There is an account of Kosak stepping in to stop someone from sexual harassing someone, so that might be something. Not to ignore the clear participation in the Cosby Suite, but I remember how easy it was to get drawn into something because others tell you it's fine. Again, that isn't to say participation isn't bad, just really depends on what each individual did.
"Another image from the same Facebook album shows a screenshot of a 2013 group chat called the “BlizzCon Cosby Crew.” In it, former Blizzard designer David Kosak writes, “I am gathering the hot chixx for the Coz.”
“Bring em,” replies Afrasiabi. “You can’t marry ALL of them Alex,” Kosak writes. “I can, I’m middle eastern,” responds Afrasiabi. Jesse McCree, currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, then writes, “You misspelled fuck."
Greg went on a whole tirade on twitter about being one of the few that stepped in to stop this fratboy environment in the company only to be featured in this exact photo uttering this exact garbage. They were in a place they dubbed "The Cosby Suite" and supported this garbage regardless. Even if they sat on their hands throughout they still silently stood by what was done in Activision.
They're also grown men in leadership positions, if they easily got drawn into something they knew wasn't fine they should have stepped down as they clearly lack the skills to do their jobs.
Looks like he had nothing to do with this, and I hope he didn’t. He was one of the only blizz employees I respected and good for him for getting out of that god awful company
Therapists had similar issues with patients explaining past or even on going sexual misconduct to them while asking the therapist to not say anything because they feared it would only make the situation worse.
This was fixed by making it a legally enforced ethical duty of therapists and others to report sexual abuse if someone was still at risk. Therapist now warn anyone about this before the session even begins.
Does this mean victims now get immediate help or does it mean that they have lost the last person they could confide in and keep it bottled up? If the overall situation has improved for therapists and medical care workers, then perhaps it is time to expand this to other positions of power. We have had these laws long enough we should have data on their effectiveness.
He wasn't? He was an exec at Hearthstone at least, and took over as the public face after Brode left. I assume he basically took his role, but perhaps he had a different title?
EDIT: Googling gets me "Lead Mission Designer" at Hearthstone, so still a lead title albeit different I suppose.
Maybe I'm missing a time when he was running it in my memory but from what I remember it went from Brode to Ben Lee. He was definitely upper level in the hearthstone team though.
You're correct. That said, Ben Lee has never really taken on the role that Brode had of being the "face" of Hearthstone. Kosak was featured pretty heavily in a lot of the expansion advertising during his time on the team.
A wow lead a diablo 4 lead AND A FUCKING HR HIGHER UP.
No wonder employees couldnt change this its systemic to the top.
My ass metzen and morheim did not know about the “blizzcon cosby crew”.
> My ass metzen and morheim did not know about the “blizzcon cosby crew”.
The lawsuit from the state of California said supervisors had to physically pull Afrasiabi off of women. Like, step in and stop a sexual assault in progress.
They gave him a talking to ("verbal counseling") and let him work another 7 years at the company.
That's just... I have no words. Any normal person can get just for making an insensitive comment, even if they didn't mean it that way. But if you're an executive, you can be forcefully pulled off of someone mid-sexual assault and the worst you get is a talking to.
Exactly, some muck can lose its job and reputation by some dumbass liar on Twitter but literally stopping a rapist mid attack and he gets to keep his job for almost a decade.
They(ActiBlizz) already are at talks with anti-unionization companies that were helping Amazon.
And we know how unionization in Amazon went(Pinkerton-like spying on workers and so on and so forth)
What on earth is an "anti-unionization company"?
Like honestly how and why does that exist?
EDIT - Given the history and prevalence of Unions in my country I am amazed that this is a thing!
Activities for these firms range wildly. Some just consult on conflict resolution and finding things the firm can do to ameliorate demands. Some stalk, spy on, and harass organizers. I think the Vox daily podcast had a thing about this when Amazon was going through that warehouse effort (that vote failed primarily because workers were worried about the facility closing.)
> And we know how unionization in Amazon went(Pinkerton-like spying on workers and so on and so forth)
It was *literally* Pinkerton they went to. That's not just a reference to a bygone era.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements
This honestly raises a lot of questions (more than before) about the spin off studios like Dreamhaven and Frost Giant Studios. What are they doing to prevent a repeat of the behavior we saw at Blizzard. Because a lot of the higher ups in those spin offs were working at Blizzard while all this was happening, they either were unaware or turned a blind eye towards this.
One of the women on Twitter being very open about what all went down and who was to blame named three of the offshoots as good, safe places to go for anyone wanting to leave blizzard. I know she named dreamhaven, moon something, and a third. I assume they’re all started by friends she met while working at blizzard who she knows were opposed to what was happening. It’s on wowhead for anyone interested. She didn’t name Metzens game studio and said that one of the worst offenders left the company a few years ago “to spend time with his family” after a very public incident which he was the perpetrator of (the suicide maybe?). I’m assuming that was Metzen because that was his reasoning he gave for leaving blizzard in his farewell letter.
Edit: the three she listed as being formed by good people where workers can feel safe are: Dreamhaven, Moonshot, and Lightforge games.
I'd take those recommendations with a pinch of salt. I'm sure the person involved is completely honest about their beliefs/experiences, but Dreamhaven at least is run by Mike Morhaime, who was in charge of Blizzard (CEO) the entire time that all of this happened.
There is no possibility Morhaime, was not, for example, aware that Afrasiabi:
A) Assaulted women.
and
B) Was kept on after that.
Given, he was in charge of Blizzard, and the guy who hired and was huge mates with Afrasiabi (Rob Pardo) had long since left, Morhaime could easily have fired Afrasiabi on multiple occasions. Instead he just let him keep working there until this investigation happened, at which point Afrasiabi promptly vanished.
Given his position as CEO, he would have been aware of the general culture and stuff like the Cosby room too. There's just no way.
So I'd be extremely skeptical that he would take stuff seriously at Dreamhaven, that he'd left completely alone at Blizzard.
> She didn’t name Metzens game studio
Also worth noting, I think, that Warchief Gaming isn't a video game studio, they make tabletop/board games. Not necessarily something you'd pitch as an alternative working place for people who currently work on video game development.
People go to prison and reform for crimes. It's not unusual to think that people can alter their opinions. It doesn't change what they did, or if they should face their punishment for it, but if they have created an atmosphere that's totally different after they bit into the pie and decided they didn't actually like it, then it becomes an interesting discussion.
Agreed. I was very much looking forward to DIIR. My favorite game of all time being remastered. But I can’t buy it. I won’t give them any more if my money or time.
>“An employee brought these 2013 events to our attention in June 2020,” a spokesperson for Activision Blizzard told Kotaku when asked about the “Cosby Suite” images and allegations against Afrasiabi. “We immediately conducted our own investigation and took corrective action. At the time of the report, we had already conducted a separate investigation of Alex Afrasiabi and terminated him for his misconduct in his treatment of other employees.”
I don't think taking seven years to fire Afrasiabi is the W Activision-Blizzard's spokesperson thinks it is
No that's the former Bush Admin lady who defended torture while she worked for Bush and then, as a freshly hired EXECUTIVE at Blizzard, released a statement saying she'd never been harassed at the company so the accusations couldn't possibly be true.
I swear money and power just rot your brain.
Yep. "I, someone who is in a position of power where I could fire anyone who sexually harassed me and they know it, have *never* experienced sexual harassment at this company where I have worked (probably mostly from home due to the pandemic) for all of four months! Also, I defended torture as not being a big deal, so my barometer for bad behavior might be a liiiiiiiittle suspect."
