Blizzard is rapidly losing talent, WoW producer has to ‘strike out’ projects as people quit

So far, World of Warcraft Dragonflight has been just like Dragonriding—thrilling and incredibly fun. Unfortunately, Dragonflight’s future has become questionable as Blizzard Entertainment game producer Adam “Glaxigrav” is seeing an increasing number of employees leave the company, causing him to cross out planned projects. 

On April 18, the game producer shared a tweet voicing his concerns about the future of Dragonflight. After losing yet another exceptional Blizzard employee, the WoW producer admitted the company is losing talent because upper management is not listening to advice from the game directors.

He also shared that he is creating a “crisis map” of content the company will be able to publish, as well as the content that will get scrapped because of a lack of employees.

“We are creating crisis maps of what we can or cannot ship. THAT is the loss of capacity we’re facing. I literally have a schedule I strike out as people hand in notice,” Adam “Glaxigrav” said. 

While Glaxigrav mentioned that he is using this practice, a Blizzard spokesperson provided Dot Esports with a statement confirming that “crisis maps” are not a company-wide or WoW team-wide initiative.

“This is not a team practice for WoW,” Blizzard told Dot Esports. “However, making decisions around priorities, iterating, and ensuring quality are everyday parts of game development.”

As the main reason for people leaving, the game producer lists the remote work restrictions introduced on Feb. 14 that forced all employees to return to the office. 

“Plus, some people just aren’t going to commute 2+ hours to work anymore. People have better work/life balances, they actually get to spend time with their kids after dinner, etc,” he said.

Upon seeing this tweet, Blizzard employee Allison Steele added that “forced rto (return to office) has cost us some amazing people and will continue to cost us more in the coming months.”

In addition to the statement received by Dot Esports, Massively Overpowered spoke to a Blizzard spokesperson earlier this week.

“The annual report referenced is from last year, and Blizzard’s retention is up since then. World of Warcraft is a large, massively talented team that has been shipping more content than ever before to the community. We remain committed to listening to player feedback and will continue to strive to exceed their expectations.”

Update April 21 11:16am CT: This article has been updated with a statement from a Blizzard spokesperson regarding the company-wide usage of “crisis maps.”