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[Mattenth]

What if they found her onlyfans and shared the link?

That still wouldn't be appropriate? Am I taking fucking crazy pills here?

Do. Not. Send. Pornography. To. Coworkers.

Period. End of story. Zero exceptions.

what im saying is that whoever passed her nudes around shouldnt have to bear that burden.

Yes, they should.

Do not pass around pornography to coworkers.

The fact that a coworker was in it doesn't make it suddenly "okay" to pass around. In fact, it makes it way worse, since she didn't consent to others seeing or distributing it.

Every single person who emailed, texted, or otherwise distributed those images should be fired.

Anyone who saw those images and failed to report the distributor should be fired, too.

It's grossly inappropriate. There is zero gray area here.

 

[ManaByte]

Metzen is trying to distance himself from Furor:

 

[nush]

Metzen is trying to distance himself from Furor:

Chris Metzen was clearly shitting himself so badly from all this he was searching for his own name on Twitter and accidentally just tweeted his own name instead. Comedy gold.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

What a dumb reason to commit suicide over. She should have been happy her nudes were passed around by all the dudes in the office.

Sorry but I see nothing "fucked up" here.

Holy shit, did we start accepting thirteen year olds like Gamefaqs? What an awful take, ROFL.

If you wanted to be a dick but wanted to seem old and wise instead of preteen know it all, you should have gone with something like...

"If she didn't take nude pictures, there wouldn't be any to go around the office!"

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Never fear. Jim is here!

 

[Interfectum]

What a dumb reason to commit suicide over. She should have been happy her nudes were passed around by all the dudes in the office.

Sorry but I see nothing "fucked up" here.

 

[Interfectum]

Old guard Blizzard has to be freaking the fuck out right now. They are all trying to get new businesses going and this national story is the last thing they need.

It's crazy and sad to see their legacy just go out the window with this. It'll be interesting to see if Blizzard can clear this up before Diablo 2 release and how it's effected, if at all.

 

[Clear]

Never fear. Jim is here!

Not going to give them clicks, and I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.

You know what the rhetoric is going to be, you know Sterling is not going to add anything new to the story, its just going to be more of the same trash-fire inflammatory polemic Sterling has been peddling for years.

Why bother?

 

[Interfectum]

Not going to give them clicks, and I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.

You know what the rhetoric is going to be, you know Sterling is not going to add anything new to the story, its just going to be more of the same trash-fire inflammatory polemic Sterling has been peddling for years.

Why bother?

Yup, not gonna bother.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

Not going to give them clicks, and I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.

You know what the rhetoric is going to be, you know Sterling is not going to add anything new to the story, its just going to be more of the same trash-fire inflammatory polemic Sterling has been peddling for years.

Why bother?

Agreed. Gumpy grandma has nothing to offer. It was more potsed for lols

 

[Marvel]

Never fear. Jim is here!

No interest in what he has to say lol.

 

[SF Kosmo]

Drink in the office.

Which is not at all unusual in modern tech companies, my old office would actually have a drink cart come around and pour you cocktails at your desk.

Anyway, the Blizzard stuff is awful. I have a friend (a woman) who used to work there and quit who backed up a lot of this to me. They have changed a lot over the years.

 

[Interfectum]

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Not going to give them clicks, and I'd encourage everyone else to do the same.

You know what the rhetoric is going to be, you know Sterling is not going to add anything new to the story, its just going to be more of the same trash-fire inflammatory polemic Sterling has been peddling for years.

Why bother?

I gave him a click. I quickly skipped through it to see what it's like and my random jumps every minute actually had Jim talking like a normal person. He wasnt yelling.

 

[Ellery]

Change needs to start somewhere. It is much more about power than it is about identity politics or anything like that. Higher ups and people in powerful position need to know that they can't continuously abuse their position.

This is not about left vs right or men vs women. It is about small vs big and people are getting angry. Hope we get something out of it and I am glad the state of california is on this.

 

[Hari Seldon]

This could not have happened at a worse time for WoW lol. Even without this lawsuit WoW needed a herculean effort by the devs to actually recover. They will be sub 1 million players if 9.2 doesn't drop until next year.

 

[Clear]

I gave him a click. I quickly skipped through it to see what it's like and my random jumps every minute actually had Jim talking like a normal person. He wasnt yelling.

Here's my thing: Irrespective of the truth and extent of the allegations what actually does it all mean? That there are some bad actors within a company with multiple sites and ~10,000 employees should not come as a surprise to anyone.

