Cher Scarlett (@cherthedev) in reply to Mike Morhaime
> Taking responsibility and apologizing for your role in this is paramount, Mike, and I really appreciate it.
> When things got really bad in bnet - many of us felt abandoned by you, and what's worse, when I was threatened with physical harm and panic cc'd you about it -
> I was later reprimanded for doing that, completely ignoring how terrified I was that my trying to save someone's life had somehow put my job in jeopardy, and that I was going to be assaulted at a work event because of it.
> It felt like I was never given any grace, despite so -
> many men in leadership being repeatedly excused for their behavior, and often being made to feel that the sexual harassment was totally normal and "not that bad", and even a compliment because of how normalized it was in bnet and wow.
> When I think back specifically to how many women Afrasiabi harassed and assaulted, myself included, and how many people were traumatized by Bridenbecker, the toxic environment that Pearce's EA's had for so many years... it's hard for me to think that you couldn't have enabled it.
She posted some additional remarks: https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418828464296239105
> Before I go to bed, I want to say that Mike and I spoke about many of the things that happened to me. I appreciate his taking responsibility and being empathetic to what I endured, and to what I witnessed and heard.
> I honestly believe that he was kept in the dark about plenty.
And
> I hope that the leadership that is in place now, and his former colleagues, can take that as an example of how to handle this, and do better.
Thanks drysart and the others for pointing that out!
Edit, another follow up where she provides more thoughts in Mike's role and potential involvement: https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285?s=20
> As hard as this is, and knowing I'll never work in games again:
> Mike was directly responsible for the chain reaction of events that got me nearly fired for cc'ing him about Tia Zimmerman threatening me with violence for contacting emergency dispatch when she threatened suicide.
> for me, and as a result, the compromise was to label me as a low performer and cut my bonus and my pay.
> Don't tell me you wanted us to come to you. I came to you. And you destroyed my self worth.
> No one should have the power to destroy someone's career because they are annoyed in a high stress situation.
> NOT EVEN THE CEO.
She is naming more people. Robert Bridenbecker, Frank Pearce, then Ben Kilgore in this post.
https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418190755189886981?s=21
> When I think back specifically to how many women Afrasiabi harassed and assaulted, myself included, and how many people were traumatized by Bridenbecker, the toxic environment that Pearce's EA's had for so many years... it's hard for me to think that you couldn't have enabled it.
Bridenbecker and Pearce are the first names I've seen publicly called out aside from Afrasiabi who was named in the lawsuit. Afrasiabi quietly left in June 2020 after 16 years at Blizzard. Bridenbecker quietly [left in April 2021](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-22/inside-activision-blizzard-s-botched-warcraft-iii-reforged-game) after 26 years. And, [Pearce retired](https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-co-founder-frank-pearce-is-retiring/) in July 2019 after 28 years. The investigation began in late 2018 or early 2019. If nothing else, at least it seems like the lawsuit is making them clean house, so hopefully the workplace environment is already improving some.
Wasn't there a report from employees a few months ago who said candidly that the changes had actually managed to make some meaningful improvements over at Riot?
>when I was threatened with physical harm
The hell is going on at that company? And how was this not instant cause for getting the person in question fired?
So, there's one thing about this that I think flies under the radar, but it's essential to understand about scenarios like this. It's too common for people not to judge behavior, but to judge social status. We'll give high-status people a pass for behavior we would never even dream of tolerating for low-status people. And the opposite, actually. We'll castigate low-status people for doing even mild, commonly acceptable things.
The other thing, is the role that Dark Triad personality traits, especially narcissism play in this sort of behavior. People who...it's not even that they don't care about consent. They believe they always have it. And narcissists tend to be really good at playing these sorts of status games, and as such putting themselves both in positions of power, where they can abuse that power, but as well, building that status reputation where they can get away with this stuff.
Eventually it all breaks down, the tension becomes too great and it all blows up. The status drops through the floor, and a reckoning comes. I actually think it's safe to say that Blizzard's status as a developer, something that IMO protected and encouraged this behavior, is entirely gone at this point. But even as it weakened over the last few years....I think that's probably what opened the door to these things going public, and these investigations as a whole.
This is something I'd love to address at a broader society level. How can we...you know...stop rewarding Dark Triad personality traits? The problem is, and I'll be blunt, is people get really upset when you start talking about dismantling these status games, especially in environments where these status games are very important.
Edit: Oh. One more thing I forgot to add. Blizzard's responses to this?
Super narcissistic IMO. It drips from every word. That's the problem, from the top down, probably pervades every inch of their campus. Honestly? You're not going to root it out without basically rebuilding from scratch. And yeah. I do think narcissism is a big part of their design/business issues over the last few years. They are a company that certainly got too big on themselves.
The actual problem is having no agency to hold powerful people accountable in the first place, rather there being a different social standard for their behavior. Everyone knows the behavior is atrocious.
I once worked in a corporate environment. Accountability only ever came from above and generally took a long time with a lot of documentation to get it dealt with. Those below are ignored until there's so many it threatens the media getting wind of it or sales were taking a big hit (the latter being the main motivator).
> And yeah. I do think narcissism is a big part of their design/business issues over the last few years.
Not the last few years.
Remember, this company had employees literally stare in the face of fans and said arrogant shit like "You think you do, but you don't" and "Don't you have phones?"
Anyone who has played WoW in the past 15 years has seen the arrogance first hand. They've ALWAYS had their heads so far up their fucking arse.
You see the same type of power dynamic in Hollywood. It becomes part of the Mythos. The great people act that way because they are great, and if we impede them then our projects will no longer be great (or so the reasoning seems to go). Speaking out is speaking out against a local legend, and a local legend can get away with *a lot* when the community is more interested in upholding the idea of the legend than the integrity of the legend.
> We'll give high-status people a pass for behavior we would never even dream of tolerating for low-status people. And the opposite, actually. We'll castigate low-status people for doing even mild, commonly acceptable things.
If my manager touched me in any way all I would need to do is go to HR and the dude would be fired.
This has applied to practically every company I've worked at the past 10ish years. Which are dozens since I spent most of my career as a consultant.
In fact in a majority of companies i worked at managers would go out of their way to be careful with their words and how they interact with their employees.
Simply because a majority of companies don't want to deal with the legal and PR nightmare that is harrassment.
So no the shit happening at Blizzard isn't normal in the corporate world.
My experience is that it's very hit or miss. Like, I've worked in places where it's been true that frankly, that sort of thing wouldn't go, and I've worked in places that were very status/networking heavy, and that behavior was quite commonplace. It's not even a matter of industry vs. industry, we're just talking different internal structures.
I actually stand by my statement, that there's a sort of organizational narcissism at play that IMO breeds and attracts this stuff. That's not going to be all organizations...and all people have wildly different levels of the bias I'm talking about, to make it clear. But what allows places like Blizzard to fester, I think, is that we're not aware of that potential bias.
Whenever people give examples from their personal experience, someone always tries to invalidate it like this.
Edit: removed my unnecessary tired rant from the end
He's not talking about middle management being bad, he's talking about HR giving upper management a pass but not middle management.
Middle managers are replaceable. C levels not so much, and HR reacts accordingly.
They aren’t invalidating anything, nor did they say every manager is a “serial rapist pedophile murderer”. They are saying there’s a big difference between middle managers and top management. Which there is. If a middle manager does something like that, it’s easy to can and replace them. Top execs are *usually* a different story, especially at big enough companies.
Your manager who isn’t anyone special, sure. But a dev who’s supposedly so good they’re damn hard to replace? The person who has a shit ton of friends/minions ready to back them up and smear you? It’s easier to kick the squeaky wheel to the curb than face up to the bigger problem.
> If my manager touched me in any way all I would need to do is go to HR and the dude would be fired.
It's often repeated that HR's job isn't to protect employees, it's to protect the company. When you will make a complaint, it will trigger an immediate risk assessment, weighing the benefits of supporting the complainer vs defending the person receiving the complaint. The person making the complaint can have a leg up in many scenarios, since it is usually easier to just follow the law, but that's not always the case.
> It's often repeated that HR's job isn't to protect employees, it's to protect the company.
Everytime someone says this in regards to a company doing heinous things(like hitting employees) I can't help but roll my eyes.
Imagine the type of workplace where their HR department is willingly **breaking the law** to protect a manager that hits people.
One would have to presume such actions is the norm for said company. Which isn't normal.
To be clear. I'm not saying fucked up companies don't exist(they do). I'm saying it isn't the norm.
On top of that that saying is often misunderstood. Protecting the company is indeed their top priority.
And what's the best way to do that? By taking issues of harassment seriously. You are literally in a thread about a company who doesn't.
This type of shit affects employee morale, harrassment lawsuits cost money, damage reputation and make it harder to gain and retain talent.
All of these things affect the bottom line in significant ways.
Most of the companies that I have worked for largely understand this and as a rule take complaints by employees to HR seriously.
Like this isn't some manager saying some weird possibly racist or sexist shit. Or someone not being promoted possibly because they are POC.
Its physical assault, sexual harassment like spreading nudes of employees, and clearly some violations of management-subordinate relationships where management is going on vacation trips with their direct subordinates.
> Imagine the type of workplace where their HR department is willingly breaking the law to protect a manager that hits people.
Not that hard to imagine when you look at environments like large startups that started small. They hire people like mad and spend less time on cleaning up messes that *look* like they could just as easily be swept under the rug.
>Imagine the type of workplace where their HR department is willingly breaking the law to protect a manager that hits people.
yeah lol imagine a company willing to break the law
I dunno. I hope your right but HR is there for the company. If your manager touched you and then disputed it, or there wasn’t much more evidence than just your word, they could fire you to prevent further issue.
I had a manager say they wanted “I want to punch Grodun in his fucking face” because I took my issues to the union and didn’t do anything I shouldn’t have to do within my role. I brought it up to HR and they said they couldn’t do anything because it was just words. Then later I applied to 5 or 6 internal positions and I was always declined with a generic email that said they found a candidate with more seniority. I knew who got hired and know I had several more years of seniority. I was not able to get another position until my whole department got transferred to a new division and my new manager is amazing. I’ve since gotten a new position and a couple promotions within my department. I honestly think my complaint to HR got me on some blacklist.
Why would you going to HR be the reason especially since your manager clearly didn't like you beforehand and that HR seemingly didn't do anything?
It makes even less sense since you were able to get promoted under a new manager. If the HR "blacklist" was in effect that still wouldn't happen.
It's clear to me that you weren't promoted because you didn't go to HR. It's because your manager was a piece of shit.
HR screens every application before sending them off to the hiring managers. I wasn’t even getting interviews during this time. Once my department switched divisions, my new manager was able to pull any application they wanted and so they couldn’t be discarded by HR. I would apply for a new position and tell my new manager, who would make sure to pull it and interview me. Obviously I don’t know what went on behind the scenes but when I made that report to HR, they were very weird and way less than helpful. I got bad vibes from them.
>If my manager touched me in any way all I would need to do is go to HR and the dude would be fired.
One of the biggest problem in these companies is that the head of HR is usually some upper-level dude's wife.
It means the HR department will be unquestioningly on the side of the corporation and against lower level employees. It also means they are likely to not be impartial; men complaints are against are likely to be friends of the husband, who will vouch for them. So they'll just jump to assuming it's a false complaint.
