Activision Blizzard Announces That Almost 1,100 Of Its QA Testers Are Being Moved To Full Time

Today, we have a rare bit of good news on the Activision Blizzard front. Although, exactly how good is up for you to decide. The World of Warcraft developer and publisher sent out press releases this morning informing journalists that the company will be converting nearly 1,100 quality assurance testers from contract to full-time employees and increasing their pay to at least $20 an hour. That's pretty good news.

There are, however, a few things to note here. First, not all of Blizzard's QA staff is being shifted, because not all of them need to be. Some QA testers were full-time already, as about 500 temporary job roles were converted to full-time in December. But, as you can tell from the announcement that more than 1,000 people would be converted to full time – a whole lot were not.

The second important thing here is that there is one group that will not be benefiting from this shift. And, if you've been paying attention to the strikes and moves to unionize, and all the other labor-related goings-on, you may have an idea as to who that is. If you guessed the Raven QA testers, you would be correct. According to Jason Schrier, Activision Blizzard claims this is due to "due to [their] legal obligations under the National Labor Relations Act". This is just a way of saying that they’re not getting it because they're a part of the union.

Note: Activision Blizzard is still under investigation by the state of California for serious harassment charges. CEO Bobby Kotick is alleged to have known about such actions within his company – and performed some himself – and shielded the perpetrators from consequences.