In late July, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for persistent sexual abuse and gender-related discrimination in the workplace. It’s getting messy.
I wish I could tell you that I was surprised, I couldn’t believe it. But when I saw this news, all I really felt was a sense of empty acceptance, and then I was so sad. I think at this point we all know that none of the major gaming studios are exempt from this kind of abuse and discrimination. Because sexism and discrimination are not a single studio-specific problem. It’s a problem that’s been around for a very long time in the entire gaming industry.
And there’s an endless cycle that we’re actually used to: someone gets blamed. The victim is silenced in some way. The offender either disappears “to spend more time with his family / to take time for himself” for a while. Then either he continues to work in another position within the same company and possibly continues his abuse, or you see, he’s gone and started his own studio. Well, of course, he’s hired a lot of people like him. That’s how it works(!).
But activision is no ordinary accusation against Blizzard. And it’s not a single accusation. It’s a lawsuit filed by a government agency based on multiple allegations of abuse and discrimination and evidence.
Before we get started.
On the 21st, news of the case began to fall on the main news channels. And it’s not just the gaming media; TIME, NY Times, LA Times, Bloomberg Law, The Guardian… Everyone was talking about the case brought by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing. (From here I will refer to it as DFEH.) And they were rightly talking because the details in the petition are outrageous. Moreover, current and past Blizzard employees confirm these claims.
Before we move on to the content of the petition and the statements from Activision Blizzard, I’d like to clarify one thing. When you read these lines, there will be people who say, “Wow, sir, if it’s so bad, why didn’t they leave, they didn’t work anywhere else?”
I want to reiterate that the problems at Activision Blizzard are not studio-specific. There is no magical AAA gaming studio at the moment, completely free from the discrimination and sexism that these female employees can go to. If these women work for these games, they put up with something because it has a big place in their lives, it’s important. They love Blizzard games; They want to believe blizzard could be better, that something would change. Leaving the square to oppressive and abusive people is not the answer to these problems.
It’s also wrong to think that they’ve been silent about what’s happened at Activision Blizzard so far, and that they haven’t mentioned these issues so far, or blaming those who haven’t. Such discrimination and abuse cannot have occurred by running water under straw without a system that excuses such behavior and protects criminals. I don’t even want to think about the internal pressure on the victims in this case.
All Activision Blizzard employees who have been discriminated against and harassed are working to make things better so that their colleagues and those who come after them don’t have the same problems.
And the lawsuit is filed…
One of the reasons the DFEH’s case is important is that it is the first lawsuit filed in the U.S. under a recently enacted law requiring companies with 100 or more employees to report jobs and payments to employees divided by gender, race and ethnicity each year, according to the LA Times.
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What’s happening at Activision Blizzard? Why is this happening? We will discuss in more detail the legal process and content of the case in the following sections. But before that, I’d like to talk a little bit about what’s going on with Activision Blizzard, how everything can get to this point, and the working conditions of the gaming industry. The accusations against company executives are very serious, vulgar, and at times sickening. It starts with female employees being paid less for the same job, not being promoted on the pretext that they might have children, male employees playing games in the office and putting their own jobs on female employees; It goes all the way back to suggesting that another male employee working under a manager go to a brothel to get out of bad mood, activision Inc. executives drink alcohol and go around the table in what they call a “cube crawl,” hitting on and harassing female employees, eventually committing suicide on a business trip with the male manager of a female employee whose nude photos were shared among male employees at business parties.