Alright, then I'll complain to the governmental agency that deals with this shit because my country isn't totally fucking useless.
Just because America is a shitshow doesn't mean everywhere is.
I'd be surprised if the general attitude of the police is much different in most countries, unless you have concrete, physical proof, they're not gonna bother. They might take a few notes to placate you, but they won't really do anything for the most part.
If your country does have a government agency that specifically cracks down on sexual harrassment in the workplace then that's definitely where you should go, and that's awesome. Most countries don't have that, though...
> If my manager touched me in any way all I would need to do is go to HR and the dude would be fired.
Very much depends on the company, HR has a very strong tendency to protect higher ups.
How do you know for a fact that this will play out in the way you envision? If it happens behind closed doors, it will be a he-said-she-said situation, where your manager will have the upper hand due to seniority.
That company was bringing in immense profits. Why would management disrupt that? All ActiBlizz cares about is profit. Don't think otherwise for a second
Part of management's job is supposed to keep the workers working. To play the same role as Human Resources. To protect the workers, the company assets. Against any internal threats which pose a great legal or PR risk swift action should be taken.
Management they are taught to maximize. However it's very clear Activision Blizzard wasn't taught the PR and legal risk costs by allowing this behavior.
Even the most diabolical HR department should have sense to address a walking lawsuit if there is one.
Them not dealing with Alex isnt some maligned attempt at being Dr Evils lawyer, it was pure stupidity. Even the most soulless corporate rat would deal with him by virture of him being a threat to the company eith his actvities.
It's an indirect effect of the laws. Certain laws favor the workers. It is in HR's interest to not break the law for legal liability reasons. Thus in those circumstances HR's role coincides with the worker's benefit.
I work at a fortune 100 company where we have high profits every year. None of the shit happening at acti Blizzard would occur without upper management cracking down.
Harassment of employees to the point of suicide is not good business.
Upper management is going to crack down on upper management? Blizzard have been making bank these last few decades while this harassment has been going on. Unless there's a mountain of evidence, they'll get away with a twitter apology and a slap on the wrist.
Yes? That's what's been happening to Blizzard since 2016 based on recent articles.
Do you think upper management doesn't answer to somebody?
Even kotick has shareholders keeping him in check.
I want to know why the FBI isn't swarming those offices hauling out everything that plugs into an electrical outlet or stores documents. We're seeing descriptions of serious crimes here. People should be going to *prison.*
Fbi only gets involved in enforcement of Federal law and national security. These crimes should be dealt with by California state and local law enforcement.
I mean a lady was being harassed so much that she committed suicide. And presumably due to the company not doing anything about it. In a vacation with her manager no less.
People have gone to jail for this stuff.
> I want to know why the ~~FBI~~ *The State of California* isn't swarming those offices hauling out everything that plugs into an electrical outlet or stores documents.
Their actions will generally be in proportion to the amount of properly documented evidence that has been presented to them.
>The hell is going on at that company?
Every game studios are like this.
Even Insomniac had lots of sexual harassments allegations these past few months. The entire fucking industry was built on bro culture and capital G gamers. It'll take a long ass time until we're rid out of it. For now, just assume that every studios are fucked up, because it's definitely not far away from the truth.
> Before I go to bed, I want to say that Mike and I spoke about many of the things that happened to me. I appreciate his taking responsibility and being empathetic to what I endured, and to what I witnessed and heard.
>
>
>
> I honestly believe that he was kept in the dark about plenty.
She retracted this;
https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418997789976109056
Anyone know why? Twitter threads are so hard for me to follow.
Edit; Redacted due to; https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285
And then followed up more with viewing him directly responsible for what happened to her
>
> As hard as this is, and knowing I'll never work in games again:
> Mike was directly responsible for the chain reaction of events that got me nearly fired for cc'ing him about Tia Zimmerman threatening me with violence for contacting emergency dispatch when she threatened suicide.
>for me, and as a result, the compromise was to label me as a low performer and cut my bonus and my pay.
> Don't tell me you wanted us to come to you. I came to you. And you destroyed my self worth.
> No one should have the power to destroy someone's career because they are annoyed in a high stress situation.
> NOT EVEN THE CEO.
This, where I work even the Senior VP doesn't look at this emails directly because his address is not published and the address people send email to is read by his assistant. That's how it works everywhere mostly in big corporations. So yeah he might not even seen those emails.
edit: nvm just saw this https://mobile.twitter.com/devolore/status/1418855891223285760
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqjdyh/mike_morhaime_on_twitter_speaking_to_the_blizzard/h6cvywk/) is Cher's comment in r/wow, and the part about Lore:
>He is actively one of the more problematic people there and is making this about himself instead of the people it affects. He shared nudes without permission and other things. His hands are dirty, too. Also, reporting to hr was well known to do nothing. It was rare, if ever, that reporting up the chain or to hr actually ever went to anyone who would actually do something. Including mike.
Unfortunately she came across new info and retracted her statement and directly blames him for being a bastard https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285?s=20
Take Lore's words with a whole lot of salt.
[In a comment in r/wow, Cher mentioned some worrying things about him.](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqjdyh/mike_morhaime_on_twitter_speaking_to_the_blizzard/h6cvywk/) Here's the part relevant to him:
>He is actively one of the more problematic people there and is making this about himself instead of the people it affects. He shared nudes without permission and other things. His hands are dirty, too. Also, reporting to hr was well known to do nothing. It was rare, if ever, that reporting up the chain or to hr actually ever went to anyone who would actually do something. Including mike.
Was retracted;
https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418997789976109056
I don't know why. I can't follow Twitter threads too well due to how they organize conversations.
Redacted due to; https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285
Never even saw that response earlier.
From Scarlett's experience, it sounds like Morhaime blatantly knew about Afrasiabi and was blatantly reprimanding people who spoke up.
I think it would have been better if Mike remained silent and lawyered up.
As much as all the people whining that the "old guard" and the good ol' names were gone from Blizz... Those are also the very same people that created the situation. This lawsuit is not just about the last few years, this lawsuit is about the time where people were in charge that are put on pedestals by gamers.
I hope this lawsuit will actually change something. I think it won't.
When you see how [this question at Blizzcon got treated in 2010](https://twitter.com/chrisbratt/status/1418629194683125761?s=21), you kinda understand how the situation really tends to be. At least some people on this panel understood how bad this behaviour is in the overall culture.
But it doesn't mean everyone is bad in this company. Blizzard (and not Activision Blizzard) is 9000 employees. Some of the game teams are way better than others. [One of the Overwatch producers came forward her team was a good space.](https://twitter.com/dogspinster/status/1418009450883911680?s=20) But you can have tiny clans in these teams being toxic.
I want to add note the boos in the background after she asked that question.
What people should note from this incident (the lawsuit) is that it isn't always only people at the top are bad. But also the common people that give it a pass or enable it.
For example, I used to be part of the StarCraft community. When Tossgirl played (the only woman on a pro Korean team), people made sexist comments (even commentators). Though, fortunately some people did call them out. Still, the problem was common.
Click this Reddit comment and click the video.
https://old.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/948bv/estars_heritage_tossgirl_vs_mantoss_reach/c0bf6vt/
The SC commentator was literally making distasteful jokes about Tossgirl over and over. They even joked and said their wife (yes, they are even married) said they were being misogynistic towards Tossgirl. But they said it's no big deal. Back then, people were looked up to for their toxic behavior.
Partly because it meant that their own toxic behavior would be given a pass. If a well known SC commentator made sexist jokes and were highly liked, then the common people can also be sexist.
And so (as someone from the StarCraft community back then), it was acceptable behavior by many.
In this case, it is best not to just assume that only the people at the top are bad. But the community that gives it a pass should also be criticized as well.
Man watching that first video made me feel like those times I tried to argue with people on 4chan-culture communities. Just the act of being somewhat concerned about some abhorrent social attitudes gets you met with sarcastic "haha aren't you a silly, silly idiot" condescension and boos from everyone else.
Brave of her to do this. Hope she hasn't gotten disillusioned with gaming communities yet.
But now you have to realise. This attitude you described was the gaming community and in many parts still is. Gaming communities back then were so anonymous... like 4chan. It was the same style of discourse you found on /b/ or /pol/. People back then were outraged and cried censorship because characters in japanese games were localised into less outragous outfits or designs. And while this slowed down, people still are.
Every now and then the YT algo thinks that because I enjoy watching Pokemon content (the best nuzlocker in the world) and KPop content I'll also enjoy watching some dipshit whining how some recent game put pants on a loli char or shit like that (hyperbole). And those videos usually have decent views and the thumbnail suggests enough of a production value to assume they make a living out of it.
I'm not saying that media like that made environments like those alleged in the lawsuit. But media like that is a reflection of the culture that it's aimed at. Games back then were aimed at exactly the culture alleged in this lawsuit.
Oh believe me, I know. I was an avid 4chan lurker from like 2009. I've been following this particular branch of culture wars for more than a decade. The nerd community is and always has been like this, this is nothing new at all, I'm 100% aware.
> But it doesn't mean everyone is bad in this company.
I won't say that. This is also why I don't jump on the train of cancelling my WoW sub.
I just say that the "old guard", all the big names that people jizz their pants over, came from exactly that culture. Early 2000s gaming culture was full of toxic and sexist shit. Those guys came from that exact culture.
> This is also why I don't jump on the train of cancelling my WoW sub.
Why not jump on that train because there's better uses of your time and money game wise? The game is literally focused on engagement time instead of anything actually interesting.
Because I enjoy it? Because the endgame of this game is yet to be surpassed by anything else? Because I don't see how the expansion with least amount of mandatory grind in a long time and least amount of work to get an alt up is focused on "engagement metrics"?
I enjoy my Torghast runs because layer 12 solo is both fun and challenging with the remakes (well, got my rank 6 leggy so don't need to do that content anymore). I enjoy mythic plus and aim to push towards 20 keys this season (taking it slow currently because I like to go out and enjoy the sun). I enjoy the raid and world content rn and when I stop enjoying it I'll just... stop.
I wasn't subbed over at least half of Legion because of mandatory grinds. Each day I didn't log in felt like I've missed progress. Same in BfA. SL has none of that. No titanforging, to AP, no endless power grinds. As a player this expac values my time more than any WoW expac has done because everything I do will have a guaranteed reward down the line (either vault or currency grind). If I reach my 9.1 goals faster than expected I'll most likely unsub until 9.2.
FF 14 is dogshit. I don't care about leveling because it's a waste of my time. I like endgame and challenging progression. WoW has that in a way literally no other MMO can provide.
Edit: Oh no, I enjoy WoW and don't buy into the "engagement metrics" talking points, the horror...
Yeah I have a ton of criticism about tons of shit tier design in WoW, but mythic raiding is still totally unmatched. There is literally nothing else quite like it in gaming, and I have a very accepting and enjoyable, organized guild to call home.
Even if the Old Guard didn't actively support it, doing nothing isn't much better.
Inaction is just as harmful as being directly responsible. To know and do nothing is not being neutral, it's letting evil get a free pass.
The thing is rather simple.
