Entertainment
Clever Blizzard dev gets revenge on Microsoft just before being fired-Kenneth Andersen-Entertainment – Metro
A dev at Blizzard saw the job cuts after the Microsoft merger coming, and preemptively got himself nine years of free World Of Warcraft.
One of the lead devs at Blizzard saw the job cuts after the Microsoft merger coming, and pre-emptively sorted himself out nine years of free World Of Warcraft.
Microsoft’s takeover of World Of Warcraft and Call Of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard was finalised in October last year for a record $69 billion (£57 billion), and ever since then the threat of job cuts has been looming over everyone involved.
That threat became reality last week when 1,900 people lost their jobs across Xbox Gaming, Starfield maker Bethesda, and Activision Blizzard.
One Blizzard employee, however, saw what was coming, and got his pre-emptive revenge by redeeming all his company benefit subscription codes at once, so he can play World Of Warcraft for free until 2033.
The now former product lead for Core Technology at Blizzard, Adam Holisky, had the nous to get a little extra on top of his severance package, he revealed on Twitter:
‘Once I realised what was happening and that I was gonna be laid off, I made sure to jump into keyring and use all the 1-year subscription codes I have left.
‘(Free game time is a well known employee benefit, I just never used all the codes I got over the years. It’s nothing sketchy or immoral), he said.
Holisky added an image with the tweet that shows that the expiration date for his subscription to World Of Warcraft: Dragonflight is 2033, and people loved it.
An employee who lost his job at Call Of Duty developer Sledgehammer Games, as a result of the cuts, said he did the same thing:
‘Same here, but it was kinda crazy. I got an invite to a suspicious meeting happening in less than an hour, and then it was a race against the clock to secure all the things I’d no longer get access to. I managed to redeem them too, and I’m glad you were able to do the same!’ he said in a reply to Holisky.
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Even though the merger went through, the Federal Trade Commission is still appealing Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard in a pending case, where the FTC states:
‘The agency alleges that the deal would enable Microsoft to suppress competitors to its Xbox gaming consoles and its rapidly growing subscription and cloud-gaming business.’
However, it seems very unlikely that they can change anything now, especially as all those jobs have already been lost and those affected will now be looking for new roles elsewhere.
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