Try To Be Shocked: California and Washington’s New Pay Transparency Laws Show Blizzard Pays QA Testers Less Than Competitors

As we all know by now, no game company is perfect. We’ve reported on quite a few that have some seriously problematic areas in how they operate. Riot and Blizzard are definitely among these. Of course, Blizzard has seen a lot more bad press over the last year, not just because of their harassment scandals, which is also an area Riot knows a bit about, but also because of how they treat their QA testers at different studios.

Of course, now those testers have begun to unionize. With two Activision Blizzard studios already having done so (and one at Microsoft) it’s only a matter of time before others do so as well. And, thanks to new pay transparency laws popping up in different states in the US, those new unions at Activision Blizzard have a bit more proof when saying that how they’ve been treated isn’t fair.

According to a report on ShackNews, the listings put out following the new laws show that Blizzard is paying testers a good bit less than their counterparts at Riot Games and Bungie. Where the lowest salaries for QA Engineer/Test Lead at Bungie and Riot are $86,000 and $98,000 respectively, the highest salary at Blizzard for the same position is $91,760. In case you’re wondering, the lowest salary at Blizzard for this position is $49,600, and the highest at Riot and Bungie are $132,700 and $108,000 respectively. That means Blizzard’s starting QA salary is almost $40k lower than its nearest competitor.

In a time when Blizzard continues to struggle with its image regarding how it treats its employees, it seems like taking a serious look at this is something they’re going to want to do. Whether or not they do, however, remains to be seen.

Note: Activision Blizzard is still under investigation by the state of California for serious harassment charges. CEO Bobby Kotick is alleged to have known about such actions within his company – and performed some himself – and shielded the perpetrators from consequences.