Bloomberg (opens in new tab) reports that one of World of Warcraft Classic's lead developers has been fired by Blizzard after protesting the company's employee evaluation policy.

Brian Birmingham, the lead engineer on WoW Classic, refused to give employees lower ratings in order to meet quotas introduced by Blizzard in 2021. The process, called "stack ranking," requires managers to give lower performance ratings to about 5% of their employees to match a relative performance bell curve. According to Activision Blizzard sources who spoke to Bloomberg, the low ratings reduce employees' profit-sharing bonuses and "could hinder raises and promotions in the near future."

In an e-mail to staff members expressing dissatisfaction with the policy, Birmingham wrote that Blizzard management justified the policy by claiming that it "squeezes the lowest performers as a way to keep everyone growing." He also noted that employees were asked to keep this policy confidential.

In fact, Birmingham believes that stack ranking "fosters competition among employees, sabotage of each other's work, a desire to find the lowest performing team where one can perform best, and ultimately undermines trust and destroys creativity."

Stack rankings have been constantly criticized since they were popularized by General Electric in the 1980s; in 2012, Vanity Fair (open in new tab) reported that stack rankings put Microsoft employees at odds with each other, fearing the impact on their ranks and incentivizing them to sabotage projects and withhold information for fear of affecting their ranks. Microsoft (opens in new tab) discontinued the use of this system in 2013.

In a letter to Blizzard staff, Birmingham wrote that if this policy is not reversed, the Blizzard Entertainment he wants to work for "no longer exists." And as to why he is protesting now, Birmingham writes that he and other WoW managers have been able to get around quotas for the past two years, but now they have to lower their employees' ranks in order to meet them. According to Birmingham's email, other WoW executives asked if they could meet the quota by lowering their own ratings, but were told they could not.

Before sending the email, Birmingham allegedly told a large number of employees that he intended to resign. When an HR representative spoke with him to confirm his resignation, he told her he would not work as long as this policy remained in place. According to his email, he was subsequently terminated.

A Blizzard spokesperson told Bloomberg that the evaluation process is designed to create "outstanding performance" and that "employees who are not meeting performance expectations will receive more honest feedback, differentiated compensation, and their own . to ensure that they receive the best ways to improve their performance."

In a Twitter thread (open in new tab) posted after the Bloomberg report broke, Birmingham said he did not intend for the story to become public, but now that it has, "I want to set the record straight." Birmingham confirmed that he no longer works for the company, but said he would return if he could to "fight the stack ranking policy from the inside." He also believes the policy came from Activision Blizzard's upper management, "above Mike Ybarra," president of Blizzard Entertainment.

"We at Blizzard fought back pretty hard in 2021 and really believed we had reversed our development quota policy," Birmingham tweeted. When the sexual harassment lawsuit came to light later that year, we saw some changes that followed and felt we could influence ABK's policy."

"The reality that there is still a minimum quota 'in development' despite our opposition and the sternly worded letters we sent, led me to believe that I was operating under an illusion, that Blizzard's positive culture had overcome the ABK poison but it has not yet succeeded. I have no ill will towards my former colleagues at Blizzard Entertainment. The Blizzard I knew and always wanted to work for is being torn apart by ABK executives. I have the utmost respect for the developers I worked with at Blizzard."

Despite everything, Birmingham said he will continue to play Blizzard games. He said, "But I can't be part of a policy that lets ABK steal money from deserving employees, and I can't let them lie about it."

He also said he was surprised to see the Bloomberg article about his termination and said he did not provide the email cited in that report. However, he believes the quotes in the report are accurate.