46 ms·
Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday
- mym1990 5y agoWow this plus the exodus of players moving to FFXIV is probably making for a pretty wild month at Blizzard.
- RobRivera 5y agothe chicken scene from footloose comes to mind.
- irrational 5y agoMan, how terrible must their working conditions be that they talk about what day, instead of what hour, they will leave for home.
- madamelic 5y agoAs much as I do support them, Blizzard employees frequently strike me as obsessed with social media perception and staying woke rather than doing what's right even if it is inconvenient for them personally. The ones who are actually affected don't work at Blizzard anymore. The time to walk out was _years ago_. There's no chance it was wide-spread knowledge that one of the executives was assaulting people at work and yet no one was frustrated by that fact.
- whymauri 5y agoFrom what I've heard of the working environment, it's borderline impossible to be employed there without at least _seeing_ what was going on to your colleagues. I mean, I remember reading about sexual harassment there in 2018, at which point it had _already_ been going on for a while. Agree that this seems a tad late.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- woxko 5y agoAnybody knows if this is going to affect the release of the remastered Diablo?
- booi 5y agoHopefully it does
- prohobo 5y agoUnlikely, since the remaster is being done by a different company (contract).
- woxko 5y agoI see. I know they pulled this off with Warcraft 3 and it failed spectacularly. Let's hope it works out better this time. Thanks!
- JohnWhigham 5y agoAB actually bought them, so they're now AB employees.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- SketchySeaBeast 5y agoDid we learn nothing from Warcraft 3 Remastered? Don't preorder, don't look forward to it. They have to prove it's good, we can't trust anymore. Plus, you know, I'm not buying it because Blizzard is straight up ghoulish.
- woxko 5y agoI'm not going to preorder, but I'm looking forward to it - what they've shown is good, and I think they recognise W3R was a mistake.
- adamrezich 5y agoa friend told me I should get WC3 a few years ago so we could play together, so I bought it and the expansion from Blizzard's website, but never got around to playing it. after the remaster came out, I thought to myself, well, now's as good of a time as any to play the originals. then I discovered that anyone who had a copy of the originals had their copies replaced with a gimped version of the remaster, and you had to buy the remaster to remove said gimping. absolutely deplorable, I won't buy another game from them again.
- runlevel1 5y ago> Why it matters: Walkouts are a drastic measure for developers in a largely non-unionized field, a testament to just how angry employees currently are. It sends a message, but I wouldn't say it's _that_ drastic considering the demand for developers and difficulty hiring in the Orange County area.
- bagacrap 5y agoYeah I don't think Blizzard is going to be able to bring in scabs to replace software devs. This comment reveals how poorly the industry is understood by outsiders, or at least this one journo.
- dleslie 5y agoI don't think they'll introduce "scabs" simply because it would be a marketing _disaster_. However, I work in the industry, and I think you'd be shocked by how replaceable American developers are. Huge amounts of artistic labour _is_ done cheaply, and in relatively decent quality, oversees in countries like South Korea, China, Japan, and to a lesser extent, Thailand. Here in Canada, we have a thriving industry that includes both primary developers and developers who focus on outsourced work. Most of my career has been involved with shops that were sub-contracted labour from American studios.
- void_mint 5y agoAlso work in the industry (but in the US as an employee, not a subcontractor), totally opposite opinion. Outsourced labor is similar to Associate-level responsibilities. The reasons assholes don't get fired in the games industry is because experience and skill is so difficult to find.
- TameAntelope 5y agoHaving worked with overseas contractors on a number of projects, I can say my personal experience is that the work product varies wildly in quality, shop to shop. I wouldn't say it's "relatively decent quality" in any universal or guaranteed sense. Not that American developers are necessarily more skilled, just that the lack of a culture and sometimes language barrier is pretty evident in the resulting work product, in my experience.
- boba7 5y agoI don't give a fuck about their pussy drama tbh. Get back to work.
- waythrifty5746 5y agoGood, walkouts are an effective way to drive organizational change. We had massive walkouts at Wayfair due to our policy of selling furniture to US Customs concentration camps that held tens of thousands of children. Only took Wayfair a few years to somewhat change their policy in a roundabout and nondescript way, but at least some movement took place.
- madamelic 5y agoMaybe an asshole question, but did this change in policy occur pre or post election? I can't seem to find an article of them changing policy, only that the outcry happened in late 2019 which made me wonder.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jjdin14 5y agoUS customs never had concentration camps holding children, they did have places for holding illegal immigrants though.
- ihumanable 5y agoI'm sure those children will feel so much better when you explain the difference.
