2 years 9 months ago
Former senior Blizzard employee Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet and founder of Undead Labs, has written a letter advocating for unionization in the games industry and encouraging his own employees to unionize. As reported by IGN, Strait shared the letter with employees at his company and in the wake of the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard.
Strain joined Blizzard in 1996 as a game programmer, eventually working on StarCraft, Diablo, and as a lead on World of Warcraft. In his letter Strain recalled an incident at Blizzard in 1998 that ultimately caused him and his wife to leave the company.
"In 1998, after a cataclysmic meeting with one of the founders over our objections to dismembered and impaled female body parts in the beta version of Diablo, my wife and I began planning to leave Blizzard," Strain said in the letter. "Ultimately, I joined with a few like-minded colleagues and moved a thousand miles away from the Blizzard sphere of influence to start an independent studio."
Strain said his time at Blizzard left a mark on his career, showing him "how abusive cultures can propagate and self-amplify over time; how 'hardcore gamers only' is a smokescreen for 'bro culture.'" He said that in his 25 years in the video game industry similar stories from other developers have been constant. Strain ended his letter calling for unionization in the video game industry, even encouraging his own employees to unionize.
You can read the entirety of Jeff Strain's letter below:
It's Time