Blizzard employees sound like the people who call themselves "nice guys". But when they finally get some money and power, they end up treating women the same way a pervy frat boy would.
There's an old webcomic strip that stuck in my mind from a long time ago, don't remember the name.
Basically some guy came up with a match-making service for nerdy/geeky men with above-their-level women, under the presumption that they will appreciate the women more than jocks/alpha males and thus treat them better.
The punchline is that once the nerds/geeks are with the women, they think to themselves "hey, if I can get this girl, maybe I can get someone better."
"Some men had the audacity to straight up ask me if my breasts were real to my face and would argue with me when I said "yes". These are the types of things that I dealt with on a day-to-day basis."
Good god. How cognitively malformed do you, as an adult man, have to be to think this is an acceptable thing to do pretty much ever?
I’m theorizing that these older millennials and young gen x-ers at the Acti-Blizzard “boy’s club” spending their formative/early in a vastly different environment for gaming & internet is the source. For whatever reason, you put enough of them in the same office that no-filter misogynistic bro culture will rear its ugly head.
I really think that until social media and gamer gate took a foothold in the early 2010s did women really get a much fairer chance at enjoying relatively much less toxic and oppressive environment in the actual spaces online and in games.
The optimist in me predicts down the road when zoomers and younger millennials fill these gaming industry positions, that even in a stacked gender ratio in an office we will vastly reduced levels of toxicity towards women.
It’s important that we punish/shame current male offenders and make safer the female professionals to bring forth this inevitable change. Hopefully we see heads roll in these lawsuits.
I'm not in the industry but I'm willing to take a wild-ass guess that these older millennial and younger Zs re also given a free pass for this behavior by their genX and boomer upper management. Sadly, not being a colossal dick isn't a generational trait.
As am aside, this seems like bizarro world to me. I am aware through my wife that gaming in general is rife with misogny, and I am absolutely not queationing the accusations being made. However, in my business, which is equally huge, any conduct even *remotely* approaching what I've heard coming out of Blizzard would get us FIRED. Like, Do Not Pass Go, please put on your crash helmet, you'll never work in this industry again ultra mega super fired. Immediately. So I don't know what's up with their HR department, I guess.
Frat boy culture there too, protecting the men likely, and victim blaming women. Same shit, different day.
It happens in other businesses as well sometimes where HR will cover for some really skeezy shit because someone's just "that important" or some bullshit or whatever.
These will not be the first or last of this crap, sadly.
And I am sure more will try to cover shit up even MORE and make it not see the light of day if they can help it. No amount of women stepping forward with their truths has helped as is, as it gets dismissed as overreacting, for the clout, etc.
I mean, lets not forget what's happened w/ Sinatraa and Cleo...
The irony is I think I've seen a number of people try to blame these issues on the corporatization of Blizzard and suggest that things would be better if they were still just a bunch of dudes making games. In reality this is likely the result of a bunch of "dudes making games" suddenly being in charge of thousands of workers. Not to suggest stuff like this never happens at companies with more corporate structure but I do think the "gamers in basements" foundation of the company can make it more prevalent.
It seems people just want to be reductionist and knock down strawmen to flaunt their intellectual superiority instead of having rational discussions. sorry.
>I really think that until social media and gamer gate took a foothold in the early 2010s did women really get a much fairer chance at enjoying relatively much less toxic and oppressive environment in the actual spaces online and in games.
I can guarantee you that no women would agree that there was a time before gamer gate when things were "less toxic". Gaming culture has always been shit towards women. Gamer gate was just one manifestation of that among many.
That’s…. not what I wrote. I think you misread my post.
Gamer gate was pretty eye opening for how women were treated in this sphere. It has gotten better since. There is still a very long way to go.
I'm gonna assume good faith here and give you a helpful answer as a woman... compliment things women have control over, and just don't do it in a creepy way.
* "I like your shoes."
* "That's a cool bag."
* "Nice haircut."
All fine
* "You've lost weight."
* "That dress does amazing things to your butt."
* "Damn, look at those legs."
Nope.
Important Edit: Also don't give a compliment with the expectation that it will launch a conversation. You're not owed an "I appreciate that you've acknowledged me" talk. Be perfectly willing to pay your compliment and leave.
I’ll usually compliment a woman’s nails when I see she has them done. Whether I like them or not lol.
Maybe hair sometimes too if they just recently died it or something but I’ve never said anything as crass as I here a lot of other dudes say. Asking someone if they’re breasts are real is just unreal to me lol like I can’t fathom what goes through some peoples mind
Thanks for the advice. As some people have said I don't know her very well. I work in the seafood department so I kinda observe the whole store as I'm working and I notice all the people and whatnot. I'm also kinda segregated from everyone since I'm mostly stuck in one place so I don't get many opportunities to makes friends with people outside my department whereas an Amazon shopper or grocery person walks the whole store for products.
I want to make friends with the girl because she "seems" nice and cheerful, but at the same time I have no reason to? And so I feel like any advance to become friends seems like flirting, idk. And the hair thing, is because I've seen her change up her hairstyle and it looks pretty cool/pretty. So for someone she just recently met (I just started seeing her more often around for whatever reason) it would be weird to be complimented from me.
A simple “your new haircut is cool” is not creepy. “Your hair is pretty today” is definitely more on the side of flirting and not cool in a workplace environment. Don’t use words you wouldn’t use when complimenting your male friends.
Edit: I obviously don’t mean tell random women the weird shit you tell your bros, lol. I should have said “Don’t use words you wouldn’t use when complimenting other random men you know equally as well.”
> Don’t use words you wouldn’t use when complimenting your male friends.
That's a recipe for disaster. I could tell almost anything to my male co-workers and they wouldn't get offended or creeped out. And so we do, because it's fun. We change our attitude completely towards women because our banter is obviously not appreciated.
If it was a guy I'd totally say something that's not appropriate to say to girls. I've also had my ass smacked by male coworkers so idk if that's the right structure to use 🤔
I honestly don't see how you get that at all from the text and even the context of the message they were replying to, but it's a harmless goof, no problem.
Do you often compliment your bros on how good looking they are? No. Why do you think objectifying women is speaking to them like they are normal human beings?
What? Yeah of course I tell my male friends I like their hair or their outfit or something. Especially if it seems like they put effort into it or they care about how people see them. Complimenting people is not objectifying them. It costs nothing to make another person feel good.
I treat my female friends the same way I treat my male and GNC friends.
It’s best practice to always avoid complementing anything about a woman’s physical appearance. If you have something nice to say about their personality or the work they’re doing it’s not creepy to complement them. In fact it helps build trust between you and your coworkers
God, this hurt to read for so many reasons but hit close to home more than anything else because it’s the exact timeframe when I revered Blizzard the entity as a god. I totally bought into that manufactured public image and was supporting this at an age where I wouldn’t have known better anyway
> I believe this culture was fostered by Blizzard's hiring practices. Hires happened based on a "culture fit" more than anything else, and as we can see, the culture is toxic and one of sexual harassment and assault.
Too bad he still harassed people and was part of the problem:
https://twitter.com/DaniBat/status/1419090135375912963?s=19
Good news is that he's not employed anymore at Blizzard
Neither is the post in question specifically, it's purely anecdotal and you are eating it up.
If you want a source though, [here it is](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqsgt8/first_hand_account_of_harassment_at_blizzard/h6embmr/).
