• Activision Blizzard has said that employees will need to return to the office three days a week.
• Employees at King have been back at work since July 2022.
• Some employees are reportedly threatening to walk away from the firm if they aren’t allowed to work fully remote.

The pandemic saw companies forced to make allowances for remote work. Since the pandemic has been declared over by many bodies, companies are once again opening their doors, whether employees want it or not.

On Wednesday, Activision Blizzard confirmed that it would be adopting a hybrid work approach moving forward, following reports of such online. Employees from Activision will need to be in the office three days a week as of 10th April while Blizzard employees will be required to be in the office three days of week from 10th July.

This is not all that new according to a spokesperson from Activision Blizzard who told Game Developer that it had been returning teams to the office since last year. Indeed the King team has been back in the office since July 2022.

The move to switch to a hybrid work environment has been hit with sharp criticism. One person who claims to work at Activision Blizzard has said that, “The majority of employees at ABK have no interest in returning to office either full or part time. This isn’t to say that nobody sees the value in an office environment, but we’ve overall decided the risks do not out weight those benefits.”

The employee highlights the benefits of working remotely including monetary savings on commute costs, lower insurance as a result and the ability to live further away from expensive cities.

Other Twitter users and those working in the game industry highlighted that while Activision Blizzard may be opposed to remote work, others such as Destiny developer Bungie aren’t.

Opinions on remote work differ greatly depending on who you ask. If you ask employees it’s great but employers are less keen on letting workers work from anywhere they want. This does make sense however as employers need to make special allowances for remote employees. This includes things like security, productivity applications and more.

Cybercrime is a real concern and while employers can secure an office with relative ease, they can’t also secure every employee’s network.

With employees at Activision Blizzard threatening to walk out because of this change, we will have to see how this decision from the firm’s leaders plays out as we approach April.