Not really, but then these people are complaining they only got measly 10 percent raises…
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No, Lenin.
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I won’t get in to the salaries issue, but I know WoW didn’t get worse bc of low paid employees but because of developers’ decisions who kept making things easier and easier and easier and easier and easier and easier and easier and easier.
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This is the generation that thinks they should should make right out of college what an employee with 20 years of experience makes. This is also the same generation that does not understand seniority or paying your dues. This is the same generation that believes if they want it, somebody else should give it to them, for no other reason then they want it, not that they earned it.
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You do realize that forum and GM is not in any way connected to development right? One does not affect the other.
it does seem odd that there a few posters who are unjustifiably harsh towards blizzard yet support them financially, i think its trolling…
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Why? Do you have a reason why as a matter of legal standard that compensation should be strictly regulated, notably on the upper ends of generosity?
Business judgment rule says “We don’t care, they chose to pay them that much.”
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Welcome to MMORPGs.
World of WarCraft is the worst one of them, except for all the others.
Well wage gap and paying people decently are distinctly different issues. Giving the people who might genuinely need it, IE the people making say 40K-50k or less per year, a 20% raise would be a minimal cost. And looking at the leaked sheet the majority of them are making pretty decent money actually.
Of course it’s also more nuanced than that because when they report Kotick getting 40million a year compensation that doesn’t mean he’s literally getting a check for 40 million.
It’s not just salary though. Why is it the responsibility of a business (who’s main reason for existing is to make more and more profit) to make sure the citizens of their city, state, or country have a livable wage?
I blame rising costs of living more than lower wages for people having to live like packed sardines. Ya wages have not inflated as fast as costs of living, but maybe we should fight for lower costs of living, rather than higher wages? In some states I can buy 4 houses or one giant mansion with just the small equity I have in my home in CA. That is nuts, there is not just income disparity in this country, but also cost of living disparity between the states.
If I could buy my house in CA for the prices of some other states like PA or ID, I could live VERY comfortably with my current wage. Even a minimum wage job would make home purchasing affordable. Costs of living have skyrocketed way past wage increases, and it’s crazy to expect business to match that increase. You will make the mom and pop business around the country go out of business, and some already have due to the forced $15 minimum some states are already pushing.
Maybe they should enact laws to curb the cost of living first, rather than increase wages which just DRIVES the cost of living up even further. Again, I agree it’s not fair, and I don’t have the answers to a very complicated problem. But just flat increasing wages across the board is not the way to go. Just because a business is super successful doesn’t mean they in turn need to share ALL that profit with their employees. Probably an unpopular opinion in our current political climate, but if I was forced to share most of my profits, why would I bother going into business? If my small business suddenly made me a billionaire, I sure as hell am not going to suddenly share all that profit with my employees, wtf? This is capitalism, not socialism. Fix the cost of living disparity first, then worry about wages.
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So they can keep valuable employees.
Obviously that’s not as applicable for certain positions.
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Blizzard should move its headquarters and customer service to that place in Kansas that has that 5 legged cow named Roscoe. You could probably live like a King there making minimum wage.
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How ANYONE is surprised about how disgusting activision operates is beyond me.
Do a little research.
Also when activisions input starting impacting wow is when it went down hill. They have a history with gaming. The majority of peoples opinions on them are generally the same.
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Every company pays their employees a “fair” wage. Because the employee is told the wage and then consents to it before entering into to the contract.
At any point they could decline. So they obviously thought the wage was fair or they wouldn’t enter into the contract.
Also, please keep in mind that equal doesn’t imply fair. Conflating the two is a mistake.
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Accepting an offer letter without knowing what the going rate is for that position, what others at the company make doing that job, and what the promotion/retention and raise schedule are like is not exactly fair. They keep that information from staff on purpose so they can pay as little as possible. Those who are newer to an industry, or area, are especially vulnerable to this.
Further, there is no requirement to have an offer letter or agreement in writing to work in the US that I know of. Most big companies do, but they don’t HAVE to. Same goes for promotions and relocations. Get it in writing because otherwise they WILL go back on it.
I would argue that paying the mortgage/rent, having food, having shoes on your kid’s feet will make people take salaries and jobs they don’t want. Just to get any sort of income. Being poor and unemployed does not leave any room to argue about what is “fair”.
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Corporation policies and politics suck, they really do. All they care about are stock prices and will do whatever it takes to make sure they increase in value.
Sure. Asserting legal restrictions on the low end, ie minimum wage, is entirely separate from asserting legal restrictions on the high end. There is a genuine interest of “being able to live” that minimum wage is supposed to cover, since money is just a proxy for goods we need and want.
However, the Board giving the CEO X dollars is entirely within the confines of the business judgment rule. Competitive CEO pay is in and of itself a legitimate business reason to pay a CEO a ton of money. However, those CEO didn’t just… APPEAR and start making a massive paycheck, as is often criticized (not saying you said so obviously).
This is why you research your position thoroughly. You’re treated as a consenting adult with full mental capabilities when you enter into contracts like those for employment. While it may seem daunting and unfair, the excuse of “I didn’t think to look through all the competitors!” isn’t going to uphold an affirmative defense to invalidate a breached contract. The government at the state and federal levels simply do not coddle us that much.
While yes, the Statute of Frauds doesn’t typically apply to mundane matters like employment generally speaking (it can but rarely does because you typically aren’t hitting any of the requirements with employment), any company setting someone up for lengthy employment matters is actually setting themselves up for a great deal of expensive liability if they conduct the matter orally only. In the absence of evidence, you’re not going to have many cards to play to beat a civil action before you hit the discovery phase, which is where costs really ramp up, and with only My-Word-Vs-Your-Word situations, you’re not getting summary judgment either, again generally speaking.
Why would they care about anything else? What was the purpose of the corporation if not to make money doing the enterprise for which the corporation was founded?
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We can also use our voices to bring attention to the issue and demand change. Like in this thread. Its easy to just unsubscribe and wash your hands of the whole issue - after all, it doesn’t affect me personally, right? I’d rather make noise where I see injustices occurring.
Really? Because years and years ago when my account got hacked and banned, I couldn’t open a ticket since I had to log into my account to do that.
The reason they got rid of their phone service is to save money. That’s it. You talk about people waiting for two hours on hold? Now they wait for days and even weeks for a ticket to be responded to.
Blizzard CS is a nightmare. And they didn’t decimate it for their customers so please stop insulting us. People don’t like automated services because their issues take much longer to resolve if they even get resolved, not to mention the wait time is insane.
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nearly-90-of-people-prefer-speaking-to-a-live-customer-service-agent-on-the-phone-despite-efficiency-of-phone-menus-for-businesses-300830525.html
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Please re-read what I wrote. You could not access your account due to the hacker changing things - Account Access WAS something you could call for. I explicitly said that. The part about appealing a ban, not so much, although it is often handled as part of the hacking investigation and account restoration services.
IF not, you would then put in a ticket once you got access to the account back. The proper path for appeals has always been via tickets - even if people did try to circumvent that by calling and arguing.
Days yes, esp during high volume times. Weeks NO.
And until COVID, they still had Phone Callback and Live Chat for Billing, Account Access, and some Tech support issues. So not only do they still have phone support for those things, they have Live Chat too. The only reason they don’t right now is for security and monitoring purposes. It will be restored.
If your argument is that getting rid of the dial-in line to replaces it with two services instead is cheaper for Blizz, so be it. I likely won’t be able to convince you otherwise.