Primary developer behind WoW:Classic departs from Blizzard: “I can’t participate in a policy that lets ABK steal money from deserving employees”

Blizzard fired one of the primary developers for World of Warcraft Classic for objecting to a company evaluation procedure.

Brian Birmingham, the chief engineer on WoW Classic, refused to give a worker a low evaluation. In order for managers’ staff to fit on a bell curve of relative performance, a process known as “stack ranking” necessitates that they assign around 5% of them low performance ratings. A low rating “may restrict employees from earning raises or promotions in the near future,” according to Activision Blizzard sources who talked to Bloomberg. It also lowers an employee’s profit-sharing incentive.

I wasn’t intending to make this public, but apparently its in the news already, so I’d at least like to set the record straight. I am no longer an employee of Blizzard Entertainment, though I would return if allowed to, so that I could fight the stack-ranking policy from inside.

— Brian Birmingham💙 (@BrianBirming) January 24, 2023

Activision Blizzard put pressure on the World of Warcraft Classic development team to complete the two expansions (The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King) earlier. Therefore, Birmingham believes it is unjust to punish some team members using this system.

I can’t tell you whether to boycott Blizzard games or not. How best to express your displeasure is up to you. As I said above: I won’t boycott. But I can’t participate in a policy that lets ABK steal money from deserving employees, and I can’t be made to lie about it either.

— Brian Birmingham💙 (@BrianBirming) January 24, 2023