• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Activision Blizzard Sued By California Over ‘Frat Boy’ Culture

ManaByte

Member
0IgQgGD.jpg


What have sexy fictional characters to do with workplace harassment?
I hate it when journalists use traumatic events in order to push their own narratives.

It's a "gotcha" cancellation tactic. Basically like digging up a 10 year old joke tweet and replying with "this you?" to try to get a mob going.
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
0IgQgGD.jpg


What have sexy fictional characters to do with workplace harassment?
I hate it when journalists use traumatic events in order to push their own narratives.

Wow, that's one way to characterize those events... She says the characters look like they walked out of a Victoria's Secret catalogue (well, 2010... definitely not a 2021 edition) and he jokes by saying he wants to look into adding more variety so they look like they walked out of other catalogs, too.
 

Caffeine

Member
Asmongold continues to be a real stand-up guy through this. It really is shameful how he was treated by some Blizzard employees, and yet here he is coming to their defense on an individual level

well not everyone over there is a harasser some of them are victims, there are still good people working there that have nothing to do with this shit, and are working to make games.
 

CGiRanger

Banned
Wow, that's one way to characterize those events... She says the characters look like they walked out of a Victoria's Secret catalogue (well, 2010... definitely not a 2021 edition) and he jokes by saying he wants to look into adding more variety so they look like they walked out of other catalogs, too.
I thought it was a fun tongue-in-cheek way to respond to a ridiculously exaggerated comment. For people who'd whine how it was "Not professional" now are the same ones who rock pronouns, colored hair and twitter porn on their accounts (like that former Insomniac artist thread).

But of course, the shills and dishonest jackals like Scrier are always eager to pounce and prop up their own talking point agendas
 

12Goblins

Lil’ Gobbie
Since I'm not a cunt bitch, yes. I'd love for a bunch of woman to critique my nuts.

If I wanted to account suicide on this forum right now I'd post my nuts right now and make all you mofo's look at it.

except they'd all be having a laugh at your expense, which is why you harbor all this resentment. you'll figure it out
 
don't play WOW and most of ActiBliz games these days. only one I would play occasionally is Overwatch, and only because I have a friend who plays it from time to time and like to drag me on to play and shoot the shit. before, it was sad to see the company we used to love so much had fallen to the state it is now, but this is especially bad to the point of disgusting. I would like to think that some of those charges might be blown out of proportion, but with all the verified former Blizzard employees speaking out on the subject, it might be too optimistic to think that way
 

rkofan87

Gold Member
I thought it was a fun tongue-in-cheek way to respond to a ridiculously exaggerated comment. For people who'd whine how it was "Not professional" now are the same ones who rock pronouns, colored hair and twitter porn on their accounts (like that former Insomniac artist thread).

But of course, the shills and dishonest jackals like Scrier are always eager to pounce and prop up their own talking point agendas
and the same ones who called the diablo immortal haters entitled.
 

Vaelka

Member
0IgQgGD.jpg


What have sexy fictional characters to do with workplace harassment?
I hate it when journalists use traumatic events in order to push their own narratives.

The thing that irritates me the most about this is that then people like Neil Druckmann and other game journalists get to judge female characters solely on how they look and nothing else, but then they have a mental breakdown about JAB saying '' can you imagine Sylvanas looking any other way? ''.

Like y'all fucking hypocrite morons judge female characters based on appearance all the time, and now they're getting up on their high horse?
I don't even disagree that the answer was poorly handled, but it really makes me legit mad to see the same people who essentially say the same thing and make the same judgements that they complain about themselves.
Jason Schreier included.


And '' OVERsexualizing ''?
I've even seen HYPERsexualized thrown around...
We're talking about exposed belly here, in a game full of men who run around into battle with their shirts off.
Are we really at the point where belly on women equates to HYPERSEXUALIZATION?
 

ManaByte

Member
The thing that irritates me the most about this is that then people like Neil Druckmann and other game journalists get to judge female characters solely on how they look and nothing else, but then they have a mental breakdown about JAB saying '' can you imagine Sylvanas looking any other way? ''.

Like y'all fucking hypocrite morons judge female characters based on appearance all the time, and now they're getting up on their high horse?
I don't even disagree that the answer was poorly handled, but it really makes me legit mad to see the same people who essentially say the same thing and make the same judgements that they complain about themselves.
Jason Schreier included.


