A spreadsheet was leaked online which apparently contains data on Blizzard employees’ salaries. This seems to be the document created by one of the employees last week and contains information on nearly 400 workers.
Pay levels are different. Senior staff tend to earn over $100 thousand a year. For testers, UX and VFX artists, as well as level designers, the salary is often below that mark. It’s also interesting that the July 2020 pay increase was well below 10% in most cases.
Salary data is accompanied by comments specifying when an employee was hired, how often their pay was previously raised. Most also indicate their performance rating in the company.
It is not exactly clear if the figures in the spreadsheet reflect salaries before taxes. However, this seems to be the case.
It is also difficult to say how these sums compare to salaries at other top companies in the United States. However, according to ZipRecruiter, the majority of game developers in the country earn between $75.000 (25% have a salary below this mark) to $129.000 (75% have a salary below this mark) a year.
Earlier Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported on the wage disparity at Blizzard Entertainment. According to his information, some employees barely make ends meet and have to skip meals, while executives receive millions in compensation.
It’s impossible to verify the information in the spreadsheet, but its very existence and content correspond with the findings of Bloomberg’s investigation.