Yup.
He will be sorry that we had to hear it, will not say for what he is really sorry and show the next footage of D4 and everyone will go nutz.
Happens time and time again.
California sues Activision/Blizzard for employment discrimination because of sex, retaliation, discrimination & harassment, unequal pay
- Thread starter Seri
- Start date
- News Activision/Blizzard
He will be sorry that we had to hear it, will not say for what he is really sorry and show the next footage of D4 and everyone will go nutz.
Happens time and time again.
Ubisoft should be banned or at the very least just have one thread for all their news. These companies don't deserve a voice on here until they fix their mess.
With this hitting at the end of the day, I fully expect the story to blow up tomorrow.
❤️
❤️
Thanks.
I just wanted to give my perspective on just how much even "mild" abuse can affect a person so that they come close to .... you know.. I am luckier than a lot of others especially those women mentioned in this suit, this was single person in a tiny company and not so sexual in its nature. I was equally without a guardian though as the company had no HR and (of course) he was the manager.
Cultural issues like these come from the top down. If we don't see news of a massive shakeup in their management, we can assume that nothing has happened at all.
I don't think I get a lot of Activision Blizzard games so it wouldn't affect me personally if they to were be banned, but I understand that it's a harder choice to make with the industry's largest companies when you're on an enthusiast board.
If an outright ban is impractical, I think we could also go a similar route as with Cyberpunk, where Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft hype threads are not allowed until we get that management change, and news threads must contain resources regarding the issues surrounding the company. While I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to act perfectly ethical all the time and people who are care about these issues may cave and get a game or two from these companies that they're extremely passionate about, it's not important that people be able to feel as though they're morally clean or superior.
We can only make efforts to be against bigotry, it's reality that decides whether we are rather than self-declaration.
I don't think I get a lot of Activision Blizzard games so it wouldn't affect me personally if they to were be banned, but I understand that it's a harder choice to make with the industry's largest companies when you're on an enthusiast board.
If an outright ban is impractical, I think we could also go a similar route as with Cyberpunk, where Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft hype threads are not allowed until we get that management change, and news threads must contain resources regarding the issues surrounding the company. While I don't think it's reasonable to expect people to act perfectly ethical all the time and people who are care about these issues may cave and get a game or two from these companies that they're extremely passionate about, it's not important that people be able to feel as though they're morally clean or superior.
We can only make efforts to be against bigotry, it's reality that decides whether we are rather than self-declaration.
Burn it to the fucking ground.
This will never happen of course but wouldn't it be something if the major enthusiast gaming press collectively boycotted covering any of ActiBlizzard's garbage (sans the case of course) in solidarity with the victims.
I'm 110% on board with an Era banning of any discussion or threads of their games or services.
This will never happen of course but wouldn't it be something if the major enthusiast gaming press collectively boycotted covering any of ActiBlizzard's garbage (sans the case of course) in solidarity with the victims.
I'm 110% on board with an Era banning of any discussion or threads of their games or services.
Ummm, did Chris accidentally tweet his name when he meant to search for it?
For me personally seeing stuff like this, reading that the investigation has been going on for 2 years. It does put a different light on stuff like Kaplan suddenly leaving for me personally. I hope they leave no stone unturned. Absolutely horrid situation for all the victims.
Destroying the company doesn't actually do anything though. You need to deal with the people who allow this to happen, or else they'll just go get a job somewhere else and the cycle will start all over again.
I feel like this wouldn't achieve anything practical. Instead, consider the context of the recent perception that WoW now appears to be actually dying by every visible metric. It just came off of its longest gap between patches to massive disappointment, and it really wouldn't be a stretch to believe that an absolutely heinous work culture like this is actually a major culprit behind it.
From a practical standpoint, knowing that a part of your workforce engages in this shit towards their colleagues means they aren't actually being as productive in developing their games to begin with. When you consider the timeline for many of the things mentioned here along with the sudden high profile departures from the company within the past year, it's not hard to think that the management spent much of the past year running damage control for their shit colleagues and retaliating against anyone cooperating with the investigation, instead of doing anything to make sure the workplace was a safe environment for actual development to take place.
If the average gamer connects the dots and actually starts holding companies accountable for this, even if it's only for the mere realization that behavior like this can have a direct impact on the development of their beloved games in a very negative way (that is sadly only noticed and measured in hindsight), maybe we will finally see some lasting improvement in the industry, instead of everything being buried and forgotten with time. A blanket ban wouldn't allow this argument to take hold.
At the very least, it appears many people on the WoW subreddit are now willing to consider that the current state of their game is due to the workplace culture, with a fair amount of people saying they're canceling their subs because they don't want to pay for employees harassing women to the point of suicide instead of actually working on the game.
I don't think this kind of damage to their reputation AND the bottom line for one of their major sources of revenue is something actiblizzard can ever recover from. At the very least, I think WoW is truly well on its way to losing its prominence for good as a result of this, and it would be well deserved because holy fucking shit, a lot of people deserve to have been thrown in jail long ago.
Last edited:
Those people need to go to jail if everything there is factually true, this is beyond believe
No one is acting to "end this company", and I don't think anyone is in the position to do it with how big it is. If it's still successful, it will continue. That kind of expression of anger towards Activision are understandable.
But if Activision were "destroyed" - or even just had hatchet taken to its management - that would still have a positive effect. By removing the people who did it from positions of power, they lose much of the vantage point with which to perpetuate abuse. They might be able to go somewhere else, but it isn't guaranteed that they'll find the same capability for abuse there as what we knew they already had in Activision.
Same with Ubisoft, quietly move people around, some "allowed" to retire while still keeping bonuses and company stocks. I am now at the point that with Ubi its is just safe to assume every member of the management or production team in whatever studio are culpable in the allegations made, and likely some innocent developers would be caught up on that generalisation, but that is on Ubisoft by not addressing it, by not being open and not stamping out that culture.
Same with ActiBlizz.
And frankly this is not a hard choice for anywhere if it has any empathy with developers, women, minorities as ERA claims to have. It should not matter the size of a company or the "quality" of their games or their "importance" to the industry when they show themselves to be this repellent, this repulsive, this uncaring this fucking Evil. Then every board, every outlet, every gamer should be united in their condemnation, and a condemnation that amounts to more than "thoughts and prayers" Fuck Activision and Blizzard.
At this point anyone happy to allow them mindshare for anything but this kind of news is in tacit endorsement of how they run their business.
I am so very angry right now too.
Thanks for pointing that out.
No Diablo 2 for me.
I do not want the employees to lose their jobs, but i am not going to support this company until major restructure takes place.
This is as severe as the J.K Rowling shit, oppression to the point of suicide, i expect Era to maintain the same stance.
No Diablo 2 for me.
I do not want the employees to lose their jobs, but i am not going to support this company until major restructure takes place.
This is as severe as the J.K Rowling shit, oppression to the point of suicide, i expect Era to maintain the same stance.
I can get behind this.
I can also get behind this. And in the scenario where a character from either of these companies appears in any notable collaboration, be it Smash Bros. or the Mario + Rabbids sequel or anything else, I think there should be an addendum provided either by the OP or staff to keep members abreast of any issues with the companies involved.
On the one hand, there is some merit in keeping things open so uninformed and/or otherwise "apolitical" gamers connect the dots and come to the realization that yes, bad business culture usually results in bad games in the long run. On the other hand, I fear that any legitimate efforts by people such as the aforementioned gamers/us to actually try and take the company to task ("noble" intentions or not) will be drowned out by an increase in sales or interest that could occur from merely leaving Activision Blizzard topics out in the open as if they're a "normal" company. I'd say it might be for the best to let other sites sort that out while Era cuts the proverbial knot.
There's quite a lot of new studios out there formed by longtime Blizzard employees who left the company in the last 5-10 years, and I really have to wonder how much of this culture they took with them. Too much, I bet.
It feels like this shit is so prevalent at major studios that someone should start keeping a list of companies that aren't rotten to the core.
It feels like this shit is so prevalent at major studios that someone should start keeping a list of companies that aren't rotten to the core.
Absolutely vile. At this point nothing will convince me to ever buy another Activision Blizzard product again. There's no redeeming this company. It's rotten to the core. Firing everyone responsible for the work culture would do nothing. There would be no company left.
Preach.
Is all of this, based on what many brave woment are saying on social media right now, is true and I believe them it being true, then you can bet your ass, that these former sniors staff members, that took part or overlooked these things, will remain like shitheads and therefore foster an environment like at their old place.
I wonder what the women working at Blizzard/Activision was thinking when the Blizzard folks went on to stage during Blizzcon and talked about measures to combat toxicity, harassment, the importance of inclusivity and maintaining a safe and friendly gaming environment where "every voice matters", while they fully well knew about the horrors that occurred in their own offices. Fucking sickening.
Last edited:
And how long are you happy to wait to see more developers abused while the press and gamers slowly come to the realisation that this is bad? Gamers of course that oh so empathetic group of people who never get easily distracted by the next Blizzard CGI cutscene or Latest CoD release.
Now is the time for places that say they care about the industry and developers put their foot down and say "no more" ERA can explain why it choses to ban ActiBlizz writ large on page one so that those who wish to understand why can, and they can do that at the same time as refusing to act as a space to discuss the companies games.
Fuck them, ban them.
This company sounds incredibly toxic. What the fuck. They deserve to burn down for this.
That spoiler is really disturbing and so sad.
That spoiler is really disturbing and so sad.
So sad not surprising witch is even sadder.
What I truly don't understand is why would people behave like this, seriously why? Why do stuff like this to other people?
I would not even dream of being anything but nice to fellow co-workers.
Your a team act like it and don't be terrible towards each other.
What I truly don't understand is why would people behave like this, seriously why? Why do stuff like this to other people?
I would not even dream of being anything but nice to fellow co-workers.
Your a team act like it and don't be terrible towards each other.
Yeah, in the end I'd support a ban too. But in the off-chance we don't, I'd hope that any future discussion on them would really hammer in the point that shit workplace culture = shit game, and that everyone should highly reconsider if it is worth getting hyped for anything this company does as long as this persists.
Yeah the frat boy description really buries the lede. Unless we're admitting fraternity houses are a den of sexism, sexual harassment, abuse, and suicide...in which case we have a lot of reflection to do as a society.
Yeah sorry Saito I understood your point to be more "we shouldn't bother" apologies for assuming that.
I kinda lack any positivity that the gaming sphere (media, consumers) lack that kind of introspection to think that far ahead and kinda can't be trusted to come to that conclusion without it turning into "lazy devs".
I don't think we're at the point any more where we can pretend we are protecting any employee of such companies by doing anything but banning conversation which amounts to little more than marketing. Imagine Blizzard losing that marketing arm, every outlet refusing to review, refusing to report previews etc. thats the only way to convey our disgust as clearly the industry is incapable and unwilling to sort this shit out on their own.
Jesus, those poor people.
As a "next step" for this forum, I think its all about access to information. If you're making an OT or hype thread about an Activision game (for example, could be any company) just provide the available information about these stories so the reader can make their own decisions about how they continue to interact with the company.
As a "next step" for this forum, I think its all about access to information. If you're making an OT or hype thread about an Activision game (for example, could be any company) just provide the available information about these stories so the reader can make their own decisions about how they continue to interact with the company.
100%. I'm glad this thread title was edited to remove the "frat boy" language and replaced with a better description.
At this point I'll just avoid all big games published by big corporation. This is terrible, and hopefully (although doubtfully) there will be accountability and the people responsible for this will answer for their acts.
I honestly read it like that. There is no way I am not reading "frat boy behavior" as other than toxic masculinity to a t. For me it doesn't read as "poor guys they had all future" but "this was a very toxic place". But I could see the other reading.
Last edited:
Access to this information is beneficial, but I think reduction if not complete elimination of pure hype posting is also valuable because it keeps that information from being buried under "business as usual".
I mean, all of those things are absolutely true of frat houses... yet I still think that it needs to be emphasized that the workplace was so willfully toxic that it was the direct cause of a worker's death. I really hope the consequences are severe. People need to be criminally prosecuted.
Though to your point, I assume that many people who operate frat houses probably deserve to be criminally prosecuted as well.
100% by going above and beyond finding ways to continue the status quo we send the signal that the status quo is more important to the gaming community that a fucking company so rotten it drives its women employees to suicide following a systemic, ignored and frankly rewarded pattern of abuse.
What more would Blizzard have to do to have you consider deplatforming them Raging Spaniard.
Agreed.
"Frat boy" I feel like just really undermines the cruel, calculated nature of these people's behavior. Like they weren't dumb kids who didn't know any better or got really drunk one night and made a terrible mistake. I get why they went with the headline, but it just doesn't feel like it gives the events the appropriate weight.
I wouldn't describe Harvey Weinstein's behavior in an article as "frat boy behavior" either.
That suicide is even worse reading the whole complaint. Holy fuck. kick that guy's ass out of the industry and polite society.
OuterHeaven Other posters may have already aired it out in the open (I'm afraid I can't recall at this moment), but I think it would be best to spoiler-tag the description behind a content warning to keep consistency with the OP.