With all the layoffs happening in the gaming world, there would rarely be a silver lining. Well, this Blizzard developer certainly had it, and with sugarcoating as they snagged a decade’s worth of WoW subscription time just before they were let go from the company amid Microsoft’s layoffs.
Former Blizzard developer Adam Holisky posted on X (formerly Twitter) on Jan. 26, claiming they used all the one-year subscription codes they had for WoW as soon as they figured out there was a mass layoff incoming. “Once I realized what was happening and that I was gonna be laid off, I made sure to jump into the keyring and use all the 1-year subscription codes I have left,” Holisky wrote on the platform. The developer won’t have to pay for a WoW subscription until the distant year of 2033. Talk about future-proofing.
Holisky clarified in a follow-up tweet that these codes were a usual part of employee benefits at Blizzard, and they had saved up many of them over the years. “It’s nothing sketchy or immoral,” Holisky said.
Not everyone was as successful in this endeavor as Holisky, however. One former customer support employee at Blizzard said in a reply to Holisky’s tweet that they tried doing the same but ended up crashing the keyring site and couldn’t redeem all of their codes. “I have a lot I didn’t get to claim,” they wrote. Holisky’s replies saw numerous former Blizzard devs who got the axe talking about whether or not they managed to snag a decade or so of free WoW as a saving grace during one of gaming’s largest mass layoffs in history.
January has already seen more than 6,000 devs fired. It’s at least good to have some lightheartedness as the industry continues to be volatile and uncertain for developers and gamers alike.
