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California sues Activision/Blizzard for employment discrimination because of sex, retaliation, discrimination & harassment, unequal pay
- Thread starter Seri
- Start date
- News Activision/Blizzard
Goodness gracious.
Do what you believe is the least awful course of action.
Yeah, this.
Thank you for your efforts.
Yup, the classic "I was the captain of the he ship but the crew never let me see the holes in the hull." Every workplace with creeps know who they are and it's clear whether you've been there one week or one decade.
One of the most egregious places I worked had an upper mananger who would stand in his underwear outside female employees' windows and try to ass grab on the elevator. He got promoted to another location - as a VP.
Dude should have been promoted to prison.
Oh and he had a list of complaints a mile long. They didn't give a shit.
To think (Activision) Blizzard still doesn't dare to openly talk about the Blitzchung ban...
Well, on the plus side for all this new stuff is that there's no Chinese government to affect your business, so they have it a bit easier with PR x)
Seriously, though, that BlizzcOnline "we listen to all voices" (or whatever the exact slogan was) is even more insultingly now than it already had been. The obligatory 'we love people and games' montage was particularly drawn out, too.
After all this, they shouldn't even dare hosting any such event anymore, unless drastic changes have taken place (i.e. a bunch of high position firings among others).
Well, on the plus side for all this new stuff is that there's no Chinese government to affect your business, so they have it a bit easier with PR x)
Seriously, though, that BlizzcOnline "we listen to all voices" (or whatever the exact slogan was) is even more insultingly now than it already had been. The obligatory 'we love people and games' montage was particularly drawn out, too.
After all this, they shouldn't even dare hosting any such event anymore, unless drastic changes have taken place (i.e. a bunch of high position firings among others).
Honestly can Activision-Blizzard go on without 'addressing' this? I mean CoD 2021 has to be revealed next month along with BOCW Season and whatever Blizzard does. They can't dodge this forever.
This is an old post. Keep scrolling. Turned out I was wrong.
Yeah, this is the same fucking excuse everyone uses, and it's bullshit. These people know whats going on, and refuse to do anything because it'll harm the company in various ways, or themselves.
So I've been thinking, with all this going on by now we all have expressed our opinions and disdain for the leaders that let all this happen... It's ironic how something I used to see in forums was how Blizzard had "lost its edge" to the point leaders left, when this whole time that "edge" was so filthy on the inside...
My two questions now are what can be done by Acti-Blizz in order to improve things for current female employees, and what do we think they will do to compensate for the pain caused to those who left and those who have stayed, given the leaked emails and the response from lots of Blizzard employees on Twitter? Do we think that there will be heads rolling, as in firings or even resignations from some of the leaders? Radio silence until things go to court?
My two questions now are what can be done by Acti-Blizz in order to improve things for current female employees, and what do we think they will do to compensate for the pain caused to those who left and those who have stayed, given the leaked emails and the response from lots of Blizzard employees on Twitter? Do we think that there will be heads rolling, as in firings or even resignations from some of the leaders? Radio silence until things go to court?
Mike M. and current Blizzard higher-ups releasing these statements of "we didn't know, we're "sorry" but not going to acknowledge our actual fault or enabling behavior, but we will do better" are all full of shit. These men knew. They protected and enabled abusers, promoted them, and perpetuated this toxic "frat house" culture. They harmed women, helped others harm women, and condoned a culture that normalized harming women.
It is telling how many people (like myself) who thought HR was there to help employees, but in reality it's there to protect the company
That's what I mean. Orignally I thought they were they for the employees, but having seen this (and my own experience) it's sad to see it's not the case
Oh good. I'm glad this message is getting through to people. HR is not your friend.
They are another roadblock.
I believe Morhaime as much as I believe Guillemot.
