialism" which precludes a market driven economy.

Socialism does not mean "state owned planned economy". It just means that tax revenues are utilized to bettered sure that all can live a more dignified existence, not the "winner take all" approach we have here.




For whom? The 1%? Sure. Great place to live for them.

For everyone else it's pretty much a constant game of trying to avoid catastrophe, always being incident of bad luck (winding it in the hospital, losing a job, etc.) away from financial ruin.

I'm U.S. born, but grew up in Sweden and meet up with Swedes here all the time. I can't te you how many Swedish expatriates I have known living in the U.S. who decided to give up and go back to Sweden because it is comparatively impossible to raise a family in this country.

Just about everyone who learns less than $250k a year would probably be better off in a country like Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark or Norway.

They might take a slightly larger chunk of income in taxes, but the peace of mind of not constantly having to worry about "what if" makes that all worth it.

I was running the numbers a while back to see if I could swing it and move back to Sweden. Sure their income tax is higher, but once I subtract out all of the things I have to pay for here that I wouldn't have to there (health insurance, copays, etc. retirement savings, etc.) financially it was actually pretty much equivalent.

So no. All the statements about the U.S. being the best place to live in the world, the most free, etc. are mostly false views held by people who don't know better and have never experienced the alternative, out of some foolish sense of national pride.

But now we have gone thoroughly down the rabbit hole, so I am going to stop here.

I make a lot less than 250K a year and have it pretty dam well and am happy. I am wanting for pretty much nothing. I'm sorry if your little bubble doesn't jive with mine but I stick by my statement. You are welcome to leave if its so terrible here is all I can say. Good luck!
 
It isn't... when you move somewhere cheaper to live and take your marketable skills with you. If you are planning a family one would think you would take into consideration whether you can afford it or not even though we know no one does.

Not everyone is a highly desirable software engineer, data scientist or machine learning engineer. And for those that aren't, simply just moving to a LCOL area isn't all the simple. And doing that with a family is all that much harder.

Fortunately the silver lining of COVID is the desirable types are beginning to move out of HCOL areas to work remotely. That should living costs for those that remain stuck in the HCOL areas.

Fact is this country went from a single income being able to support a mortgage and a family of 4 some 30-50 years ago... to having to remain DINK until you're 40 to get anywhere financially.
 
If Democracy was working properly and elected officials were working to benefit the people then you tax companies looking to leave by 40% of their value and you tax them to operate in your area. Why you think Google operates in Europe despite that Europe is looking to tax them more and more each year?

Honestly, taxing corporations is mostly unproductive. I'd drop all corporate and business taxes all together if I were kind for a day, and make up for them with a highly progressive income tax.

When a company keeps its money it is often reinvesting in it's business and that helps everyone.

Instead what we should do is make the lowest median income within a commutable range from where you work your standard deduction, so no one pays taxes on the basic costs of living, and then have a highly (very highly) formula driven progressive income tax curve above that with no upper tax bracket.

You'd of course have to make all fringe benefits (vehicles, phones, corporate apartments, meals etc. Whenever not strictly used for business purposes.) taxable as income to avoid businesses using their tax free status to provide luxury for employees, but it should work.

Then we should also remove the upper limit on Medicaid/medicare taxes, and tax all income regardless of source (capital gains, inheritance, gifts, you name it).

That really ought to work.

Corporate taxes don't really amount to much anyway due to all the loopholes and transfer pricing issues, so just do away with them.

No matter how much some people would like to tell you otherwise, corporations aren't actually people. They can't live unfair lavish untaxed lifestyles because they are not people.

People don't benefit from it until it is somehow paid out, as a salary or some other way. So let's tax that, and tax it only at high enough levels that it effectively amounts to a luxury tax. Let's not tax the bare minimum cost of living.
 
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Pure capitalism is as stupid and unviable as pure communism or pure socialism. There's a reason we have the mixed type (and why most nations have mixed kinds of economies) ... because people dont play by the rules, play with the interests of society at heart, or play with the same opportunities as others.

Yes, it is a very true statement that almost any "system" works, if and only if, the people are "good" and "honest".

Guess, what? People aren't good and honest.
 
Pure capitalism is as stupid and unviable as pure communism or pure socialism. There's a reason we have the mixed type (and why most nations have mixed kinds of economies) ... because people dont play by the rules, play with the interests of society at heart, or play with the same opportunities as others.

We may have a shitty economic model, but pure capitalism would be worse. In fact, a lot of what you'd consider shitty about our economy has to do with the things we allow to be more like pure capitalism. Because unlike imagination land, capitalism breeds monopolies and oligopolies, and nepotism. All things that work to undermine all the benefits of capitalism for all but the few people at the top. Where capitalism works in the real world is at the small scale. There's a tipping point where it needs to be seriously man handled and watched to keep it from corrupting and we're far from being great at making that part happen across the board.

I don’t disagree with any of your points. I was talking more about the defense of the status quo by some who argue for capitalism and against social programs because “lets preserve free market capitalism in the US” fallacy. Though I did that thing where you delete 2/3 of the page after realizing you’ve typed a 1 page rant... I may have dropped some context in the process haha.

Pure capitalism that I described is an arguement that works only on paper just like pure socialism. It fails in practice because humans are greedy slobs who are awful to one another. Textbook example of “this is why we can’t have nice things”.

That aside, a better system is worth trying for considering how the current one fails so many people so often. To say nothing of practices like bailing out entrenched corporate wealth at the expense of everyone who isn’t an employee or shareholder.
 
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