The Activision Blizzard Situation ¿Any Thoughts?

[jazzmaster9]

What else needs to be said other than Screw Activision and I hope they finally get what they deserve.

 

19 minutes ago, Azuris said:

Lastly People form Mobs against everything and and everybody and i feel more and more that we act as People did in the Middle Ages, hunting down "Witches"...

In this case, there are actual scummy people in Activision that needed to be removed from the industry. Literal Abuse needs to be called out.

Edited July 23, 2021 by jazzmaster9

[scalliano]

Riot Games,

Bioware,

Rockstar,

Naughty Dog,

Ubisoft,

and now it's Activizzard's dirty laundry about to get some time in the sun.

 

Can we say "DeveloperGate" yet?

[KubaloBlackMT]

I would never work for Activision if I were threatened to be skinned alive. Nuff said.

 

 

[Vertpin]

I just read about this recently. Absolutely disgusting. 

[Endless]

And to think that Blizzard used to be my favorite gaming company before all this shit. There was a time when they did quality products, their devs were legends among gamers and they were a lore-nerd dream come true. Proudly playing Diablo 2 and Starcraft Broodwar, decade-old games that were still being updated and played by many. Back then they even collab with South Park to make fun of themselves.

 

You can't make fun of the shit they do now a day. It's just sad, horrible and a massive disappointment as an old used-to-be fan.

 

I believe this is simply a natural (and sad) product of the video game company. The industry is billionaire and generates incredible amounts of profit from shoddy work, exploitation, addictive gambling traps, pay inequity and other crimes. And since it's just a ''videogame'', is poorly legislated. When there is so much money for so little, corruption will be born, and once the big executives take the lead well, you have this.

 

I hope they get so fucked they can't make games anymore. Honestly, all their developers deserve better and should work with other companies, but still, all AAA companies seem to be crap anyway. It is a sad state, but it's also the first step in change. Honestly, hate all you want on EA (I also do) but I'm starting to think that Activision Blizzard takes the crown on shit level.

[dew]

Worry not, Activision has unleashed a girlboss to make things right and gaslight everyone into calmness. What's that you say? She was ghouling as Homeland Security Advisor for G. W. Bush? Oh well, I guess the quarterly evaluation will include waterboarding to discover who ratted.

 

edit: Here's the same woman defending the torture policies they implemented during the fun days under Bush. When she says that everything is alright at Activision and the company has never had healthier environment before, you just know you can trust her. Oh, she was also on the shortlist to become the FBI director after Comey got fired, but she was passed over because she was a nevertrumper in 2016, heh.

Edited July 23, 2021 by dew

[Kurogachii]

20 minutes ago, dew said:

Worry not, Activision has unleashed a girlboss to make things right and gaslight everyone into calmness.

People are really dumb, it's 2021, internet exists, books exists, common sense exists, and people still think stuff like "Oh! it's a girl! more power to her, girls can't make bad decisions or have bad intentions right?" or "all men are evil because when i was young i had a bad experience".

 

But anyway, dummies will fall for the bait and activision will get away with it.

[roadworx]

26 minutes ago, dew said:

Worry not, Activision has unleashed a girlboss to make things right and gaslight everyone into calmness. What's that you say? She was ghouling as Homeland Security Advisor for G. W. Bush? Oh well, I guess the quarterly evaluation will include waterboarding to discover who ratted.

welp. as much as i hate other AAA game companies, at least they don't have war criminals as executives.

 

[Mr. Freeze]

https://twitter.com/chrisbratt/status/1418629194683125761?s=21

 

Blizzard has been faux-progressive for well over a decade. 

 

[Lizardcommando]

57 minutes ago, dew said:

Worry not, Activision has unleashed a girlboss to make things right and gaslight everyone into calmness. What's that you say? She was ghouling as Homeland Security Advisor for G. W. Bush? Oh well, I guess the quarterly evaluation will include waterboarding to discover who ratted.

 

edit: Here's the same woman defending the torture policies they implemented during the fun days under Bush. When she says that everything is alright at Activision and the company has never had healthier environment before, you just know you can trust her. Oh, she was also on the shortlist to become the FBI director after Comey got fired, but she was passed over because she was a nevertrumper in 2016, heh.

