Blizzard Manager Departs In Protest of Employee Ranking System

A manager at video game developer Blizzard Entertainment said he was ousted after refusing to give a low evaluation to an employee that he felt didn’t deserve it in order to fill a quota.

In 2021, Blizzard, a unit of Activision Blizzard Inc., implemented a process called stack ranking, in which employees are ranked on a bell curve and managers must give low ratings to a certain percentage of staff, according to people familiar with the change who asked not to be named discussing a private matter. Managers were expected to give a poor “developing” status to roughly 5% of employees on their teams, which would lower their profit-sharing bonus money and could hamper them from receiving raises or promotions in the near future at the Irvine, California-based company, known for games like Overwatch and World of Warcraft.