Kotaku reports that Blizzard is trying to cut corners on spending.

The site says that Blizzard is paying employees to leave and find another workplace, while also reducing the budget of those teams that don’t work on games. The buyout program is called Career Crossroads – until now, only customer service employees received this offer after working there for at least five years. Now, quality assurance and IT teams are also eligible, with the number of years also having been reduced, according to the report.

The Blizzard team located in Cork, Ireland, has received the offer several times in the past few months, with the offered money continuously increased. They told Eurogamer that over a hundred people from the customer service team have accepted the offer. Blizzard told Eurogamer in a statement that nobody was encouraged to participate in the program, but they confirmed Kotaku’s information… except for the cost-cutting measures. An ex-employee says that Blizzard is doing this program not to get negative press. (…well, they probably failed then.)

Three former employees say that the finance department’s (as well as Activision’s… don’t forget, we’re talking about Activision Blizzard) influence has been growing, causing some disruption between the developers and the businessmen. Until now, the latter group was invisible, but now, they attend the meetings.

Blizzard‘s future might be bleak…

Source: PCGamer