Gamers + gaming = fun. Activision Blizzard not only makes fun, we know how to have it—a lot of it. Activision Blizzard is a community of people who love to have fun together, and our employee camaraderie is fueled by our passion for gameplay.

You’re not a gaming company without a place to play. And we not only have a Gaming Zone available for employees to play our games or our competitors games, but we also organize informal Call of Duty or Skylanders tournaments for local bragging rights. Our Gaming Zone is the life-center of our HQ at Activision, where gaming happy hours frequently occur. Launch parties are also huge bonding events at Activision Blizzard. For employees and their families, these events can rival major holidays—and for some of the employee’s children, the parties may even rival birthdays.

But our fun doesn’t always come from major celebrations. There is a genuine camaraderie among Activision Blizzard employees that has resulted in the creation of grassroots programs led and sustained by employees themselves. We have a Board Game Club, movie nights, and other enthusiast clubs organized around cars, food and sports.

We take career development very seriously at Activision Blizzard.  Career stagnation is not an option here, and our employees can “level up” their skills through a variety of development opportunities including on the job development, mentor relationships and formal training. We are big believers that the most meaningful professional growth often happens through stretch assignments and special projects, but we also offer some great employee development experiences.  For example:

• We offer employees a Masters in the Business of Activision (our very own “MBA” program), which delivers a deep dive on company operations and how our games move from an idea into a blockbuster franchise
• We host an annual Activision Blizzard Studio Summit, where developers, artists and producers from Activision, Blizzard, and our partner studio Bungie, join together for an immersive experience where they hear and learn from the best of the best: each other
• Blizzard offers Blizzard Academy for game developers, featuring expert-led courses on topics such as creative world-building or brand-new software
• Activision Publishing hosts a speaker and concert series called ACTIVISIONARIES, where inspirational leaders from all different walks of life share their stories with our employees to inspire and fuel their creative output

Our employees are the best in the business, so we reward them accordingly. Whether it be copies of our latest game releases, cash, experiences, or a global spotlight, we believe recognizing employees for their contributions boosts morale and creates the best environment.

We also realize that sometimes the best gift we can give our employees is some good, old-fashioned cash.  Based upon company success or a game’s success, employees may be richly rewarded with cash bonuses.  While compensation practices and programs vary among the Activision Blizzard companies, over the past several years, we have allocated more than 20 percent of profits to incentives (cash incentives and equity) for employees. We want our employees to feel personally invested in our performance and ongoing success!

Activision Blizzard also provides a comprehensive suite of employee benefits that promote physical, emotional and financial well-being. We strive to deliver innovative solutions that are tailor-made for individual preferences, so that each employee can select the program that delivers the highest value for themselves and their families. We encourage our employees to be accountable for their health and offer a variety of incentives and engaging programs that promote wellness. For example, our Healthy Incentive Program provides employees and their covered spouses or domestic partners an opportunity to earn cash by participating in healthy activities like walking, eating right and tracking their sleep via the device of their choosing and a custom mobile app that displays their Healthy Incentive earnings.

Our philosophy in making games is to go "narrow and deep." What that means is that we want to do just a few things, but do them exceptionally well and make a huge impact on the landscape of entertainment. That same philosophy applies to our efforts in philanthropy and volunteering. We founded the Call of Duty Endowment in 2010 to help returning veterans transition to the civilian workforce, and we donate grant money to organizations that help place our veterans into high-quality careers. Thus far, we've donated over $12 million and have helped put over 9,400 heroes back to work, and that’s just the beginning.

We’re also aligned with helping veterans through our volunteer efforts. This past November was our inaugural Veterans Day of Service, when during the week of Veterans Day, hundreds of our employees volunteered to help restore and renovate veterans'shelters, create care packages to our deployed soldiers, and write thank you letters to those deployed and their families. It was a huge success; we impacted thousands of veterans' lives for the better.

When it comes to corporate social responsibility efforts, we take great pride in the fact that we're relevant: what we do is so close to who we are.  So close, even, that sometimes our corporate social responsibility activity is in our games. For example, when Hurricane Sandy tore through the Eastern seaboard in 2012, Blizzard employees reacted quickly, creating and activating a World of Warcraft in-game "pet" (or in-game characters) that players could buy to fund relief efforts. Their quick thinking raked in $2.3 million for the American Red Cross and Team Rubicon, a non-profit that puts military veterans to work in disaster relief zones.