Raven Software issued a letter to Activision management demanding action as the Raven QA team enters the third week of its strike. Raven's entire QA team walked off the job on December 6 to protest the recent firings of 12 QA staff, seemingly at random and after having been promised a full-time position following a move to a new office in Madison, Wisconsin.
In a public statement to Activision executives, strike leaders said that all the fired employees were "high-performing testers" and were "essential" to the team's day-to-day operation. They demanded full-time employment to every Raven Software QA contractor, including those let go at the beginning of December.
Since then, Blizzard staff have joined the walkout in solidarity and the ABK Alliance has set up a strike fund to pay for lost employee wages, but Activision has yet to even acknowledge the strike let alone its demands.
"We have had no communication from leadership about our singular demand: all members of the Raven QA Department must be offered full-time positions, including those who were let go," wrote Raven QA staff in a letter posted to Twitter by ABetterABK.
"We have emphasized that our demonstration is done with the best interests of the studio (and all projects on which the studio works) in mind. The downsizing of the Raven QA department without input from anyone within the department is concerning to us and others throughout the company. In the interest of making positive change for Raven, we would like to reach out to leadership to discuss the current situation."
Discussion topics include the details of Raven QA's demand to rehire all fired QA staff, relocation packages for everyone who moved to the new Wisconsin office, and what leadership's goals are for the Raven QA team. So far, Activision has yet to respond.
This ongoing strike action has already caused big problems to surface in Call of Duty. A recent bug allowed a cosmetic skin in Warzone to turn players completely invisible. If Raven's QA staff were at work testing these cosmetics, that bug likely would have been caught before going live.
Update, January 6, 10:20am: GamesIndustry.biz has reported on a statement from Activision that claims Raven's management has been speaking with its employers.