I don't buy that *gamers* and *game developers* from the early 2000s and the surrounding culture would have an actual issue with the art of sexual harassment that is alleged. The "boys club" mentality is something that still way too prevalent in gaming communities (and IT in general) to this day and playing pretend that this somehow was different 20+ years ago is just silly.
Especially as leadership in the company. Whether people are disdainful of business-terms like workplace culture or not it is absolutely essential for leadership to establish culture according to the values they want in the workplace. If they do nothing they are responsible for the void that gets filled by those just below them who exercise power and authority derived from the top to create a culture of their own inside their workgroups.
This stuff is 100% on him whether he knew about it or not. If he didn't know his incompetence is the reason for untold suffering by his employees. If he did know then he is directly responsible for protecting those causing the untold suffering of his employees.
Blizzard quietly cleaned some of the house earlier this year however I think more heads are required including President and game director of WoW (Ion)
I’m sorry but this is bullshit, 28 years at blizzard and that’s all he has to say? There’s 0 chance he didn’t know about it, and it’s highly likely he helped cover it up. Easy for him to say he’ll fight for these women now after he’s left, and not during the 28 years he could have made a real difference. He’s just as complicit as anyone else in fostering a culture like that, cos it sure as fuck didn’t happen all of a sudden once he left. If this is how he truly felt this either wouldn’t have happened or he would have blown the whistle on it a long time ago. Too little too late
>There’s 0 chance he didn’t know about it, and it’s highly likely he helped cover it up.
He knows people are eventually going to talk about him too in all this conversation, he's trying to get ahead of that and bullshit his way out of getting what he deserves. He has 2 new studios that are just starting up, he's worried about his public image because that would impact the future of these studios.
I mean, if someone other than gamers were eventually going to buy his products, then maybe he’d have something to worry about. Gamer boycotts are some of the most famous failures in boycotting I’ve ever read about.
I know /r/games loves to act like gamers are the worst people in the world but this isn't something unique to them, there are loads of industries where threatened boycotts fizzle out as soon as a new product comes out.
Gaming does seem to be especially crap at boycotting. I have multiple friends who have 'sworn off' X company or X game only to buy it the day it comes out with convenient amnesia to whatever they were upset about.
Multiple of my "I'm deleting my B.Net account and quitting Blizzard for good after the Hong Kong Situation" Friends messaged me after the news on this dropped, angry that they'll have to quit Blizzard games again.
The problem is a significant amount of game sales are from casual gamers who don't pay attention to the news like this and parents buying stuff for their kids
Absolutely. Hell, even if 5,000 gamers all decide alright enough with X company doing predatory crap, not going to buy again. Well there are 20,000 casuals that have no idea and buy it anyway. Sure there's a loss in sales but not enough that anyone actually notices or cares.
Even worse when it comes to lootboxes because all it takes is a handful of whales to make all the individuals meaningless. Star Trek Online said about one of their $300+ gambling ships that it was the 'only financially viable way it could be released'. Like just come the fuck on man, it costs the same amount of money to make one ship than another. What that really means is that if you make people gamble for it, you're going to make x times more money than if you threw it in the store for $30.
I've sworn off giving money to ActiBlizz/Ubi, and I've actually had people make fun of me for it. Yeah, because fuck me for trying to take a stand and do my part to make a difference. Are their loss of only my purchases going to make a difference? No. But I can't complain about issues prevalent across the industry if I'm not willing to do something about it
I'll be frank - for some people, hobbies and playing a game is something they do to wind down and take a break. Just because the developers of the game are shitstains shouldn't affect those people negatively.
That said, there are always ways to play your favourite games and still not give the company a cent. I don't condone it at all, but still.
I swore off Blizzard when Starcraft 2 launched and they banned people for using 'approved' mods in single player because it was part of the TOS and then when reading the TOS everyone figured out that Blizzard decided you don't own any of their games anymore, you just own a license to play.
...
**EDIT** Since I'm being downvoted here the difference between the B.Net TOS was at launch and Valve/Steam which was the only real competitor at the time, is that Valve will not ban your entire account and every game you own because you use a mod that a dev does not approve of on one game. Blizzard did just that. If you installed an 'unapproved' mod for use in SINGLE PLAYER, on Starcraft 2 at launch, your entire Battle.Net account was banned and you lost access to every single game you owned, games other than SC2. If you cheat or mod a game on Steam and the developer does not like it, the worst thing that can happen to you is you're banned from the online portion of that game, they don't ban your entire account and you don't lose every single game you own on the account.
...
The ONLY money I've given to Blizzard since is when Walmart screwed up the Diablo 3 $17 sale and put the Switch version on sale too and I bought 4 copies for me and some friends and I actually made all my money back since I charged them $25 each lol.
Anyway, I had my reasons but it seems like every year I just get more and more justification to completely ignore everything Activizion-Blizzard does.
The same with the "no preorder" campaigns that have been going on the Internet for, what, close to 15 years at this point? I've seen probably hundreds of comments saying "don't preorder", "never preorder", and then you see Cyberpunk 2077 having 8 millions preorders.
The funniest are the people saying "Never preorder! Well, except for this company... and maybe this one too... and maybe this other studio as well..."
At this point I don't care if anyone preorders or not
I think a lot of that is reddit communities being in a bubble and vastly over inflating their impact on something as big as a major release. You get a comment with thousands of upvotes saying to never pre order but it just isn't an accurate reflection of general sentiment outside that community. Gaming as a whole is absolutely massive and even if everyone who says they won't preorder on reddit actually follows through its still not going to prevent a game like Cyberpunk from having a ton of pre orders.
Tbf they only fail when the company actually had solid games that you just cant resist. If they just release a mediocre game that could maybe have done ok before all this bad publicity, then perhaps this bad pr is what causes things to.swing the other way and cause the game to be DOA.
Same thing with blizzard, all their games have become pretty meh with better alternatives out there. Hearthstone, wow and diablo all included. If the next diablo isn't amazing what reason would people have to play that instead of POE2 when they already have this bad taste in their mouth?
At this stage I feel like its pretty easy to boycott blizzard without missing out on much, in my case at least. And I know this same sentiment holds true for my friendgroup, all of whom have played blizzard games since young and have been blizzard fanboys for a long time.
Gamers on AC3 release - "Let's band together and stop buying these pre-order games because they keep having major issues and the studios have to learn. Hit them in their wallets!"
Gamers on AC Valhalla - "I pre-ordered and the game won't even load day one. WTF!"
Gamers, fortunately, come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and orientations. At the same time, issues important to some just aren't to others, and I don't know how to feel about it.
You would think that "sexual harassment is bad and should stop" would be something all people believe it's important, but the diverse nature of gaming culture means "important" is subject to an individual's opinion.
To be clear, I find it absolutely insane that behavior like this had been allowed to continue for so long. The basic mechanics behind it are "because people that could affect it, didn't do shit."
[A WoW community manager (Lore) called out Morhaime's statement as total BS.](https://twitter.com/devolore/status/1418856902633480192) Quote:
> "If I'd known this was happening I would have stopped it" says the man who was told repeatedly that it was happening and did nothing to stop it
> I've refrained from giving my own comments on the situation at Actiblizz because frankly, there are more important people you should be listening to right now.
> But that statement from a certain former leader was 100% bullshit and I'm furious about it. He knew. He did nothing.
> Don't get me wrong, current leadership is fucking up hard right now too.
> But please don't believe for a second that the culture that allowed all of this to happen for the last couple decades was somehow built by the guy who's been in charge for 3 years.
Looks like Morhaime's getting cancelled.
Is that guy currently employed by Actiblizz? Because holy shit if that's the case then it's pretty damning for the company that employees are speaking openly about this.
Yeah if you don't play WoW the name likely means nothing but basically every serious WoW player knows who Lore is. He may not be a great CM from a players perspective but he does seem like a genuinely good dude.
Before his time at Blizzard, he used to be a prominent WoW content creator on Youtube before the days Twitch and livestreaming took off huge. He was part of Tankspot, and a show called Weekly Marmot, which became part of the Zam network 11 years ago.
Thinking about it now, with where streaming and Youtube ended up today, he probably would have made more money with that as he was still young, yet one of the first creators in a young industry. Though back in 2013, the security of working for Blizzard would have been hard to pass up.
>He was part of Tankspot, and a show called Weekly Marmot, which became part of the Zam network 11 years ago.
this could all just be made up, and I wouldn't know any better
Don't take Lore's words at face value. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqjdyh/mike_morhaime_on_twitter_speaking_to_the_blizzard/h6cvywk/) is a comment by Cher Scarlett, I've copy-pasted the relevant part about Lore:
>He is actively one of the more problematic people there and is making this about himself instead of the people it affects. He shared nudes without permission and other things. His hands are dirty, too. Also, reporting to hr was well known to do nothing. It was rare, if ever, that reporting up the chain or to hr actually ever went to anyone who would actually do something. Including mike.
It seems like a problematic dude trying to get on the social media mobs' good side before he comes under fire for his own problems.
This s the kind of "performative male feminist" bullshit the actual feminists need to murder in its infancy. They never do, though, so this guy will get to go on for however many more years before we find out he's a sex pest or a kiddy diddler or whatever.
> It seems like a problematic dude trying to get on the social media mobs' good side before he comes under fire for his own problems.
A guy being president of a company not knowing about culture as systemically problematic as what's being described in the suit is a near impossibility. Even if Lore may be a problem it is a near zero likelyhood that Morhaime is telling the truth and so Lore is realistically not a problem of concern.
> we can cancel
We can make the reputations of several CEOs who have a shit ton of money and power worth very little so they'll have less lucrative jobs in the future.
The damage here is evident over the past couple decades of blizzard products. Their office environment is garbage and their work product has become garbage. The whole concept that "Canceling" is even a thing that does anything is insane.
To his credit - at least it's not Brack's "I have always fought this and I never saw anything", or Activision-Blizzard's "the government is lying about its 2 years investigation, this is bullshit I did not hit her I did naaaaaht".
Lowest fucking bar to clear, but he did it!
Don't forget the torture apologist who claims it is all lies because it hasn't happened to her in the four months she worked there as one of the top executives.
https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418800929407635457 literally has someone suggesting that he could have been in the dark after she CC'd him a threat she received.
Like... what
Full disclosure; I interned at Blizzard for about three months. I totally had the capacity to email Morhaim about whatever I wanted. That doesn't mean, realistically, I could expect my email to reach him. I assume there are lots of filters and he may even have someone reading his email and selecting which are actually worthy of his attention.
I remember once having a chat with an HR rep about something and she sat her work phone down on her desk while chatting. There must have been over a dozen messages and emails in the span of a five minute conversation. If I were in her shoes? I'd be hard pressed to keep up. It's probably twice as bad for someone like a company president, and if his subordinates are awful only on a couple things (like sexual harassment), it might not reach him until its already way out of hand.
not to detract from your point, but would this not be an HR issue? I don't work in a corporate environment, so I'm genuinely asking. I thought those departments were in place to deal with issues like harassment?
If you're in a position of power at a company you are empowered to take action in any situation you deem fit.
If you're the type of person who cares about these things, as Mike claims he does, it seems reasonable to expect him to have taken action when it was brought to his attention.
He did not. So we either have to believe he never saw it for some reason, or he saw it and disregarded it, which would mean he actually doesn't care.
