Blizzard co-leader Jen Oneal, who is set to leave the company at the end of the year, has said that she made several requests to equalize her contract with co-leader Mike Ybarra, but they were denied. Only after she submitted her resignation was there an offer of equal pay.
When both were appointed in August, they brought their existing contracts and pay rates with them, and Ybarra says that they were both to be offered a new contract to replace the ones they were appointed with, with equal compensation. However, to clarify, Oneal responded that she hadn't received that equal offer until after she had already resigned.
“When Mike and I were placed in the same co-lead role, we went into the role with our previous compensation, which was not equivalent. It remained that way for some time well after we made multiple rejected requests to change it to parity,” she said as quoted by IGN. The company made her an equivalent offer after she tendered her resignation and says it remains unclear why they rejected the multiple requests made to do it earlier. In her comments, she also says that she did not want there to be a misunderstanding as to when the offer was made.
Oneal’s departure came as a surprise this month when it was announced, especially since the co-leads were hired just several months ago. Behind the scenes, as the recent report shows, there was already tension and a feeling of marginalization, as well as a lack of faith that things would proceed in a more positive direction.
With much of yesterday’s report and what came after focusing on Bobby Kotick and calls for him to resign and make way for real change at Activision Blizzard, the details of Jen ONeal's tenure, as she works through her final weeks with the company, broaden the picture.
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