It’s not like there’s a couple of malicious people working for the company. There’s a systemic decay here. Unfortunately, this rot is the problem of the gaming industry from start to finish. If you did that in an ordinary office, in a workplace, you’d be on the doorstep. But Activision and Blizzard have a “frat boy” culture that leads to both impunity and exponentially increasing. It’s not run like a company, it’s run like a club. A playground for male employees who keep up with this situation; It’s a form of torture for women and those who try to do business. But it’s no coincidence that this is the case in the gaming industry. We already know that women and girls are always excluded in gaming media, and today we still know that turning on a microphone in an online game is like Russian roulette. That perspective is not for the players. This attitude is also the case of gaming companies saying, “We are a cool company, making games is not business (!) You’re going to do it because you love it, it’s not a ‘cozy’ place, it’s not a workplace” attitude, and it turns out to be a place where senior employees and managers play horses according to their heads. It’s no surprise that someone is using it to their benefit, and these people are malicious. Sad. It’s so sad. But it’s not surprising. |
The 29-page petition outscoring all the discrimination and harassment incidents at Activision and Activision Blizzard didn’t like anyone in high positions at the company. But on social media, especially on Twitter, current and past Activision and Blizzard employees have already started sharing their own stories and supporting the claims in the petition.
Blizzard’s president, J. Allen Brack, immediately sent an email to the company. It’s a normal statement. Wow, sir, I’ve had some very emotional moments. Of course, the behavior described in the case file is very wrong. Discrimination, sexism have no place in Blizzard. I’ve always seen women as equals to men. We’re going to meet up and talk about how we can move forward. I hate “bro” culture, and I’ve fought against this kind of formation my whole career, J. Allen Brack.
J. Allen Brack? J. Allen Brack, who laughed in the face of a fan who wanted the female characters in WoW to be less sexualized at the 2010 BlizzCon and pushed his question aside, has fought against the “bro” culture throughout his career? Tell my cone.
Fran Townsend, who joined Blizzard as vice president last March, then sent a completely different email. The recently released case file contains inaccurate and distorted information about Activision Blizzard; A lot of them are lies, most of them from ten years ago. We have zero tolerance for sexual harassment. As a management, we are committed to doing the right thing, et cetera; The nonsense you know. Before joining Activision Blizzard, Fran Townsend was a Homeland Security adviser during the George W. Bush and Donald Trump presidencies. Just so you know, or what’s that got to do with it, dear?
“Yes, I worked at Blizzard, that’s what happened to me, and that’s what I heard from my friends,” he continued.
Christina Womack, the former Blizzard UX designer @stinamc on Twitter, wrote in detail about what happened to her and her friends during her time at Blizzard from 2008 to 2014. In this series, she also talks about how she once created an email group for women in the company to get together and share their problems, and that this group was distributed by human resources and told that “we will be watching you.”
On the one hand, blizzard says there are always promising people. He writes that Dustin Browder and Mark Morhaime listened to him and were ready to change things as a result of his comeback. However, he concludes his series by saying, “I don’t think I’ll ever go back to the production side.”
Of course, journalists, those familiar with Activision and Blizzard games, continued to open old notebooks.
“I can’t speak for the women and minority employees at Blizzard or Blizzard, but it’s the job of men in management positions to make them feel comfortable, happy and successful in our studios,” former Blizzard employee Greg Street tweeted.
It soon emerged that Greg Street was a member of a group of friends called the “Cosby Crew” who named them after comedian Bill Cosby, who was accused of rape by 60 women during his time at Blizzard. The group, which carries a picture of Bill Cosby with them, was setting up a “Cosby Suite” at the hotels where they stayed during the BlizzCons. I don’t think I need to tell you what this hotel room was used for. (Some anonymous Blizzard employees claimed that the Cosby affair stemmed from “the pattern of the walls of the hotel room where they were staying resembled Cosby’s sweaters,” but of course.
Which has been thrown out about this room before, but I think the conclusive evidence was the result of an investigation by the DFEH. Alex Afrasiabi, former World of Warcraft Creative Director, appears in the petition. Afrasiabi’s LinkedIn profile is confidential. WoW seems to have quietly left its team in June 2020, without explanation. (While we were preparing this article, blizzard confirmed that he had been dismissed due to the charges against him and removed all references to Afrasiabi from the game. -Can) Greg Street is currently the chief creative officer of Riot Games.
From here to where?