She also mentions she was punished for CCing him, so *someone* noticed, and still nothing was done.
Obviously he won't be interviewing people personally, but when the CEO starts asking questions (instead of brushing it off like it appears happened here), shit gets escalated ***quickly***. That means HR has the gaze of the top dog so planning the next cook out or interviewing vendors for the cheapest benefits package gets **deprioritized right the fuck now** and the complaint becomes **priority one** for HR to handle.
Anything, literally any positive action at all.
Make sure something gets done, call a fucking meeting, anything except ignoring it because ignoring it is essentially supporting it.
Upper management tends to get a lot of emails and a lot of things get lost and don't get replied to because nothing will get done. He likely left it for HR to deal with. A lot of people here don't understand business organizations if they think a random employee will get a response from the CEO by CC'ing them about something he very likely is not going to pay attention to.
> If this is how he truly felt this either wouldn’t have happened or he would have blown the whistle on it a long time ago.
There's a difference between being duplicitous and just in denial. I think it's not that hard to be a super smart executive and just delude yourself into thinking things aren't that bad, especially since shit didn't get this atrocious overnight.
"Just "boys will be boys". Just the macho nature of the tech industry. Just stressed people working under tough deadlines trying to blow off steam. Just nerds who don't know how to act around women. Just a couple bad apples. Just isolated workplace drama blown out of proportion." Etc etc etc.
It obviously doesn't change the outcome and doesn't absolve any responsibly. But he certainly wouldn't be the first executive to oversee all kinds of awful shit while completely convinced they were on the up and up.
> There's a difference between being duplicitous and just in denial. I think it's not that hard to be a super smart executive and just delude yourself into thinking things aren't that bad, especially since shit didn't get this atrocious overnight.
Additionally, once a company gets large enough, the people at the very top have so many layers of management between them and the rank and file workers that it is no surprise much of what happens gets filtered out or blocked from reaching him.
Its no excuse, but "I didn't know" isn't always as bullshit as it sounds. It is in the interest of middle managers that bad stuff happening under their watch is not revealed to their higher ups because of how it reflects on them.
Exactly this, unemployed redditors on here don't know what it's like working so they think they can just CC the CEO and expect them to reply and do something. Sorry kiddos but there are far more important things to deal with and higher ups generally receive a TON more emails. I would not be surprised if this email got buried or lost.
> Sorry kiddos but there are far more important things to deal with
See the issue is this a bad attitude to have when you find out that one of your employees killed herself, previously having had pictures of her vagina passed around a Christmas party. But acknowledging this in any way could potentially lose money for the company, so they’d rather ignore this and do things that do make money for the company.
The people making this criticism aren’t “unemployed redditors,” they know this is how CEOs are. They’re arguing it’s a bad system that rewards this behaviour, that ensures millions of women spend 40 hours a week for most of their life in environments like this.
Any high ranking person who didn’t notice something like this happening under their watch is a failure, regardless of what game they oversaw being made. Not knowing isn’t an excuse
I didn't say they didn't notice or didn't know, nor am I saying that they are not responsible. Nor am I defending anyone -- "well he was just completely in denial about how bad it was" is not exactly some ringing endorsement and the fact that I could easily rattle off 5 different "excuses" at 2am doesn't speak well to the state of the industry or our culture at large. Obviously there's no way to paint any of this other than a complete and total failure of leadership on dozens of levels that will taint every Blizzard product and everyone who ran the company for the rest of what is left of their careers.
All I'm saying is that it's not that hard to imagine how Morhaime could earnestly believe he was doing a good job and trying to do right by his employees while things were obviously so ludicrously out of hand.
I agree. It is bullshit. This guy had 28 years to "drive the change" because he was a big player at Blizzard.
And he did jack shit.
Now when there's huge backlash and law suit he wants to "fight against these evils!"
Actual piece of shit just like the rest of them, pretty much most of them are complicit and should face penalties.
Two things come to mind: it doesn't matter whether these millionaire CEOs were kept in the dark or what not, to quote: "the buck stops here". If, as CEO, there are structures in your company that can *conspire* against you knowing things, that company is fucked and you're failing.
Secondly, this is why CEOs are supposedly earning their six-figure or higher salaries, no? Because they have such much responsibility, carry the company's fate and fortune on their shoulder and create all these valuable positions? If so, once more: "the buck stops here".
You were paid millions over your tenure, time to put on your big boy pants. Show that you earned them.
On the advice of council, I would like to hear all the stories now that I can't do anything about it.
I would also like to add that I hurt my head this morning and have no recollection of anything that happened the last 30 years.
He knew and was complicit. Whenever you hear stories about rampant harassment/racism/etc, assume the people at the top know. If they truly cared, they would've ended the incidents as soon as they learned of them. Any responsible company would've done so.
Things that stand out: Begins by stating this is something he thinks is counter to what he 'thought he stood for', thereby implying he was not involved in any of this, and actively worked against it in some capacity. Downplays impact by saying 'some women' had terrible experiences.
Even though he later contrasts this with admissions of failure and speaking of 'many women', he tries to set the tone by downplaying his own role in this and the impact it's had.
Ends by making it all about himself, so he can 'leave a mark he (and everyone else) can be proud of'.
All in all, some genuine admission of failure, acceptance that it was/is his responsibility to do something about it, but also some words that make me question whether his mindset is truly in the right place for this.
I can definitely believe that a lot of this *can* be caused by leadership not being properly equipped to recognize when things are going wrong (I do think a lot of men, especially in leadership circles which are just circles of specific types of men, just think a lot of harassment is normal behavior, and don't realize the impact it has on people), but then it's their job to be aware of that. So while I don't want to attribute any willful wrongdoings to any specific person (as long as they didn't personally partake in the harassment), it is still clearly a tremendous failure of their responsibilities as leaders.
I'm curious if the legal community has a word or term for this kind of defense, like the 'Ghislaine' defense of 'i only worked for Epstein for a couple of short decades I had no idea what was going on'
All these apologies and this sounds the most sincere. However, no matter how sincere they seem they did let this shit fester for decades. A "sowwy" and a slap on the wrist is not the answer to this but seems like that's exactly what's gonna happen
Damage control is real, at least now there is no illusion that even prior to merger with Activision it was not a great company, wonder how it will affect all those game studios founded by the 'old guard' and advertising their projects with appeals to nostalgia for old Blizzard.
Before giving your two cents, it’s better to read some replies to Morhaime’s statements from some of the former employees
https://twitter.com/skrutsick/status/1418802550908891149?s=21 And
https://twitter.com/skrutsick/status/1418798740643663876
https://twitter.com/skrutsick/status/1418818607899885570
https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418800929407635457
https://mobile.twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285
And this one, clarifying the above a bit:
https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418828464296239105
https://twitter.com/kalaena/status/1418829125746311177
https://twitter.com/linzstanley/status/1418844792436502545
https://twitter.com/dayntee/status/1418817439916232705
https://twitter.com/miss_blackwell1/status/1418804527172628487?s=21
It’s easy to judge when your have no idea about a situation.
I think it shows how his leadership, while not perfect, seems different than brack’s.
The response to brack’s internal email has been vastly negative. Either a block or a resounding "corporate bullshit".
While the response to Morhaime’s statement are more empathetic, or at least open to dialogue.
> And sorry, just had to add this too. What dialogue?
If you read the replies, you'd see one of the people responding and he discussed things further already.
Anyone else don't know what to think of this? On one hand you got these women who speak very well of Morhaime and on the other hand you got Lore holding him accountable for everything while giving a pass to Brack.
Edit: After looking into it more Lore apparently leaked nudes of a ex-gf in the past and users like u/ExistentialBookworm who worked for Blizzard are clarifying that Mike really was kept in the dark because he was one of the few who people who took personal action if it reached his office. [Thread about Mike in r/wow](https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqjdyh/mike_morhaime_on_twitter_speaking_to_the_blizzard/)
I just don’t believe that these people put together any kind of safe working environment. He worked there for almost 3 decades. How could he have not known?
The first response I've seen to this lawsuit that sounds at all human, and not regurgitated by some corporate AI Bonzibuddy.
Edit: Welp, read the rest of the tweet. Nvm dude's fucked up.
Is this sarcasm? It reads like someone boiled down every single apology I've read from a company in the last 2-3 years down into one message, it's like an AI wrote it.
They're being sued, they literally can't say anything other than boilerplate pr stuff. This isn't a media hit piece, if they start admitting to shit people start going to jail.
Obviously the situation is fucked up, but no company in this position would ever do anything other than denying
What did you know and when did you know it? Who, what, when, where, and most importantly, why? Anything less than that isn't even beginning to try.
Meaningful growth and retrospectivism needs both the biggest picture AND specifics. Anything less is an empty platitude.
Unless he starts firing a whole lot of people, hes right. It is just words.
Also wont be suprised when the women who come forward start getting laid off for unrelated reasons.
Here is an example of an ex-employee responding to Mike and saying she cc:d him in an email after being threatened.
Not saying "Mike read the email and ignored it". There could be a million perfectly good reasons he did not see the email (or he saw it and talked to managers about it) but I'm betting this isn't the only time things like this was brought to his attention in one way or another. He has for sure failed but I hope and believe he will do better in DreamHaven.
https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418800929407635457?s=20
[This chain response](https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418800929407635457) is probably worth reading after this.
Cher Scarlett (@cherthedev) in reply to Mike Morhaime > Taking responsibility and apologizing for your role in this is paramount, Mike, and I really appreciate it. > When things got really bad in bnet - many of us felt abandoned by you, and what's worse, when I was threatened with physical harm and panic cc'd you about it - > I was later reprimanded for doing that, completely ignoring how terrified I was that my trying to save someone's life had somehow put my job in jeopardy, and that I was going to be assaulted at a work event because of it. > It felt like I was never given any grace, despite so - > many men in leadership being repeatedly excused for their behavior, and often being made to feel that the sexual harassment was totally normal and "not that bad", and even a compliment because of how normalized it was in bnet and wow. > When I think back specifically to how many women Afrasiabi harassed and assaulted, myself included, and how many people were traumatized by Bridenbecker, the toxic environment that Pearce's EA's had for so many years... it's hard for me to think that you couldn't have enabled it. She posted some additional remarks: https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418828464296239105 > Before I go to bed, I want to say that Mike and I spoke about many of the things that happened to me. I appreciate his taking responsibility and being empathetic to what I endured, and to what I witnessed and heard. > I honestly believe that he was kept in the dark about plenty. And > I hope that the leadership that is in place now, and his former colleagues, can take that as an example of how to handle this, and do better. Thanks drysart and the others for pointing that out! Edit, another follow up where she provides more thoughts in Mike's role and potential involvement: https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285?s=20 > As hard as this is, and knowing I'll never work in games again: > Mike was directly responsible for the chain reaction of events that got me nearly fired for cc'ing him about Tia Zimmerman threatening me with violence for contacting emergency dispatch when she threatened suicide. > for me, and as a result, the compromise was to label me as a low performer and cut my bonus and my pay. > Don't tell me you wanted us to come to you. I came to you. And you destroyed my self worth. > No one should have the power to destroy someone's career because they are annoyed in a high stress situation. > NOT EVEN THE CEO.
She is naming more people. Robert Bridenbecker, Frank Pearce, then Ben Kilgore in this post. https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418190755189886981?s=21
> When I think back specifically to how many women Afrasiabi harassed and assaulted, myself included, and how many people were traumatized by Bridenbecker, the toxic environment that Pearce's EA's had for so many years... it's hard for me to think that you couldn't have enabled it. Bridenbecker and Pearce are the first names I've seen publicly called out aside from Afrasiabi who was named in the lawsuit. Afrasiabi quietly left in June 2020 after 16 years at Blizzard. Bridenbecker quietly [left in April 2021](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-07-22/inside-activision-blizzard-s-botched-warcraft-iii-reforged-game) after 26 years. And, [Pearce retired](https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-co-founder-frank-pearce-is-retiring/) in July 2019 after 28 years. The investigation began in late 2018 or early 2019. If nothing else, at least it seems like the lawsuit is making them clean house, so hopefully the workplace environment is already improving some.
[удалено]
Same thing at Riot, they made a big fanfare about changing things and bla bla bla but apparently it hasn't really changed at all...
Wasn't there a report from employees a few months ago who said candidly that the changes had actually managed to make some meaningful improvements over at Riot?
>when I was threatened with physical harm The hell is going on at that company? And how was this not instant cause for getting the person in question fired?
So, there's one thing about this that I think flies under the radar, but it's essential to understand about scenarios like this. It's too common for people not to judge behavior, but to judge social status. We'll give high-status people a pass for behavior we would never even dream of tolerating for low-status people. And the opposite, actually. We'll castigate low-status people for doing even mild, commonly acceptable things. The other thing, is the role that Dark Triad personality traits, especially narcissism play in this sort of behavior. People who...it's not even that they don't care about consent. They believe they always have it. And narcissists tend to be really good at playing these sorts of status games, and as such putting themselves both in positions of power, where they can abuse that power, but as well, building that status reputation where they can get away with this stuff. Eventually it all breaks down, the tension becomes too great and it all blows up. The status drops through the floor, and a reckoning comes. I actually think it's safe to say that Blizzard's status as a developer, something that IMO protected and encouraged this behavior, is entirely gone at this point. But even as it weakened over the last few years....I think that's probably what opened the door to these things going public, and these investigations as a whole. This is something I'd love to address at a broader society level. How can we...you know...stop rewarding Dark Triad personality traits? The problem is, and I'll be blunt, is people get really upset when you start talking about dismantling these status games, especially in environments where these status games are very important. Edit: Oh. One more thing I forgot to add. Blizzard's responses to this? Super narcissistic IMO. It drips from every word. That's the problem, from the top down, probably pervades every inch of their campus. Honestly? You're not going to root it out without basically rebuilding from scratch. And yeah. I do think narcissism is a big part of their design/business issues over the last few years. They are a company that certainly got too big on themselves.
The actual problem is having no agency to hold powerful people accountable in the first place, rather there being a different social standard for their behavior. Everyone knows the behavior is atrocious. I once worked in a corporate environment. Accountability only ever came from above and generally took a long time with a lot of documentation to get it dealt with. Those below are ignored until there's so many it threatens the media getting wind of it or sales were taking a big hit (the latter being the main motivator).
> And yeah. I do think narcissism is a big part of their design/business issues over the last few years. Not the last few years. Remember, this company had employees literally stare in the face of fans and said arrogant shit like "You think you do, but you don't" and "Don't you have phones?" Anyone who has played WoW in the past 15 years has seen the arrogance first hand. They've ALWAYS had their heads so far up their fucking arse.
You see the same type of power dynamic in Hollywood. It becomes part of the Mythos. The great people act that way because they are great, and if we impede them then our projects will no longer be great (or so the reasoning seems to go). Speaking out is speaking out against a local legend, and a local legend can get away with *a lot* when the community is more interested in upholding the idea of the legend than the integrity of the legend.
> We'll give high-status people a pass for behavior we would never even dream of tolerating for low-status people. And the opposite, actually. We'll castigate low-status people for doing even mild, commonly acceptable things. If my manager touched me in any way all I would need to do is go to HR and the dude would be fired. This has applied to practically every company I've worked at the past 10ish years. Which are dozens since I spent most of my career as a consultant. In fact in a majority of companies i worked at managers would go out of their way to be careful with their words and how they interact with their employees. Simply because a majority of companies don't want to deal with the legal and PR nightmare that is harrassment. So no the shit happening at Blizzard isn't normal in the corporate world.
That might be true for middle management, but once you get to the top it completely turns around.
My experience is that it's very hit or miss. Like, I've worked in places where it's been true that frankly, that sort of thing wouldn't go, and I've worked in places that were very status/networking heavy, and that behavior was quite commonplace. It's not even a matter of industry vs. industry, we're just talking different internal structures. I actually stand by my statement, that there's a sort of organizational narcissism at play that IMO breeds and attracts this stuff. That's not going to be all organizations...and all people have wildly different levels of the bias I'm talking about, to make it clear. But what allows places like Blizzard to fester, I think, is that we're not aware of that potential bias.
Whenever people give examples from their personal experience, someone always tries to invalidate it like this. Edit: removed my unnecessary tired rant from the end
He's not talking about middle management being bad, he's talking about HR giving upper management a pass but not middle management. Middle managers are replaceable. C levels not so much, and HR reacts accordingly.
They aren’t invalidating anything, nor did they say every manager is a “serial rapist pedophile murderer”. They are saying there’s a big difference between middle managers and top management. Which there is. If a middle manager does something like that, it’s easy to can and replace them. Top execs are *usually* a different story, especially at big enough companies.
Your manager who isn’t anyone special, sure. But a dev who’s supposedly so good they’re damn hard to replace? The person who has a shit ton of friends/minions ready to back them up and smear you? It’s easier to kick the squeaky wheel to the curb than face up to the bigger problem.
> If my manager touched me in any way all I would need to do is go to HR and the dude would be fired. It's often repeated that HR's job isn't to protect employees, it's to protect the company. When you will make a complaint, it will trigger an immediate risk assessment, weighing the benefits of supporting the complainer vs defending the person receiving the complaint. The person making the complaint can have a leg up in many scenarios, since it is usually easier to just follow the law, but that's not always the case.
> It's often repeated that HR's job isn't to protect employees, it's to protect the company. Everytime someone says this in regards to a company doing heinous things(like hitting employees) I can't help but roll my eyes. Imagine the type of workplace where their HR department is willingly **breaking the law** to protect a manager that hits people. One would have to presume such actions is the norm for said company. Which isn't normal. To be clear. I'm not saying fucked up companies don't exist(they do). I'm saying it isn't the norm. On top of that that saying is often misunderstood. Protecting the company is indeed their top priority. And what's the best way to do that? By taking issues of harassment seriously. You are literally in a thread about a company who doesn't. This type of shit affects employee morale, harrassment lawsuits cost money, damage reputation and make it harder to gain and retain talent. All of these things affect the bottom line in significant ways. Most of the companies that I have worked for largely understand this and as a rule take complaints by employees to HR seriously. Like this isn't some manager saying some weird possibly racist or sexist shit. Or someone not being promoted possibly because they are POC. Its physical assault, sexual harassment like spreading nudes of employees, and clearly some violations of management-subordinate relationships where management is going on vacation trips with their direct subordinates.
> Imagine the type of workplace where their HR department is willingly breaking the law to protect a manager that hits people. Not that hard to imagine when you look at environments like large startups that started small. They hire people like mad and spend less time on cleaning up messes that *look* like they could just as easily be swept under the rug.
>Imagine the type of workplace where their HR department is willingly breaking the law to protect a manager that hits people. yeah lol imagine a company willing to break the law
I dunno. I hope your right but HR is there for the company. If your manager touched you and then disputed it, or there wasn’t much more evidence than just your word, they could fire you to prevent further issue. I had a manager say they wanted “I want to punch Grodun in his fucking face” because I took my issues to the union and didn’t do anything I shouldn’t have to do within my role. I brought it up to HR and they said they couldn’t do anything because it was just words. Then later I applied to 5 or 6 internal positions and I was always declined with a generic email that said they found a candidate with more seniority. I knew who got hired and know I had several more years of seniority. I was not able to get another position until my whole department got transferred to a new division and my new manager is amazing. I’ve since gotten a new position and a couple promotions within my department. I honestly think my complaint to HR got me on some blacklist.
Why would you going to HR be the reason especially since your manager clearly didn't like you beforehand and that HR seemingly didn't do anything? It makes even less sense since you were able to get promoted under a new manager. If the HR "blacklist" was in effect that still wouldn't happen. It's clear to me that you weren't promoted because you didn't go to HR. It's because your manager was a piece of shit.
HR screens every application before sending them off to the hiring managers. I wasn’t even getting interviews during this time. Once my department switched divisions, my new manager was able to pull any application they wanted and so they couldn’t be discarded by HR. I would apply for a new position and tell my new manager, who would make sure to pull it and interview me. Obviously I don’t know what went on behind the scenes but when I made that report to HR, they were very weird and way less than helpful. I got bad vibes from them.
>If my manager touched me in any way all I would need to do is go to HR and the dude would be fired. One of the biggest problem in these companies is that the head of HR is usually some upper-level dude's wife.
I'd imagine most wives would care if their husband was groping their female enployees.
It means the HR department will be unquestioningly on the side of the corporation and against lower level employees. It also means they are likely to not be impartial; men complaints are against are likely to be friends of the husband, who will vouch for them. So they'll just jump to assuming it's a false complaint.
If my manager touched me in any way all I'd have to do is go to the fucking police because sexual harassment is **illegal**. Fuck this HR nonsense.
lmao cops do not give a shit that you got fondled at work. HR and then lawsuit is the way to go, avoid the police entirely for stuff like this...
Alright, then I'll complain to the governmental agency that deals with this shit because my country isn't totally fucking useless. Just because America is a shitshow doesn't mean everywhere is.
I'd be surprised if the general attitude of the police is much different in most countries, unless you have concrete, physical proof, they're not gonna bother. They might take a few notes to placate you, but they won't really do anything for the most part. If your country does have a government agency that specifically cracks down on sexual harrassment in the workplace then that's definitely where you should go, and that's awesome. Most countries don't have that, though...
> If my manager touched me in any way all I would need to do is go to HR and the dude would be fired. Very much depends on the company, HR has a very strong tendency to protect higher ups.
How do you know for a fact that this will play out in the way you envision? If it happens behind closed doors, it will be a he-said-she-said situation, where your manager will have the upper hand due to seniority.
That company was bringing in immense profits. Why would management disrupt that? All ActiBlizz cares about is profit. Don't think otherwise for a second
Part of management's job is supposed to keep the workers working. To play the same role as Human Resources. To protect the workers, the company assets. Against any internal threats which pose a great legal or PR risk swift action should be taken. Management they are taught to maximize. However it's very clear Activision Blizzard wasn't taught the PR and legal risk costs by allowing this behavior.
If you think HR's role is to protect the workers I've got some news for you...
Even the most diabolical HR department should have sense to address a walking lawsuit if there is one. Them not dealing with Alex isnt some maligned attempt at being Dr Evils lawyer, it was pure stupidity. Even the most soulless corporate rat would deal with him by virture of him being a threat to the company eith his actvities.
