Commentary: Does every voice still matter at Blizzard Entertainment?
About three weeks ago, Blizzard president Mike Ybarra shocked employees during a company town hall, where he and other executives attempted to defend a number of controversial company policies. These included a new mandate to return to in-person offices, the news that Blizzard employees would only receive a fraction of their promised profit-sharing bonuses, and comments about how the company views some of its "temporary" disciplines.
The barrage of surprisingly antagonistic comments left Blizzard employees appalled, and drove many to call out leadership on social media. In the midst of our conversations with Blizzard developers, we learned about other comments that seemed to downplay the values that supposedly drive Blizzard Entertainment's company culture.
At one point during the town hall, employees apparently submitted a question asking why Blizzard was not adhering to one of the company's core values: "every voice matters." Sources told us this was in the context of the return-to-office mandate.
What employees wanted to know was, if employees were raising complaints about being forced back to the office, why wasn't Blizzard management listening to them?
Ybarra's response was described as "the most shocking" by developers we spoke with. A Blizzard spokesperson confirmed that Ybarra stated that "We are not going to let [a value like] 'every voice matters' hold us back from making [those] decisions."
The spokesperson provided a statement from Blizzard, where the company stated that Ybarra's intent was to state that "we cannot only make decisions everyone agrees with.
"Like any large company, we have to balance different factors," the statement continued. "Blizzard is a place where people respectfully share their
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