That was just a few days ago 34 quality assurance testers at Raven, one of the studios working exclusively on the call of Duty series, formed the first union ever among Activision Blizzard employees. Today, management has responded to their success with some changes.
As igamesnewss Nicole Carpenter reportsRaven studio head Brian Raffel emailed all staff today about an “organizational change” splitting up the now organized QA team – who have only just returned to work after a seven week strike – and spread across the country rest of the workplace.
All,
We will have a meeting shortly where I will explain the latest organizational changes that are underway in the studio to improve our work. I hope you make it, but just in case see below.
In November we started converting our temporary workers to FTE status. Now I’m happy to announce that our QA colleagues will be directly integrated into various teams across the studio including animation, art, design, audio, production and engineering.
As we look at the ongoing expansion of Call of Duty: Warzone, it’s more important than ever that we encourage tighter integration and coordination across the studio – embedding will enable that. First, our move to embed our QA teams has been carefully considered and is a logical next step in the planned process that started a few months ago. Second, we’re confident that the “embedded model,” which is a proven methodology used in other well-known Activision development studios, will continue to better position our team to deliver world-class coordination in a fast-paced live service operation.
I look forward to the studio being more creative, effective and efficient than ever. I’m also excited that this change will give our QA team members more opportunities to develop their skills and advance their careers in the studio.
Your manager will arrange team and one-on-one meetings as needed to answer your questions. Also, don’t hesitate to reach out to John if you have any questions.
Sincerely, Brian
The concept of “embedded QA,” where testers are integrated with the rest of a studio’s workforce (like Raven is doing here), isn’t new and is becoming more common in major video game studios. BioWare, for example, has been doing this for years.
The timing here is certainly interesting, though. For example, how these long-planned changes that have been months in the works come to pass for QA staffers almost exactly the moment they return to work from their strike, and the members of the union immediately rip them apart and scatter them across the studio will .
I’m sure this is just an honest organizational change and has nothing to do with Raven’s new union, anything Activision executives fear more than death itself.
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