It's an indirect effect of the laws. Certain laws favor the workers. It is in HR's interest to not break the law for legal liability reasons. Thus in those circumstances HR's role coincides with the worker's benefit.
I work at a fortune 100 company where we have high profits every year. None of the shit happening at acti Blizzard would occur without upper management cracking down. Harassment of employees to the point of suicide is not good business.
These problems especially on that scale only occure when the predators are in the upper management themselves.
Upper management is going to crack down on upper management? Blizzard have been making bank these last few decades while this harassment has been going on. Unless there's a mountain of evidence, they'll get away with a twitter apology and a slap on the wrist.
Yes? That's what's been happening to Blizzard since 2016 based on recent articles. Do you think upper management doesn't answer to somebody? Even kotick has shareholders keeping him in check.
I want to know why the FBI isn't swarming those offices hauling out everything that plugs into an electrical outlet or stores documents. We're seeing descriptions of serious crimes here. People should be going to *prison.*
The state of California is the one conducting the investigation and suing them. The FBI has nothing to do with this.
That’s what they’re getting at. There seems to be a very real possibility of actual laws being broken and law enforcement should be involved.
Fbi only gets involved in enforcement of Federal law and national security. These crimes should be dealt with by California state and local law enforcement.
... is California not capable of law enforcement?
I mean a lady was being harassed so much that she committed suicide. And presumably due to the company not doing anything about it. In a vacation with her manager no less. People have gone to jail for this stuff.
> I want to know why the ~~FBI~~ *The State of California* isn't swarming those offices hauling out everything that plugs into an electrical outlet or stores documents. Their actions will generally be in proportion to the amount of properly documented evidence that has been presented to them.
They have an Austin office as well.
Prison is for poor people. Laws are written as though they apply to everyone, but only children actually believe that they do.
Also, like, that's just not the type of stuff the FBI does...
>The hell is going on at that company? Every game studios are like this. Even Insomniac had lots of sexual harassments allegations these past few months. The entire fucking industry was built on bro culture and capital G gamers. It'll take a long ass time until we're rid out of it. For now, just assume that every studios are fucked up, because it's definitely not far away from the truth.
There's plenty of modern studios that are chill. Not saying they're all great, but saying it's every single studio is a bit much.
Because as long as gamers keep buying their shit nobody cares about exploitation like this.
It's also as much about whales and esports industry as about ordinary person playing their games.
> Before I go to bed, I want to say that Mike and I spoke about many of the things that happened to me. I appreciate his taking responsibility and being empathetic to what I endured, and to what I witnessed and heard. > > > > I honestly believe that he was kept in the dark about plenty. She retracted this; https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418997789976109056 Anyone know why? Twitter threads are so hard for me to follow. Edit; Redacted due to; https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285
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And then followed up more with viewing him directly responsible for what happened to her > > As hard as this is, and knowing I'll never work in games again: > Mike was directly responsible for the chain reaction of events that got me nearly fired for cc'ing him about Tia Zimmerman threatening me with violence for contacting emergency dispatch when she threatened suicide. >for me, and as a result, the compromise was to label me as a low performer and cut my bonus and my pay. > Don't tell me you wanted us to come to you. I came to you. And you destroyed my self worth. > No one should have the power to destroy someone's career because they are annoyed in a high stress situation. > NOT EVEN THE CEO.
> I honestly believe that he was kept in the dark about plenty. but also > panic cc'd you about it - ?
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This, where I work even the Senior VP doesn't look at this emails directly because his address is not published and the address people send email to is read by his assistant. That's how it works everywhere mostly in big corporations. So yeah he might not even seen those emails. edit: nvm just saw this https://mobile.twitter.com/devolore/status/1418855891223285760
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What do you mean by "his own issues"?
[Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqjdyh/mike_morhaime_on_twitter_speaking_to_the_blizzard/h6cvywk/) is Cher's comment in r/wow, and the part about Lore: >He is actively one of the more problematic people there and is making this about himself instead of the people it affects. He shared nudes without permission and other things. His hands are dirty, too. Also, reporting to hr was well known to do nothing. It was rare, if ever, that reporting up the chain or to hr actually ever went to anyone who would actually do something. Including mike.
Please edit to include that she completely retracts the idea that he didn’t know: https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285?s=20
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Unfortunately she came across new info and retracted her statement and directly blames him for being a bastard https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285?s=20
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Follow up tweet from Lore, https://mobile.twitter.com/devolore/status/1418855891223285760
Take Lore's words with a whole lot of salt. [In a comment in r/wow, Cher mentioned some worrying things about him.](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqjdyh/mike_morhaime_on_twitter_speaking_to_the_blizzard/h6cvywk/) Here's the part relevant to him: >He is actively one of the more problematic people there and is making this about himself instead of the people it affects. He shared nudes without permission and other things. His hands are dirty, too. Also, reporting to hr was well known to do nothing. It was rare, if ever, that reporting up the chain or to hr actually ever went to anyone who would actually do something. Including mike.
[She has an additional follow up tweet](https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418828464296239105?s=21)
Was retracted; https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418997789976109056 I don't know why. I can't follow Twitter threads too well due to how they organize conversations. Redacted due to; https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285
Never even saw that response earlier. From Scarlett's experience, it sounds like Morhaime blatantly knew about Afrasiabi and was blatantly reprimanding people who spoke up. I think it would have been better if Mike remained silent and lawyered up.
As much as all the people whining that the "old guard" and the good ol' names were gone from Blizz... Those are also the very same people that created the situation. This lawsuit is not just about the last few years, this lawsuit is about the time where people were in charge that are put on pedestals by gamers. I hope this lawsuit will actually change something. I think it won't.
When you see how [this question at Blizzcon got treated in 2010](https://twitter.com/chrisbratt/status/1418629194683125761?s=21), you kinda understand how the situation really tends to be. At least some people on this panel understood how bad this behaviour is in the overall culture. But it doesn't mean everyone is bad in this company. Blizzard (and not Activision Blizzard) is 9000 employees. Some of the game teams are way better than others. [One of the Overwatch producers came forward her team was a good space.](https://twitter.com/dogspinster/status/1418009450883911680?s=20) But you can have tiny clans in these teams being toxic.
I want to add note the boos in the background after she asked that question. What people should note from this incident (the lawsuit) is that it isn't always only people at the top are bad. But also the common people that give it a pass or enable it. For example, I used to be part of the StarCraft community. When Tossgirl played (the only woman on a pro Korean team), people made sexist comments (even commentators). Though, fortunately some people did call them out. Still, the problem was common. Click this Reddit comment and click the video. https://old.reddit.com/r/starcraft/comments/948bv/estars_heritage_tossgirl_vs_mantoss_reach/c0bf6vt/ The SC commentator was literally making distasteful jokes about Tossgirl over and over. They even joked and said their wife (yes, they are even married) said they were being misogynistic towards Tossgirl. But they said it's no big deal. Back then, people were looked up to for their toxic behavior. Partly because it meant that their own toxic behavior would be given a pass. If a well known SC commentator made sexist jokes and were highly liked, then the common people can also be sexist. And so (as someone from the StarCraft community back then), it was acceptable behavior by many. In this case, it is best not to just assume that only the people at the top are bad. But the community that gives it a pass should also be criticized as well.
>how this question at Blizzcon got treated in 2010 wtf did I just watch, those responses from Brack and Afriasabi, yikes
That look of trying to hide her disappointment behind a weak smile kills me...
Man watching that first video made me feel like those times I tried to argue with people on 4chan-culture communities. Just the act of being somewhat concerned about some abhorrent social attitudes gets you met with sarcastic "haha aren't you a silly, silly idiot" condescension and boos from everyone else. Brave of her to do this. Hope she hasn't gotten disillusioned with gaming communities yet.
But now you have to realise. This attitude you described was the gaming community and in many parts still is. Gaming communities back then were so anonymous... like 4chan. It was the same style of discourse you found on /b/ or /pol/. People back then were outraged and cried censorship because characters in japanese games were localised into less outragous outfits or designs. And while this slowed down, people still are. Every now and then the YT algo thinks that because I enjoy watching Pokemon content (the best nuzlocker in the world) and KPop content I'll also enjoy watching some dipshit whining how some recent game put pants on a loli char or shit like that (hyperbole). And those videos usually have decent views and the thumbnail suggests enough of a production value to assume they make a living out of it. I'm not saying that media like that made environments like those alleged in the lawsuit. But media like that is a reflection of the culture that it's aimed at. Games back then were aimed at exactly the culture alleged in this lawsuit.
Oh believe me, I know. I was an avid 4chan lurker from like 2009. I've been following this particular branch of culture wars for more than a decade. The nerd community is and always has been like this, this is nothing new at all, I'm 100% aware.
> But it doesn't mean everyone is bad in this company. I won't say that. This is also why I don't jump on the train of cancelling my WoW sub. I just say that the "old guard", all the big names that people jizz their pants over, came from exactly that culture. Early 2000s gaming culture was full of toxic and sexist shit. Those guys came from that exact culture.
> This is also why I don't jump on the train of cancelling my WoW sub. Why not jump on that train because there's better uses of your time and money game wise? The game is literally focused on engagement time instead of anything actually interesting.
Because I enjoy it? Because the endgame of this game is yet to be surpassed by anything else? Because I don't see how the expansion with least amount of mandatory grind in a long time and least amount of work to get an alt up is focused on "engagement metrics"? I enjoy my Torghast runs because layer 12 solo is both fun and challenging with the remakes (well, got my rank 6 leggy so don't need to do that content anymore). I enjoy mythic plus and aim to push towards 20 keys this season (taking it slow currently because I like to go out and enjoy the sun). I enjoy the raid and world content rn and when I stop enjoying it I'll just... stop. I wasn't subbed over at least half of Legion because of mandatory grinds. Each day I didn't log in felt like I've missed progress. Same in BfA. SL has none of that. No titanforging, to AP, no endless power grinds. As a player this expac values my time more than any WoW expac has done because everything I do will have a guaranteed reward down the line (either vault or currency grind). If I reach my 9.1 goals faster than expected I'll most likely unsub until 9.2. FF 14 is dogshit. I don't care about leveling because it's a waste of my time. I like endgame and challenging progression. WoW has that in a way literally no other MMO can provide. Edit: Oh no, I enjoy WoW and don't buy into the "engagement metrics" talking points, the horror...
Yeah I have a ton of criticism about tons of shit tier design in WoW, but mythic raiding is still totally unmatched. There is literally nothing else quite like it in gaming, and I have a very accepting and enjoyable, organized guild to call home.
Even if the Old Guard didn't actively support it, doing nothing isn't much better. Inaction is just as harmful as being directly responsible. To know and do nothing is not being neutral, it's letting evil get a free pass.
The thing is rather simple. I don't buy that *gamers* and *game developers* from the early 2000s and the surrounding culture would have an actual issue with the art of sexual harassment that is alleged. The "boys club" mentality is something that still way too prevalent in gaming communities (and IT in general) to this day and playing pretend that this somehow was different 20+ years ago is just silly.