Why the fuck would Activision want to hire somebody with that kind of background?

[roadworx]

18 minutes ago, Lizardcommando said:

Why the fuck would Activision want to hire somebody with that kind of background?

because sociopaths make good corporate executives

[Maribo]

5 hours ago, Azuris said:

A Court has to judge over it and speak them guilty or free.

 

Lastly People form Mobs against everything and and everybody and i feel more and more that we act as People did in the Middle Ages, hunting down "Witches"...

Twisted statement. Comparing 21st century call-outs of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse to Middle Age witch hunts is incredibly insulting. I assume you're referring to other shit like "cancel culture" but there is no reason to make a statement like this in a thread about allegations of abuse in a triple A company, of which there have been more and more of in recent memory. Statements like this are the reason why people are afraid to speak out, by the way, please keep that in mind. People always ask "oh, why don't victims go to the police or a supervisor or something as soon as they can? why do they sometimes wait days, weeks, months?". Many of them do go as soon as they can, and get ignored. But as for waiting... it's incredibly demeaning, humiliating, and can be unbelievably hard to get anyone to believe you, that is why they're afraid to say something. People will pick apart everything you say like you're a liar from the start and are trying to ruin someone's life because you can. No one is out here trying to scheme up abuse stories to ruin a company or some person's life, and the fact that you think that's becoming the common occurrence is really fucked up.

[Devalaous]

7 hours ago, Vorpal said:

Indie gaming scene and modding scene is glorious imo, there's no reason to support the AAA industry

 

Unfortunately even indie developers have the same problems. Google the Chucklefish/Starbound 2019 scandal for example. I knew about the problems with that company, as it was oddly well known to Relogic, the company I worked at at the time (The founder of Chucklefish used to be Terraria's spriter in the early days, before fucking off rudely), but I was made to promise not to speak of it while I was there.

Then Relogic did weird shit like breaking into a private chat server that my brother owned just to make sure I was following their company rules, even off the damn clock, watching everything I ever did. So I left them and chose unemployment over working under that.

 

Its quite difficult to find ANY company that doesn't have at least one person who starts to rot it from within. Whether its childish bros acting like highschool jocks, or people deciding to go full corporate machine 'for the company', both routes spell eventual doom.

[Vorpal]

Oh I couldn't care less about harassment in a company, employees are free to leave or press charges if it's criminal (unauthorized access to a computer/network is criminal btw). I'm just having a bit of a laugh that this is the final straw for people, the garbage products they've put out the last 25 years was somehow not an issue (diablo was another studio, and starcraft well... I'm in camp Westwood). I'm not going to research Caterpillar before buying some boots, to make sure that everybody's using approved language and respecting boundaries.

[Obsidian]

7 hours ago, Vorpal said:

Oh I couldn't care less about harassment in a company, employees are free to leave or press charges if it's criminal (unauthorized access to a computer/network is criminal btw). I'm just having a bit of a laugh that this is the final straw for people, the garbage products they've put out the last 25 years was somehow not an issue (diablo was another studio, and starcraft well... I'm in camp Westwood). I'm not going to research Caterpillar before buying some boots, to make sure that everybody's using approved language and respecting boundaries.

 

Quote from CBS News:

 

Quote

According to court documents, a female employee committed suicide while on a company trip due to a sexual relationship she had been having with her male supervisor. Court documents state the deceased woman had been suffering from continuous sexual harassment at work prior to her death, including an incident at a holiday party where male co-workers passed around a graphic nude photo of the female employee, the lawsuit claims. 

 

I dunno my dude, I feel like women being driven to suicide is a bit more important to people than video games not being as good as you want them to be.