If there is actual criminality taking place then lets just let the legal system do its thing. Outrage and boycotts achieve nothing. Hand wringing and all the other forms of recreational outrage are empty and performative and masturbatory.

Noone is getting "saved". Protest isn't going to impact Bobby Kotick's immense wealth, and any loss of earnings is just going to be mitigated by staff deemed to be less contributory to the profit imperative getting purged.

What's worse the future likelihood of the company and its product becoming consequentially better is nil. Getting a rep for treating female employees badly is not going to encourage candidates to apply, meaning that any equity initiative is really going to have to lower the bar to make the quotas. Any remedies instituted will very likely over-correct in order to assure no recurrence in the short-term, resulting in problems of their own as people find themselves walking on eggshells so as not to run afoul of the new zero-tolerance regime.

I'm not suggesting that such issue should be "given a pass", just that when they become primarily PR spectacles it just makes things worse because it becomes less about taking remedial action than about giving the impression of reactivity and responsibility in the public domain. It creates a "mob" than then needs to be managed, essentially another -bigger- problem to be dealt with than small-scale douchebaggery and office politicking.

The reason why I disain commentators like Sterling so much is that to them this is manna-from-heaven. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain from inflaming the situation. They don't care how people who's only connection to the furore is sharing the same employer are going to suffer as a result because all they do is sit-back and effect an attitude of moral superiority within a limited narrative of their own creation.

 

[Nobody_Important]

Good. Maybe something will actually be done now.

 

[CGiRanger]

Here's my thing: Irrespective of the truth and extent of the allegations what actually does it all mean? That there are some bad actors within a company with multiple sites and ~10,000 employees should not come as a surprise to anyone.

If there is actual criminality taking place then lets just let the legal system do its thing. Outrage and boycotts achieve nothing. Hand wringing and all the other forms of recreational outrage are empty and performative and masturbatory.

Noone is getting "saved". Protest isn't going to impact Bobby Kotick's immense wealth, and any loss of earnings is just going to be mitigated by staff deemed to be less contributory to the profit imperative getting purged.

What's worse the future likelihood of the company and its product becoming consequentially better is nil. Getting a rep for treating female employees badly is not going to encourage candidates to apply, meaning that any equity initiative is really going to have to lower the bar to make the quotas. Any remedies instituted will very likely over-correct in order to assure no recurrence in the short-term, resulting in problems of their own as people find themselves walking on eggshells so as not to run afoul of the new zero-tolerance regime.

I'm not suggesting that such issue should be "given a pass", just that when they become primarily PR spectacles it just makes things worse because it becomes less about taking remedial action than about giving the impression of reactivity and responsibility in the public domain. It creates a "mob" than then needs to be managed, essentially another -bigger- problem to be dealt with than small-scale douchebaggery and office politicking.

The reason why I disain commentators like Sterling so much is that to them this is manna-from-heaven. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain from inflaming the situation. They don't care how people who's only connection to the furore is sharing the same employer are going to suffer as a result because all they do is sit-back and effect an attitude of moral superiority within a limited narrative of their own creation.

This is why I loved Asmongold's response, because he basically said let the legal process play out and stop harassing the other Blizzard workers or supporters/streamers in the mob witch-hunt.

Also what gets me again is California's case and how, from the video i linked before of the analysis of the complaint, this is NOT a harassment case, and even isn't a case filed by the AG's office. This is primarily a compensation case (the opening paragraphs make that clear with how Activision "hasn't done enough to level the playing field") with the harassment stuff being added on for seemingly this sort of effect of leverage (riling up the media/fans and putting internal pressure within the company)

As you pointed out, there's no doubt some very bad apples in this organization of almost 10000 people, and whether HR handled things in the most appropriate manner. Problem is we have few details on when/where and who, aside from one named person in the brief (who wasn't even being sued or one of the 10 JD's who haven't been named yet). That's why at least, we need to wait for more details, but of course, people like Sterling and such will capitalize on this for their own benefit.

 

[Kenpachii]

This could not have happened at a worse time for WoW lol. Even without this lawsuit WoW needed a herculean effort by the devs to actually recover. They will be sub 1 million players if 9.2 doesn't drop until next year.

Na, they should keep the servers up let it bleed and then make another mmo based on the wow engine. Perfect time.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

This is why I loved Asmongold's response, because he basically said let the legal process play out and stop harassing the other Blizzard workers or supporters/streamers in the mob witch-hunt.

