Cid, Michael Andrae E.

EAPP 12
SD12-A Midterms Draft
10 / 8 / 2022

The Rise of Demand for Software Specialists in the Modern World

With the wake of the Modern World, the rise of the internet came along with it, and
everything adapted to it. Socializing, advertising, business, jobs, education, you name it.
Everything could and very much possibly has a connection to the internet now, and this brings
them into the limelight, having more exposure through the internet and the online world as a
whole. Although since everything is now going through the internet, we need people to work
behind the internet, so through businesses doing advertising through this online media, they need
people to do these things, opening up job and brand new career paths, as well as education
related to these by extension.

As the world of the internet continues to grow, more and more businesses are adapting and using
them as platforms, a brand new medium to reach the people, but this would mean that they need
more people to work, improve and innovate upon these things, and so the demand for software
specialists continue to grow as well. The demand continues to grow, but the supply is scarce due
to many differing factors. One big reason is the Covid-19 pandemic, limiting people to working
from home, causing speed of progress and productivity to slow down for some. Another big
reason is the workplace itself. In recent times, many big game studios were revealed to have
awful, toxic workplace environment and culture. Among these companies are Activision
Blizzard, Ubisoft, Techland and unfortunately much more.

In an article written by Sam Blum (2022) on HR Brew titled [How HR could be implicated in
allegations of toxic culture at Activision Blizzard], he says that “Activision Blizzard might be
feeling some heat. Last week, Fortune published an exposé compiled from accounts of more than
two dozen former and current employees at the gaming juggernaut and maker of World of
Warcraft and Overwatch that reportedly details a ‘toxic work culture.’ Among other claims,
some female employees recount being sexually harassed by male employees and being
continuously undermined when it came to career advancement.” In addition to this, he adds that
“In September 2021, Activision Blizzard settled a separate lawsuit brought by the US Equal
Opportunity Employment Commission for $18 million over allegedly ‘pervasive sexual
harassment and discrimination,’ after the agency finished a three-year investigation into the
company, according to The Verge.” Unfortunately, this issue is not limited to just Activision
Blizzard, but it is more widespread, including the companies mentioned previously.
These major issues have caused many employees to leave these companies. In one such case,
former Activision Blizzard employees have let to join a different game development and
publishing company co-founded by former CEO of Activision Blizzard Mike Morhaime named
“Dream Haven”. (More on the founding of the company here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/09/23/mike-morhaime-blizzard-
dreamhaven/). In an article written by Nathan Gibson (2020) on ScreenRant titled [Blizzard
Veterans Start New Studio To Escape Activision Greed], he says that “A number of former
Blizzard employees have left the developer to form a brand new company called Dreamhaven.
Jason Schreier reports that the Blizzard vets had grown tired of the influence that Activision had
over the developer and wanted to be free of the publisher's control.” As this article was written
during 2020 and the issue arose during 2022, more employees have joined Dreamhaven studios
since then.

Factors such as these like the pandemic or workplace environment issues and much more are
causing the already scarce supply of software specialists to dwindle even further, with companies
fighting for staff due to a lack of talent as a result. In an article written by Daniel Smith on
Stuff.co titled [Video game sector growth is slowing due to talent shortage], he had a section
where he interviewed Wellington game studio PikPok’s chief executive Mario Wynands. The
CEO says “While the local game development industry was growing fast, the lack of talent in
New Zealand was a big problem. ‘Our industry is heading in the right direction... But as the
industry grows there is more demand to acquire talent and that is turning into a struggle.’”

In conclusion, while the demand for software specialists in the modern world continue to rise,
the scarce supply of these aforementioned software specialists are struggling to keep up. We can
only hope that with new available courses and better teaching methods, more new software
specialists are able rise, and with many job openings ahead of them, they could and probably
would have an easier time fitting right in.
References:

Article 1:
Blum, S. (2022) “How HR could be implicated in allegations of toxic culture at Activision
Blizzard” HR Brew https://www.hr-brew.com/stories/2022/02/14/allegations-toxic-culture-
activision-blizzard p. 1

Article 2:
Schiesel, S. (2020) “Longtime Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime starting new game studios and
publishing company” The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video-games/2020/09/23/mike-morhaime-blizzard-
dreamhaven/ p. 2

Article 3:
Gibson, N. (2020) “Blizzard Veterans Start New Studio To Escape Activision Greed”
ScreenRant https://screenrant.com/blizzard-developer-ceo-dreamhaven-mike-morhaime/
#:~:text=A%20number%20of%20former%20Blizzard,free%20of%20the%20publisher%27s
%20control. p. 2