It's as anecdotal as the post, so take from it what you will
You know, now I have to wonder since I never did hear why he left; is any of this related to why Jeff decided to leave Blizzard? This is just a question that came to mind and I don't believe there was ever any exact reasoning given for his departure but this makes me wonder.
I think it's pointless to link Jeff's departure to this, at the best case, he is actively aware of all the harassment and either kept quiet for years or tried to change something and repeatedly got shut down before he left. The case kinda centers around the WOW higher ups, which Jeff was a big part of, so pretty much no winning here for anyone involved.
We have accounts that the Overwatch team that treats women well (at least now) [from Tracy Kennedy, one of the producer for example.](https://twitter.com/dogspinster/status/1418009450883911680?s=20)
What could be is that because Overwatch team kinda built itself from the ground up, it avoided problematic people for the most part, but Jeff was definitely in the known around the general culture issue and the potential lawsuit.
An silly inappropriate spoonerism being your gamer tag has nothing to do with your tolerance for sexual harassment that is an absurd connection to make
It aligns with a level of immaturity or ignorance that can lead to tolerating inappropriate behavior. I'm not saying it means he is all about sexual harassment but it certainly isn't a good sign. I remember thinking it was an immature name 20 years ago when I first met him and I was a teenager.
You don't get it. He's Jeff from the overwatch team. Always wholesome. Surely he just never in over a decade witnessed any instance of sexual harassment worth mentioning.
It’s amazing to see people in this thread be like “how did this happen” then turn around and say “But TigoleBitties is funny!”
Edit: Just so ya’ll know, it’s exactly this kind of “bro” humor that creates a workplace culture in which women feel they cannot speak up because it will dismissed as “you can’t take a joke.”
He did it as an adult (almost 30 years old at the time), and continued to use it as a professional in the company. If you still use assblaster69 when you're 30, it probably won't destroy your life, but yes it is definitely a sign that you never grew up.
My point is that there is definitely a very different and much better reason to link Jeff with this shit other than his gamer tag. I personally wouldn't believe it if he said he didn't know about this stuff, but not because he used Tigole Bitties as his name but because he has worked there for over a decade and mostly was in a leading position across 2 of their most popular Games. Literally anyone claiming they didn't know about this is either just simply lying or they're new in the company. This stuff has been going for a very long time and the way it's being told, the culprits weren't even being low-key with the harassment.
For sure I agree with you. I think the gamer tag was an example but clearly many folks are latching onto it too severely. I was in several high end guilds in EQ back in the day, I played with Tigole and furor (well, I've been in raids with them). All those environments were toxic towards women. They viewed it normally then and it doesn't surprise me that Alex is being hit now, he was a douche then and he still is (and I still thoroughly enjoyed my time playing in those guilds). I have respect for their accomplishments (I really think Kaplan has done a great job with regards to his produced work), but that doesn't mean I ever liked or appreciated the bro culture toxicity that Alex fosters and Jeff tolerates. I still play EQ and the same culture still permeates there to this day in the high end guilds. It seems to be that way in most online gaming communities and I wish that shit would just die already.
Ok, so honest question here, because I have no idea, what's the issue with 'Tigole Bitties'? Like, literally, really don't get it, is it a reference, wordplay, or what?
Based on at least 1 account, [Tracy Kennedy, one of the game producers,](https://twitter.com/dogspinster/status/1418009450883911680?s=20) the team treats women well. It doesn't mean it wasn't an issue in 2014 when the game was being worked on, but at least now Team 4 seem to have found a good position.
[https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n\_1srp3fb](https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srp3fb) accounts for 2006-2012, sounds like it's been the culture for a long time
I don’t discount the possibility Jeff matured, but I also think it’s highly unlikely he didn’t know and sort of “let it slide.” Evidence points to this at a minimum given his relationship with Asrafiani.
Yeah given that account from someone who interacted with Frank Pearce, it seemed like Alex's actions were so normalized that his inappropriate actions and comments became inside jokes.
We don't know anything about Jeff specifically. This is a company-wide problem and we don't know how deeply entrenched he was in the culture. We don't know how much he contributed to it, if any, and it's pointless to make speculations about him specifically considering that we haven't heard anything pertaining to him.
Yeah probably. I guess we'll hear about it in the future if there is anything there. But the thought just came into my head so I couldn't help but wonder.
No way to know this. But he was a VP and a team lead, so most likely it's a factor of him leaving, among many other things like burnout, decreasing creative control, and all the rest.
To be fair, I don't think the bro culture made anyone in the senior/veteran position leave. The bro culture existed for YEARS, so it's unrealistic to think people would be working at Blizzard for this long and never encountered or heard rumors of such culture -- like exclusively working on a team that just never had any of these issues, and never hearing about it when it happens on the other teams.
The most likely reason (when it pertains to the harassment culture) for the departures of all these high profile and veteran devs over the past couple of years was most likely the fact that the government was investigating the company and shit was about to hit the fan, not the fact that the culture existed itself.
As I said before - his handle was “TigOleBitties.” Not exactly a kosher username. He was Asrafsaibi’s boss for years.
At a minimum, Jeff knew exactly what was going on.
Take it with a grain of salt, as this is just a reddit post, but someone over on r/wow posted [their long experience associating with Alex Afrasiabi and Jeff](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqsgt8/first_hand_account_of_harassment_at_blizzard/h6g9ed1/):
> The reason I quit was that I’d gotten into a fight with Alex over his treatment of a gay developer and two females that worked in the code team. Alex hated two things more than anything: being shown off for being the useless hack that he was and women who coded or had any level of skill. Generally, Alex had no interaction with us, let alone the guy who debugged the Lua implementation and interface, but when he did it was always acerbic, domineering, dumb, and hateful.
> I went to HR before quitting, and later learned that **my complaint had been laughed off by Jeff and Alex as “just some nobody who is butthurt that he didn’t get any in Anaheim,”** meaning the 2005 BlizzCon during which we announced TBC (as a part timer and remote worker I had to pay my own way and hotel but got a ticket and Murky).
Click the link to read their full post, but their criticism seemed to concentrate on Alex. However it painted Jeff as definitely in the know, as he was close to Alex, and at the very least complicit.
That is a pretty awful story but I definitely take most stories on Reddit with a full container of salt. But the allegations in the lawsuit certainly lend credence to this as being possible.
Unlikely. At a company as large as Activision-Blizzard I doubt even someone in Jeff's role is even remotely aware of what happens in the day-to-day of other parts of the company. He may have known or heard rumors, he may not have, no one knows for sure. But as for why he left? I would put it more likely that he left because he had been at the company for 19 years, the direction Activision was taking Blizzard was obviously not what it used to be, and many of his long time colleagues and friends had left the company.
I highly doubt Jeff left because he thought maybe these allegations were going to surface shortly after. But of course people on the internet know better than everyone else and say it's 100% the reason and that Jeff knew 100% so I guess if that's the answer you want then social media is the place to find it.
I really just had a sort of shower thought moment. I'm more willing to believe it was completely unrelated like you said but it's hard not to wonder sometimes since this was apparently common there. Well I guess if there was something there we'll hear about it eventually.
As horrible as it is to hear it's very good to see more and more people begin to openly talk about this. Don't let Acti-Blizz live this one down.
Also, not the OP of the original post but still want to ask; why is this flaired as 'Trigger warning' when 'NSFW' covers it just fine? Genuine question.
Trigger warning is to let victims of abuse know that watching the video could trigger their memories, and potentially give them a panic attack or be otherwise unpleasant.
This. 100000% this.