And '' OVERsexualizing ''?
I've even seen HYPERsexualized thrown around...
We're talking about exposed belly here, in a game full of men who run around into battle with their shirts off.
Are we really at the point where belly on women equates to HYPERSEXUALIZATION?

Remember the Dragon's Crown meltdown (and pwnage)?
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
The thing that irritates me the most about this is that then people like Neil Druckmann and other game journalists get to judge female characters solely on how they look and nothing else, but then they have a mental breakdown about JAB saying '' can you imagine Sylvanas looking any other way? ''.

Like y'all fucking hypocrite morons judge female characters based on appearance all the time, and now they're getting up on their high horse?
I don't even disagree that the answer was poorly handled, but it really makes me legit mad to see the same people who essentially say the same thing and make the same judgements that they complain about themselves.
Jason Schreier included.


And '' OVERsexualizing ''?
I've even seen HYPERsexualized thrown around...
We're talking about exposed belly here, in a game full of men who run around into battle with their shirts off.
Are we really at the point where belly on women equates to HYPERSEXUALIZATION?

These people operate on ayatollah logic.
 
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.
I mean she killed herself, that's pretty fucked up. I don't know why people send nudes to co workers. I don't think there was ever a time where shit like that didn't spread around to people.
 

ryan13ts

Member
0IgQgGD.jpg


What have sexy fictional characters to do with workplace harassment?
I hate it when journalists use traumatic events in order to push their own narratives.

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.
 
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.

No, that is absolutely not how it works.

That's like saying playing violent video games turn you into a violent person.
Most people can separate fact from fiction, otherwise we'd all be frikkin' murderers on this forum.

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

Yes, 100% of people who don't breathe die and 100% of people who breathe die also.
Correlating does not equal causation.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
This I thought was a thorough yet simple breakdown of things from a legal perspective.


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.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
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.
The company started out 40 years ago with probably 10 people. It's now (according to google), 9,500 employees.

Anyone claiming the company has systemic frat boy discrimination and culture shock better get a big notepad ready and prove it because some bad eggs here and there does not equate to a solidified corporate culture of stupidity.

I've worked for companies that had many people hooking up and even had cheating with a third coworker, and one place a friend worked at had a married guy get a single woman pregnant, which he then got canned. These are isolated cases, as opposed to companies stereotyped as Tinder 2.0. And these are just Canadian offices with a few hundred people. Things happen.

However, social media dirt diggers looking for clicks have zero repercussions for sensationalist "journalism" as they claim to be. So like sports writers slinging random trade rumours they claim will happen (which rarely do), you can basically wing it and say anything.

When social media whores rely on clicks, sub count and ad revenue for make a living, they'll say anything and sell you out to make a buck.

If you had a messy divorce, you can trust some people to tell. Social media site game whores get hold of that info and if they dont like you they'll post it reddit and try to dox your info from your linkedin account.
 
Last edited:

CGiRanger

Banned
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.
What rubbed me the wrong way about the document was on the first page and how they phrased their opening statement as well. It sucks because it to me makes this more of a sham than it should be given the seriousness of the allegations. But they basically claim that the company isn't catering to women enough despite their woke DEI BS:
gQcdAj4.png

Look at that wording "Women and girls now make up almost half of gamers in America, but the gaming industry continues to cater to men, even in California"

And look at their citations for all this wordage:
D9ypZMn.png

It cites freaking GamerGate articles (such as the NYT Anita Sarkeesian fluff piece) and other bullshit.
 
Last edited:

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
What rubbed me the wrong way about the document was on the first page and how they phrased their opening statement as well. It sucks because it to me makes this more of a sham than it should be given the seriousness of the allegations. But they basically claim that the company isn't catering to women enough despite their woke DEI BS:
gQcdAj4.png

Look at that wording "Women and girls now make up almost half of gamers in America, but the gaming industry continues to cater to men, even in California"

And look at their citations for all this wordage:
D9ypZMn.png

It cites freaking GamerGate articles (such as the NYT Anita Sarkeesian fluff piece) and other bullshit.
The top paragraph means absolutely nothing, but filler.

It's like saying your local cable tv company is sexist because half the people who use tv and internet are women but the cable technicians driving vans across town are 99% guys.

