Things are not looking good for the king of MMO's. Blizzard has begun offering the “Career Crossroads”, wherein they're offering sums of money to people willing to leave on their own. At first, it was just being offered to people working customer service for a period of five or more years. However, they recently changed that. Now it's being offered to IT and QA employees, and the amount of years worked there has been lowered. 

The reps of their Ireland division have said that more than one-hundred employees have taken up this offer to walk away from their jobs with a fat stack of cash in hand. That offer was increased over time as more and more people accepted it. So, this looks bad, right? I mean, Blizzard is paying its employees to leave. Well, Blizzard has said that all is fine and well.

“The employees who are choosing to leave the company later this month are taking advantage of a voluntary and longstanding program we offer in various locations around the world. No one is required or encouraged to participate in this program, but for those who do, we work hard to make it generous.

We’ve been offering it for many years—initially to some of our customer service teams, and we expanded it for a short period of time to a few other departments recently, given that it has proven to be a good way to help people who have been thinking about a career change or going back to school to get a head start on that path if that’s what they want to do.

While fewer than 10 people in the departments we recently expanded the program to have taken advantage of it, the general idea is that in addition to providing them with that opportunity, it also helps us give more advancement opportunities to other employees on the team when possible.”

Okay, so if it's an old program, going for many years, maybe this is just a whole lot of nothing. Clickbait to kick Blizzard around after some decisions angered their fanbase. However, there might be more to it. A former employee was quoted as saying that Blizzard has been actively trying to find ways to “cut costs that don’t draw negative press attention”. Other employees that left Blizzard believe that the finance department has been gaining influence. That doesn't bode as well as one would hope.