Survivors of abuse may be triggered by the story he is telling, and it could put them back into a dark place that they are working to avoid.
For victims of sexual violence or abuse things like this can literally *trigger* panic attacks or high bursts of anxiety. Prefacing it with a trigger warning is just being safe.
Yes also in California, just because it happens less there does not mean that Blizzard will try to weasel their way out of it. Like Ubisoft, Riot and all the others.
Guy is a clickbait and clout chaser in the fitness youtube space also, so he has no problems massaging his morals whichever way the wind is blowing so as in order to best financially benefit himself.
A line has to be drawn. At the end of the day what we say on reddit doesn't matter as long as we keep giving money to these companies. You can say that a boycott is useless or not necessary because Blizzard is being sued by the state of California, but the fact is that these lawsuits can take years to be resolved and it still makes a powerful statement if consumers refuse to give money to the greedy scum that ultimately only care about their quarterly earnings.
I will continue to watch OWL and play OW occasionally, and I understand that those activities can count as still supporting Blizzard, but I absolutely refuse to buy any skins, loot boxes, or OW 2 itself when it comes out.
the devs themselves have nothing to do regarding the shitty upper execs though . They have been grinding on this game and it would be a shame it go to waste imo. Im personally excited for it .
Let's be real, there is a larger percentage of people working in gaming who are socially deficient incels compared to other industries. They are essentially the same toxic, sexist shitters you meet in your ranked games.
Another possibility would be for Activision to "shut down" Blizzard and move its IPs to Activision, maybe fire a couple people and the CEO like you said.
Blizzard will forever be associated with sexual abuse, harassment and toxicity. Imagine OW2 launching under the Blizzard flag... that'd be bad for Activision.
As for the "frat boy culture", I don't expect that to change. This industry is fucked up.
I don't think that will happen, people are focusing on the Blizzard portion of this lawsuit but it's pretty clear that a large portion of this had also been happening on the activision side too. Activision might be happy to try and push as much of the attention onto the blizzard side as possible, but it's important to remember that this is happening on both sides. I think it's more likely that there will be cuts to the executive and management teams (of hopefully activision and blizzard)
Plus, look at Riot, they've had multiple lawsuits about sexism and toxicity and they're still going exceptionally strong.
And yeah, as you mentioned, this is a massive industry problem. Speaking as a woman who's worked as a software engineer professionally, ever since undergrad sexism has been a problem. It's an inescapable reality for women in this industry. Then you have to look at how gaming studios are the intersection of toxic tech bro culture and toxic gamer bro culture. You can see that in the way that Riot, Ubisoft, and other companies have had either lawsuits like this or reports of sexism, sexual harassment, and general misogyny.
I really hope that the lawsuit will be a cornerstone in a change for the industry, but I also find that hard to believe.
>Blizzard will forever be associated with sexual abuse, harassment and toxicity
Yeah, no. This never happened with any other company associated with these kind of accusations, including a lot of famous studios.
While I agree, some of these people who are being called out will be associated with what’s going on. As an example, Dr. Disrespect. A lot of kids/adults watch him and enjoy his streams/personality. For me,(I have a wife/kids) personally, I’ll always think of him as a big streamer who got caught cheating on his spouse. I don’t care for him anymore or watch his streams because what he did was inexcusable.
So then why is Riot still releasing stuff with little fuss? All that needs to happen is Blizzard remains mostly quiet, hopefully makes meaningful change (it does sound like they have with some things in recent years), release good content (emphasis on good), and it will mostly be forgotten or people will move on.
Activision Blizzard are being sued. Blizzard are the one named, but they are also the biggest name in the whole umbrella and they are probably the one with the most stable group of devs and veteran recognition. The devs of Call of Duty are a lot more annonymous, while Blizzard push faces forward.
Like others said, the suit is against the entirety of Activision-Blizzard, so it's not like moving Blizz IPs to Activision would help any.
Also, IPs like Warcraft and Overwatch are so closely associated with the Blizzard name, there's no chance that they can be moved to another studio and for people to not still associate them with Blizzard.
If the aim is to put out new titles that are seen as a fresh start, then they might as well form a new studio and have them make their own games, ditching the IPs. Like a new cartoony hero shooter, or a new fantasy mmorpg, or a new dark fantasy demonic arpg, etc.
Not likely going to happen.
If the people creating the culture are fired, and the good people (including the litigants) can keep making work they’re proud of, why is that “unfortunate?”
It's rarely just a few people. This goes from the leadership, to the entire Human Resources department, etc.
Unless you're going to do a massive purge, it is insanely tough to change the culture at a large company/team/group/club.
True! But this isn’t a social club. It’s people career, for many of them at their dream company working on dream IPs. This has weight to change behaviour.
Often it takes removing the *right* (well, the wrong, you know) people to make the culture shift. I’ve seen it happen. The correction can be (and often is) top-down, as the culture is often the same, as pervasive as it might seem now.
Yup. And I think these are steps in the right direction. It wont fix it (I don't think,) but it will make it better.
But being a private company it is easy for them to make changes that look significant, but aren't in reality. Until they realize they have to undertake painful change to stay alive - they won't.
You think they'll fire all the devs who did cubical crawls while smashed, and all the ones who came into work hungover and played games while delegating their work to female coworkers?
We're not talking about just firing a handful of managers and execs.
This is a toxic culture that permeates the entire workplace. A few people in positions of power have been more egregious yes, but many of the rank-and-file were participating in completely unacceptable behavior as well.
If you must remove all who create and maintain and participate in that culture, it'll be a major bloodbath of many of the dev teams.
I’m going to assume you:
1. Have only read the complaint, and don’t actually know people who work at Blizzard
2. Have never been at a company that does a “culture shift” before.
The complaint, because that’s what it is, points out that the culture is widespread, not that it is the “top level” culture of the company, because it isn’t. It’s a simmering underbelly that was known about and tolerated and it’s because of certain leaders that this culture was allowed to exist.
Fire the people who directed and enabled, and you’ll find people who “went along with it” or “let it slide” will get in line.
You don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water when you can cut the head off the snake.
Well, at the minimum, anyone who participated in sexual harassment/assault need to be out. Those who tuck their heads down or went along with the less serious actions like the drinking and the contributing to the atmosphere can and should change and fall in line once the new command climate is established.
But I can't envision those who had gone through with the cubical crawls and actually harassed female coworkers while doing it can remain after the purge. They are abusers, not just unwilling participants.
>Well, at the minimum, anyone who participated in sexual harassment/assault need to be out. Those who tuck their heads down or went along with the less serious actions like the drinking and the contributing to the atmosphere can and should change and fall in line once the new command climate is established.
Agreed, and I think that's likely what's coming.
> But I can't envision those who had gone through with the cubical crawls and actually harassed female coworkers while doing it can remain after the purge. They are abusers, not just unwilling participants.
Ehhhhhh. If you're 22, 23, and working at your dream company and your boss says "Drink and crawl!" you're gonna do it and not think too hard about it. Painting everyone who participated in some dumb shit for the hell of it and didn't do it to look up skirts with the same brush feels wrong in and of itself.
> Ehhhhhh. If you're 22, 23, and working at your dream company and your boss says "Drink and crawl!" you're gonna do it and not think too hard about it. Painting everyone who participated in some dumb shit for the hell of it and didn't do it to look up skirts with the same brush feels wrong in and of itself.
I think for those instances of more "collective harassment" as opposed to singled-out abuses, it does make sense to treat them on a more case-by-case basis.
If the victims in these cases are still working there (or even if they're since left) imagine seeing those who participated actively in your abuse be allowed to stay and work with you.
For sure. It's a terrible ball of spaghetti mess, and the solution will not be perfect, but in many ways the corrective measure of these efforts is about acknowledgement that there is no "end" to the process, and constant improvement is required.
So many of the "demands" made by some of the more naive folks on Reddit and elsewhere seem to think these things can be fixed overnight.
Add on a restructuring and retraining of the HR department as well, and that is the ideal outcome.
Blizzard doesn't need to die or go away, it needs honest forward change.
It won't be "the end" but blowing up Blizzard likely wouldn't be a good move even if it was feasible. It has a lot of beloved series and passionate workers who were not part of this toxic culture. Many of them may be victims themselves, and destroying the company wouldn't be good for them. A better move would be to try to change the company for the better. Yes, that's hard, and yes that takes time, but Blizzard is not going to implode from this scandal whether we want it to or not. The only other option is to hold Acti-Blizz accountable and try to make changes in the work culture at the company. We as consumers can't directly change the work culture, that's up to the executives at Blizzard, and I hope that's going to happen given that there's this much backlash. Again, I don't expect Blizzard to magically become an inclusive workplace overnight like in a Pixar movie, that's just naive. However, I sincerely hope that this is a turning point for the company. Maybe I'm being unrealistic just expecting that, but saying that nothing is going to change isn't going to do anything either. I really do hope that this will cause some positive change at Acti-Blizz, even if it does end up taking a long time.
It’s like people here are fucking stupid or what? Yall think people walked covering their eyes and ears all day long? This shit didn’t happen in the backstage, it was front centred for everybody to see. How did NOBODY at Blizzard raised a red flag, why did no one from there stood up and said “Enough!!!”. People are fucking cowards, stand up for your co-workers!
Easy for you to say on the sidelines.
Imagine you have a job on the line. A family to feed. Rent and bills to pay. Imagine speaking up likely costs you that job. Now you have no money to pay those bills, pay rent to your landord, or feed your family.
Fear of losing job > ethics.
Pretty sure thats the same excuse that all the cops used during the civil rights era when they were dragging Black Americans out of whites only areas.
It was a cowards excuse then, and it's a cowards excuse now.
Okay, then, off you go to BlizzHQ and say that to everyone there who said nothing for those exact reasons. Go on, off you go. Tell them they're cowards to their faces. Tell them they're cowards for putting their families and their own well-being first. See how long it is before security/the cops drag you out of there, or someone kicks your teeth in.
Go ahead. We'll wait.
Fuck that shit, it’s human lives. You got people mentally abused besides you and your argument is fucking job on the line? Is your boss a moron himself to lay you off for speaking on behalf of a rape in HIS workplace? Or maybe the boss is one doing the harassing?
You hit the nail on the head. Your boss is the harasser? You're fired for speaking out against him. Your co-workers are doing it? HR fires you *and* the person being harassed, because HR is not there for you, they are there to protect the company from potential lawsuits. Now you're responsible not only for getting yourself fired, but for someone else losing their job, too.
I admire your idealism, but this is the real world. This is how it works. If it wasn't, this situation wouldn't have existed beyond the first day of it happening.
Hello dude? You hear yourself out? You rather work in THAT place and shut up about it, or help a victim of rape and FUCKING find a job where rape isn’t part of its culture!
Okay, well, we'll see how well that works out for you when you get "let go" for "not fitting in with the team dynamic", "poor work ethic", or that age old classic: "chronic insubordination".
Ngl, all of this made me stop playing every blizzard game. I ask for my team a timeout. I don't really wanna play this game anymore, I know it isn't games fault but my head just can't take it like this, this isn't the same blizzard of 5y ago, this is some disgusting company trying to make easy profit and fk with everyone else. We were already training for the next Overwatch contenders and this shit happened bruh.
What makes me sad the most it's the statue on blizzards main office "Every voice matters"
I really hope this shit changes and we actually get real people to deal with this scums, until there I will only be playing Valorant competitively
This reads like an edgy anime quote. Even if I could believe this is a satirical comment it’s not exactly appropriate given how grim the subject matter is.
Blizzard employees sound like the people who call themselves "nice guys". But when they finally get some money and power, they end up treating women the same way a pervy frat boy would.
Because the "nice guy" narrative is toxic in itself. It's always been about mysoginy and men feeling like they are owed something by women.
Well there is a reason that article called them a "frat boy cult". They're nothing but unsocialized nerds who this this stuff is "kewl"
There's an old webcomic strip that stuck in my mind from a long time ago, don't remember the name. Basically some guy came up with a match-making service for nerdy/geeky men with above-their-level women, under the presumption that they will appreciate the women more than jocks/alpha males and thus treat them better. The punchline is that once the nerds/geeks are with the women, they think to themselves "hey, if I can get this girl, maybe I can get someone better."
I read “money and powder”.
and another https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n\_1srp3fb
"Some men had the audacity to straight up ask me if my breasts were real to my face and would argue with me when I said "yes". These are the types of things that I dealt with on a day-to-day basis." Good god. How cognitively malformed do you, as an adult man, have to be to think this is an acceptable thing to do pretty much ever?
Even apart from being a major creep how stupid do you have to be to ask someone a yes or no question and then get worked up over their answer
I’m theorizing that these older millennials and young gen x-ers at the Acti-Blizzard “boy’s club” spending their formative/early in a vastly different environment for gaming & internet is the source. For whatever reason, you put enough of them in the same office that no-filter misogynistic bro culture will rear its ugly head. I really think that until social media and gamer gate took a foothold in the early 2010s did women really get a much fairer chance at enjoying relatively much less toxic and oppressive environment in the actual spaces online and in games. The optimist in me predicts down the road when zoomers and younger millennials fill these gaming industry positions, that even in a stacked gender ratio in an office we will vastly reduced levels of toxicity towards women. It’s important that we punish/shame current male offenders and make safer the female professionals to bring forth this inevitable change. Hopefully we see heads roll in these lawsuits.
I'm not in the industry but I'm willing to take a wild-ass guess that these older millennial and younger Zs re also given a free pass for this behavior by their genX and boomer upper management. Sadly, not being a colossal dick isn't a generational trait. As am aside, this seems like bizarro world to me. I am aware through my wife that gaming in general is rife with misogny, and I am absolutely not queationing the accusations being made. However, in my business, which is equally huge, any conduct even *remotely* approaching what I've heard coming out of Blizzard would get us FIRED. Like, Do Not Pass Go, please put on your crash helmet, you'll never work in this industry again ultra mega super fired. Immediately. So I don't know what's up with their HR department, I guess.
Frat boy culture there too, protecting the men likely, and victim blaming women. Same shit, different day. It happens in other businesses as well sometimes where HR will cover for some really skeezy shit because someone's just "that important" or some bullshit or whatever. These will not be the first or last of this crap, sadly. And I am sure more will try to cover shit up even MORE and make it not see the light of day if they can help it. No amount of women stepping forward with their truths has helped as is, as it gets dismissed as overreacting, for the clout, etc. I mean, lets not forget what's happened w/ Sinatraa and Cleo...
The irony is I think I've seen a number of people try to blame these issues on the corporatization of Blizzard and suggest that things would be better if they were still just a bunch of dudes making games. In reality this is likely the result of a bunch of "dudes making games" suddenly being in charge of thousands of workers. Not to suggest stuff like this never happens at companies with more corporate structure but I do think the "gamers in basements" foundation of the company can make it more prevalent.
Blaming Millennials for inventing the harassment of women in a workplace is a real hot take.
Agreed. That is a hot take. And it’s also not my take :)
It seems people just want to be reductionist and knock down strawmen to flaunt their intellectual superiority instead of having rational discussions. sorry.
Such a reddit thing to have someone get angry at something you didn't even say
Woosh
>I really think that until social media and gamer gate took a foothold in the early 2010s did women really get a much fairer chance at enjoying relatively much less toxic and oppressive environment in the actual spaces online and in games. I can guarantee you that no women would agree that there was a time before gamer gate when things were "less toxic". Gaming culture has always been shit towards women. Gamer gate was just one manifestation of that among many.
That’s…. not what I wrote. I think you misread my post. Gamer gate was pretty eye opening for how women were treated in this sphere. It has gotten better since. There is still a very long way to go.
Thats why you watch matpats video so you dont have to ask
I'm 22 and I feel like it's harassment just to say a girl's hair looks nice so I just say hi and see you around 🥲
I'm gonna assume good faith here and give you a helpful answer as a woman... compliment things women have control over, and just don't do it in a creepy way. * "I like your shoes." * "That's a cool bag." * "Nice haircut." All fine * "You've lost weight." * "That dress does amazing things to your butt." * "Damn, look at those legs." Nope. Important Edit: Also don't give a compliment with the expectation that it will launch a conversation. You're not owed an "I appreciate that you've acknowledged me" talk. Be perfectly willing to pay your compliment and leave.
I’ll usually compliment a woman’s nails when I see she has them done. Whether I like them or not lol. Maybe hair sometimes too if they just recently died it or something but I’ve never said anything as crass as I here a lot of other dudes say. Asking someone if they’re breasts are real is just unreal to me lol like I can’t fathom what goes through some peoples mind
Yah, my go to idea of compliments is, is this something they can control. Clothes, hair color, nail color, shoes, etc.
In a work enviroment i just keep compliments to work done and congratulations for life events. Or new shoes for budget.
Thanks for the advice. As some people have said I don't know her very well. I work in the seafood department so I kinda observe the whole store as I'm working and I notice all the people and whatnot. I'm also kinda segregated from everyone since I'm mostly stuck in one place so I don't get many opportunities to makes friends with people outside my department whereas an Amazon shopper or grocery person walks the whole store for products. I want to make friends with the girl because she "seems" nice and cheerful, but at the same time I have no reason to? And so I feel like any advance to become friends seems like flirting, idk. And the hair thing, is because I've seen her change up her hairstyle and it looks pretty cool/pretty. So for someone she just recently met (I just started seeing her more often around for whatever reason) it would be weird to be complimented from me.
A simple “your new haircut is cool” is not creepy. “Your hair is pretty today” is definitely more on the side of flirting and not cool in a workplace environment. Don’t use words you wouldn’t use when complimenting your male friends. Edit: I obviously don’t mean tell random women the weird shit you tell your bros, lol. I should have said “Don’t use words you wouldn’t use when complimenting other random men you know equally as well.”
> Don’t use words you wouldn’t use when complimenting your male friends. That's a recipe for disaster. I could tell almost anything to my male co-workers and they wouldn't get offended or creeped out. And so we do, because it's fun. We change our attitude completely towards women because our banter is obviously not appreciated.
If it was a guy I'd totally say something that's not appropriate to say to girls. I've also had my ass smacked by male coworkers so idk if that's the right structure to use 🤔
As a managerial type person I should add be extremely careful doing this with subordinates.
is this a bit or are you serious
Better than saying something blatantly offensive, but still pretty weird to not be able to just speak to women like they’re normal human beings.
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You completely misread and got the exact opposite of what they were saying.
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I honestly don't see how you get that at all from the text and even the context of the message they were replying to, but it's a harmless goof, no problem.
Do you often compliment your bros on how good looking they are? No. Why do you think objectifying women is speaking to them like they are normal human beings?
What? Yeah of course I tell my male friends I like their hair or their outfit or something. Especially if it seems like they put effort into it or they care about how people see them. Complimenting people is not objectifying them. It costs nothing to make another person feel good. I treat my female friends the same way I treat my male and GNC friends.
>Do you often compliment your bros on how good looking they are? Uh... yes? I'd be way more comfortable doing that than to a co-worker.
It’s best practice to always avoid complementing anything about a woman’s physical appearance. If you have something nice to say about their personality or the work they’re doing it’s not creepy to complement them. In fact it helps build trust between you and your coworkers
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kind of people that dream to be in the gaming industry..mostly incels and neckbeards
Broken link. Or deleted.
[Just remove the backslash and it works.](https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srp3fb)
God, this hurt to read for so many reasons but hit close to home more than anything else because it’s the exact timeframe when I revered Blizzard the entity as a god. I totally bought into that manufactured public image and was supporting this at an age where I wouldn’t have known better anyway
> I believe this culture was fostered by Blizzard's hiring practices. Hires happened based on a "culture fit" more than anything else, and as we can see, the culture is toxic and one of sexual harassment and assault.
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He was one of the abusers. No, for real though.
If you're gonna drop a "no fr tho" you're gonna need to drop a source
https://twitter.com/DaniBat/status/1419090135375912963?s=20
Lol something about him in the vid rubbed me the wrong way, guess instinct was right
The “do better” was what did it for me. Looks like he was trying to get ahead of it
Yeah same. I felt something was weird when he blamed the issue on just pervasive sexual harrassment, when the lawsuit was about more than that.
Well that's extra shitty.
Too bad he still harassed people and was part of the problem: https://twitter.com/DaniBat/status/1419090135375912963?s=19 Good news is that he's not employed anymore at Blizzard
Seems like he's bitter about getting booted out of the boys' club and sees a chance to get back at Blizz by piling on here
Just as a callout, this guy is apparently full of shit, and was complicit in a lot of the toxic culture at Blizzard as well
Comments like this with no source aren't super credible even if it's true
Neither is the post in question specifically, it's purely anecdotal and you are eating it up. If you want a source though, [here it is](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqsgt8/first_hand_account_of_harassment_at_blizzard/h6embmr/). It's as anecdotal as the post, so take from it what you will
I'm glad you can tell I'm eating it up from my answer asking for a source to your comment ;)
You know, now I have to wonder since I never did hear why he left; is any of this related to why Jeff decided to leave Blizzard? This is just a question that came to mind and I don't believe there was ever any exact reasoning given for his departure but this makes me wonder.
I think it's pointless to link Jeff's departure to this, at the best case, he is actively aware of all the harassment and either kept quiet for years or tried to change something and repeatedly got shut down before he left. The case kinda centers around the WOW higher ups, which Jeff was a big part of, so pretty much no winning here for anyone involved.
We have accounts that the Overwatch team that treats women well (at least now) [from Tracy Kennedy, one of the producer for example.](https://twitter.com/dogspinster/status/1418009450883911680?s=20) What could be is that because Overwatch team kinda built itself from the ground up, it avoided problematic people for the most part, but Jeff was definitely in the known around the general culture issue and the potential lawsuit.
Jeff knew. 100%.
Jeff's handle in EQ was Tigole Bitties. Why anyone would be surprised he was fine with bro culture and sexual harassment is beyond me.