Also what gets me again is California's case and how, from the video i linked before of the analysis of the complaint, this is NOT a harassment case, and even isn't a case filed by the AG's office. This is primarily a compensation case (the opening paragraphs make that clear with how Activision "hasn't done enough to level the playing field") with the harassment stuff being added on for seemingly this sort of effect of leverage (riling up the media/fans and putting internal pressure within the company)

As you pointed out, there's no doubt some very bad apples in this organization of almost 10000 people, and whether HR handled things in the most appropriate manner. Problem is we have few details on when/where and who, aside from one named person in the brief (who wasn't even being sued or one of the 10 JD's who haven't been named yet). That's why at least, we need to wait for more details, but of course, people like Sterling and such will capitalize on this for their own benefit.

Where there's smoke there's fire. But sometimes it's just smoke.

My work had someone make a sexual harassment claim herself years ago. She did it because she was the firing line. It took months of many people getting involved and end of day she BS'ed the whole thing looking for a pay out. Everyone else involved (including the accused guy) were fine and stayed.

She still got fired. LOL

People have a knack for believing victims more than the accused. I'm no lawyer, so I dont know what the real life conviction rate is for accused whether it's low or maybe it is sky high and accuseds are guilty most of the time. I don't know. But chill out and wait.

As you said Activision is a 10,000 employee company. I cant wait to see how much proof of systemic harassment and boy's club culture there is across 10,000 and 40 years of existence. The victims make it sound like every dude is a horn dog Jack Tripper and every female is Mother Theresa.

 

[captainnapalm]

Some of the stories of what's supposedly going on are just cartoonishly evil. I find it very hard to believe that any functioning business - much less a major corporation - could have a permissive attitude towards that kind of behaviour or in any way enable it. So I'm more inclined to think that these are just isolated incidents of people behaving badly being inflated to make it seem like it was an accepted part of the culture. The motive I guess being financial as people are looking for a big payday here. And playing a victim on Twitter is basically a career move these days.

I saw in their response Blizzard was like 'This is why businesses are leaving California' and there may be something to that. But who knows.

 

[Hari Seldon]

Na, they should keep the servers up let it bleed and then make another mmo based on the wow engine. Perfect time.

Yeah they need something that drastic, but how can they even do that with the current leadership? They should use this opportunity, at a minimum, to completely clean house of all senior executives and managers. But if you are going to do that, why not just sell the IP or Blizzard itself?

 

[Warnen]

1st time I’ve been happy Bungie and Activison parted ways.

 

[Reallink]

That's seriously skirting the lines of "But technically.." as much possible. It may not be directly related to the harrassment/abuse, but it ain't hard to see how people that are fine oversexualizing characters (and just women, at that) could disregard or even engage in the type discrimination and demeaning of women that was allowed to breed there.

At the very least, don't pretend like they're completely, impossibly unrelated.

99.9% of people actively seek out "smut" featuring scantily clad hyper attractive individuals. Men with either pornography or softcore swimsuit/yogapant modeling, women with shirtless banana hammock reality tv dating shows, romance dramas/novels, and instagram models. Does that fact imply 99.9% of people are disciminatory, demeaning, sexual predators? By your logic, yes.

 

[Cyberpunkd]

What a dumb reason to commit suicide over. She should have been happy her nudes were passed around by all the dudes in the office.

Sorry but I see nothing "fucked up" here.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

World of Final Fantasy XIV moar liek

 

[Tg89]

Just an absolute shame, prime example of what happens when you just become too big of a machine.

A company that made some of the greatest games of all time, absolute landmarks in the industry like Diablo II/LoD, StarCraft/Brood War, Warcraft II-III, WoW/BC/kinda WotLK. Arguably side by side with Valve as companies that were synonymous with PC/multiplayer gaming. At one point easily my favourite developer with some of my favourite franchises whose games I'd buy day one without a second thought/regret. All of that reduced to this.

 

[Interfectum]

Just an absolute shame, prime example of what happens when you just become too big of a machine.

A company that made some of the greatest games of all time, absolute landmarks in the industry like Diablo II/LoD, StarCraft/Brood War, Warcraft II-III, WoW/BC/kinda WotLK. Arguably side by side with Valve as companies that were synonymous with PC/multiplayer gaming. At one point easily my favourite developer with some of my favourite franchises whose games I'd buy day one without a second thought/regret. All of that reduced to this.

Yup, one of the few companies I'd buy sight unseen. Just wait until we see how much Blizzard is ravaged after the result of this lawsuit. What little talent they have left will totally gtfo and head for the hills.

