The CFO at Blizzard came in to director Jeff Kaplan, head of the hugely successful Overwatch franchise:

He said ‘Overwatch has to make [redacted amount of money] in 2020 and then every year after that it needs a recurring revenue of [a redacted amount of money]’. And then he says to me, ‘if it doesn’t do [a redacted amount of money] we’re going to lay off 1,000 people and that’s going to be on you’. 

That was just the biggest ‘fuck you’ moment I had in my career. I literally thought I would retire [at Blizzard]. I never thought the day would come. That was it, I was like, ‘we’re done here’.

Kaplan quit in 2021. The CFO is no longer there. Read more of his interview here.

In my experience during the late 90’s and early 2000’s, the game industry (and a lot of software world) has far too many of these very kinds of interactions. It’s a sad reality; but an important one to show to the world.