It seems like the last few weeks have seen society as a whole grind to a halt. Massive events have been suspended, including the majority of major sports outlets across multiple nations. Of course, the gaming world has been far from exempt from this screeching halt.
Today, Blizzard took to Twitter to make another announcement regarding the COVID-19 virus. Effective immediately, they are sending the employees of their Irvine, California and Austin, Texas offices to work remotely from home.
If you aren’t familiar with Blizzard’s set up, Austin and Irvine are the two largest of their bases of operations, sending hundreds of employees out as they desert the offices to hopefully help halt the spread of the virus.
To protect the health and safety of our employees, we are implementing work-from-home policies for our Irvine and Austin offices. Those in our other offices around the world have been or will be working from home as directed by local governments and health authorities.
— Blizzard Entertainment (@Blizzard_Ent) March 14, 2020
“To protect the health and safety of our employees, we are implementing work-from-home policies for our Irvine and Austin offices,” the company took to Twitter to say. “Those in our other offices around the world have been or will be working from home as directed by local governments and health authorities.
“We will continue to pay our on-site vendors and contractors while this work-from-home policy is in place, and our game teams will work to provide the best experiences we can for players during this challenging time.”
It’s easy to understand that this will likely greatly impact production in a variety of ways. That isn’t to say that they’re mothballing the studio as a whole, of course, but working from home doesn’t quite provide the same variety of resources and peers that working in an office will provide.
They also give no sort of a window as to how long this policy will be in effect – not that it makes much of a difference to the average gamer, anyway. There’s a high likelihood that they’ll simply be paying attention to what local governments and health authorities say, sending workers back in accordance with the advice and counsel given there.
It’s fantastic that they found it necessary to specify that payment will be continuing. One of the greatest sources of anxiety in these sorts of events isn’t the fatality of the virus but the way that it’s been halting life as a whole. Many people live paycheck to paycheck and can’t afford to go weeks or possibly months without income, so Blizzard ensuring that payments will continue is a great thing to hear.
Every day is hopefully another day closer to life returning to normal. Until then, do everything you can to stay safe.