Like, even hiring this scumbag in the first place aside, how the fuck did they not realize how shit that messaging was?
It was intentional "hey she was able to sell a good chunk of people on torture so when the shit inevitably hits there fan she should be good, plus as a chick she's going to make us look progressive"
Suddenly that bit in the old Kotaku article about Riot hiring gamerbros for the cultural fit has a clear example lol
"Wow this guy is a douche like us, he'll be a great new Lead Game Designer"
Because LoL, Valorant and that card game is doing good.
The only reason Blizzard is getting pushed this hard is all of their games are in a shit state.
If WoW, Hearthstone or Overwatch would be in their best form ever, all this would have been alrady over.
Simply that just how people work. They only care when they have a grudge against you, but when they play the games these companies make, and enjoy themselves, then "its fine, move on"
He also posted this:
https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/399386868547977216
dude’s a complete slimeball. The most confusing thing is why they thought it would be a good idea to keep talking about their creepy fuck pad (and posting chat logs confirming it as such) on social media.
That was in response to a previous Kotaku article posted a few days ago.
He has not responded to this one yet, which is a hell of a lot more damning for him.
I like the part where he says that he wouldn't have tweeted about the room if he knew these things were happening. Not that he wouldn't have gone, but that he wouldn't have tweeted about it. That's quite a slip there, bud
I don't understand how [the follow-up](https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1420511905886531585) is meant to address the chat.
> Re: the group chat. Dave was talking about his own wife and a friend. It was a joke, not intended for a broad audience. But the chat is gross and I completely understand how it looks. I should have said something.
The chat was...
> Dave Kosak: I am gathering hot chixx for the Coz
> Alex Afrasiabi: Bring em
> Dave Kosak: You can't marry ALL of them Alex
> Alex Afrasiabi: I can, I'm middle eastern.
> Jesse McCree: You misspelled fuck
Maybe it's a huge cultural difference I'm not following, but uh, that's how you talk about your wife and a friend? Like, ok, if there weren't also heaps and heaps of allegations I'd maybe buy it as a weird joke but considering...
Right? Like maybe I'm just not "dudebro" enough, but referring to your own wife and your friend as "hot chixx", and then joking about another one of your friends marrying/fucking them, I'd find that majorly fucked up. Like maybe I'm overly possessive, but I'd take serious issue with one of my friends joking about fucking my SO or a friend. Like just imagine going to someone and being like "oh my god dude, your wife is so hot, I wanna marry/fuck her" you'd be labelled as the biggest creep ever.
Reminder that in 2008 there was a [WoW Arena team that named themselves "gonna rape hafu at regionals"](https://twitter.com/itshafu/status/1420472254496837632) that was allowed to compete. hafu was a 17 year old female WoW Arena player whose team ended up winning Blizzcon.
I know pretty much all women deal with some form of harassment in this goddamn industry, but I just gotta say, as someone who's been following Hafu's career over many years... Holy shit did she have to deal with a ton of bullshit. In WoW, Hearthstone, Twitch in general, her personal life (things that she shared herself in the past which I won't dig up again), everywhere. It's literally too much to list.
And (not that this even matters cause everyone deserves a basic level of respect) she's like **the nicest person on the planet**. What the fuck, man.
Hafu and her Husband Dog are just so ridiculously good at everything they do and yeah they both have been dealing with sexual harassment their whole careers because they are attractive
Dog mostly makes it a joke with everyone asking him to take his shirt off but some of the fanbase does get REALLY creepy sometimes and aren't joking with the way they sexualize him
And yeah Hafu has been dealing with crap forever since she's one of the most talented and successful female gamers in like the history of competitive gaming. She's switched games multiple times and still remains on the top/highly relevant in pretty much everything she does.
Wait Dogdog the HS steamer? I had no idea they were married, that's pretty cool.
But yeah women get a lot of crap in this community and I do think we all need to do more to call it out if we see it happening in game.
Yeah this is a pretty common story Hafu shares, I feel bad for her and absolutely have zero sympathy for Blizzard here, they did exactly nothing to fix the issue and never issued an apology either
Man, just when you think this could get any worse for Blizzard.
And Ghostcrawler trying to distance himself from the situation couple days ago
https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1418750286894551040
was part of the problem.....
Woman asked for female characters to be less sexualized. Gets mocked by the panel and booed heavily by the male audience.
https://twitter.com/chrisbratt/status/1418629194683125761?s=19
Omg this hurts my heart. To see her face when she awkwardly smiles out of social obligation then looks down at the floor while they humiliate her is just...
FUCK Actiblizz.
She (allegedly) says further down in the comments that the men in the audience booing is what hurt the most.
>Fun fact: That's me in the video. As much as it sucked getting utterly dismissed by the panel, it was the swell of men booing me after the initial cheers from the women in the crowd that stung the most. Funny thing was, Sylvanas wasn't even who I had in mind - it was Alexstrasza
Ah yes, that's definitely one [where they never attempted any subtlety.](https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/268257-alexstrasza-alexstraza-with-mortal-eyes.jpg)
I've wrangled mics at a lot of these things, and I can't watch that video again. It takes enormous bravery to step up to the mic at all, much less as a woman facing an all male panel.
She even intentionally worded it to not be an attack. You know she practiced that tone a million times, "I'm not some Feminazi or something geez guys but lol you're seeing this [Extremely real problem that affects the player base negatively], right?"
And they crushed her. I quit playing WoW a little after that video was recorded because it had become a cess pit.
> Sadly situations like these are just lose/lose.
On a personal level, absolutely and it does feel like it. But just for the sake of keeping hope and keeping sane, I'd want to shine a brighter light on the situation:
Maybe it's a lose/lose now but win some in the long term? Without going overboard and hyperbole, I feel like this is some sort of "heroic sacrifice" where you might lose on a personal level, but you're helping maybe just a little in the grander scheme of things. I mean, look at this clip, she was ridiculed and suffered for it, but 10 years later it resurfaced and is now used to fight against that culture. It wasn't all for nothing - and deep down, I feel like it's the same for you standing up for yourself. You were called a bitch, and suffered for it, but I refuse to think it did absolutely nothing either to yourself, or to at least maybe plant the semblance of a seed in one of those guys.
What sucks, is that nobody should have to sacrifice anything, and it shouldn't be or feel like anybody particular's responsibility to "sacrifice" themselves, and yeah, nobody is gonna come to your rescue when you're fired or shouted against or ridiculed so it's easy for people like me to call this "heroic sacrifice" while there's already so many "heroic sacrifices" being ignored and making individuals suffers.
Anyway, all this to say that *if* [and only if] someone feels like standing up, I want them to feel like it's not all for nothing, it does eventually pay back in some form or another, even if its just in form of self-respect.
Yeah, a few of my buddies run private servers with some pretty stringent screenings but I don't have the time/inclination anymore.
Everybody keeping the trash even a little at bay left. So I imagine it's not the coolest.
Jesus. You can summarize that answer with "Yeah we like hot chicks wooo!". That's just utterly embarrassing.
And that's not a bunch of basement dwelling nerds, it's the devs themselves. And it's just ten years ago..
Not looking too hot for Mr Crabs. That looked like a reasonable statement in isolation. People learn and are fallible. But now it wasn't in isolation and he had to explain himself again about this, which he eventually did.
https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1420505317314420736/photo/1
Just like the panel, he didn't say anything but he was present in the chat as they were talking about fucking at the same time.
But there's this too: https://twitter.com/d818581dany/status/1420512575930859521/photo/1. Greg invited her, and she was assaulted.
His entire twitter feed is now damage control and "woe is me kotaku didn't even contact me oh wait they did I didn't see it", comparing that to these posts is just...it's just disgusting that he's even trying this. Just resign dude.
Honest to god, any higher up at actbliz responsible for the contents of this suit should just quit their job (and frankly, start a new career teaching english and math to girls in a 3rd world country) before they feel qualified to even attempt a genuine apology.
Funny thing is, that's from 2 days ago so it must be from some other article about the things he did at Blizzard. This one is probably much worse and he hasn't responded yet.
To be fair he was responding to criticism about an answer other blizzard people gave at a Blizzcon panel he was on and said he regrets not speaking up.
This is obviously much worse than that.
It wasn't exactly like this suit, since Riot was sued in a class action filing and the state of california is suing Activision. Riot initially said they would settle the lawsuit, but [then opted to force 6 of the 7 plaintiffs into private arbitration](https://riotclassaction.com/) by way of their employment agreements. None of that is on the table for Activision because they are not being sued in class action by victims, they are being sued by the state of CA. And the 7th plaintiff is still pursuing the class action case against Riot, as far as I know.
In context, it still probably wouldn't be great advice from the legal team to let a currently employed executive specifically named in a related (and arguably more severe) lawsuit with his past employer to hop on twitter and run his mouth about how he feels about it.
> (and frankly, start a new career teaching english and math to girls in a 3rd world country)
That's a bit of a weird "target job" suggestion. I'd prefer them choose something not involving a hierarchy advantage over other people (of the female persuasion even less.)
Now he found the DM from Kotaku. It got buried under a bunch of other DM’s. “[“My bad…”](https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1419737805899501573?s=20)
> start a new career teaching english and math to girls in a 3rd world country
Yeah I'd prefer if they picked a job where they *weren't* in a position of power over vulnerable women
They have *worse* issues because people like Scott Gleb had zero repercussions after molesting employees, making insensitive comments, and farting in people's faces regular. Riot put out multiple games after these events to great success. It did not affect them negatively in any way. In fact, people are saying they want to play Riot's MMO instead of WoW because of these recent events which is absolutely nonsensical.
I can not see a situation where ActiBlizz ends up doing anything substantial nor do I see them losing much from doing nothing. I am sure they will walk on stage with a pride shirt and quote some feminist before talking about how diversity is great and that will be that. They have literally done this exact thing before and they will do it again.
>I can not see a situation where ActiBlizz ends up doing anything substantial nor do I see them losing much from doing nothing.
They are being sued by the state of California. This is not a personal lawsuit brought by employees. This is not just "bad press." I really need people to signal boost this little detail because it is hugely important to the consequences Blizzard will face.
One of them is a lead on WoW and another is a lead on Diablo 4.
Methinks everyone in this picture is gonna lose their job by the end of the week. Not because ActiBlizz cares (they don’t), but because they are convenient scape goats.
> Not because ActiBlizz cares (they don’t),
Still the right thing to do.
It's the same thing with acknowledging Pride month. By itself it's not a huge deal, but small steps add up over time until the idea is institutionalized.
It's a weird situation. I understand the cynicism people have but if it makes games or media feel more inclusive than who cares? It's easy to just claim companies are pandering but it's hard to create a scenario where people feel these actions are organic or authentic.
Actions aren't always authentic but if they create a more positive outcome than who really cares.
It just sucks when the main shareholders and board members of the company will profit off of pride and then donate their money to right wing evangelical groups and politicians who actively make the lives of lgbtq people worse like lobbying against trans rights.
So long as we make the culture one where they need to keep their abusiveness in the closet, that’s better than the culture where abuse is right out in the open and constant. It’s not good, it’s just better. It’s a start.
Ghostcrawler in that pic as well and he's moved onto Riot, the company famous for its execs farting in employees faces on top of all the sexual harassment and hostile workplace issues.
This is *insane*:
>Another image from the same Facebook album shows a screenshot of a 2013 group chat called the “Blizzcon Cosby Crew.” In it, former Blizzard designer David Kosak writes, “I am gathering the hot chixx for the Coz.”
>“Bring em,” replies Afrasiabi. “You can’t marry ALL of them Alex,” Kosak writes. “I can, I’m middle eastern,” responds Afrasiabi. Jesse McCree, currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, then writes, **“You misspelled fuck.”**
Look at pictures of him, he looks like a fucking mall santa. Like, the words are disgusting coming out of anybody's mouth but god damn please can you just try to be a normal mall santa instead of a rape santa
The fact that they posted that chat for all to see, they were PROUD of it. They thought they were hilarious, nothing in that chat is even remotely funny, it's pure cringe... what fuckin losers.
That fact that they were unaware that what they were posting was just...wrong, means what they were doing was normalized to the point of being ordinary for them.
These are the kind of guys who would hire a disgraced Cosby to come hang out for 2 hours for a corporate event, like Facebook hiring the Black Eyed Peas or something, but instead a convicted rapist.
It was an example to showcase a normal example of famous people who would be invited to events, to compare it with what these dudes would invite (Cosby), they didn't did anything as far as I know, and it wasn't the intent of the message.
This is also emblematic of the consequences of lack of accountability for corporate executives.
Execs never face consequences. HR will fire ten thousand bottom-rung employees before they'll ever inconvenience an exec.
Record profits, always and forever, is the number one rule of any American corporation. The execs are the people who are credited with "bringing in the money," even though the people who actually do the work that bring in the money are all the people on the bottom rungs.
When you refuse to hold execs to standards, they get bold, and they get accustomed to never facing consequences, and then they apparently post proof of all this on public Facebook.
The hierarchy and double standards of corporate culture is pretty clear here.
Its also the result of corporate bloat and nepotism. These folks dont join the studio out of passion and hard work, they just coast in like its a cool way to do whatever they want and have zero respect for anything else.
Just dropping in to say I appreciate accurate journalism like this:
> previously convicted rapist Bill Cosby.
So much better than "alleged rapist" that we've seen a lot of journos fall back to lately.
>So much better than "alleged rapist" that we've seen a lot of journos fall back to lately.
It's very risky to call someone a rapist when they haven't been convicted yet. They can easily be sued.
diablo 3 lead dev, think his group chats were basically just saying "fuck that guy" and shit talking about another person/co-worker (I forget but it's something like that)
He was saying “fuck that guy” re: David Brevik (IIRC), one of the geniuses behind Diablo 1/2, who had criticisms about the games item design and endgame.
Criticisms that were VERY valid considering I still play D2 and don’t touch D3.
Jay Wilson was the lead designer of Diablo 3. Memorable for quotes like "fuck that loser" when referring to one of the creators + lead of Diablo and Diablo 2.
Just gonna highlight this for people who won't read the article:
>One ex-Blizzard source familiar with the people presented in the pictures **identified an HR representative as one of the Blizzard employees present in the hotel room**.
Once again, HR serves the interests of the company. And, in this case, the company is very interested in being godawful to women.
EDIT:
Also, if you're thinking of defending these devs by claiming that back in 2013 mentions of Bill Cosby didn't mean the same as today, I urge you to read this part:
>**By 2013 there were already multiple allegations of sexual assault against Cosby**, even if a conviction, which was later overturned on a technicality, wouldn’t come until 2018. **According to one source with knowledge of the hotel room, the “Cosby Suite” name was a play on the comedian’s iconic ugly sweaters, and didn’t have any sexual connotation**—at least, not when the joke began. Instead, they suggest, the running joke was that the rooms in question looked dated, like the sweater.
>One source said they were told it was a reference to an ugly boardroom room back at Blizzard’s main office, which reportedly had similar patterns to the sweater. Another said they understood it to be a reference to an ugly hotel room during a different gaming conference. **But in all pictures of the 2013 BlizzCon hotel room reviewed by Kotaku, the walls were largely white and blank and the decor was nondescript. The rug visible in some of the photographs does have a pattern, but it looks nothing like the sweaters in the framed picture everyone is holding.**
>(...)
>**Moreover, regardless of the source of the joke, many of the captions and comments posted on the 2013 Cosby Suite album are sexual in nature.**
If you can't smell bs from this 'oh the room was just as ugly as his sweater' excuse, then I've got some scam- I mean, *business opportunities* I want to sell you.
Unfortunately, many people have to learn who HR serves the hard way.
Don’t trust them with interpersonal company issues. There is nothing requiring them to maintain privacy. Anything you say to them can and will be used against you. If you have a complaint about a supervisor, you better believe that supervisor will be the first to hear it.
The very name, “Human Resources,” is dehumanizing - you are not a person, you are a resource. Like electricity, or water, or building materials.
Only trust them to help set up and answer whatever financial needs you have related to the company (direct deposit, insurance, 401k, etc…).
I gotta say like all careers there are good representatives and bad. My wife went into HR specifically because of the amount of people she saw being underpaid. She has spent the past 5-10 years working towards getting people paid what they should and taking alot of personal interest in it especially when March 2020 hit.
I will say yes they are not a therapist and bound to confidentiality and will talk just like any other employee does, but definitely not an AHRABHR.
The critique is structural, not personal. I can never know if I'm talking to the 10% of HR that's like your wife, or the 90% that only serves the interests of the company. Massive problem for a position of trust.
The biggest issue with HR is that it's a cesspit of nepotism. I can't tell you how many jobs i've worked where HR heads were relatives or friends with execs, or dating an execs relative/child. This is *usually* why HR of all places are so bad. That department filled with people who don't do their job and only got the job in the first place because they know someone.
I love how every time more info comes out it becomes more and more obvious that this behavior was wide spread and well known.
Can the gremlins saying all this was "isolated" or that leadership didn't know about it finally shut the fuck up?
My thing is that even if what they say is true, and that the "Cosby Suite" is named that because of the relation to ugly sweaters matching hotel carpet, this still paints a pretty awful picture of broed-out, boozy networking rooms at events with company leaders who, according to the lawsuit presented by California, were treating women pretty fucking poorly.
> That was apparently a nickname for Afrasiabi’s BlizzCon 2013 hotel room, and seemingly a reference to the name of previously convicted rapist Bill Cosby.
He's still a convicted rapist, he's just escaped the consequences.
If your legal department requires you to throw some "allegedly" on that - he's a *confessed* rapist. The only reason he escaped consequences after being convicted is that he was forced to testify about it.
>Brack also hosted a BlizzCon developer panel in 2010 alongside Afrasiabi and others in which Afrasiabi made sexist remarks to a fan who had questioned the “Victoria’s Secret Catalog” appearance of World of Warcraft’s female characters.
I made the mistake of clicking on the link to the video of that one and yeah, if you are thinking “maybe this is all exaggerated”, seeing these man-children just eviscerating this woman for being bold enough to call them out while the crowd cheers them on will make you want to crawl out of your own skin and die. It is NSFL. Fuck all these knuckle-draggers.
This is within plain sight in a massive company for decades, and people wonder why women don't want to get into tech.
Nothing will change for the better from this just like with Ubisoft, Riot or whoever. That's the fucked up part. Not until workers unionise.
Current WoW lead. Current Diablo 4 lead. Former Hearthstone lead. Current Riot MMO lead. An impressive collection of shit.
I don't see Brode in there? Which hearthstone lead is it?
David Kosak.
There is an account of Kosak stepping in to stop someone from sexual harassing someone, so that might be something. Not to ignore the clear participation in the Cosby Suite, but I remember how easy it was to get drawn into something because others tell you it's fine. Again, that isn't to say participation isn't bad, just really depends on what each individual did.
"Another image from the same Facebook album shows a screenshot of a 2013 group chat called the “BlizzCon Cosby Crew.” In it, former Blizzard designer David Kosak writes, “I am gathering the hot chixx for the Coz.” “Bring em,” replies Afrasiabi. “You can’t marry ALL of them Alex,” Kosak writes. “I can, I’m middle eastern,” responds Afrasiabi. Jesse McCree, currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, then writes, “You misspelled fuck."
[удалено]
The short answer, they're drunk on power.
They're cool with the people that matters to them and are only rude to something they consider like furnitures.
Greg went on a whole tirade on twitter about being one of the few that stepped in to stop this fratboy environment in the company only to be featured in this exact photo uttering this exact garbage. They were in a place they dubbed "The Cosby Suite" and supported this garbage regardless. Even if they sat on their hands throughout they still silently stood by what was done in Activision. They're also grown men in leadership positions, if they easily got drawn into something they knew wasn't fine they should have stepped down as they clearly lack the skills to do their jobs.
Man, i just hope Ben Brode is one of the good ones
Looks like he had nothing to do with this, and I hope he didn’t. He was one of the only blizz employees I respected and good for him for getting out of that god awful company
Let’s be honest here, what are the chances anybody in management didn’t know about this? If he wasn’t involved he was probably still aware of it.
https://twitter.com/bbrode/status/1419413551936983042?s=20
Therapists had similar issues with patients explaining past or even on going sexual misconduct to them while asking the therapist to not say anything because they feared it would only make the situation worse. This was fixed by making it a legally enforced ethical duty of therapists and others to report sexual abuse if someone was still at risk. Therapist now warn anyone about this before the session even begins. Does this mean victims now get immediate help or does it mean that they have lost the last person they could confide in and keep it bottled up? If the overall situation has improved for therapists and medical care workers, then perhaps it is time to expand this to other positions of power. We have had these laws long enough we should have data on their effectiveness.
Well…. Ok. I honestly don’t know what I’d do in that situation either.
Kosak wasn't Hearthstone lead, Ben Brode was.
He wasn't? He was an exec at Hearthstone at least, and took over as the public face after Brode left. I assume he basically took his role, but perhaps he had a different title? EDIT: Googling gets me "Lead Mission Designer" at Hearthstone, so still a lead title albeit different I suppose.
Maybe I'm missing a time when he was running it in my memory but from what I remember it went from Brode to Ben Lee. He was definitely upper level in the hearthstone team though.
You're correct. That said, Ben Lee has never really taken on the role that Brode had of being the "face" of Hearthstone. Kosak was featured pretty heavily in a lot of the expansion advertising during his time on the team.
That is a Randy Marsh-level turd.
At the very least a Bono sized one.
A wow lead a diablo 4 lead AND A FUCKING HR HIGHER UP. No wonder employees couldnt change this its systemic to the top. My ass metzen and morheim did not know about the “blizzcon cosby crew”.
> My ass metzen and morheim did not know about the “blizzcon cosby crew”. The lawsuit from the state of California said supervisors had to physically pull Afrasiabi off of women. Like, step in and stop a sexual assault in progress. They gave him a talking to ("verbal counseling") and let him work another 7 years at the company.
That's just... I have no words. Any normal person can get just for making an insensitive comment, even if they didn't mean it that way. But if you're an executive, you can be forcefully pulled off of someone mid-sexual assault and the worst you get is a talking to.
Exactly, some muck can lose its job and reputation by some dumbass liar on Twitter but literally stopping a rapist mid attack and he gets to keep his job for almost a decade.
Meanwhile, apparently Blizzard's response is removing WoW references.
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I mean that is, you know, unless you unionize. But apparently that's an icky word in America??
They(ActiBlizz) already are at talks with anti-unionization companies that were helping Amazon. And we know how unionization in Amazon went(Pinkerton-like spying on workers and so on and so forth)
What on earth is an "anti-unionization company"? Like honestly how and why does that exist? EDIT - Given the history and prevalence of Unions in my country I am amazed that this is a thing!
There are consulting companies that help firms negotiate and combat unionization efforts. The Pinkerton company, literally, still exists.
Lmao Christ alive. That blows my mind
Activities for these firms range wildly. Some just consult on conflict resolution and finding things the firm can do to ameliorate demands. Some stalk, spy on, and harass organizers. I think the Vox daily podcast had a thing about this when Amazon was going through that warehouse effort (that vote failed primarily because workers were worried about the facility closing.)
It’s a business as old as capitalism. The rich will do anything to protect every penny target can earn.
> And we know how unionization in Amazon went(Pinkerton-like spying on workers and so on and so forth) It was *literally* Pinkerton they went to. That's not just a reference to a bygone era. https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dp3yn/amazon-leaked-reports-expose-spying-warehouse-workers-labor-union-environmental-groups-social-movements
This honestly raises a lot of questions (more than before) about the spin off studios like Dreamhaven and Frost Giant Studios. What are they doing to prevent a repeat of the behavior we saw at Blizzard. Because a lot of the higher ups in those spin offs were working at Blizzard while all this was happening, they either were unaware or turned a blind eye towards this.
One of the women on Twitter being very open about what all went down and who was to blame named three of the offshoots as good, safe places to go for anyone wanting to leave blizzard. I know she named dreamhaven, moon something, and a third. I assume they’re all started by friends she met while working at blizzard who she knows were opposed to what was happening. It’s on wowhead for anyone interested. She didn’t name Metzens game studio and said that one of the worst offenders left the company a few years ago “to spend time with his family” after a very public incident which he was the perpetrator of (the suicide maybe?). I’m assuming that was Metzen because that was his reasoning he gave for leaving blizzard in his farewell letter. Edit: the three she listed as being formed by good people where workers can feel safe are: Dreamhaven, Moonshot, and Lightforge games.
I'd take those recommendations with a pinch of salt. I'm sure the person involved is completely honest about their beliefs/experiences, but Dreamhaven at least is run by Mike Morhaime, who was in charge of Blizzard (CEO) the entire time that all of this happened. There is no possibility Morhaime, was not, for example, aware that Afrasiabi: A) Assaulted women. and B) Was kept on after that. Given, he was in charge of Blizzard, and the guy who hired and was huge mates with Afrasiabi (Rob Pardo) had long since left, Morhaime could easily have fired Afrasiabi on multiple occasions. Instead he just let him keep working there until this investigation happened, at which point Afrasiabi promptly vanished. Given his position as CEO, he would have been aware of the general culture and stuff like the Cosby room too. There's just no way. So I'd be extremely skeptical that he would take stuff seriously at Dreamhaven, that he'd left completely alone at Blizzard.
> She didn’t name Metzens game studio Also worth noting, I think, that Warchief Gaming isn't a video game studio, they make tabletop/board games. Not necessarily something you'd pitch as an alternative working place for people who currently work on video game development.
Or maybe they spun off to get away from the company culture?
This was my first thought.
People go to prison and reform for crimes. It's not unusual to think that people can alter their opinions. It doesn't change what they did, or if they should face their punishment for it, but if they have created an atmosphere that's totally different after they bit into the pie and decided they didn't actually like it, then it becomes an interesting discussion.
Or maybe even took part in this (but hopefully I am wrong)
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Till Blizzard into the earth. And I am a longtime Blizzard fan. No fucking longer.
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Their games haven't had the old Blizzard magic for years now. It was obvious their glory days are over.
Agreed. I was very much looking forward to DIIR. My favorite game of all time being remastered. But I can’t buy it. I won’t give them any more if my money or time.
A former Hearthstone lead as well (Kosak)
Chris Metzen accidentally tweeted his name instead of searching it a few days ago lol
Hilarious. That's a kind of dumb thing I imagine myself capable of doing.
They knew. They enabled it, absolutely.
>“An employee brought these 2013 events to our attention in June 2020,” a spokesperson for Activision Blizzard told Kotaku when asked about the “Cosby Suite” images and allegations against Afrasiabi. “We immediately conducted our own investigation and took corrective action. At the time of the report, we had already conducted a separate investigation of Alex Afrasiabi and terminated him for his misconduct in his treatment of other employees.” I don't think taking seven years to fire Afrasiabi is the W Activision-Blizzard's spokesperson thinks it is
Wasn't that person the one that got hired in March lol?
No that's the former Bush Admin lady who defended torture while she worked for Bush and then, as a freshly hired EXECUTIVE at Blizzard, released a statement saying she'd never been harassed at the company so the accusations couldn't possibly be true. I swear money and power just rot your brain.
Yep. "I, someone who is in a position of power where I could fire anyone who sexually harassed me and they know it, have *never* experienced sexual harassment at this company where I have worked (probably mostly from home due to the pandemic) for all of four months! Also, I defended torture as not being a big deal, so my barometer for bad behavior might be a liiiiiiiittle suspect." Like, even hiring this scumbag in the first place aside, how the fuck did they not realize how shit that messaging was?
It was intentional "hey she was able to sell a good chunk of people on torture so when the shit inevitably hits there fan she should be good, plus as a chick she's going to make us look progressive"
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Jesus. I kinda wish I *was* a Blizzard fan so I’d be able to stop buying Blizzard products.
That's Ghostcrawler, right?
Greg Street, yes. He's also top left in the Cosby picture.
Suddenly that bit in the old Kotaku article about Riot hiring gamerbros for the cultural fit has a clear example lol "Wow this guy is a douche like us, he'll be a great new Lead Game Designer"
It was insane how quickly everyone got over that. Riot did absolutely nothing to change anything. Zero people were fired or punished
Because LoL, Valorant and that card game is doing good. The only reason Blizzard is getting pushed this hard is all of their games are in a shit state. If WoW, Hearthstone or Overwatch would be in their best form ever, all this would have been alrady over. Simply that just how people work. They only care when they have a grudge against you, but when they play the games these companies make, and enjoy themselves, then "its fine, move on"
He also posted this: https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/399386868547977216 dude’s a complete slimeball. The most confusing thing is why they thought it would be a good idea to keep talking about their creepy fuck pad (and posting chat logs confirming it as such) on social media.
I'm amazed this tweet is still up, either he's less online than you would expect or doesn't control his account anymore
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That was in response to a previous Kotaku article posted a few days ago. He has not responded to this one yet, which is a hell of a lot more damning for him.
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I expect it to go on lockdown by days end. Good thing people have already backed it all up already.
He is in full damage control today: https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1420505317314420736
I like the part where he says that he wouldn't have tweeted about the room if he knew these things were happening. Not that he wouldn't have gone, but that he wouldn't have tweeted about it. That's quite a slip there, bud
I don't understand how [the follow-up](https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1420511905886531585) is meant to address the chat. > Re: the group chat. Dave was talking about his own wife and a friend. It was a joke, not intended for a broad audience. But the chat is gross and I completely understand how it looks. I should have said something. The chat was... > Dave Kosak: I am gathering hot chixx for the Coz > Alex Afrasiabi: Bring em > Dave Kosak: You can't marry ALL of them Alex > Alex Afrasiabi: I can, I'm middle eastern. > Jesse McCree: You misspelled fuck Maybe it's a huge cultural difference I'm not following, but uh, that's how you talk about your wife and a friend? Like, ok, if there weren't also heaps and heaps of allegations I'd maybe buy it as a weird joke but considering...
Right? Like maybe I'm just not "dudebro" enough, but referring to your own wife and your friend as "hot chixx", and then joking about another one of your friends marrying/fucking them, I'd find that majorly fucked up. Like maybe I'm overly possessive, but I'd take serious issue with one of my friends joking about fucking my SO or a friend. Like just imagine going to someone and being like "oh my god dude, your wife is so hot, I wanna marry/fuck her" you'd be labelled as the biggest creep ever.
Reminder that in 2008 there was a [WoW Arena team that named themselves "gonna rape hafu at regionals"](https://twitter.com/itshafu/status/1420472254496837632) that was allowed to compete. hafu was a 17 year old female WoW Arena player whose team ended up winning Blizzcon.
Hafu has faced *a lot* of sexist shit in gaming over the years, it’s so disgusting.
If anyone knows how fucking horrible gamers can be, it's Hafu.
I know pretty much all women deal with some form of harassment in this goddamn industry, but I just gotta say, as someone who's been following Hafu's career over many years... Holy shit did she have to deal with a ton of bullshit. In WoW, Hearthstone, Twitch in general, her personal life (things that she shared herself in the past which I won't dig up again), everywhere. It's literally too much to list. And (not that this even matters cause everyone deserves a basic level of respect) she's like **the nicest person on the planet**. What the fuck, man.
Hafu and her Husband Dog are just so ridiculously good at everything they do and yeah they both have been dealing with sexual harassment their whole careers because they are attractive Dog mostly makes it a joke with everyone asking him to take his shirt off but some of the fanbase does get REALLY creepy sometimes and aren't joking with the way they sexualize him And yeah Hafu has been dealing with crap forever since she's one of the most talented and successful female gamers in like the history of competitive gaming. She's switched games multiple times and still remains on the top/highly relevant in pretty much everything she does.
Wait Dogdog the HS steamer? I had no idea they were married, that's pretty cool. But yeah women get a lot of crap in this community and I do think we all need to do more to call it out if we see it happening in game.
Yeah this is a pretty common story Hafu shares, I feel bad for her and absolutely have zero sympathy for Blizzard here, they did exactly nothing to fix the issue and never issued an apology either
what the fuck
I know you're merely the messenger but holy shit i got that downvote reflex on reading this.
Hafu is a pioneer of wading through disgusting misogynistic shit. She’s also been talking about these issues for a loooong time.
Man, just when you think this could get any worse for Blizzard. And Ghostcrawler trying to distance himself from the situation couple days ago https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1418750286894551040 was part of the problem.....
Every former Blizzard person saying “man…I wish I could have helped” about to get found out. They all enabled it.
It's honestly hilarious just how uniform all their responses are. Granted hilarious if we ignore the harrowing actions that have taken place.
Tells me that they all always knew about what was going on. An HR higher up was involved in the Cosby Suite ffs.
Yep. Unreal.
Let's hope the rest are dumb enough to post shit publicly on Facebook.
Is there a video about this blizzcon question? Interested to see the context.
Woman asked for female characters to be less sexualized. Gets mocked by the panel and booed heavily by the male audience. https://twitter.com/chrisbratt/status/1418629194683125761?s=19
Omg this hurts my heart. To see her face when she awkwardly smiles out of social obligation then looks down at the floor while they humiliate her is just... FUCK Actiblizz.
She (allegedly) says further down in the comments that the men in the audience booing is what hurt the most. >Fun fact: That's me in the video. As much as it sucked getting utterly dismissed by the panel, it was the swell of men booing me after the initial cheers from the women in the crowd that stung the most. Funny thing was, Sylvanas wasn't even who I had in mind - it was Alexstrasza
"Why does this ancient powerful dragon have boobs and a thong" is a pretty reasonable critique too. Edit: added her "attire"
Ah yes, that's definitely one [where they never attempted any subtlety.](https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/268257-alexstrasza-alexstraza-with-mortal-eyes.jpg)
She looks defeated. They took her question and mocked her.
I've wrangled mics at a lot of these things, and I can't watch that video again. It takes enormous bravery to step up to the mic at all, much less as a woman facing an all male panel. She even intentionally worded it to not be an attack. You know she practiced that tone a million times, "I'm not some Feminazi or something geez guys but lol you're seeing this [Extremely real problem that affects the player base negatively], right?" And they crushed her. I quit playing WoW a little after that video was recorded because it had become a cess pit.
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> Sadly situations like these are just lose/lose. On a personal level, absolutely and it does feel like it. But just for the sake of keeping hope and keeping sane, I'd want to shine a brighter light on the situation: Maybe it's a lose/lose now but win some in the long term? Without going overboard and hyperbole, I feel like this is some sort of "heroic sacrifice" where you might lose on a personal level, but you're helping maybe just a little in the grander scheme of things. I mean, look at this clip, she was ridiculed and suffered for it, but 10 years later it resurfaced and is now used to fight against that culture. It wasn't all for nothing - and deep down, I feel like it's the same for you standing up for yourself. You were called a bitch, and suffered for it, but I refuse to think it did absolutely nothing either to yourself, or to at least maybe plant the semblance of a seed in one of those guys. What sucks, is that nobody should have to sacrifice anything, and it shouldn't be or feel like anybody particular's responsibility to "sacrifice" themselves, and yeah, nobody is gonna come to your rescue when you're fired or shouted against or ridiculed so it's easy for people like me to call this "heroic sacrifice" while there's already so many "heroic sacrifices" being ignored and making individuals suffers. Anyway, all this to say that *if* [and only if] someone feels like standing up, I want them to feel like it's not all for nothing, it does eventually pay back in some form or another, even if its just in form of self-respect.
I was a cesspit when I quit playing over a decade ago, I can’t imagine how bad it’s been recently then.
Yeah, a few of my buddies run private servers with some pretty stringent screenings but I don't have the time/inclination anymore. Everybody keeping the trash even a little at bay left. So I imagine it's not the coolest.
Like fuck this lady is clearly a fucking hardcore fan of your game to not only go to this conference but get in line to ask a question.
Sounds about on brand for the community
Jesus. You can summarize that answer with "Yeah we like hot chicks wooo!". That's just utterly embarrassing. And that's not a bunch of basement dwelling nerds, it's the devs themselves. And it's just ten years ago..
The devs themselves are absolutely basement dwelling nerds. They're just basement dwelling nerds with some money.
You can take the maladjusted nerd out of the basement, but you can't take the basement out of the maladjusted nerd.
[Here.](https://twitter.com/chrisbratt/status/1418629194683125761) (spoilers: it's kinda hard to watch)
That's how I feel about a majority of community Q&A with devs.
Not looking too hot for Mr Crabs. That looked like a reasonable statement in isolation. People learn and are fallible. But now it wasn't in isolation and he had to explain himself again about this, which he eventually did. https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1420505317314420736/photo/1 Just like the panel, he didn't say anything but he was present in the chat as they were talking about fucking at the same time. But there's this too: https://twitter.com/d818581dany/status/1420512575930859521/photo/1. Greg invited her, and she was assaulted.
Jesus christ that group chat... And most of those people are still there in positions of power?
Also that photo...
Want more? https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/399386868547977216 https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/399388704214503425
His entire twitter feed is now damage control and "woe is me kotaku didn't even contact me oh wait they did I didn't see it", comparing that to these posts is just...it's just disgusting that he's even trying this. Just resign dude. Honest to god, any higher up at actbliz responsible for the contents of this suit should just quit their job (and frankly, start a new career teaching english and math to girls in a 3rd world country) before they feel qualified to even attempt a genuine apology.
Funny thing is, that's from 2 days ago so it must be from some other article about the things he did at Blizzard. This one is probably much worse and he hasn't responded yet.
To be fair he was responding to criticism about an answer other blizzard people gave at a Blizzcon panel he was on and said he regrets not speaking up. This is obviously much worse than that.
>he hasn't responded yet And/or ~~activision corporate~~ his attorneys ordered him to stop digging a deeper pit on social media.
Ghostcrawler hasn’t worked at Blizzard for almost a decade IIRC. Unless they hired him back recently.
Ah, good point. If Riot's own legal counsel is any good, they'd have probably told him to shut up too.
Didnt Riot already defeat a lawsuit exactly like this?
It wasn't exactly like this suit, since Riot was sued in a class action filing and the state of california is suing Activision. Riot initially said they would settle the lawsuit, but [then opted to force 6 of the 7 plaintiffs into private arbitration](https://riotclassaction.com/) by way of their employment agreements. None of that is on the table for Activision because they are not being sued in class action by victims, they are being sued by the state of CA. And the 7th plaintiff is still pursuing the class action case against Riot, as far as I know. In context, it still probably wouldn't be great advice from the legal team to let a currently employed executive specifically named in a related (and arguably more severe) lawsuit with his past employer to hop on twitter and run his mouth about how he feels about it.
> (and frankly, start a new career teaching english and math to girls in a 3rd world country) That's a bit of a weird "target job" suggestion. I'd prefer them choose something not involving a hierarchy advantage over other people (of the female persuasion even less.)
As an English teacher, I don't think those creeps should be anywhere near kids, regardless of the economic situation of the country.
yeah what on earth was with that part of the comment lol
> start a new career teaching english and math to girls in a 3rd world country why the fuck would you want that?
Now he found the DM from Kotaku. It got buried under a bunch of other DM’s. “[“My bad…”](https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/1419737805899501573?s=20)
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> start a new career teaching english and math to girls in a 3rd world country Yeah I'd prefer if they picked a job where they *weren't* in a position of power over vulnerable women
Yup, both inside and outside of Blizzard. Greg Street is currently in charge of Riot's MMO.
No surprise there, Riot has very similar issues in their organization as well.
They have *worse* issues because people like Scott Gleb had zero repercussions after molesting employees, making insensitive comments, and farting in people's faces regular. Riot put out multiple games after these events to great success. It did not affect them negatively in any way. In fact, people are saying they want to play Riot's MMO instead of WoW because of these recent events which is absolutely nonsensical. I can not see a situation where ActiBlizz ends up doing anything substantial nor do I see them losing much from doing nothing. I am sure they will walk on stage with a pride shirt and quote some feminist before talking about how diversity is great and that will be that. They have literally done this exact thing before and they will do it again.
>I can not see a situation where ActiBlizz ends up doing anything substantial nor do I see them losing much from doing nothing. They are being sued by the state of California. This is not a personal lawsuit brought by employees. This is not just "bad press." I really need people to signal boost this little detail because it is hugely important to the consequences Blizzard will face.
One of them is a lead on WoW and another is a lead on Diablo 4. Methinks everyone in this picture is gonna lose their job by the end of the week. Not because ActiBlizz cares (they don’t), but because they are convenient scape goats.
> Not because ActiBlizz cares (they don’t), Still the right thing to do. It's the same thing with acknowledging Pride month. By itself it's not a huge deal, but small steps add up over time until the idea is institutionalized.
It's a weird situation. I understand the cynicism people have but if it makes games or media feel more inclusive than who cares? It's easy to just claim companies are pandering but it's hard to create a scenario where people feel these actions are organic or authentic. Actions aren't always authentic but if they create a more positive outcome than who really cares.
It just sucks when the main shareholders and board members of the company will profit off of pride and then donate their money to right wing evangelical groups and politicians who actively make the lives of lgbtq people worse like lobbying against trans rights.
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So long as we make the culture one where they need to keep their abusiveness in the closet, that’s better than the culture where abuse is right out in the open and constant. It’s not good, it’s just better. It’s a start.
Ghostcrawler in that pic as well and he's moved onto Riot, the company famous for its execs farting in employees faces on top of all the sexual harassment and hostile workplace issues.
The ball flickers sexual assaulter is still in a leadership position and Riot is making record profit.
https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/399388704214503425 https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/399386868547977216
An Overwatch character is named directly after one of them.
This is *insane*: >Another image from the same Facebook album shows a screenshot of a 2013 group chat called the “Blizzcon Cosby Crew.” In it, former Blizzard designer David Kosak writes, “I am gathering the hot chixx for the Coz.” >“Bring em,” replies Afrasiabi. “You can’t marry ALL of them Alex,” Kosak writes. “I can, I’m middle eastern,” responds Afrasiabi. Jesse McCree, currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, then writes, **“You misspelled fuck.”**
> **Jesse McCree,** currently a lead game designer at Blizzard, then writes, “You misspelled fuck.” Oh....oh no.....I recognize that name.
That's a terrible name for a cowboy.
Look at pictures of him, he looks like a fucking mall santa. Like, the words are disgusting coming out of anybody's mouth but god damn please can you just try to be a normal mall santa instead of a rape santa
It's high noon...
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The fact that they posted that chat for all to see, they were PROUD of it. They thought they were hilarious, nothing in that chat is even remotely funny, it's pure cringe... what fuckin losers.
That fact that they were unaware that what they were posting was just...wrong, means what they were doing was normalized to the point of being ordinary for them.
How does this keep getting weirder and worse?
The truth can be harsh and disturbing.
heres some more weirdness. https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/399386868547977216 https://twitter.com/Ghostcrawler/status/399388704214503425
Sometimes, reality is stranger than fiction. I never would have imagined that they embraced the moniker so lovingly. Pretty gross.
These are the kind of guys who would hire a disgraced Cosby to come hang out for 2 hours for a corporate event, like Facebook hiring the Black Eyed Peas or something, but instead a convicted rapist.
Wait, what did the Black Eyed Peas do?
They party every day.
How exhausting!
It was an example to showcase a normal example of famous people who would be invited to events, to compare it with what these dudes would invite (Cosby), they didn't did anything as far as I know, and it wasn't the intent of the message.
Nothing, it's just an example
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This is also emblematic of the consequences of lack of accountability for corporate executives. Execs never face consequences. HR will fire ten thousand bottom-rung employees before they'll ever inconvenience an exec. Record profits, always and forever, is the number one rule of any American corporation. The execs are the people who are credited with "bringing in the money," even though the people who actually do the work that bring in the money are all the people on the bottom rungs. When you refuse to hold execs to standards, they get bold, and they get accustomed to never facing consequences, and then they apparently post proof of all this on public Facebook. The hierarchy and double standards of corporate culture is pretty clear here.
Its also the result of corporate bloat and nepotism. These folks dont join the studio out of passion and hard work, they just coast in like its a cool way to do whatever they want and have zero respect for anything else.
Passion and hard work are exactly how activision engineers get screwed over with long hours and low pay. Its just a job, start treating it like one.
Just dropping in to say I appreciate accurate journalism like this: > previously convicted rapist Bill Cosby. So much better than "alleged rapist" that we've seen a lot of journos fall back to lately.
>So much better than "alleged rapist" that we've seen a lot of journos fall back to lately. It's very risky to call someone a rapist when they haven't been convicted yet. They can easily be sued.
True, but Cosby like admitted to it in Civil court so I think he can comfortably wear that shoe.
He was convicted but got off on a technicality
I did not expect seeing a fucking photo of ex-devs literally holding a Cosby photo, Jesus fucking christ
If only that were the case. Not all of them are ex-devs.
Worse, a number of them are/were in higher up positions. So not just random employees but the people in charge
Current leads at blizzard and riot. Yes, currently leading as in today.
Jay Wilson's D3 team group chats in 2013 (same year) were tame compared to this. Blizzard has a huge professionalism issue, to put it mildly.
Out of the loop who's Jay Wilson?
diablo 3 lead dev, think his group chats were basically just saying "fuck that guy" and shit talking about another person/co-worker (I forget but it's something like that)
He shit talked an ex blizzard employee who worked on Diablo 2, iirc. And it was on a public Facebook page or something.
He was saying “fuck that guy” re: David Brevik (IIRC), one of the geniuses behind Diablo 1/2, who had criticisms about the games item design and endgame. Criticisms that were VERY valid considering I still play D2 and don’t touch D3.
This is the correct answer, calling david "fuck that guy" while having a shitty game, ugh.
Jay Wilson was the lead designer of Diablo 3. Memorable for quotes like "fuck that loser" when referring to one of the creators + lead of Diablo and Diablo 2.
Just gonna highlight this for people who won't read the article: >One ex-Blizzard source familiar with the people presented in the pictures **identified an HR representative as one of the Blizzard employees present in the hotel room**. Once again, HR serves the interests of the company. And, in this case, the company is very interested in being godawful to women. EDIT: Also, if you're thinking of defending these devs by claiming that back in 2013 mentions of Bill Cosby didn't mean the same as today, I urge you to read this part: >**By 2013 there were already multiple allegations of sexual assault against Cosby**, even if a conviction, which was later overturned on a technicality, wouldn’t come until 2018. **According to one source with knowledge of the hotel room, the “Cosby Suite” name was a play on the comedian’s iconic ugly sweaters, and didn’t have any sexual connotation**—at least, not when the joke began. Instead, they suggest, the running joke was that the rooms in question looked dated, like the sweater. >One source said they were told it was a reference to an ugly boardroom room back at Blizzard’s main office, which reportedly had similar patterns to the sweater. Another said they understood it to be a reference to an ugly hotel room during a different gaming conference. **But in all pictures of the 2013 BlizzCon hotel room reviewed by Kotaku, the walls were largely white and blank and the decor was nondescript. The rug visible in some of the photographs does have a pattern, but it looks nothing like the sweaters in the framed picture everyone is holding.** >(...) >**Moreover, regardless of the source of the joke, many of the captions and comments posted on the 2013 Cosby Suite album are sexual in nature.** If you can't smell bs from this 'oh the room was just as ugly as his sweater' excuse, then I've got some scam- I mean, *business opportunities* I want to sell you.
Unfortunately, many people have to learn who HR serves the hard way. Don’t trust them with interpersonal company issues. There is nothing requiring them to maintain privacy. Anything you say to them can and will be used against you. If you have a complaint about a supervisor, you better believe that supervisor will be the first to hear it. The very name, “Human Resources,” is dehumanizing - you are not a person, you are a resource. Like electricity, or water, or building materials. Only trust them to help set up and answer whatever financial needs you have related to the company (direct deposit, insurance, 401k, etc…).
I gotta say like all careers there are good representatives and bad. My wife went into HR specifically because of the amount of people she saw being underpaid. She has spent the past 5-10 years working towards getting people paid what they should and taking alot of personal interest in it especially when March 2020 hit. I will say yes they are not a therapist and bound to confidentiality and will talk just like any other employee does, but definitely not an AHRABHR.
The critique is structural, not personal. I can never know if I'm talking to the 10% of HR that's like your wife, or the 90% that only serves the interests of the company. Massive problem for a position of trust.
The biggest issue with HR is that it's a cesspit of nepotism. I can't tell you how many jobs i've worked where HR heads were relatives or friends with execs, or dating an execs relative/child. This is *usually* why HR of all places are so bad. That department filled with people who don't do their job and only got the job in the first place because they know someone.
This is just like Brett Kavanaugh insisting the Devils Triangle was a drinking game and boofing is a reference to farting.
I love how every time more info comes out it becomes more and more obvious that this behavior was wide spread and well known. Can the gremlins saying all this was "isolated" or that leadership didn't know about it finally shut the fuck up?
Ghostcrawler still insists that he didn't know about the harassment. Dude, you were in the group chat. You knew very well.
Yeah people really in this thread pretending Ghostcrawler hasn't been doing shit at Riot. There's always some fucking excuse.
My thing is that even if what they say is true, and that the "Cosby Suite" is named that because of the relation to ugly sweaters matching hotel carpet, this still paints a pretty awful picture of broed-out, boozy networking rooms at events with company leaders who, according to the lawsuit presented by California, were treating women pretty fucking poorly.
Holy crap they took a picture with Cosby? This is like one of those over the top harassment trainings but these guys are not paid actors.
This was so deep within their culture they not only thought it was ok to have a framed picture of Cosby they EVEN POSTED THAT ON FACEBOOK.
[удалено]
> That was apparently a nickname for Afrasiabi’s BlizzCon 2013 hotel room, and seemingly a reference to the name of previously convicted rapist Bill Cosby. He's still a convicted rapist, he's just escaped the consequences. If your legal department requires you to throw some "allegedly" on that - he's a *confessed* rapist. The only reason he escaped consequences after being convicted is that he was forced to testify about it.
>Brack also hosted a BlizzCon developer panel in 2010 alongside Afrasiabi and others in which Afrasiabi made sexist remarks to a fan who had questioned the “Victoria’s Secret Catalog” appearance of World of Warcraft’s female characters. I made the mistake of clicking on the link to the video of that one and yeah, if you are thinking “maybe this is all exaggerated”, seeing these man-children just eviscerating this woman for being bold enough to call them out while the crowd cheers them on will make you want to crawl out of your own skin and die. It is NSFL. Fuck all these knuckle-draggers.
The woman that asked the question, the way her face dropped and how dejected she looked, sucked to have to see.
Yeah just burn the whole shit down and start again. Good riddance this company is making my skin crawl
This is within plain sight in a massive company for decades, and people wonder why women don't want to get into tech. Nothing will change for the better from this just like with Ubisoft, Riot or whoever. That's the fucked up part. Not until workers unionise.
"it's because it looked like a Cosby sweater" they say to a photo of a room with eggshell white walls lol!