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Activision Blizzard has laid off "at least a dozen" quality assurance contractors from the Call of Duty studio Raven Software as part of a restructuring effort at the studio.
As reported by The Washington Post, current employees confirmed that even more contractors "will be informed over the next few days if they have been laid off too."
Raven Software worked with Infinity Ward on Call of Duty: Warzone and developed Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War alongside Treyarch. According to Raven employees, the studio will be meeting with these contractors between December 3-8 to "tell them if they are being promoted or terminated on January 28." As of this writing, "about a third" of Raven Software's QA testers have been informed they are being laid off.
“I feel hurt and betrayed," One Raven Software contractor who was laid off said to TWP. “The majority of individuals who have had their meetings were fired. ... Everyone was told, ‘You did nothing wrong,’ after being given the bad news."
Evan Avillanoza, another QA tester who was told they are being laid off, also said that the team's project lead wasn't even told about the layoffs and that the morale of the employees is not at a great place.
"Our team is destroyed and absolutely no one is going to want to work even if they got promoted," Avillanoza said. "I was looking to leave because of the reputation Activision has had lately and I don’t want to support the company any longer. ... It’s an embarrassment working for Activision, in my opinion.”
Austin O'Brien, Raven Software's associate community manager, shared his thoughts on the situation, saying he was "gutted right now" and that his "friends in QA at Raven were promised, for months, that Activision was working towards a pay restructure to increase their wages."
Furthermore, according to O'Brien, "these people were asked to relocate to Madison, WI to work here. Now they are out of a job on January 28th."
IGN has reached out to Activision Blizzard for a comment.
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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.
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