Now if they can provide proof Activision management has supported bad corporate culture, piss poor policies, ignoring good policies, and there's proof of dudes doing dumb things and not getting punished then we'll talk.

One of the sentences of double digit growth, giant revenues and diversity marketing are UNFORUNATELY changed little. Doesn't even make sense. These are bad things?
 
Last edited:

CitizenZ

Banned
The top paragraph means absolutely nothing, but filler.

It's like saying your local cable tv company is sexist because half the people who use tv and internet are women but the cable technicians driving vans across town are 99% guys.

Now if they can provide proof Activision management has supported bad corporate culture, piss poor policies, ignoring good policies, and there's proof of dudes doing dumb things and not getting punished then we'll talk.

One of the sentences of double digit growth, giant revenues and diversity marketing are UNFORUNATELY changed little. Doesn't even make sense. These are bad things?

Reminder Cal. , basically a communist state at this point, MAKES you have diversity on your BOD. When you start hiring based on anything other than talent and experience you are setting yourself up for nothing but failure and in most case laughter.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Reminder Cal. , basically a communist state at this point, MAKES you have diversity on your BOD. When you start hiring based on anything other than talent and experience you are setting yourself up for nothing but failure and in most case laughter.
LOL. What a shit state. At least they got good weather and had godly 90210 and Melrose Place based out of it.
 

ManaByte

Member
Mike Morhaime responds
I have read the full complaint against Activision Blizzard and many of the other stories. It is all very disturbing and difficult to read. I am ashamed. It feels like everything I thought I stood for has been washed away. What’s worse but even more important, real people have been harmed, and some women had terrible experiences.


I was at Blizzard for 28 years. During that time, I tried very hard to create an environment that was safe and welcoming for people of all genders and backgrounds. I knew that it was not perfect, but clearly we were far from that goal. The fact that so many women were mistreated and were not supported means we let them down. In addition, we did not succeed in making it feel safe for people to tell their truth. It is no consolation that other companies have faced similar challenges. I wanted us to be different, better.

Harassment and discrimination exist. They are prevalent in our industry. It is the responsibility of leadership to keep all employees feeling safe, supported, and treated equitably, regardless of gender and background. It is the responsibility of leadership to stamp out toxicity and harassment in any form, across all levels of the company. To the Blizzard women who experienced any of these things, I am extremely sorry that I failed you.

I realize that these are just words, but I wanted to acknowledge the women who had awful experiences. I hear you, I believe you, and I am so sorry to have let you down. I want to hear your stories, if you are willing to share them. As a leader in our industry, I can and will use my influence to help drive positive change and to combat misogyny, discrimination, and harassment wherever I can. I believe we can do better, and I believe the gaming industry can be a place where women and minorities are welcomed, included, supported, recognized, rewarded, and ultimately unimpeded from the opportunity to make the types of contributions that all of us join this industry to make. I want the mark I leave on this industry to be something that we can all be proud of.
 
Last edited:

CGiRanger

Banned
Mike Morhaime responds
So many empty buzzwords in that statement, you really gotta read from the right scripts these days. It's not simple enough to just say "harassment of any kind is wrong", gotta prostrate oneself and say how they gotta be "equitable" yet again.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
The odd thing for me is that from a corporate governance standpoint there is absolutely no upside to allowing discriminatory practices to take place. Its just a liability waiting to happen.

My experience is that corporate "evil" is almost always underpinned by a profit motive, and the emotional way complaints like these are couched have no such component. For example, if they can systematically underpay women to perform the same work as their male colleagues why aren't they hiring more of them? The obvious analog being that when labour can be outsourced or passed off onto minimum-wage/temp staff they aren't shy about doing that wholesale are they?!?

To an extent I can see diversity hiring practices actively feeding the issue; because if you hire based on gender/ethnicity over (career) experience, that really ought to be reflected in the pay structure. Especially so as more time-served candidates will likely show benefits of their experience in knowing their market worth, as expressed in negotiating an initial salary and knowing how to ascend the slippery pole of corporate office politics.

The reality is that talent doesn't mean shit. What matters is how good or bad the individual is at playing the social "game" of the business environment. If the key to progression is getting an invite to the boss's weekend poker game, then you need to ingratiate yourself sufficiently to get an invite, then network like a little whore once you're in. Because if you have the support above you in the hierarchy then you have the tools in place to bury/offset the blame on anything that goes wrong, and allies to back you when you succeed based on no merit of your own! This is the fertile soil that allows people to "fail upwards".
 