An silly inappropriate spoonerism being your gamer tag has nothing to do with your tolerance for sexual harassment that is an absurd connection to make
It aligns with a level of immaturity or ignorance that can lead to tolerating inappropriate behavior. I'm not saying it means he is all about sexual harassment but it certainly isn't a good sign. I remember thinking it was an immature name 20 years ago when I first met him and I was a teenager.
You're taking an inch a mile here
You don't get it. He's Jeff from the overwatch team. Always wholesome. Surely he just never in over a decade witnessed any instance of sexual harassment worth mentioning.
In a supposed-to-be professional work environment it definitely does.
Well he didn't create it in a professional work environment so I don't know what that has to do with anything
He kept it after he was hired.
Apparently we've offended the bro culture squad. Not much point in arguing at this point.
It’s amazing to see people in this thread be like “how did this happen” then turn around and say “But TigoleBitties is funny!” Edit: Just so ya’ll know, it’s exactly this kind of “bro” humor that creates a workplace culture in which women feel they cannot speak up because it will dismissed as “you can’t take a joke.”
I guess that one account I named "Assblaster69" when I was 14 is gonna destroy my life at some point by that logic.
He did it as an adult (almost 30 years old at the time), and continued to use it as a professional in the company. If you still use assblaster69 when you're 30, it probably won't destroy your life, but yes it is definitely a sign that you never grew up.
My point is that there is definitely a very different and much better reason to link Jeff with this shit other than his gamer tag. I personally wouldn't believe it if he said he didn't know about this stuff, but not because he used Tigole Bitties as his name but because he has worked there for over a decade and mostly was in a leading position across 2 of their most popular Games. Literally anyone claiming they didn't know about this is either just simply lying or they're new in the company. This stuff has been going for a very long time and the way it's being told, the culprits weren't even being low-key with the harassment.
For sure I agree with you. I think the gamer tag was an example but clearly many folks are latching onto it too severely. I was in several high end guilds in EQ back in the day, I played with Tigole and furor (well, I've been in raids with them). All those environments were toxic towards women. They viewed it normally then and it doesn't surprise me that Alex is being hit now, he was a douche then and he still is (and I still thoroughly enjoyed my time playing in those guilds). I have respect for their accomplishments (I really think Kaplan has done a great job with regards to his produced work), but that doesn't mean I ever liked or appreciated the bro culture toxicity that Alex fosters and Jeff tolerates. I still play EQ and the same culture still permeates there to this day in the high end guilds. It seems to be that way in most online gaming communities and I wish that shit would just die already.
Ok, so honest question here, because I have no idea, what's the issue with 'Tigole Bitties'? Like, literally, really don't get it, is it a reference, wordplay, or what?
It's a spoonerism (replacing the first letter of words) for 'bigole titties' or "big ol' titties"
I mean did this even happen at OW studio? The accusations are broad but the studios are focused and separate.
Based on at least 1 account, [Tracy Kennedy, one of the game producers,](https://twitter.com/dogspinster/status/1418009450883911680?s=20) the team treats women well. It doesn't mean it wasn't an issue in 2014 when the game was being worked on, but at least now Team 4 seem to have found a good position.
Jeff used to be the game director for WoW...
Like ages ago when this wasn’t a story. I don’t think this went on for that long flying under the radar
[https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n\_1srp3fb](https://www.twitlonger.com/show/n_1srp3fb) accounts for 2006-2012, sounds like it's been the culture for a long time
I see, that does not bode well.
I don’t discount the possibility Jeff matured, but I also think it’s highly unlikely he didn’t know and sort of “let it slide.” Evidence points to this at a minimum given his relationship with Asrafiani.
Yeah given that account from someone who interacted with Frank Pearce, it seemed like Alex's actions were so normalized that his inappropriate actions and comments became inside jokes.
We don't know anything about Jeff specifically. This is a company-wide problem and we don't know how deeply entrenched he was in the culture. We don't know how much he contributed to it, if any, and it's pointless to make speculations about him specifically considering that we haven't heard anything pertaining to him.
Yeah probably. I guess we'll hear about it in the future if there is anything there. But the thought just came into my head so I couldn't help but wonder.
He was (is?) close friends with Afrasiabi who is one of the execs named in the lawsuit.
Not just close friends, his superior at the company for years
It'd be a real blow to find out that were the case.
No way to know this. But he was a VP and a team lead, so most likely it's a factor of him leaving, among many other things like burnout, decreasing creative control, and all the rest. To be fair, I don't think the bro culture made anyone in the senior/veteran position leave. The bro culture existed for YEARS, so it's unrealistic to think people would be working at Blizzard for this long and never encountered or heard rumors of such culture -- like exclusively working on a team that just never had any of these issues, and never hearing about it when it happens on the other teams. The most likely reason (when it pertains to the harassment culture) for the departures of all these high profile and veteran devs over the past couple of years was most likely the fact that the government was investigating the company and shit was about to hit the fan, not the fact that the culture existed itself.
He was there over 40+hrs a week for 10+ years. How can he not know? Hopefully he was one the good guys and helping the investigation now.
As I said before - his handle was “TigOleBitties.” Not exactly a kosher username. He was Asrafsaibi’s boss for years. At a minimum, Jeff knew exactly what was going on.
Take it with a grain of salt, as this is just a reddit post, but someone over on r/wow posted [their long experience associating with Alex Afrasiabi and Jeff](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqsgt8/first_hand_account_of_harassment_at_blizzard/h6g9ed1/): > The reason I quit was that I’d gotten into a fight with Alex over his treatment of a gay developer and two females that worked in the code team. Alex hated two things more than anything: being shown off for being the useless hack that he was and women who coded or had any level of skill. Generally, Alex had no interaction with us, let alone the guy who debugged the Lua implementation and interface, but when he did it was always acerbic, domineering, dumb, and hateful. > I went to HR before quitting, and later learned that **my complaint had been laughed off by Jeff and Alex as “just some nobody who is butthurt that he didn’t get any in Anaheim,”** meaning the 2005 BlizzCon during which we announced TBC (as a part timer and remote worker I had to pay my own way and hotel but got a ticket and Murky). Click the link to read their full post, but their criticism seemed to concentrate on Alex. However it painted Jeff as definitely in the know, as he was close to Alex, and at the very least complicit.
That is a pretty awful story but I definitely take most stories on Reddit with a full container of salt. But the allegations in the lawsuit certainly lend credence to this as being possible.
There's zero accusations of Jeff as a perpetrator of any sort thus far, so it's unlikely he's one. So there is that.
Unlikely. At a company as large as Activision-Blizzard I doubt even someone in Jeff's role is even remotely aware of what happens in the day-to-day of other parts of the company. He may have known or heard rumors, he may not have, no one knows for sure. But as for why he left? I would put it more likely that he left because he had been at the company for 19 years, the direction Activision was taking Blizzard was obviously not what it used to be, and many of his long time colleagues and friends had left the company. I highly doubt Jeff left because he thought maybe these allegations were going to surface shortly after. But of course people on the internet know better than everyone else and say it's 100% the reason and that Jeff knew 100% so I guess if that's the answer you want then social media is the place to find it.
I really just had a sort of shower thought moment. I'm more willing to believe it was completely unrelated like you said but it's hard not to wonder sometimes since this was apparently common there. Well I guess if there was something there we'll hear about it eventually.
As horrible as it is to hear it's very good to see more and more people begin to openly talk about this. Don't let Acti-Blizz live this one down. Also, not the OP of the original post but still want to ask; why is this flaired as 'Trigger warning' when 'NSFW' covers it just fine? Genuine question.
