Developers at Raven Software, the main team behind Activision’s hugely popular Call of Duty: Warzone, are staging a walkout today to protest a recent wave of layoffs to its quality assurance team.
Several members of the QA team were laid off without warning on Friday, Dec. 3 after being promised an increase to their wages, according to workers at Raven. Instead, many were let go. And now, some at Raven are demanding full-time positions for them.
“The Raven QA team and other members of Raven’s staff will be walking out with a singular demand,” Raven Software workers said in a statement. “Every member of the QA team, including those terminated on Friday, must be offered full time positions.”
Raven took over the main development of Warzone from Infinity Ward earlier in the year, with the latter likely moving on to focus on the development of 2022’s CoD title. Warzone continues to be hugely successful for Activision, which Raven workers noted in its statement.
“The goal of this demonstration is to ensure the continued growth of Raven,” the ABK Workers Alliance said on Twitter. “Everyone participating in today’s demonstration does so with the continued success of the studio at the forefront of their mind.”
Activision Blizzard is in the midst of several lawsuits against the company. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating the company over its handling of a massive lawsuit that centers around allegations of extreme sexual misconduct and workplace discrimination.
“The termination of high-performing testers, while workload and profits are soaring, is an unacceptable action by the company and contradicts Raven’s goal of being an exemplary workplace in our industry,” the workers said.
Warzone is set to receive its biggest update yet with the advent of CoD: Vanguard’s season one this week, adding a new map, Caldera, and other integration with the World War II-themed title.
The full statement released by the workers today can be read online here.