Last edited:

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Jason should really get fucked, if he knew about this and said nothing. He post milions articles on crunch and somewhat, as a insider didn't know about this. Either he is lying about his connections or he didn't want to come further. Again biggest weasel in the industry.

Also fuck Kotick, Blizzard, Activision and CCP:
 

Kenpachii

Member
The odd thing for me is that from a corporate governance standpoint there is absolutely no upside to allowing discriminatory practices to take place. Its just a liability waiting to happen.

My experience is that corporate "evil" is almost always underpinned by a profit motive, and the emotional way complaints like these are couched have no such component. For example, if they can systematically underpay women to perform the same work as their male colleagues why aren't they hiring more of them? The obvious analog being that when labour can be outsourced or passed off onto minimum-wage/temp staff they aren't shy about doing that wholesale are they?!?

To an extent I can see diversity hiring practices actively feeding the issue; because if you hire based on gender/ethnicity over (career) experience, that really ought to be reflected in the pay structure. Especially so as more time-served candidates will likely show benefits of their experience in knowing their market worth, as expressed in negotiating an initial salary and knowing how to ascend the slippery pole of corporate office politics.

The reality is that talent doesn't mean shit. What matters is how good or bad the individual is at playing the social "game" of the business environment. If the key to progression is getting an invite to the boss's weekend poker game, then you need to ingratiate yourself sufficiently to get an invite, then network like a little whore once you're in. Because if you have the support above you in the hierarchy then you have the tools in place to bury/offset the blame on anything that goes wrong, and allies to back you when you succeed based on no merit of your own! This is the fertile soil that allows people to "fail upwards".

This is what i noticed in IT companys

They wanna hire woman, but can't find them.
Woman always underperform through getting jobs based on there sex and quota's rather then skill
Woman stop working after x period of time and focus more on family which investing in woman is less interesting ( even university's camp with this problem where most woman simple fall off in the market job to get kids and bail out of the market entirely = waste ).
Picking up kids at daycare is mostly woman activity still today, they plan there work around the day, not there day around there work big difference here.
Woman work shorter because kids
Woman get pregnant = long period of time gone still gotta pay. ( they leave school trajection late and kids follow not long after, huge burden for the company ).
Lots of competition for company's to hire woman to fill quota's, but they never go anywhere or move away.

Males u don't have this problem.

I worked on a IT department of the biggest construction company headquarters in my country, 50k people strong. And the only thing i saw was 1 girl in the entire tech industry, even on my eduction no girls where found that day. The one chick that was there left soon after as she married a guy from some other department and called it quits to focus on her upcoming kid and some other stuff. Not like anybody cared, as she was god awful at her job.

Now don't get me wrong, there are woman who will do the job and will push themselves forwards and more woman move into tech but the chance of finding one was as rare as a unicorn in some segments that would stay and perform like a male.

Just saying as a government get 50% of your labor being woman is laughable idiotic because u can't even find them and the moment u do find some u can't even keep them. U straight up gotta start bidding wars and for what? some imaginairy quota they don't even care about?

And this is not just IT, this is for a lot industry even lawyers. Very very few female lawyers are found that go the extra mile to move upwards in the same manner. The higher the salary's go, the less likely woman will stick for the simple reason, they marry a guy with good income and call it quits to focus on more important things in there life called kids and finding there own "identity through hobby's".

Hell its even a big thing here with university's where they want to get rid of woman in certain segments because most of them will never be active in the work place. We have lots of girls that wil sit until they are 30 in school get there degree, find a guy marry and move out of it the next day to never been seen again. We had a chick in the netherlands that got huge flak for advertising how to play the market for just this and she gave zero fucks . Different priority's.

Now with blizzard, obviously there is going to be a bigger female male ratio for the simple fact that blizzard exists out of lots and lots and lots of departments that also have absolutely nothing to do with games itself. That will attract female employee's. I am also not shocked why there is this fratboy culture because i will not be shocked if there are entire departments existing only out of men because of the issue's i state above.

If California wants to change this, they need to start reprogramming woman or make things so attractive through subsidizing they rather stay at the work place then sit at home because company's sure as hell won't pay for it. but even then when u get higher up in the pay grade they will still leave. because at the end of the day woman work differently and have different priority's.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom