cuyahoga said:
As I understand it, Blizzard does not pay very well compared to the cost of living in OC, or other industry companies, and although Blizzard says they will make up for that with various bonuses and what not, the prolonged production periods don't make this financially feasible. Those prolonged production periods apparently cause Blizzard to habitually hire external candidates rather than provide opportunities for employees to step up the ladder because they don't feel that Blizz employees meet the experience qualifications.
Years ago, Blizzard sent out a mass email to every employee in Irvine whenever someone is firedat least a few times a yearthat identifies the fired employee and reminds of Blizzard's guest protocol. No idea if they still do this though. Also vaguely recall something about a good chunk of WoW team being laid off upon the game being shipped and that created some bad vibes around Blizz in the eyes of other industry folks.
TBH, when I got an offer from Blizzard it was decent financially. Not great, but decent. More than what you would get from your average game company that doesn't make AAA titles, but less than you would expect for a company of their size. The biggest issues were
a) they did not offer any kind of equity (e.g. stock options, or preferably RSUs)
b) the offer I was given was for an hourly rate, even as a regular full time employee (not a contractor).
c) the bonus / profit sharing plan is very weak unless you are extremely senior / high up.
b is highly unusual in my experience. It's normal to get paid hourly if you're a contractor, but not if you're RFT. The deal was they pay you less than the equivalent salaried rate, but since you often work overtime it makes up for it. And in fact, it more than made up for it if you only looked at base pay, but when you compare with other companies that offer stock and/or a healthy bonus plan, it definitely lags behind. Furthermore, it means that if you DON'T work overtime, you will definitely be underpaid. People always imagine game programmers working 80-100 hours a week, which is definitely true sometimes, but sometimes is the key word. In this day and age, it's very possible to find a job working a straight 40 hour week 80% of the time, which crunches only before a major release.