Can Activision Blizzard handle this case? Why can’t he get up? After all, there are many players who find all this perfectly normal and justify it, let alone caring about women or minorities. Thank God we don’t have a shortage of racists and discriminatory people who take women down (!).
But it’s not about whether the company survived this case. The case is whether this case can lead to a change. It’s not that the lawsuit was filed by the DFEH doesn’t give you any hope. So think about it, it’s so bad, the U.S. government says, “Dude, what are you guys doing?!”
At the time of writing, more than 3,100 current and past Blizzard employees signed an open letter criticizing the company’s statements following the news of the lawsuit and explaining that they expected real change from Activision Blizzard. On Wednesday (July 28th), employees of the Activision Blizzard studio in California went on strike and staged a march. This is a very risky thing, especially for non-union workers in the U.S. Many other employees have also supported them. Players boycotted Activision Blizzard games. Although the company appeared to support the march, many also said that the right to paid leave for the march could be a fodder for identifying and firing employees who later participated in the protest. Well, I wouldn’t either. Well, I’ll tell you what.
But here we go to the first point. Right now in the gaming industry, AAA is working in a studio and there’s no way to escape this “frat boy”, “bro” culture. yes, maybe better than it was 10 years ago. But it’s like, “You didn’t have both legs amputated, only one was severed, it could have been worse.”
I can’t stand anyone trying to look nice right now. “Look how I didn’t abuse anyone!!” Well done, let’s put on a medal. (Within 3 minutes, he’ll be found to be lying.)
So what can be done? Well, for one thing, the gaming industry needs a zero-tolerance policy, but I don’t know how that could happen after you’ve got people like that in charge. What’s more, male game studio employees should not tweet and try to soothe their conscience, and not shut up when they see a female and/or minority colleague who has faced discrimination and abuse at work.
After it’s all over, it’s useless to say, “What if what he said to you was so shameful?” Sympathy doesn’t work. I wish he would, but he doesn’t. That’s when someone has to make a sound and say, “That’s not how we work here.” Look, don’t think of it as talking about the victim, it’s called support. It is to stand behind the person who has been discriminated against and abused.
Because we need this. We need employees to support each other. Standing on the sidelines, “Oh, don’t let it get to me,” won’t solve anyone’s problem. This damage to both mental and physical health in the gaming industry will not contribute to the change of culture.
It’s all new yet. It wasn’t long before the lawsuit filed by the DFEH came to light. It will be time to pursue this issue and wait for answers to questions about where to go as the case progresses, what will change on the Side of Activision Blizzard, and more importantly, where to go if someone is fired.
Women can’t escape discrimination in any industry. But discrimination and abuse in the gaming industry is really on another level. A man shouldn’t have to fight constantly to succeed, to do things. We’ll see when things change. This can’t go on. But you get tired, you get really tired.
Breaking News
* Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra were appointed as Blizzard’s head after J. Allen Brack left the company “to pursue other opportunities”. Jen Oneal, former president of Vicarious Visions. Mike Ybarra worked for Blizzard’s Battle.net arm and worked at Microsoft in relation to XBOX. In the statement, Jen and Mike are described as “co-chairs.” While this may seem like, “Oh, they control each other well,” they’re actually ceo Bobby Kotick in charge. There’s also an unpleasant subtext, “We didn’t want to bring a woman to the presidency alone, so we gave her a man.”
After these news, there have also been increased comments that Activision wants to increase its control over Blizzard, which is not an exaggeration at all. Since 2013, the circle has already narrowed, which has been salt and pepper on top of it. We’ll see where this Activision-ification blizzard takes us.
* On August 12, 2021, Activision Blizzard announced that Diablo 4;its director Luis Barriga, the game’s chief designer Jesse McCree, World of Warcraft designer Jonathan LeCraft; McCree and LeCraft were named in the “Cosby Suite” report. Barriga’s involvement in all of these incidents is unclear because he was not mentioned in the messages published.
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