They are either lying and knew exactly what was going on or they are completely incompoetent at their job and didn't knew jack shit what was going on at their company. Either way, they are responsible and see what former devs are writing and who got promoted: They knew
They are either lying and knew exactly what was going on or they are completely incompoetent at their job and didn't knew jack shit what was going on at their company. Either way, they are responsible and see what former devs are writing and who got promoted: They knew
What annoys me most about this is certain game journalists in the past lionising old blizzard vets leaving and then turning out to be worst offenders? And crazy fanboys feeding into the same destructive myth when there are hundreds of talented developers working there. It must have been traumatic for victims who saw those people leave and trying to pick through the wreckage to see that.
Or the fake leaks about woke stuff and women ruining their favourite video game that after a minute of critical thinking people would realise was bullshit. These abusers used this as an armour and were able to keep building careers and publicity for their new ventures. These same journalists suddenly changing their tune is completely disingenuous and does not address their own culpability.
Or the fake leaks about woke stuff and women ruining their favourite video game that after a minute of critical thinking people would realise was bullshit. These abusers used this as an armour and were able to keep building careers and publicity for their new ventures. These same journalists suddenly changing their tune is completely disingenuous and does not address their own culpability.
It's like the more you get paid, the less you know what's going on. /hands over ears LALALALALALALALA
Leadership always knows. HR isn't making unilateral decisions to cover up/ignore abuse.
Japanese culture is very big on ignoring/covering up abuse to avoid inconveniencing higher-ups or affecting bottom lines. The shitshow around the JOC should be proof enough of that.
Game companies here are quite similar to those in the west in terms of their growth outpacing their maturity and the kinds of men in leadership positions.
Japanese culture is very big on ignoring/covering up abuse to avoid inconveniencing higher-ups or affecting bottom lines. The shitshow around the JOC should be proof enough of that.
Game companies here are quite similar to those in the west in terms of their growth outpacing their maturity and the kinds of men in leadership positions.
Protecting NPCs named after abusers from an intentional existing game mechanic...
This reads like a Hard Drive article
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The point of the NPC was to honor the guy. It stands in a random corner all by itself. What would be the point of renaming it? Being removed is the right thing to do. Among all the other shit that references the guy that needs to go.
Your take is very wrong.
Sexual harassment in the workplace is a big issue in Japan.
What a fucking piece of garbage. Horrible company. Hope it burns down after this.
One depressing trend I've noticed elsewhere is how many fans were falling over themselves to praise Morhaime until Lore tweeted about it. Their mind changed when another man subtweeted him. Not when women, many of who were directly affected, specifically called Morhaime out. Only when another man they knew said something were they willing to look at Morhaime's statement with a more skeptical eye.
The NPC isn't removed, it's still there, it just despawns when players get close enough as players were protesting by killing the NPC . So they've just made a way for players to stop protesting by a way that took more work to do then renaming the NPC would just so they could keep the NPC still honouring the abuser in the world
Such a fitting metaphor for the way abusive companies treat victims.
It's easier to fire the abuser, but protect protect protect! Must protect!
I wouldn't be surprised if it was just a well-meaning employee making a quick attempt to remove his most accessible in-game reference without a patch or something. Might just be able to despawn / phase characters much more easily, who knows. Can certainly understand how and why people are taking it the way they are though.
There's endless references to him and some could be removed easily without affecting anything else while others would have to be renamed. If they end up doing it, it will take a patch for a lot of them (item names, bosses, pet battle stuff etc etc).
Oh for sure, it's likely the difference between trying to remove him as a hot fix and actually removing the npc for real, but it's still a bad enough look
Well, it goes without saying that what the company can do and what they will do are likely to be two different things. What Activision Blizzard can do is actually cooperate with the investigation, not put out petty public or internal statements trying to denigrate the DFEH, accept responsibility for the actions of past and present abusive employees, and correct themselves before government oversight attempts to do that for them. What they will do is to be determined, but I fear that it won't be anything I just mentioned. I imagine a few sacrificial lambs at the company will be fired/given an early retirement/shuffled off to another department and management tries to pretend that everything's been solved while no systemic issues are actually addressed. Maybe some fines will be paid.