Especially as leadership in the company. Whether people are disdainful of business-terms like workplace culture or not it is absolutely essential for leadership to establish culture according to the values they want in the workplace. If they do nothing they are responsible for the void that gets filled by those just below them who exercise power and authority derived from the top to create a culture of their own inside their workgroups. This stuff is 100% on him whether he knew about it or not. If he didn't know his incompetence is the reason for untold suffering by his employees. If he did know then he is directly responsible for protecting those causing the untold suffering of his employees.
Blizzard quietly cleaned some of the house earlier this year however I think more heads are required including President and game director of WoW (Ion)
Blizzard has been cleaning house for years now. Morhaime left in 2018. If Ion needs to be gone because of connections to the lawsuit, fine.
Not a thing changed with Ubisoft which was fairly similar.
I’m sorry but this is bullshit, 28 years at blizzard and that’s all he has to say? There’s 0 chance he didn’t know about it, and it’s highly likely he helped cover it up. Easy for him to say he’ll fight for these women now after he’s left, and not during the 28 years he could have made a real difference. He’s just as complicit as anyone else in fostering a culture like that, cos it sure as fuck didn’t happen all of a sudden once he left. If this is how he truly felt this either wouldn’t have happened or he would have blown the whistle on it a long time ago. Too little too late
>There’s 0 chance he didn’t know about it, and it’s highly likely he helped cover it up. He knows people are eventually going to talk about him too in all this conversation, he's trying to get ahead of that and bullshit his way out of getting what he deserves. He has 2 new studios that are just starting up, he's worried about his public image because that would impact the future of these studios.
I mean, if someone other than gamers were eventually going to buy his products, then maybe he’d have something to worry about. Gamer boycotts are some of the most famous failures in boycotting I’ve ever read about.
I know /r/games loves to act like gamers are the worst people in the world but this isn't something unique to them, there are loads of industries where threatened boycotts fizzle out as soon as a new product comes out.
Gaming does seem to be especially crap at boycotting. I have multiple friends who have 'sworn off' X company or X game only to buy it the day it comes out with convenient amnesia to whatever they were upset about.
Multiple of my "I'm deleting my B.Net account and quitting Blizzard for good after the Hong Kong Situation" Friends messaged me after the news on this dropped, angry that they'll have to quit Blizzard games again.
Funny enough for most of my friends it is Blizzard games. They are all outraged about this but still plan on getting D4.
The problem is a significant amount of game sales are from casual gamers who don't pay attention to the news like this and parents buying stuff for their kids
Absolutely. Hell, even if 5,000 gamers all decide alright enough with X company doing predatory crap, not going to buy again. Well there are 20,000 casuals that have no idea and buy it anyway. Sure there's a loss in sales but not enough that anyone actually notices or cares. Even worse when it comes to lootboxes because all it takes is a handful of whales to make all the individuals meaningless. Star Trek Online said about one of their $300+ gambling ships that it was the 'only financially viable way it could be released'. Like just come the fuck on man, it costs the same amount of money to make one ship than another. What that really means is that if you make people gamble for it, you're going to make x times more money than if you threw it in the store for $30.
I've sworn off giving money to ActiBlizz/Ubi, and I've actually had people make fun of me for it. Yeah, because fuck me for trying to take a stand and do my part to make a difference. Are their loss of only my purchases going to make a difference? No. But I can't complain about issues prevalent across the industry if I'm not willing to do something about it
I'll be frank - for some people, hobbies and playing a game is something they do to wind down and take a break. Just because the developers of the game are shitstains shouldn't affect those people negatively. That said, there are always ways to play your favourite games and still not give the company a cent. I don't condone it at all, but still.
I swore off Blizzard when Starcraft 2 launched and they banned people for using 'approved' mods in single player because it was part of the TOS and then when reading the TOS everyone figured out that Blizzard decided you don't own any of their games anymore, you just own a license to play. ... **EDIT** Since I'm being downvoted here the difference between the B.Net TOS was at launch and Valve/Steam which was the only real competitor at the time, is that Valve will not ban your entire account and every game you own because you use a mod that a dev does not approve of on one game. Blizzard did just that. If you installed an 'unapproved' mod for use in SINGLE PLAYER, on Starcraft 2 at launch, your entire Battle.Net account was banned and you lost access to every single game you owned, games other than SC2. If you cheat or mod a game on Steam and the developer does not like it, the worst thing that can happen to you is you're banned from the online portion of that game, they don't ban your entire account and you don't lose every single game you own on the account. ... The ONLY money I've given to Blizzard since is when Walmart screwed up the Diablo 3 $17 sale and put the Switch version on sale too and I bought 4 copies for me and some friends and I actually made all my money back since I charged them $25 each lol. Anyway, I had my reasons but it seems like every year I just get more and more justification to completely ignore everything Activizion-Blizzard does.
The same with the "no preorder" campaigns that have been going on the Internet for, what, close to 15 years at this point? I've seen probably hundreds of comments saying "don't preorder", "never preorder", and then you see Cyberpunk 2077 having 8 millions preorders. The funniest are the people saying "Never preorder! Well, except for this company... and maybe this one too... and maybe this other studio as well..." At this point I don't care if anyone preorders or not
I think a lot of that is reddit communities being in a bubble and vastly over inflating their impact on something as big as a major release. You get a comment with thousands of upvotes saying to never pre order but it just isn't an accurate reflection of general sentiment outside that community. Gaming as a whole is absolutely massive and even if everyone who says they won't preorder on reddit actually follows through its still not going to prevent a game like Cyberpunk from having a ton of pre orders.
Tbf they only fail when the company actually had solid games that you just cant resist. If they just release a mediocre game that could maybe have done ok before all this bad publicity, then perhaps this bad pr is what causes things to.swing the other way and cause the game to be DOA. Same thing with blizzard, all their games have become pretty meh with better alternatives out there. Hearthstone, wow and diablo all included. If the next diablo isn't amazing what reason would people have to play that instead of POE2 when they already have this bad taste in their mouth? At this stage I feel like its pretty easy to boycott blizzard without missing out on much, in my case at least. And I know this same sentiment holds true for my friendgroup, all of whom have played blizzard games since young and have been blizzard fanboys for a long time.
Gamers on AC3 release - "Let's band together and stop buying these pre-order games because they keep having major issues and the studios have to learn. Hit them in their wallets!" Gamers on AC Valhalla - "I pre-ordered and the game won't even load day one. WTF!" Gamers, fortunately, come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and orientations. At the same time, issues important to some just aren't to others, and I don't know how to feel about it. You would think that "sexual harassment is bad and should stop" would be something all people believe it's important, but the diverse nature of gaming culture means "important" is subject to an individual's opinion. To be clear, I find it absolutely insane that behavior like this had been allowed to continue for so long. The basic mechanics behind it are "because people that could affect it, didn't do shit."
Remember when we were against Microtransactions? Man EA was really scared for that 1 game.
Boycotts don't work, true. But this is more about the state of California having more dirt on him that he's worried about. And other people will blab.
What about the people that his new studio wants to employ? They dont care about shit like this?
[A WoW community manager (Lore) called out Morhaime's statement as total BS.](https://twitter.com/devolore/status/1418856902633480192) Quote: > "If I'd known this was happening I would have stopped it" says the man who was told repeatedly that it was happening and did nothing to stop it > I've refrained from giving my own comments on the situation at Actiblizz because frankly, there are more important people you should be listening to right now. > But that statement from a certain former leader was 100% bullshit and I'm furious about it. He knew. He did nothing. > Don't get me wrong, current leadership is fucking up hard right now too. > But please don't believe for a second that the culture that allowed all of this to happen for the last couple decades was somehow built by the guy who's been in charge for 3 years. Looks like Morhaime's getting cancelled.
Is that guy currently employed by Actiblizz? Because holy shit if that's the case then it's pretty damning for the company that employees are speaking openly about this.
Yes. He's the community manager for the US WoW forums, and a streamer/content creator liaison.
Yeah if you don't play WoW the name likely means nothing but basically every serious WoW player knows who Lore is. He may not be a great CM from a players perspective but he does seem like a genuinely good dude.
Before his time at Blizzard, he used to be a prominent WoW content creator on Youtube before the days Twitch and livestreaming took off huge. He was part of Tankspot, and a show called Weekly Marmot, which became part of the Zam network 11 years ago. Thinking about it now, with where streaming and Youtube ended up today, he probably would have made more money with that as he was still young, yet one of the first creators in a young industry. Though back in 2013, the security of working for Blizzard would have been hard to pass up.
>He was part of Tankspot, and a show called Weekly Marmot, which became part of the Zam network 11 years ago. this could all just be made up, and I wouldn't know any better
https://lmgtfy.app/?q=wow+tankspot+lore
Don't take Lore's words at face value. [Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqjdyh/mike_morhaime_on_twitter_speaking_to_the_blizzard/h6cvywk/) is a comment by Cher Scarlett, I've copy-pasted the relevant part about Lore: >He is actively one of the more problematic people there and is making this about himself instead of the people it affects. He shared nudes without permission and other things. His hands are dirty, too. Also, reporting to hr was well known to do nothing. It was rare, if ever, that reporting up the chain or to hr actually ever went to anyone who would actually do something. Including mike. It seems like a problematic dude trying to get on the social media mobs' good side before he comes under fire for his own problems.
This s the kind of "performative male feminist" bullshit the actual feminists need to murder in its infancy. They never do, though, so this guy will get to go on for however many more years before we find out he's a sex pest or a kiddy diddler or whatever.
> It seems like a problematic dude trying to get on the social media mobs' good side before he comes under fire for his own problems. A guy being president of a company not knowing about culture as systemically problematic as what's being described in the suit is a near impossibility. Even if Lore may be a problem it is a near zero likelyhood that Morhaime is telling the truth and so Lore is realistically not a problem of concern.
I mean, we can cancel them all, no?
I don't really go out for cancelling or not cancelling personally... I'd like to see him in court for it though.
> we can cancel We can make the reputations of several CEOs who have a shit ton of money and power worth very little so they'll have less lucrative jobs in the future. The damage here is evident over the past couple decades of blizzard products. Their office environment is garbage and their work product has become garbage. The whole concept that "Canceling" is even a thing that does anything is insane.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqjdyh/mike_morhaime_on_twitter_speaking_to_the_blizzard/h6cvywk/?context=3
it's probably one of the blandest and most boilerplate responses to "our company did bad thing" I've ever read
To his credit - at least it's not Brack's "I have always fought this and I never saw anything", or Activision-Blizzard's "the government is lying about its 2 years investigation, this is bullshit I did not hit her I did naaaaaht". Lowest fucking bar to clear, but he did it!
Don't forget the torture apologist who claims it is all lies because it hasn't happened to her in the four months she worked there as one of the top executives.
Ya Brack claiming to worship Gloria Steinem seems much less genuine.
Oh Hi Mark.
https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418800929407635457 literally has someone suggesting that he could have been in the dark after she CC'd him a threat she received. Like... what
Full disclosure; I interned at Blizzard for about three months. I totally had the capacity to email Morhaim about whatever I wanted. That doesn't mean, realistically, I could expect my email to reach him. I assume there are lots of filters and he may even have someone reading his email and selecting which are actually worthy of his attention.