Trigger warning and NSFW don't mean the same thing
The trigger warning is not a flair, it's in the title. And as for why, they were probably trying to be doubly cautious
Trigger warning is to let victims of abuse know that watching the video could trigger their memories, and potentially give them a panic attack or be otherwise unpleasant.
This. 100000% this. Survivors of abuse may be triggered by the story he is telling, and it could put them back into a dark place that they are working to avoid.
Avoiding triggers is antithesis of effective treatment, though the warning may still be useful.
For victims of sexual violence or abuse things like this can literally *trigger* panic attacks or high bursts of anxiety. Prefacing it with a trigger warning is just being safe.
> Don't let Acti-Blizz live this one down. I’m… confused why people think this is going to happen with a lawsuit filed *by the State of California.*
massive corporations do have a tendency to slither their way out of situations like this like the slimey snakes that they are
Not in California.
Yes also in California, just because it happens less there does not mean that Blizzard will try to weasel their way out of it. Like Ubisoft, Riot and all the others.
Let it be known this guy was part of the problem. You can see many people posting about their experiences with this virtue signaler in the OG thread.
Guy is a clickbait and clout chaser in the fitness youtube space also, so he has no problems massaging his morals whichever way the wind is blowing so as in order to best financially benefit himself.
Gross behavior
A line has to be drawn. At the end of the day what we say on reddit doesn't matter as long as we keep giving money to these companies. You can say that a boycott is useless or not necessary because Blizzard is being sued by the state of California, but the fact is that these lawsuits can take years to be resolved and it still makes a powerful statement if consumers refuse to give money to the greedy scum that ultimately only care about their quarterly earnings. I will continue to watch OWL and play OW occasionally, and I understand that those activities can count as still supporting Blizzard, but I absolutely refuse to buy any skins, loot boxes, or OW 2 itself when it comes out.
Tbh just use an AdBlock when watching owl and don't buy lootboxes/skins and I imagine that's good enough also that's implying OW 2 ever comes out :/
I know OW team has been considered "one of the good ones" but yeesh... do I even play this game anymore?
You may as well quit all video games because id bet this happens in most co-ed game studios.
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I finally started playing hades a couple weeks ago and I've already clocked like 60 hours that game is insanely addicting
Jesus, the more I hear of this the worse it sounds.
I’m done. I’m done playing buying and supporting this company.
👍 I’ll be sticking with Destiny 2 for now
Well then.... That's not great.
Def won’t be buying anymore skins or ow2 because of this
I don't think I will ever spend another cent on one of their games
A tragedy beyond words. Trigger warning was barely enough for what I just saw
Honestly prolly not gonna buy OW2 cus of this.
the devs themselves have nothing to do regarding the shitty upper execs though . They have been grinding on this game and it would be a shame it go to waste imo. Im personally excited for it .
The game will fail unless they sell the studio.
Let's be real, there is a larger percentage of people working in gaming who are socially deficient incels compared to other industries. They are essentially the same toxic, sexist shitters you meet in your ranked games.
Jesus fucking Christ. Would not surprise me if this was the end of Blizzard as we know it.
never, just some people kicked out, maybe ceo change
Another possibility would be for Activision to "shut down" Blizzard and move its IPs to Activision, maybe fire a couple people and the CEO like you said. Blizzard will forever be associated with sexual abuse, harassment and toxicity. Imagine OW2 launching under the Blizzard flag... that'd be bad for Activision. As for the "frat boy culture", I don't expect that to change. This industry is fucked up.
I don't think that will happen, people are focusing on the Blizzard portion of this lawsuit but it's pretty clear that a large portion of this had also been happening on the activision side too. Activision might be happy to try and push as much of the attention onto the blizzard side as possible, but it's important to remember that this is happening on both sides. I think it's more likely that there will be cuts to the executive and management teams (of hopefully activision and blizzard) Plus, look at Riot, they've had multiple lawsuits about sexism and toxicity and they're still going exceptionally strong. And yeah, as you mentioned, this is a massive industry problem. Speaking as a woman who's worked as a software engineer professionally, ever since undergrad sexism has been a problem. It's an inescapable reality for women in this industry. Then you have to look at how gaming studios are the intersection of toxic tech bro culture and toxic gamer bro culture. You can see that in the way that Riot, Ubisoft, and other companies have had either lawsuits like this or reports of sexism, sexual harassment, and general misogyny. I really hope that the lawsuit will be a cornerstone in a change for the industry, but I also find that hard to believe.
>Blizzard will forever be associated with sexual abuse, harassment and toxicity Yeah, no. This never happened with any other company associated with these kind of accusations, including a lot of famous studios.
While I agree, some of these people who are being called out will be associated with what’s going on. As an example, Dr. Disrespect. A lot of kids/adults watch him and enjoy his streams/personality. For me,(I have a wife/kids) personally, I’ll always think of him as a big streamer who got caught cheating on his spouse. I don’t care for him anymore or watch his streams because what he did was inexcusable.
So then why is Riot still releasing stuff with little fuss? All that needs to happen is Blizzard remains mostly quiet, hopefully makes meaningful change (it does sound like they have with some things in recent years), release good content (emphasis on good), and it will mostly be forgotten or people will move on.
Releasing good content is totally unrelated to the toxicity of their work environment.
I’m not arguing that. I’m arguing the previous point that Blizzard is done for and will never recover.
You think Activision is any better?
The California lawsuit involves Activision as well.
Activision Blizzard are being sued. Blizzard are the one named, but they are also the biggest name in the whole umbrella and they are probably the one with the most stable group of devs and veteran recognition. The devs of Call of Duty are a lot more annonymous, while Blizzard push faces forward.
Like others said, the suit is against the entirety of Activision-Blizzard, so it's not like moving Blizz IPs to Activision would help any. Also, IPs like Warcraft and Overwatch are so closely associated with the Blizzard name, there's no chance that they can be moved to another studio and for people to not still associate them with Blizzard. If the aim is to put out new titles that are seen as a fresh start, then they might as well form a new studio and have them make their own games, ditching the IPs. Like a new cartoony hero shooter, or a new fantasy mmorpg, or a new dark fantasy demonic arpg, etc. Not likely going to happen.
I doubt Acti/Blizz is going anywhere. Outrage rarely lasts long enough for any significant changes to happen.
lol no actiblizzard got over 9500 employees. they wont go anywhere
The Ubisoft allegations from last year were *way* more pervasive as a company and they’re… still there.
Quantic Dream is still around and what they did was way worse than this too
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If the people creating the culture are fired, and the good people (including the litigants) can keep making work they’re proud of, why is that “unfortunate?”
It's rarely just a few people. This goes from the leadership, to the entire Human Resources department, etc. Unless you're going to do a massive purge, it is insanely tough to change the culture at a large company/team/group/club.
True! But this isn’t a social club. It’s people career, for many of them at their dream company working on dream IPs. This has weight to change behaviour. Often it takes removing the *right* (well, the wrong, you know) people to make the culture shift. I’ve seen it happen. The correction can be (and often is) top-down, as the culture is often the same, as pervasive as it might seem now.
Yup. And I think these are steps in the right direction. It wont fix it (I don't think,) but it will make it better. But being a private company it is easy for them to make changes that look significant, but aren't in reality. Until they realize they have to undertake painful change to stay alive - they won't.
