After racing through fifty upcoming games for the year ahead, we’ve finally come to the pointiest of pointy ends in our Most Wanted list for 2024, and it’s a real crowd pleaser of a PlayStation 5 exclusive. That’s right, it’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.
Activision’s ending of hybrid working for QA staff “leaves our most vulnerable employees behind”, says union
19.12.2023 - 17:43 / rockpapershotgun.com
Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 publisher Activision Blizzard plan to end hybrid remote/in-office work for QA staff based in Minneapolis, Austin, and El Segundo next year, with employees who are unwilling to fully return to the office offered severance, in what the ABK Workers Alliance are calling the basis for a round of "soft layoffs".
According to an ABK Workers Alliance statement shared on TwiX and with Eurogamer, QA staff in Minneapolis, Austin, and El Segundo were sent notice on 30th November this year that hybrid working would end in January 2024.
The union state that "hundreds of employees" have already approached the publisher's Accommodations team this year seeking permanent work-from-home arrangements "due to disability, financial issues, or other factors". They add that "many of these requests have been outright denied and many more have been offered in-office accommodations that do not adequately meet the needs of employees".
The ABK Workers Alliance statement notes that many union members joined in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, "during the height of WFH", and live "a significant distance" from the offices. Following Activision's introduction of hybrid working earlier this year, they've had to shoulder the additional time and cost of a commute.
The union assert that Activision's lack of flexibility about working from home "has resulted in many employees being forced out of the company in a soft layoff", and that mandating a full return to the office will lead to many more such departures, creating more labour for those who remain. They argue that the ending of hybrid work "leaves our most vulnerable employees behind, especially disabled and immunocompromised employees, many [of] who have had their work from home accommodations requests denied with inadequate reasoning, even when they provided medical paperwork."
All in all, the union insist that a "one-size-fits-all mandate harms us all" and "stand firm in our resolve that the decision to WFH or RTO should be made on an individual basis".
Responding to these objections, Activision Blizzard have argued that they've found QA teams function better when they're all under one roof, and that they are trying to accommodate individuals with disabilities and other medical needs.
"After returning to the office in April, we've learned a lot about how our teams can work best," an Activision Blizzard spokesperson told Eurogamer. "In particular, we saw our QA team in Minneapolis, Austin and El Segundo work more effectively and efficiently in person, thanks to improved broadband speeds, seamless team coordination, and better hardware access. As a result, we've made the decision to move from a hybrid work schedule to a full-time,
The website gametalkz.com is an aggregator of news from open sources. The source is indicated at the beginning and at the end of the announcement. You can send a complaint on the news if you find it unreliable.
Top Authors
Popular Topics
thesixthaxis.com
04.01.2024 / 15:40
Our Most Wanted Games of 2024 – #2 Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth
Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is going to big a big change for the popular Japanese crime drama series. Sure, the last mainline game already made the shift to a new lead character, new city and jumped from action adventure to tactical RPG gameplay, but Infinite Wealth will see the story take place outside of Japan for the first time, and promises to be the final chapter in Kiryu Kazuma’s story. Again.
thesixthaxis.com
03.01.2024 / 15:57
Our Most Wanted Games of 2024 – #3 Dragon’s Dogma 2
As we hone in on our most wanted game of the upcoming year, Capcom have slid into our number three spot with Dragon’s Dogma 2, a wish fulfilling follow-up to the cult classic 2012 original.
thesixthaxis.com
02.01.2024 / 22:38
Our Most Wanted Games of 2024 – #4 Star Wars Outlaws
Are we in a golden patch for Star Wars games? It certainly feels like that could become the case, as Disney has sought to spread the franchise out from just films and animated shows to encompass a myriad of TV spin-offs, lesser told stories and video games. Star War Outlaws looks set to smash the epic space opera setting together with all things Ubisoft when it comes out in 2024.
pcgamer.com
02.01.2024 / 20:12
The Sinking City legal battle ends with victory for Frogwares, new version of the game 'coming soon'
Following a drawn-out legal dispute with original publisher Nacon, Ukrainian studio Frogwares has announced that it is now the one true publisher of the Lovecraft-inspired detective adventure The Sinking City, and that a new version of the game «with all the latest bug fixes and optimizations» is coming soon.
rockpapershotgun.com
02.01.2024 / 18:43
NCSoft's Project Skyline rumoured to be Horizon MMO, in the works for PC and Unreal Engine 5
Guild Wars publisher NCSoft's long-rumoured Horizon: Zero Dawn spin-off is a full-blown MMORPG codenamed Project Skyline, will run on Unreal Engine 5, and is coming to PC and mobile with a PS5 release still TBC, according to a brace of job listings and CVs fished from the post-apocalyptic robo-wilds of yonder internet. Also according to the said listings, it won’t be out for a while.
thesixthaxis.com
01.01.2024 / 15:32
Our Most Wanted Games of 2024 – #5 Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2
As we head into the top five of our Most Wanted games for 2024, and we have what has become one of Microsoft’s most important upcoming games – Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II.
thesixthaxis.com
31.12.2023 / 18:08
Our Most Wanted Games of 2024 – #10 to #6
There’s forty games behind us and ten to go in our Most Wanted list for 2024, but this clutch of five games might surprise you for their somewhat more niche appeal. Surely we should be in the lands of big budget AAA games right now? Well, maybe we’re saving those for our final five…
thesixthaxis.com
30.12.2023 / 21:06
Our Most Wanted Games of 2024 – #20 to #16
We’re heading fully into wish fulfilment with this latest set of Most Wanted games, with two of the five totally lacking any kind of release date announcement or indications. That, and that four of the five are all reviving series and games that are decades old! So, what games are we talking about?
thesixthaxis.com
30.12.2023 / 21:05
Our Most Wanted Games of 2024 – #15 to #11
We’re getting toward the pointy end of our Most Wanted list of 2024’s slate of games, and there’s two titles here that have been through “development hell” and back. Let’s start with the first of those…
thesixthaxis.com
28.12.2023 / 15:04
Our Most Wanted Games of 2024 – #25 to #21
We’re into the top half of our Most Wanted games of 2024, and if there’s two themes running through this selection of five games, its of redemption arcs and new beginnings.
thesixthaxis.com
27.12.2023 / 17:22
Our Most Wanted Games of 2024 – #30 to #26
We’re back from a little Christmas reprieve with another fistfull of games that we’re looking forward to playing in 2024. Whether it’s slowly driving through the wilderness, fighting alongside your ghostly loved one or trying to survive the start of the universe, there’s another intriguing set of games here.