 

[Great Hair]

Sony should buy them up.

Why?

Their games are already multiplatform. Sony will get them without having to pay for. This makes no sense.

 

[Rentahamster]

Functionally the same lol

 

[Cyberpunkd]

I cannot take a company and people working there seriously, when this happens:

"Activision’s response to this is currently taking a group of world-class developers and making them so mad and traumatized they’re rendered unable to keep making a great game."

Videogame industry is truly a Snowflake Central.

 

[ManaByte]

 

[oagboghi2]

What a dumb reason to commit suicide over. She should have been happy her nudes were passed around by all the dudes in the office.

Sorry but I see nothing "fucked up" here.

You know, you don't always have to be a contraian.

Especially when you find yourself dismissing suicide. Maybe step back and use your brain for a second.

 

[VN1X]

Interesting to see that it has a 100 million player base. getting very close to steam.

Not exactly an impressive feat for the launcher itself considering the the massive franchises it is home to. EGS would probably have similar numbers and that client is just a glorified Fortnite portal.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

If this accusation is true and Activision gets grilled up the ass, I hope Activision/Blizzard employees brush up their resumes. Bad PR may dampen sales and profits. And quickest way to make it back is to cut people. Bobby Kotick isnt going anywhere.

I hope it's worth it for the Activision people still working there.

 

[Halo is Back]

What a dumb reason to commit suicide over. She should have been happy her nudes were passed around by all the dudes in the office.

Sorry but I see nothing "fucked up" here.

 

[Clear]

If this accusation is true and Activision gets grilled up the ass, I hope Activision/Blizzard employees brush up their resumes. Bad PR may dampen sales and profits. And quickest way to make it back is to cut people. Bobby Kotick isnt going anywhere.

I hope it's worth it for the Activision people still working there.

Honestly I'm struggling to get past how much cancel culture plays into the way that this law-suit is being handled. I mean if you were looking to hurt Activision, this is how you'd craft a complaint. The coercive power of this becoming a public scandal in today's cultural climate cannot be understated. Its a "me-too" moment on a corporate and state scale, and the consequential threat of "cancellation" is equally huge.

Judging from Hoeg Law's analysis there's a strong suggestion that the complaint, legally-speaking, is quite a stretch. In the sense that the allegation that Activision is knowing and wilful in allowing these things to happen, will be extraordinarily difficult to prove in court. Hence they've juiced up the suit with a lot of salacious detail, knowing that this would leak and cause an unstoppable wave of negative public opinion that would force Activision to the bargaining table.

Its shockingly indefensible outside of full disclosure in open court. Who's going to defend a company over charges like this when similar allegations with no legal investigation whatsoever have been proven sufficient to destroy via cancellation numerous individuals within the games industry already?

Of course certain current employees are going to come out of the woodwork to prove their progressive bona-fides by showing their allyship with the struggle on Twitter! Of course former employees and exec's are going to pick the safe-lane of "believe women" and express how (of course) they'd never, ever be associated with such things... because they are clearly terrified at the prospect of getting drawn into the shit-storm themselves.

I don't like Activision. I really don't. However it feels to me like this whole thing is a circus set up by powerful forces who also really don't like Activision and are looking to shake them down for a huge amount of money.

The best way I can describe it is to say that it seems out of character. Activision are really corporate. If they want to get their way they are going to use the threat of their legal might to cow you into submission. With that sort of mindset it seems improbable to me that they'd not do their utmost to cover their asses legally in this area, especially when its standard practice to do so within corporate culture.

Its not like there's a profit imperative to any of this either. Adequate HR oversight and safeguarding is not especially expensive to implement - its basically insurance against this precise sort of thing. Bottom line being; Activision may be evil, but I've always thought of them being extremely competent in their evil!

 

[Hinedorf]

If Diablo 4 delivers as the best Diablo game ever made, all will be forgotten, the game will sell massive numbers and nobody will care about past grievances.

They've been "negotiating" on what is clearly in many was a criminal investigation and were shocked DEFH went ahead with charges.
****TRANSLATED****
We were so sloppy we got caught with our pants down and in hopes of wiping the cocaine smear off our nose we thought it would all go away, but they just found the strippers dead body in the trunk.

2 years of investigations and this is where we're at. Ask yourself is there a video game good enough to make you forget about despicable treatment of humans in real life? Should be Diablo 4's game trailer at this point.

