Just using the Blizzard Name - Anonymous employee Blizzard Entertainment Employee Review

1.0
12 Dec 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

=If you like your pay and you're on a game team, it's reliable long-term employment =Great selection of games to work on

Cons

=Great exodus of employees from 2014-2021 due to bad pay and profit-sharing and lack of game releases, leaving few original people responsible for your favorite Blizzard games left. This was especially the case with 2021. =Worst pay in the industry. It took me 8 years to have the same base salary that I got as my first job offer out of college from another company. People who quit regularly received 30-100% raises especially if your job type is located everywhere in the tech or game industry. People even quit and came back for big raises because they do not give people decent raises. They only give money to new hires. They take advantage of people who love Blizzard games by paying them nothing and then have an endless line of next chumps waiting to replace them. They then started to use interns, contract workers, and temps to further cut costs. =No major games shipped since 2016, reducing profit sharing to little to nothing. =All games are doing more and more poorly each year with 2012 the highpoint of the company and downwards since then. =Leadership started outright lying in company emails to employees =Company values employees ZERO. They don't care if you come or go and replace people on a dime and forget the previous people existed the next day with zero remorse. They even regularly joke about people who left moments later. Cutthroat Island. You'll get more respect and love from your local fast-food job. (and I have) . You are just a number to them. This was never the case until the last 6 years. Your friends value you, the company does not. =HR never helps you with anything and works actively against you on the company's behalf (HR is PR for the company) =Environment as of 2021 is the most toxic you could possibly imagine even outside of the reported news, just in general coworker interactions. People are not working together toward a common goal because they're spending their whole time fighting against each other which is obvious in the state of the products. =Once the co-founders Mike Morhaime/Frank Pearce left, the company was completely taken over by Activision =All of the perks of working there were removed, even pre-covid due to cost restrictions or the company running out of money (except at leadership levels). Another company that offers a company picnic is a step up in perks. =Has no problem hiring people but can't take care of the employees once they get there via pay, perks, promotions =If you work globally, prepare for your international office to be shut down with zero remorse or even a thanks email. =Hired people remotely for two years but wouldn't let people work remotely if they wanted to leave the area. =Cost of living is well beyond imagination and the raises and pay do not make up for it. In most years, the raises are the same or below inflation. This has never been addressed since 1991. =Company won't move or let people move to lower-cost areas like their Texas Office. They insist on one of the highest cost of living areas in the country outside of San Francisco.

Explore other reviews about Blizzard Entertainment

5.0
2 June 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Really great people, best and kindest in the business

Cons

Compensation is on lower side

2.0
23 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Depending on the team, you get to work with some great people. - Company events are fun and make you temporarily forget that you're still in a corporate environment. - You're near the games being released.

Cons

On the surface, the company talks a big game about being structured and performance-driven. In reality, it feels pretty chaotic once you’re actually in it. Expectations aren’t clearly defined, and what “success” looks like seems to shift depending on the week or who you’re talking to. You end up spending more time managing optics and trying to stay aligned with moving targets than actually doing solid engineering work. What makes it worse is how management handles team dynamics. Toxic behavior doesn’t really get addressed — if anything, it sometimes feels like it’s enabled. Feedback can feel very one-sided, and when you raise concerns, they’re not always taken seriously or represented fairly. There are definitely moments where the narrative about your performance doesn’t match the reality of what you’re actually doing day to day, which slowly kills trust. At a minimum, leadership needs to get better at clear communication, setting stable and objective expectations, and actually supporting both engineers and managers. Without that, even strong teams start to feel dysfunctional. Compensation doesn’t make up for it either. It often feels like decisions are driven by cost-cutting rather than recognizing real impact, which makes the whole environment feel more transactional than motivating. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this place in its current state, especially if you’re an experienced professional looking for a stable, well-run role.

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