While the gaming industry hosted many positive stories related to employees in the field, there were many alarming events as well. Much controversy surrounded Rockstar Games’s alleged treatment of employees during crunch periods of Red Dead Redemption 2, and who can forget all the lost jobs due to Telltale Games’ closure? In light of this, it would seem odd for game industry employees to voluntarily leave, especially en masse, yet it seems that this was exactly the case recently for many Blizzard customer service members. According to a new report, over 100 employees have been paid to resign from their positions.

Eurogamer recently reported on new intel delivered to them by anonymous sources close to Blizzard. According to these sources, Blizzard made an offer to employees five separate times in the past few months for customer service employees to be paid significant amounts of money in exchange for leaving their positions with the company. This is mainly at Blizzard’s large office in Cork, Ireland which hosts most of Blizzard’s European customer service staff. According to Blizzard, this has been offered in the company in the past, saying:

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. This program, which has proven popular in the past, gives eligible staff the option to make the most of incentives while proactively pursuing other career opportunities. No one is required or encouraged to participate in this program, but for those who do, we work hard to make it generous.”

The sources have said that the payments for leaving have been comparable to an employee’s full year salary, and that at least 100 customer service members have opted to take this offer and resign. While these employees seem happy to have taken the offer, those still with the company have expressed fear over increased work stress due to the department being reduced in size. Hopefully Blizzard can find a way to mitigate the reduced capability of their customer service, so that Overwatch fans can know when their favorite hero has been nerfed.

What do you guys think about these Blizzard customer service employees getting paid to leave? Let us know in the comments below!Be sure to stay tuned for the latest Blizzard news, such as their rumored work on a Pokémon Go-like game for Warcraft, here on Don’t Feed the Gamers! Follow us on Twitter to see our updates the minute they go live!