- jjdin14 5y agoMaybe their criminal parents who put them in that situation should be the ones doing the explaining.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- underseacables 5y agoOr demonstrate that the business is not viable in its current form. Perhaps blizzard should shut down.
- 0x500x79 5y agoThis seems to largely match a lot of the same things that happened with Riot Games over the last couple of years. I am hoping that these actions can help spread awareness of any issues that may be present at Blizzard and past, current, and future employees won't face the same issues. It is a long road to be traveled to get there. I hope that the current WFH situation doesn't detract from the walkout. A lot of the visibility raised when Riot went through this was outside of the Riot gates where employees were congregated. Without speculating on the claims, I do find it interesting that the DFEH has lawsuits against both Riot Games and Blizzard for similar issues. I recall reading that Riot's response was that the DFEH was not working in good faith: are both of these companies aligning their responses, is the DFEH out of line, or is the industry just that broken?
- madamelic 5y ago> is the DFEH out of line, or is the industry just that broken? No chance DEFH is out of line. The tech industry is strongly biased in the favor of white men in my opinion and video games even more so, considering women playing video games only became socially acceptable a few years ago. It's still common for men to talk down to women on video games, to the point where the overwhelming majority of women do not use voice comms or make their gender known. Think about all those men complaining that a video game _dared_ have a female character or even more so, a non-conventionally attractive one gasp. That was in 2018... That's the _average_ person who is making a video game.
- oceanghost 5y agoPlease don't conflate "white men" with these assholes. I'm so tired of being blamed for the behavior of folks with the same genitalia/skin color as me.
- soverycool 5y agoIt's acceptable racism for this person to say something so abhorrent.
- Animats 5y agoUnion, Yes!
- yosito 5y agoDoes anyone have any more specific information aside from "widespread sexism"? It would be good to know exactly what is prompting this walkout, and exactly what changes they're hoping to achieve with it.
- jonchang 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27922841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27922841
- FanaHOVA 5y agoSome extracts from the lawsuit: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/activision-blizzard-sued-by-california-over-frat-boy-culture https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/activision-...
- colinmhayes 5y ago> The suit also points to a female Activision employee who took her own life while on a company trip with her male supervisor. The employee had been subjected to intense sexual harassment prior to her death, including having nude photos passed around at a company holiday party, the complaint says. Wild
- xbar 5y agoIt really is the element in the complaint that stands out. First, pay and promotion discrimination are widespread and are less shocking. Acceptable? No. I like DFEH's authority to go hard after companies to get this addressed, but I somehow shrug and say "Let the lawsuit parade begin. Ok, Blizzrad can go first." Second, some of the anecdotes in the Blizzard complaint come off as problematic but not shocking. "Cube crawls" which seem like "get drunk at work" parties that led to sexual harassment: getting drunk at work is a management-stupid recipe for trouble. DFEH Lawsuit worth? Less obvious. Third, the named executive who was a creep comes off as a problem for that creep. He was let go quietly and management didn't otherwise change. It's hard to tell if this is worse than average for creep executives. Lawsuit worthy by DFEH? Unlikely on its own: management acted to address the issue. But the suicide. The victim was exploited, harassed, and abused as an employee. The complaint insinuates that her traveling coworker had demeaning sex toys on hand. It's not obvious if she was the intended subject of the coworker toys, but it is implied. Her suicide seems to have been preventable and, therefore, tragic. More than anything else it suggests that the other elements of the complaint led her to a feeling of hopelessness in her work environment. It is not a stretch to imagine that she was not alone in that feeling as a result of that environment. RIP, victim. The lawsuit will bring insufficient justice for you and negligible peace for your family. Perhaps it will begin some broader change.
- j_walter 5y ago> The suit was followed by an outpouring of current and former employees saying they’d been harassed or mistreated at the company. I never understand why in the world we currently live in there are so many people willing to be silent for so long. Weinstein did his crap for years, the US gymnastics assaults went on for years. This probably isn't a popular opinion...but when victims choose to remain silent they are complacent in allowing other people to be victimized in the future. A sexist culture is one thing, but straight up sexual assault is a completely different issue.
- 908B64B197 5y ago> Weinstein did his crap for years, the US gymnastics assaults went on for years. Both gatekeepers for Hollywood and the Olympics.
- SketchySeaBeast 5y agoYeah, it's almost like people keep silent because of the power imbalance that leads to the abuse and blaming the weak because they aren't able to stand up to the strong is the wrong thing to do.
- j_walter 5y agoThey could stand up to the strong, but they choose to go along with it for their own personal reasons (ie, make it in Hollywood or become an Olympic athlete). However even after those things happen the abused continue to keep silent.
- GerraldJolkb 5y agowho is going to listen to you if you stand up to the strong? unless you have support of anyone in the media (who would also be willing to put their reputation on the line) your message isn't going to go anywhere. not to mention, you think things like 'black cube' suddenly don't exist any more?
- 5y ago
- shadowgovt 5y agoInteresting. I've been thinking that based on how high up the chain of command the allegations suggest Activision's cultural problems are, it seemed a lot like the only way for Activision to "right the ship" would be to replace senior leadership (including possibly up to the CEO level). I found that outcome unlikely, but if the employees put pressure on ownership in this way, it may perhaps create enough incentive for the ownership to oust the top-level leadership. Not sure.
- spicybright 5y ago1 day doesn't seem enough to do anything. At least 3 days if not a week would be much more effective. They have leverage because activision can't hire scabs, and news employees will have to ramp up for months before they're useful on current projects. They have contractual deadlines to meet, I'm sure.
- beebeepka 5y agoBlizzard is done for. Everyone important left. There's no one to work on StarCraft 3 / WarCraft 4 and their reputation is deservably not what what it used to be only a few years ago. Like almost until the "you all have phones, right" moment. Activision ruined the company. Sure, the market changed but Blizzard was doing much better under Vivendi.
- TameAntelope 5y agoWhat would, "Blizzard is done" look like? Are you suggesting that the IP (Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft) would be shut down, all employees laid off or incorporated into Activisions other departments? I could not imagine any business abandoning billions of dollars of IP like that.
- foobarian 5y agoWarcraft alone I can't imagine shutting down. There is a certain community of people that more or less lives in that parallel universe and it would be pretty disruptive to abandon it. It's like buying access to a virtual bar for $15/mo where you reliably get together with your warcraft nerd birds of a feather.
- VRay 5y agoThey're pulling in ludicrous amounts of money, and it's pretty clear from the quality of content over the last 8 years or so that they're not investing more than a tiny fraction of it back into the game They'll just continue to invest less and less in actual playable desktop games and more and more in toxic mobile dogshit as time goes on
- fxtentacle 5y agoThey have the IP but they are struggling to hire talent to do something useful with it. So there's a chance that they will milk their IP with smartphone gambling until it dries out. Some people believe that has already happened, which is why we have the Diablo mobile partnership and no new StarCraft 3.
- 5y ago
- devwastaken 5y agoA 50 man raid group forming outside Blizzard to take on the final boss, blizzard management. No king rules forever, my son.
- edoceo 5y agoLeeerooyyy Jeeennkkiinnsss!!
- CobrastanJorji 5y agoRemember the line that follows: "Control must be maintained. There must always be a Lich King."
- devwastaken 5y agoSylvanas straight up removed the lich king from existence, so that one was a lie lol.
- DelightOne 5y agoLink didn't work for me. https://web.archive.org/web/20210727183853/https://www.axios.com/activision-blizzard-walkout-harassment-lawsuit-fefa807b-107e-41e2-a6e2-78a086119e04.html https://web.archive.org/web/20210727183853/https://www.axios...
- dreyfan 5y agoBlizzard hasn't produced a decent game in two decades, all the original talent have long departed, and now it's just a sexist cesspool. How about they quit instead of simply walking out?
- void_mint 5y agoGenerous to think the original talent didn't cultivate the sexist cesspool it is today. I certainly don't extend them that grace. Morhaime was involved. Kaplan was involved. Nobody in executive leadership is innocent.
- dreyfan 5y agoOh I'm not defending the original talent whatsoever in regards to the cesspool, sorry that came out as connnected. I'm only saying they were responsible for making good games and all that remains is a toxic culture.
- ffffwe3rq352y3 5y agoGot bills to pay.
- masterof0 5y agoBlizzard is not the only company in CA.
- ffffwe3rq352y3 5y agoTrue. If they all quit I'm most could find jobs relatively quickly. However, that isn't true for everyone. Is it really worth the risk of not being able to find a job and or getting worse pay?
- healsdata 5y agoSome of the folks you're probably grouping in with "original talent" were responsible for building the sexist cesspool. Many of the complaints, both in the lawsuit and by (ex-)employees are not recent events.
- liambates 5y agoAfter reading a little more about the CCO, her response does not surprise me in the slightest... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Townsend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Townsend
- tehjoker 5y ago"Frances M. "Fran" Fragos Townsend (born December 28, 1961) is the former Homeland Security Advisor to United States President George W. Bush from 2004 to 2007, and is currently executive vice president for corporate affairs at Activision Blizzard." The Bush administration was the kind of place to sell illegal wars and cover up torture programs, so this lady is fine with sweeping dirt under the rug.
- scruple 5y agoYou know... Brian Bulatao [0] stood out to me, as well, when I was recently looking at the Activison Blizzard leadership page. It's certainly interesting to me that these folks specifically ended up in executive leadership at a games developer. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Bulatao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Bulatao
- bcrosby95 5y agoShe also is a C-level and has worked there for 4 months. She has zero insight to this problem.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoThis is interesting, given that Activision itself was founded by disgruntled Atari developers who'd walked out...whereupon the then-CEO of Atari, a former textile company executive who'd referred to the developers as "towel designers", discovered that he couldn't just call up a temp agency and have them send over a bunch of people who could cram a fun, playable game into 4K of memory.
- jjice 5y agoThat's what 30 years and extreme growth does to a company, can't expect them to remain the same when entire new waves of people join over the course of decades.
- ctvo 5y agoPeople are walking out? Based on the former Blizzard employees, mostly white males, who have commented in previous threads, it didn't seem like a big deal. Wonder why they're walking out on a nothingburger.
- thrower123 5y agoLast I heard, Blizzard was hemorrhaging WoW users as well. Not a great run for them over the past couple years, with the terrible Warcraft III remaster as well.
- Hamuko 5y agoHasn't WoW been "hemorrhaging" users since the days of Wrath 11–13 years ago?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sandworm101 5y agoAppeal to public opinion is generally a great idea but there is a risk. Activision gets no sympathy from me, but I also don't think the answer will come from the masses. I'm not sure that most gamers really care about sexism in the gaming industry. Video games are synthetic, we don't really see the people behind them. At least in movies we see the actors. If push comes to shove, I think most gamers will still be lining up for the latest AAA title no matter what they hear about the company that created it. Imho change therefore has to come from something other than public opinion. This lawsuit is exactly that: the government enforcing a code of behavior because the market clearly cannot do it on its own. The system is working.
- joe-collins 5y agoI have been playing WoW since the first year, and the developers have my full support. I know several current and former Team 2 (WoW) developers, from QA up to leads, and they are all unified in their rejection of their executives. And I live nearby, so I'll be joining them on the pavement tomorrow.
- etempleton 5y agoThe biggest Blizzard fans I know personally are pretty fed up. From a fan perspective many are disappointed and/or concerned with the direction of WoW, Overwatch, and other Blizzard franchises from a gameplay perspective. And from what I understand, the WoW community is talking about the recent news with many seeing this as the same leadership that is making poor decisions about the games they like as the same leadership behaving badly in the workplace.
- hinkley 5y agoThe 'problem' with people who are invested in you is that when you do something they really don't like, up to and including breaking their trust, they push back instead of leaving. They will stick with you through little fuckups, but if you want to make a big change, for better or worse, then you're going to hear about it. It's why ex-smokers and ex-drinkers complain about having to stop hanging out with their old friends. It's not just the temptation to revert, there's also social pressure for you to be the old you. If you want to go the other direction and become an ass, you're in for a similar treatment.
- dzonga 5y agoacross all industries, workers keep getting shafted n abused. reason, why worker protections are weak. it could be warehouse work at PepsiCo where they just 'won' to work 72 hours a week instead of '84'. it could be the game industry where females are driven to commit suicide. because the corporation comes first. however, no actionable changes will come anytime soon, since corporations have politicians in their pockets. and the plebs are told behave and you'll join the owning class. working at a fAAng doesn't mean you know have power over the senator like Zuckerburg does.
- golemiprague 5y agoWomen should work in banks and hospitals, when they infiltrate creative endeavours it just creates havoc and drag the whole organisation down. It is funny but the theoretically more liberal people in the music industry and other performing arts got it long time ago, that's why most of the people on the production and creation side of things are men and the women are mainly just the singers and performers. The computer geeks of SV never really understood women and that's why they are standing there baffled trying to figure out how comes they are the most "sexist" industry when they are so woke and all voted for Hillary. It is just funny to watch.
- pengaru 5y agoI suppose this is one feature of actually going to the office worth noting. Staging a virtual walk out where everyone just doesn't sign into Slack, Github, and/or read email for a day wouldn't have the same impact.
- jimbob45 5y agoDid the women go to HR? If so, just fire all of HR and get a new HR. Did they not go to HR? That's on them and no one should feel bad for them then. No one should be persecuted for not solving your problems for you. I know law offices like very much to get public opinion on their side with strategic leaks so that they can push for a settlement ASAP. If things go to trial, it's likely to come out that their clients are gold-digging scumbags who didn't follow the process through HR like they were trained to do.
- Hamuko 5y agoHR works for the company, not for you.
- SpicyLemonZest 5y agoIt's not clear whether HR was actually empowered to stop things here. The lawsuit alleges that in at least one case, a harasser's behavior was escalated multiple times to the Blizzard president, and multiple times he declined to fire the guy.
- qmmmur 5y agoThere are literal documented stories in the case of people complaining to HR and having the issues swept under the rug by them. Did you even do a modicum of research before posting this?
- AdrianB1 5y agoI had a couple of complaints about HR in the past; they were investigated by the people I complained about and found they are perfect. As someone else wrote, HR works to protect the company, not for you.
- cletus 5y agoIf you haven't read the state of California's claims here you should. It's the result of a two year investigation and the claims are.. shocking. I want to make a point about "culture fit". "Culture fit" in a company typically comes down to "we like you" and the reason why people like other people is that they are like them. Similar age, background, whatever. It's why Stanford grads probably like other Stanford grads. This "we like you" can and does lead to discrimination. But here's the even darker side of this. Toxic cultures of sexual harassment as alleged in the complaint against Activision-Blizzard always come down to a few key individuals who then "spread" by hiring or promoting other people who are like then. I doubt this is ever explicit. It's more that you can sense a fellow predator (make no mistake: they are preying on vulnerable staff). So without intervention this toxicity will tend to spread. Those who oppose it will leave. Those who tow the lines get promoted. And it's leadership's responsibility to root this out and eliminate it. Heads should roll here. Maybe even J Allen Brack's and/or Bobby Kotick's. If you want to take credit for the successes you also have to take responsibility for the giant failures here. Oh and whoever wrote and sent out that statement about how the state was pursuing this was why so many businesses are leaving California needs to be fired. It was so utterly tone deaf and irrelevant.
- cableshaft 5y agoBobby Kotick is worth $600 million according to a brief Google search. That's enough fuck you money I'm surprised he hasn't just retired yet. Of course, when you can convince the board to pay you $155 million more, that's a good incentive to keep working I guess. Especially since work at that level is probably just a handful of meetings in a boardroom and a few more on the golf course per year (I don't mean CEOs in general, but CEOs of large corporations like his, where the decisions boil down to pretty much "How many absurd microtransactions can we get away with in Call of Duty this year?"). Anyway I highly doubt his head can really roll from this. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-06-22-activision-blizzard-boss-bobby-koticks-usd155m-pay-package-approved-by-shareholders https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021-06-22-activision-bli...
- Ntrails 5y agoAnyone with a net worth over about 100m (and many a fir chunk lower) isn't working for money anymore. He hasn't retired to enjoy his wealth is imo because the jobs selection bias excludes the sorts of people who would do that
- mehlmao 5y agoTwo years ago, during the Blitzchung / Hong Kong incident, I deleted the Battle.net account I had held since Warcraft III. I would encourage everyone else to do so too. It's definitely easier now that Blizzard no longer makes the best (or even good) games in any genre. Activision Blizzard's Chief Compliance Officer released an absolutely disgusting statement in response to the lawsuit: https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1418619091515068421 https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1418619091515068421 It's surreal knowing that she is also complicit in the war crimes committed at Abu Ghraib (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Townsend#Career https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Townsend#Career).
- throwawayswede 5y agoHow will they virtually walk out?
- serverholic 5y agoHow much lower can Blizzard go? Fans have been disappointed in Blizzard for awhile but now not only are fans pissed off but employees are pissed off.
- dang 5y agoPrevious related thread: California sues Activision Blizzard over unequal pay, sexual harassment - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27922841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27922841 - July 2021 (461 comments)
- foolinaround 5y agothe lawsuit : https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/activisonsuit.pdf https://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/activisonsuit.p...
- bennysomething 5y agoOne of the demands “believe that our values as employees are not being accurately reflected in the words and actions of our leadership,” Sorry they pay you to do a job, not reflect your values. And anyway whos values? I'm pretty certain values are a personal thing, how can the leadership possibly reflect all their employees values?
- AdrianB1 5y ago"Staff are asking Activision Blizzard to adopt new recruiting, hiring and promotion policies to improve representation across all employee levels." What exactly does this means? What is "representation across all employee levels" and why not competency? In the US-based company I work for, we have a "diversity and inclusion" program that had resulted in promoting cafeteria managers to director level and hiring any (all) applicants of certain races in certain countries (varies by country) because targets had to be met. I have a friend in US that was told by all his mentors : "come on, you are a white male, you have no chance to be promoted". Is this what these people want?