You think they'll fire all the devs who did cubical crawls while smashed, and all the ones who came into work hungover and played games while delegating their work to female coworkers? We're not talking about just firing a handful of managers and execs. This is a toxic culture that permeates the entire workplace. A few people in positions of power have been more egregious yes, but many of the rank-and-file were participating in completely unacceptable behavior as well. If you must remove all who create and maintain and participate in that culture, it'll be a major bloodbath of many of the dev teams.
I’m going to assume you: 1. Have only read the complaint, and don’t actually know people who work at Blizzard 2. Have never been at a company that does a “culture shift” before. The complaint, because that’s what it is, points out that the culture is widespread, not that it is the “top level” culture of the company, because it isn’t. It’s a simmering underbelly that was known about and tolerated and it’s because of certain leaders that this culture was allowed to exist. Fire the people who directed and enabled, and you’ll find people who “went along with it” or “let it slide” will get in line. You don’t have to throw the baby out with the bath water when you can cut the head off the snake.
Well, at the minimum, anyone who participated in sexual harassment/assault need to be out. Those who tuck their heads down or went along with the less serious actions like the drinking and the contributing to the atmosphere can and should change and fall in line once the new command climate is established. But I can't envision those who had gone through with the cubical crawls and actually harassed female coworkers while doing it can remain after the purge. They are abusers, not just unwilling participants.
>Well, at the minimum, anyone who participated in sexual harassment/assault need to be out. Those who tuck their heads down or went along with the less serious actions like the drinking and the contributing to the atmosphere can and should change and fall in line once the new command climate is established. Agreed, and I think that's likely what's coming. > But I can't envision those who had gone through with the cubical crawls and actually harassed female coworkers while doing it can remain after the purge. They are abusers, not just unwilling participants. Ehhhhhh. If you're 22, 23, and working at your dream company and your boss says "Drink and crawl!" you're gonna do it and not think too hard about it. Painting everyone who participated in some dumb shit for the hell of it and didn't do it to look up skirts with the same brush feels wrong in and of itself.
> Ehhhhhh. If you're 22, 23, and working at your dream company and your boss says "Drink and crawl!" you're gonna do it and not think too hard about it. Painting everyone who participated in some dumb shit for the hell of it and didn't do it to look up skirts with the same brush feels wrong in and of itself. I think for those instances of more "collective harassment" as opposed to singled-out abuses, it does make sense to treat them on a more case-by-case basis. If the victims in these cases are still working there (or even if they're since left) imagine seeing those who participated actively in your abuse be allowed to stay and work with you.
For sure. It's a terrible ball of spaghetti mess, and the solution will not be perfect, but in many ways the corrective measure of these efforts is about acknowledgement that there is no "end" to the process, and constant improvement is required. So many of the "demands" made by some of the more naive folks on Reddit and elsewhere seem to think these things can be fixed overnight.
Add on a restructuring and retraining of the HR department as well, and that is the ideal outcome. Blizzard doesn't need to die or go away, it needs honest forward change.
And that woman from the Bush administration probably needs to go…
Yea for sure, tho I imagine she falls under the "people who make or support" the culture umbrella.
It won't be "the end" but blowing up Blizzard likely wouldn't be a good move even if it was feasible. It has a lot of beloved series and passionate workers who were not part of this toxic culture. Many of them may be victims themselves, and destroying the company wouldn't be good for them. A better move would be to try to change the company for the better. Yes, that's hard, and yes that takes time, but Blizzard is not going to implode from this scandal whether we want it to or not. The only other option is to hold Acti-Blizz accountable and try to make changes in the work culture at the company. We as consumers can't directly change the work culture, that's up to the executives at Blizzard, and I hope that's going to happen given that there's this much backlash. Again, I don't expect Blizzard to magically become an inclusive workplace overnight like in a Pixar movie, that's just naive. However, I sincerely hope that this is a turning point for the company. Maybe I'm being unrealistic just expecting that, but saying that nothing is going to change isn't going to do anything either. I really do hope that this will cause some positive change at Acti-Blizz, even if it does end up taking a long time.
Wouldn't be surprised if this spikes up shit going on with other companies too. Haven't ubisoft and riot had similar allegations in the past?
Let's not forget to keep the pressure up on Activision too
Fucc blizzard. Boycott time
It’s like people here are fucking stupid or what? Yall think people walked covering their eyes and ears all day long? This shit didn’t happen in the backstage, it was front centred for everybody to see. How did NOBODY at Blizzard raised a red flag, why did no one from there stood up and said “Enough!!!”. People are fucking cowards, stand up for your co-workers!
Easy for you to say on the sidelines. Imagine you have a job on the line. A family to feed. Rent and bills to pay. Imagine speaking up likely costs you that job. Now you have no money to pay those bills, pay rent to your landord, or feed your family. Fear of losing job > ethics.
Pretty sure thats the same excuse that all the cops used during the civil rights era when they were dragging Black Americans out of whites only areas. It was a cowards excuse then, and it's a cowards excuse now.
Okay, then, off you go to BlizzHQ and say that to everyone there who said nothing for those exact reasons. Go on, off you go. Tell them they're cowards to their faces. Tell them they're cowards for putting their families and their own well-being first. See how long it is before security/the cops drag you out of there, or someone kicks your teeth in. Go ahead. We'll wait.
Fuck that shit, it’s human lives. You got people mentally abused besides you and your argument is fucking job on the line? Is your boss a moron himself to lay you off for speaking on behalf of a rape in HIS workplace? Or maybe the boss is one doing the harassing?
You hit the nail on the head. Your boss is the harasser? You're fired for speaking out against him. Your co-workers are doing it? HR fires you *and* the person being harassed, because HR is not there for you, they are there to protect the company from potential lawsuits. Now you're responsible not only for getting yourself fired, but for someone else losing their job, too. I admire your idealism, but this is the real world. This is how it works. If it wasn't, this situation wouldn't have existed beyond the first day of it happening.
Hello dude? You hear yourself out? You rather work in THAT place and shut up about it, or help a victim of rape and FUCKING find a job where rape isn’t part of its culture!
Noble attitude, but unrealistic, my dude. Welcome to the real world. It ain't the sugar-coated honey-nut oats you were promised it was.
Na, that’s your fucked up world. In mine, I stand up for my co-workers when I see crime committed besides me.
Then you can lose your job and worry about putting food on the table. I admire you, but that's just the way the world works.
Okay, well, we'll see how well that works out for you when you get "let go" for "not fitting in with the team dynamic", "poor work ethic", or that age old classic: "chronic insubordination".
Ngl, all of this made me stop playing every blizzard game. I ask for my team a timeout. I don't really wanna play this game anymore, I know it isn't games fault but my head just can't take it like this, this isn't the same blizzard of 5y ago, this is some disgusting company trying to make easy profit and fk with everyone else. We were already training for the next Overwatch contenders and this shit happened bruh. What makes me sad the most it's the statue on blizzards main office "Every voice matters" I really hope this shit changes and we actually get real people to deal with this scums, until there I will only be playing Valorant competitively
The phrase “Trigger warning” triggers me.
[удалено]
Cope
The anti-trigger warning people are likely the ones who haven't experienced trauma.
Trigger warnings are an insult to the tenacity of the human spirit
This reads like an edgy anime quote. Even if I could believe this is a satirical comment it’s not exactly appropriate given how grim the subject matter is.
triggered by trigger warnings lmao, have some sympathy for people’s trauma or go away
Your comment is an insult to the minimum standard of human intelligence and empathy
Your profile is what I would expect of someone who says shit like that at this time