 

[[Sigma]]

 

[Dusktildawn48]

Holy shit, did we start accepting thirteen year olds like Gamefaqs? What an awful take, ROFL.

If you wanted to be a dick but wanted to seem old and wise instead of preteen know it all, you should have gone with something like...

"If she didn't take nude pictures, there wouldn't be any to go around the office!"

Somehow that dumbfuck isn't banned yet.

 

[CitizenZ]

Stock has barely moved so we will see.

 

[Nobody_Important]

Came to post this. Asmon once again on point on a critical issue.

 

[ULTROS!]

I cannot take a company and people working there seriously, when this happens:


Western Videogame industry is truly a Snowflake Central.

Fixed that for you

 

[IYAOYAS2019]

Fixed that for you

My apologies for using this particular site as a source but...

Japanese Game Developer Apparently Harassed So Much, She Attempted Suicide

In 2009, a twenty-something female joined Osaka-based game developer Capcom. The new employee was assigned to a couple of different games before becoming a member of the team developing Dragon's Dogma, Capcom's upcoming big budget title.

kotaku.com

 

[Tg89]

If Diablo 4 delivers as the best Diablo game ever made, all will be forgotten, the game will sell massive numbers and nobody will care about past grievances.

Absolutely 0 chance that the talent/management currently at Blizzard could make a game that even comes close to LoD. D2R will be the last great blizzard game.

 

[Velius]

except they'd all be having a laugh at your expense, which is why you harbor all this resentment. you'll figure it out

Insults by themselves aren't funny. Just firing off dumb bullshit like "Hurr, you're stupid, and you're a doo-doo head" just reeks of desperation.

I mean I think what he said is insensitive but jesus write some stuff down and vet it first

 

[Velius]

Pretty much what I suspected. Its a shakedown, which is why they are leaning so heavily on salacious details in order to embarrass Activision in the court of public opinion. In that regard I don't see this is a thing that Activision will be able to settle, they'll have to fight it in court or get the suit dropped via back-channel politicking. i.e. Bobbo will have words with someone high up and make it clear in no uncertain terms that if this doesn't quietly go away they will pull their business out of state.

No joke. Personally, I really do not like Activision because of past business experiences*, and to be honest it'd tickle me were they to get proper taste of their own medicine!

However, after listening to the analysis of the complaint it seems piss weak as anything but a leveraging tool. As he points out, the threat is one of further discovery digging more dirt up. However I'd suspect that its not going to stick because Activision are rich enough to weather a lengthy process, and have had literally years to analyse and expunge their records of anything too incriminating (were it to be there to be found).

Bottom line, I doubt there's going to be proof of systemic discrimination, even if I expect there to be ample evidence of cliques and cronyism within the organization. I doubt there's anything specifically gendered about this, its just the usual corporate douchebaggery in a business that was for most of its existence a predominantly male-interest field. No matter how things have progressed in recent times, that history remains in play in terms of the demographics of the more senior staff.

*Which I'd love to talk about, but for obvious reasons I'd rather not to get into. Just let it be said that I've heard first hand from MD's of companies I've been employed by quite how ruthless Activision can be in business.

This happens a lot these days. People are such reactionary, impulsive creatures. They don't take the time to think about how something could unravel. They don't stop to think about how exaggerating, flat out lying or otherwise misrepresenting things could cause their banner to lose momentum and lose it fast.

When I started looking into this, and seeing all the "evidence" which was mostly just heresay it reminded me a lot of when all the Trumpers were saying that "the kraken" would be released over the supposed election steal. They were touting "oh my GOD these are SWORN TESTIMONIES!" The girl killing herself should be investigated and I don't really see any reason to think it won't be. But if it turns out that she entered into a relationship with someone and people caught wind of it, you have a very time getting any kind of conviction or money out of it, which is what I'm assuming is the only thing that would satisfy people.

And when they started talking about income disparity I just laughed. Like that's not every corporation in this fucking country.

 

[ShadowLag]

Absolutely 0 chance that the talent/management currently at Blizzard could make a game that even comes close to LoD. D2R will be the last great blizzard game.

And Vicarious Visions made it, not Blizzard

 

[Velius]

Can we vote on a thread ban?

Also you might want to educate yourself: https://www.brandeis.edu/investigat...icles/beiner-sexy-dressing-revisited-2007.pdf

Same principle applies.

If you want to suppress the voices of those with whom you disagree rather than discuss, parse and correct them, you're in the wrong forum. You know where to go