[Azuris]

8 hours ago, Maribo said:

Twisted statement. Comparing 21st century call-outs of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse to Middle Age witch hunts is incredibly insulting. I assume you're referring to other shit like "cancel culture" but there is no reason to make a statement like this in a thread about allegations of abuse in a triple A company, of which there have been more and more of in recent memory. Statements like this are the reason why people are afraid to speak out, by the way, please keep that in mind. People always ask "oh, why don't victims go to the police or a supervisor or something as soon as they can? why do they sometimes wait days, weeks, months?". Many of them do go as soon as they can, and get ignored. But as for waiting... it's incredibly demeaning, humiliating, and can be unbelievably hard to get anyone to believe you, that is why they're afraid to say something. People will pick apart everything you say like you're a liar from the start and are trying to ruin someone's life because you can. No one is out here trying to scheme up abuse stories to ruin a company or some person's life, and the fact that you think that's becoming the common occurrence is really fucked up.

 

Hm.

I am understanding the Point that People are afraid to take Steps against abusive People.

Institutions have to implement other Ways to make it easier and save for them to get Help in such Situations.
Such as Women's Shelters, Baby Boxes and so on.

Searching the Way to Instrumentalized a Mass can get a Focus on such Problems and to convince Instituions to implement such "Tools" to help them. 
But in long Terms it is totally wrong and leads into said Witch Hunts and your mentioned Cancel Culture, because People tend to act brutally Emotional in Topics like these.

There are Reasons why most western Societies got Legislative, Executive and Judicative separated.

 

For Example (and in a european View):

After a Child Abuse or somebody went Amok the Opinion of People is changing in a Way,
that they would vote to bring back the Death Penalty if possible in a direct Democracy (as for Example in Switzerland).

 

But bringing back the Death Penalty is so wrong in many Ways.
We advanced so much as Culture since "Eye for an Eye" and shouldn't go back.

 

[Major Arlene]

14 minutes ago, Azuris said:

 

Hm.

I am understanding the Point that People are afraid to take Steps against abusive People.

Institutions have to implement other Ways to make it easier and save for them to get Help in such Situations.
Such as Women's Shelters, Baby Boxes and so on.

Searching the Way to Instrumentalized a Mass can get a Focus on such Problems and to convince Instituions to implement such "Tools" to help them. 
But in long Terms it is totally wrong and leads into said Witch Hunts and your mentioned Cancel Culture, because People tend to act brutally Emotional in Topics like these.

There are Reasons why most western Societies got Legislative, Executive and Judicative separated.

 

For Example (and in a european View):

After a Child Abuse or somebody went Amok the Opinion of People is changing in a Way,
that they would vote to bring back the Death Penalty if possible in a direct Democracy (as for Example in Switzerland).

 

But bringing back the Death Penalty is so wrong in many Ways.
We advanced so much as Culture since "Eye for an Eye" and shouldn't go back.

 

Someone literally committed suicide over this. 

None of the examples you posted are relevant. This is about people with billions of dollars getting away with shitty compensation practices and abuse of women, of which one person at least died from.

The company needs to be dissolved or the people in power need to be taken down. One of the two. That is not a witch hunt. That is natural consequences if the claims are true.

In fact if you read the lawsuit the DFEH isn't even seeking dissolution of the company, they're just seeking monetary damages. A different suit would have to judge on the responsibility of suicide.

In any case, seeking consequences for bad or criminal behavior (the exact codes violated are listed in the lawsuit) is not some medieval burning at the stake. It is how the justice system works, and no person is too big to be brought down by it.

[Bridgeburner56]

32 minutes ago, Azuris said:

 

words

If you Capitalise A few more rAndom WorDs people Might listen to yoU

[printz]

30 minutes ago, Bridgeburner56 said:

If you Capitalise A few more rAndom WorDs people Might listen to yoU

Haha, the Capitalization Choice from that Post reminds me of German :)

 

Anyway, I find it quite a stretch to invoke the cancel culture defense for a big faceless company like ActivisionBlizzard. They're experts in damage control and PR, there'll be no witch hunt, stocks maybe will go down, I would clearly sell my shares if I had any for them... It's usually individuals who sometimes need the benefit of the doubt when accused of something of the sort, not companies as a whole.

 

Personally I find it baffling that they're still tolerating dehumanizing behaviour in workplaces, they're million dollar multinational companies in 2021, you'd expect some high regards for professionalism, which can still be cutthroat (such as crunch time or fire-at-will policies), but not harassment or toxic behaviour.

 

EDIT: I realize my current portrait is from one of their flagship games. Guy is literally commanding a flagship. Oh well. I can invoke the "things have changed since" defense...

Edited July 24, 2021 by printz

[Vorpal]

2 hours ago, Obsidian said:

 

Quote from CBS News:

 

 

I dunno my dude, I feel like women being driven to suicide is a bit more important to people than video games not being as good as you want them to be.

 

I have zero love for Blizzard, but the key phrase here is "according to court documents". Of course they are going to be hyperbolic in favor of their client, so your bullshit detector should be active, the reality is you'll never know why someone killed themselves. Blizzard absolutely should be boycotted, it sucks that this is the reason (a private matter between individuals, a tragedy which the legal discovery will probably damage the family further in myriad ways). Any company over 100 employees has or will soon deal with suicide and criminal issues like sexual harassment, I'm not going to investigate the legal background of every product I buy, and this matter between individuals doesn't factor in for me. Blizzard makes shit products, ergo they are a shit company - even their fans have hated the golden goose WoW since ~2008 even if (especially if?) they are still subscribers. Stop paying for garbage

[Major Arlene]

9 minutes ago, Vorpal said:

 

I have zero love for Blizzard, but the key phrase here is "according to court documents". Of course they are going to be hyperbolic in favor of their client, so your bullshit detector should be active, the reality is you'll never know why someone killed themselves. Blizzard absolutely should be boycotted, it sucks that this is the reason (a private matter between individuals, a tragedy which the legal discovery will probably damage the family further in myriad ways). Any company over 100 employees has or will soon deal with suicide and criminal issues like sexual harassment, I'm not going to investigate the legal background of every product I buy, and this matter between individuals doesn't factor in for me. Blizzard makes shit products, ergo they are a shit company - even their fans have hated the golden goose WoW since ~2008 even if (especially if?) they are still subscribers. Stop paying for garbage

Read the actual lawsuit and you can see all the actual laws they've broken. The DFEH lawsuit isn't even going after them on that count- they really can't. They just used that as an example of discriminatory practice. DFEH is after Blizzard on the multiple charges of pay/compensation discrimination, plus the pregnancy/lactation room stuff because that has to do with actual labor laws, which the DFEH oversees. Even if you don't want to get mad about the harassment or suicide stuff you should sure as shit be mad about the fact people aren't being paid for their labor properly, because what you're directly funding is the C-suite's ability to continue doing just that.
I'm not saying you have to research every company you buy from but once you find that they aren't aligning with your ideals (or, you know, breaking multiple actual laws) then it's probably best to not use them. But I do try to do research now. There is a huge wealth of information on the internet- use it sometime.

[Bridgeburner56]

8 minutes ago, Vorpal said:

 

I have zero love for Blizzard, but the key phrase here is "according to court documents". Of course they are going to be hyperbolic in favor of their client, so your bullshit detector should be active, the reality is you'll never know why someone killed themselves. Blizzard absolutely should be boycotted, it sucks that this is the reason (a private matter between individuals, a tragedy which the legal discovery will probably damage the family further in myriad ways). Any company over 100 employees has or will soon deal with suicide and criminal issues like sexual harassment, I'm not going to investigate the legal background of every product I buy, and this matter between individuals doesn't factor in for me. Blizzard makes shit products, ergo they are a shit company - even their fans have hated the golden goose WoW since ~2008 even if (especially if?) they are still subscribers. Stop paying for garbage

You're naivete would be amusing if it wasn't so sad 

 

[Major Arlene]

Anyhoo, have a livestream I did on the topic. We talk about the Bloomberg Law article, Fran Townsend, the lawsuit itself, and some alternatives to Activision games.

 

[magicsofa]

1 hour ago, Vorpal said:

a private matter between individuals

Yeah, this is kind of the crux of all rape-apologist philosophy. It is also completely illogical. There is no law that says "what happens on your business trip, stays on your business trip." Maybe you are confusing the "reasonable expectation of privacy" which prevents the cops from opening your curtains in order to see inside your home. But if there's an unobstructed view of you doing something illegal from the outside, you totally can get arrested right then and there. To say that sexual assault in any form is a "private matter" is absolutely bullshit. The whole point of that narrative is to take agency out of the woman's hands, while simultaneously removing responsibility from the man. Just think about what you are implying. You're saying that the parties involved should have solved the issue themselves... but if someone is acting abusive, in what strange world would they work toward stopping their own behavior unprovoked? Obviously in a fantasy world only. So you are actually saying that the woman should have solved the problem alone... but not through any official channels. So you want her to solve the problem, without invoking the government, without whining about it, without ruining his precious career, without forcing you to feel uncomfortable (god forbid) about your half of humanity. Are you starting to see the double standard here? What exactly would you have her do, just stab the guy and make sure you get away with it? Perhaps you were the victim of sexual assault and you want to explain to us how you cleanly solved the problem? Oh wait, nevermind, it's a private matter. Keep it to yourself!

[Maribo]

12 hours ago, Vorpal said:

I'm just having a bit of a laugh that this is the final straw for people, the garbage products they've put out the last 25 years was somehow not an issue (diablo was another studio, and starcraft well... I'm in camp Westwood). I'm not going to research Caterpillar before buying some boots, to make sure that everybody's using approved language and respecting boundaries.

2 hours ago, Vorpal said:

 Blizzard absolutely should be boycotted, it sucks that this is the reason (a private matter between individuals, a tragedy which the legal discovery will probably damage the family further in myriad ways). Any company over 100 employees has or will soon deal with suicide and criminal issues like sexual harassment, I'm not going to investigate the legal background of every product I buy, and this matter between individuals doesn't factor in for me. Blizzard makes shit products, ergo they are a shit company - even their fans have hated the golden goose WoW since ~2008 even if (especially if?) they are still subscribers. Stop paying for garbage

 

You are SO concerned with the fact that people are upset with Blizzard over turning a blind eye to and encouraging abuse, rather than not liking their products? Why? Why does it "suck" that the reason people are mad at Blizzard is because they think it's fine for their employees to do shit like pass someone's private photos around, "joke" about rape, and the myriad of other things like passing over giving women raises or higher paying positions because of things like not wanting to pay for birth leave? None of these are "private matters", dubbing them so is an attempt to sweep them under the rug and say "doesn't matter if you treat your employees like shit, just make me a good video game!"

[RDETalus]

37 minutes ago, magicsofa said:

You're saying that the parties involved should have solved the issue themselves...

I think you misunderstand him, he is not saying that the abuser and the abused are supposed to privately deal with the problem themselves.

He is saying that, in general, you should not blame a company for everything bad that two (or more) employees happen to do to each other. Although, it's a useless point to argue if all these allegations about widespread company culture corruption are true.

[Major Arlene]

35 minutes ago, RDETalus said:

I think you misunderstand him, he is not saying that the abuser and the abused are supposed to privately deal with the problem themselves.

He is saying that, in general, you should not blame a company for everything bad that two (or more) employees happen to do to each other. Although, it's a useless point to argue if all these allegations about widespread company culture corruption are true.

According to the language of the DFEH suit the top brass very much covered for or encouraged other top brass bad behavior and therefore all top brass will be treated as one in the same. Given the emails flying around now I'm inclined to do the same. There's a difference between a man groping a woman and then the company encouraging or covering up the groping of said woman.

[DSC]

Dude, if you know some kind of abuse is possibly going on but pretend it doesn't matter at all, that kind of makes you an accomplice in enforcing the acceptability of the act. At the very least publicly condemn or denounce it, shouldn't be too hard.

[i suck at nicknames]

On 7/23/2021 at 8:46 AM, roadworx said:

blizzard has always milked the shit out of games and made terrible decisions, just look at world of warcraft and real id respectively

 

as for the lawsuit, hopefully they don't just get a slap on the wrist and actually have some real punishment. people died cuz of this shit, a few million dollars in fines isn't gonna cut it

holy crap.........i read the article but there was no mention of any deaths. could you elaborate?

[Wavy]

36 minutes ago, i suck at nicknames said:

holy crap.........i read the article but there was no mention of any deaths. could you elaborate?

See Obsidian's reply above. It has a CBS article with a quote mentioning a suicide.