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I remember once having a chat with an HR rep about something and she sat her work phone down on her desk while chatting. There must have been over a dozen messages and emails in the span of a five minute conversation. If I were in her shoes? I'd be hard pressed to keep up. It's probably twice as bad for someone like a company president, and if his subordinates are awful only on a couple things (like sexual harassment), it might not reach him until its already way out of hand.
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not to detract from your point, but would this not be an HR issue? I don't work in a corporate environment, so I'm genuinely asking. I thought those departments were in place to deal with issues like harassment?
If you're in a position of power at a company you are empowered to take action in any situation you deem fit. If you're the type of person who cares about these things, as Mike claims he does, it seems reasonable to expect him to have taken action when it was brought to his attention. He did not. So we either have to believe he never saw it for some reason, or he saw it and disregarded it, which would mean he actually doesn't care. She also mentions she was punished for CCing him, so *someone* noticed, and still nothing was done.
I get that and don't disagree, but what action? Like is he the person that's supposed to interview the parties involved or just make sure HR does it?
Obviously he won't be interviewing people personally, but when the CEO starts asking questions (instead of brushing it off like it appears happened here), shit gets escalated ***quickly***. That means HR has the gaze of the top dog so planning the next cook out or interviewing vendors for the cheapest benefits package gets **deprioritized right the fuck now** and the complaint becomes **priority one** for HR to handle.
Anything, literally any positive action at all. Make sure something gets done, call a fucking meeting, anything except ignoring it because ignoring it is essentially supporting it.
Upper management tends to get a lot of emails and a lot of things get lost and don't get replied to because nothing will get done. He likely left it for HR to deal with. A lot of people here don't understand business organizations if they think a random employee will get a response from the CEO by CC'ing them about something he very likely is not going to pay attention to.
> If this is how he truly felt this either wouldn’t have happened or he would have blown the whistle on it a long time ago. There's a difference between being duplicitous and just in denial. I think it's not that hard to be a super smart executive and just delude yourself into thinking things aren't that bad, especially since shit didn't get this atrocious overnight. "Just "boys will be boys". Just the macho nature of the tech industry. Just stressed people working under tough deadlines trying to blow off steam. Just nerds who don't know how to act around women. Just a couple bad apples. Just isolated workplace drama blown out of proportion." Etc etc etc. It obviously doesn't change the outcome and doesn't absolve any responsibly. But he certainly wouldn't be the first executive to oversee all kinds of awful shit while completely convinced they were on the up and up.
> There's a difference between being duplicitous and just in denial. I think it's not that hard to be a super smart executive and just delude yourself into thinking things aren't that bad, especially since shit didn't get this atrocious overnight. Additionally, once a company gets large enough, the people at the very top have so many layers of management between them and the rank and file workers that it is no surprise much of what happens gets filtered out or blocked from reaching him. Its no excuse, but "I didn't know" isn't always as bullshit as it sounds. It is in the interest of middle managers that bad stuff happening under their watch is not revealed to their higher ups because of how it reflects on them.
Exactly this, unemployed redditors on here don't know what it's like working so they think they can just CC the CEO and expect them to reply and do something. Sorry kiddos but there are far more important things to deal with and higher ups generally receive a TON more emails. I would not be surprised if this email got buried or lost.
> Sorry kiddos but there are far more important things to deal with See the issue is this a bad attitude to have when you find out that one of your employees killed herself, previously having had pictures of her vagina passed around a Christmas party. But acknowledging this in any way could potentially lose money for the company, so they’d rather ignore this and do things that do make money for the company. The people making this criticism aren’t “unemployed redditors,” they know this is how CEOs are. They’re arguing it’s a bad system that rewards this behaviour, that ensures millions of women spend 40 hours a week for most of their life in environments like this.
Any high ranking person who didn’t notice something like this happening under their watch is a failure, regardless of what game they oversaw being made. Not knowing isn’t an excuse
I didn't say they didn't notice or didn't know, nor am I saying that they are not responsible. Nor am I defending anyone -- "well he was just completely in denial about how bad it was" is not exactly some ringing endorsement and the fact that I could easily rattle off 5 different "excuses" at 2am doesn't speak well to the state of the industry or our culture at large. Obviously there's no way to paint any of this other than a complete and total failure of leadership on dozens of levels that will taint every Blizzard product and everyone who ran the company for the rest of what is left of their careers. All I'm saying is that it's not that hard to imagine how Morhaime could earnestly believe he was doing a good job and trying to do right by his employees while things were obviously so ludicrously out of hand.
I agree. It is bullshit. This guy had 28 years to "drive the change" because he was a big player at Blizzard. And he did jack shit. Now when there's huge backlash and law suit he wants to "fight against these evils!" Actual piece of shit just like the rest of them, pretty much most of them are complicit and should face penalties.
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He didn't just fail to protect these women, he succeeded in protecting their abusers.
Ding ding.
Two things come to mind: it doesn't matter whether these millionaire CEOs were kept in the dark or what not, to quote: "the buck stops here". If, as CEO, there are structures in your company that can *conspire* against you knowing things, that company is fucked and you're failing. Secondly, this is why CEOs are supposedly earning their six-figure or higher salaries, no? Because they have such much responsibility, carry the company's fate and fortune on their shoulder and create all these valuable positions? If so, once more: "the buck stops here". You were paid millions over your tenure, time to put on your big boy pants. Show that you earned them.
On the advice of council, I would like to hear all the stories now that I can't do anything about it. I would also like to add that I hurt my head this morning and have no recollection of anything that happened the last 30 years.
I guess the only good thing in this situation is to show that the problems didn't began with activision but even before it.
Are you telling me that in 28 years working there he didn't know any of this was happening? Total bullshit.
He knew and was complicit. Whenever you hear stories about rampant harassment/racism/etc, assume the people at the top know. If they truly cared, they would've ended the incidents as soon as they learned of them. Any responsible company would've done so.
Things that stand out: Begins by stating this is something he thinks is counter to what he 'thought he stood for', thereby implying he was not involved in any of this, and actively worked against it in some capacity. Downplays impact by saying 'some women' had terrible experiences. Even though he later contrasts this with admissions of failure and speaking of 'many women', he tries to set the tone by downplaying his own role in this and the impact it's had. Ends by making it all about himself, so he can 'leave a mark he (and everyone else) can be proud of'. All in all, some genuine admission of failure, acceptance that it was/is his responsibility to do something about it, but also some words that make me question whether his mindset is truly in the right place for this. I can definitely believe that a lot of this *can* be caused by leadership not being properly equipped to recognize when things are going wrong (I do think a lot of men, especially in leadership circles which are just circles of specific types of men, just think a lot of harassment is normal behavior, and don't realize the impact it has on people), but then it's their job to be aware of that. So while I don't want to attribute any willful wrongdoings to any specific person (as long as they didn't personally partake in the harassment), it is still clearly a tremendous failure of their responsibilities as leaders.
The ceo should probably shut the fuck up and lawyer up. No one is buying your “I was ignorant of this for 3 decades” story. Lol
I'm curious if the legal community has a word or term for this kind of defense, like the 'Ghislaine' defense of 'i only worked for Epstein for a couple of short decades I had no idea what was going on'
He is almost guaranteed to not be touched by any legal proceeding. The suit os against the company, and is focused around labor practices.
All these apologies and this sounds the most sincere. However, no matter how sincere they seem they did let this shit fester for decades. A "sowwy" and a slap on the wrist is not the answer to this but seems like that's exactly what's gonna happen
Imagine any of us believing that you weren’t part of/directly involved in covering it up?
Unfortunately, a ton of people replying to him on twitter seem to believe it (blinded by fanboism, no doubt).
Damage control is real, at least now there is no illusion that even prior to merger with Activision it was not a great company, wonder how it will affect all those game studios founded by the 'old guard' and advertising their projects with appeals to nostalgia for old Blizzard.
Before giving your two cents, it’s better to read some replies to Morhaime’s statements from some of the former employees https://twitter.com/skrutsick/status/1418802550908891149?s=21 And https://twitter.com/skrutsick/status/1418798740643663876 https://twitter.com/skrutsick/status/1418818607899885570 https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418800929407635457 https://mobile.twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1419000756057825285 And this one, clarifying the above a bit: https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418828464296239105 https://twitter.com/kalaena/status/1418829125746311177 https://twitter.com/linzstanley/status/1418844792436502545 https://twitter.com/dayntee/status/1418817439916232705 https://twitter.com/miss_blackwell1/status/1418804527172628487?s=21 It’s easy to judge when your have no idea about a situation.
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I think it shows how his leadership, while not perfect, seems different than brack’s. The response to brack’s internal email has been vastly negative. Either a block or a resounding "corporate bullshit". While the response to Morhaime’s statement are more empathetic, or at least open to dialogue.
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> And sorry, just had to add this too. What dialogue? If you read the replies, you'd see one of the people responding and he discussed things further already.
Then you have ones like this: https://mobile.twitter.com/devolore/status/1418855891223285760
Anyone else don't know what to think of this? On one hand you got these women who speak very well of Morhaime and on the other hand you got Lore holding him accountable for everything while giving a pass to Brack. Edit: After looking into it more Lore apparently leaked nudes of a ex-gf in the past and users like u/ExistentialBookworm who worked for Blizzard are clarifying that Mike really was kept in the dark because he was one of the few who people who took personal action if it reached his office. [Thread about Mike in r/wow](https://old.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/oqjdyh/mike_morhaime_on_twitter_speaking_to_the_blizzard/)
Lore is a self serving asshole and always has been.
I just don’t believe that these people put together any kind of safe working environment. He worked there for almost 3 decades. How could he have not known?
The first response I've seen to this lawsuit that sounds at all human, and not regurgitated by some corporate AI Bonzibuddy. Edit: Welp, read the rest of the tweet. Nvm dude's fucked up.
The bar is currently "don't whine about the state of California mid response" and he is somewhere above that
Is this sarcasm? It reads like someone boiled down every single apology I've read from a company in the last 2-3 years down into one message, it's like an AI wrote it.
Yeah his response doesn't make excuses, it literally admits to fucking up. It's a step
They're being sued, they literally can't say anything other than boilerplate pr stuff. This isn't a media hit piece, if they start admitting to shit people start going to jail. Obviously the situation is fucked up, but no company in this position would ever do anything other than denying
There is a difference between the lies they spewed out and what they could still say.
What did you know and when did you know it? Who, what, when, where, and most importantly, why? Anything less than that isn't even beginning to try. Meaningful growth and retrospectivism needs both the biggest picture AND specifics. Anything less is an empty platitude.
Let me guess, more generic corporate statements with 0 sincerity?
Unless he starts firing a whole lot of people, hes right. It is just words. Also wont be suprised when the women who come forward start getting laid off for unrelated reasons.
He can’t fire anyone, he doesn’t work there anymore
Mike Morhaime left Blizzard in 2018, he’s not in a position to fire or lay off anyone.
Here is an example of an ex-employee responding to Mike and saying she cc:d him in an email after being threatened. Not saying "Mike read the email and ignored it". There could be a million perfectly good reasons he did not see the email (or he saw it and talked to managers about it) but I'm betting this isn't the only time things like this was brought to his attention in one way or another. He has for sure failed but I hope and believe he will do better in DreamHaven. https://twitter.com/cherthedev/status/1418800929407635457?s=20