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What Acti-Blizz should do is authorize a thorough investigation by an outside party, identify where as much of the rot as they can find is coming from, and then actively deal with that accordingly, including mass firings, all the way up and down the chain. If Bobby Boy is a key to this, he should be forced out of his position as CEO.
What will happen is that Acti-Blizz will fight this in court until they literally can't, and at most they'll identify some scapegoats to fire so they can say that they did something.
Of course there isn't, but it may not be doable as a hotfix, it may not be a decision that anyone who can make it is going to make for legal reasons right now, etc. We're talking about a company where fifty people have to approve everything, and the less intrusive something is the faster it's going to get done.
none of this is a defense, just a likely explanation. I would guess once you get to team lead level shit stinks a lot more there and they're the ones approving changes.
If their intent is to wash his references out of the game, they'll likely just full on remove that specific character, I imagine. It serves no purpose.
Other references, like the mob Fras Siabi in Strat, are connected to content and I'd assume they'd rename those.
The thing is there might be a third option here? Sadly, with so much systemic bigotry baked into various companies there's a playbook to when shit like this happens, but it seems Activision is so off they couldn't even pull that off. Say you're anti bigotry, that the allegations themselves bother you, that because of these facts you've done all the possible work to make sure that it doesn't happen in your org, that you're surprised Cali said it happened in your org, say that you will investigate to make sure its not true (and according to you it wont be), etc.
Instead Activision went on full Trump with their 'California companies leaving because of bullshit like this, overreach!' nonsense. If they couldn't get it together to give a basic corporate 'sorry, not sorry' reply I wouldn't be surprised if government oversight happens because they are so dysfunctional (I doubt their legal department, maybe even their comms department saw that response before it went out). This should end in a settlement, but I don't think right now they could even pull that off.
Even beyond the grave abuses described, that was the nuttiest response ive seen from a company that's listed on the NASDAQ. Even Musk would have put up a coked up better version of a response to the lawsuit getting filed.
Yeah, they kind of skipped several of the standard corporate apology steps and went right to aggressive, authoritarian deflection. We may be in uncharted waters.
This.
Like, their response is probably the biggest proof of the how bad the level of dysfunction. Like, whoever sent that reply absolutely skipped over protocols and their law department is probably livid. Usually things like these end in a slap of a wrist, kind of hard to do that when you tell the fucking state you're getting investigated to go to effectively go to hell.
Their lawyers have their work cut out for them, and I assume that exec who decided to step over that department and Communications is probably on unemployment.
Yeah I think the time for "being an ally" and all that has long passed, and the time for privileged doughy rich guys to finally face some consequences has arrived.
Yeah, pretty much this. Regardless of which field I was working in, everyone knew in almost every workplace who the creepers were. If Mike truly didn't know, he didn't do the one job he had
Not that I'm buying his statement in the first place. He doesn't want the bad PR from this to splash onto his new company
Yeah, anybody who has spent any time in the workforce knows that this shit is never hidden. Hierarchies and cliques are always in plain sight and if you're one of the have-nots you're pretty powerless.
I've already said, and I'll say it again and again: Screw Activision-Blizzard for the hell they have built.
Don't think I've forgotten about the other gigantic publishers either... It's clear the majority of these companies are guilty of exploiting its employees and customers.
Don't think I've forgotten about the other gigantic publishers either... It's clear the majority of these companies are guilty of exploiting its employees and customers.
I don't think anyone is suggesting literally everyone lose their job (but also it wouldn't surprise me) but what can realistically be done? That company needs a serious overhaul but its looks unlikely just looking at the response, how deep seated the problems have been at the company and just like...they're willingly employing people like Brian Bulatao and Frances Townsend in key positions. How do you even solve this when key figures still feign ignorance in the face of overwhelming evidence?