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Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture
- redwood 5y agoI'm going to take a minority position here and say that I've always hated their games. To me they're somewhat akin to cigarette or vape companies or even Facebook... They're driving addiction and causing people to pour their lives or at least their time down the drain. How widespread are these types of issues in other game companies?
- jwilber 5y agoThis is an odd, blanket statement considering 1. The quality/longevity of their games 2. The variance in genres they produce games in. Comparing Starcraft to Candy Crush may help elucidate how off you are with the vape/fb comparison.
- elefanten 5y agoGP, while phrased a bit stridently, isn't totally off base here. Arguably, Blizzard led the charge in proliferating RPG systems into virtually all other genres and they proved the popular power of "grind" based systems. The original RTS games (Warcraft 1-3, Starcraft 1) did not really contain these systems. But virtually everything else Blizzard has produced (including Starcraft 2) has grinding & collecting in it. As mentioned, this spread to other genres, infusing Activision's flagship Call of Duty franchise with grinding & leveling. The mobile division, King, does all these things as a matter of course -- it's nearly 100% of the business and design models in mobile gaming. To be fair, you can't blame Blizzard entirely for spreading these design choices. It was an industry wide shift. But they were one of the shining golden examples of its success, and they sure leaned into themselves. Assuming gp was referring to these mechanics, there's a lively debate to be had about propensity to spur addictive behaviors.
- mr_toad 5y ago> To be fair, you can't blame Blizzard entirely for spreading these design choices. Many would blame Activision. And not a few would say that Blizzard sold out. To me they seem to be mostly milking the cash cow, and they’re hardly alone in doing it.
- coldacid 5y agoBlizzard was already creatively going downhill before Activision bought them, but they could have recovered. Joining with Activision was the death of Blizzard.
- jwilber 5y agoNot disagreeing with your larger point, but what grinding exists in Starcraft 2? Been playing for a decade and can’t think of anything. I’m not sure who invented loot boxes, but that’s another (unmentioned) issue entirely.
- elefanten 5y agoHm, not sure what I had in mind - I may be misremembering. Thanks for the correction. I guess you could argue league systems are a pvp grind, but that's not quite the same as my original point. Competition naturally includes (relative) ranking.
- jwilber 5y agoYeah, no worries. Unfortunately, the fact that Starcraft 2 has no such behavior cooked into it may actually be why it’s seen such a decline in popularity :,(
- ryathal 5y agoStarcraft 2 had achievement grinds, and later pay and grind unit skins. Coop mode has leveling and xp boosters were implemented but never really sold before support dropped
- 5y ago
- SecretDracula 5y agoBlizzard always made the worse, but more popular game of the time period. Total Annihilation was better than Starcraft. Baldur's Gate 2 was better than Diablo 2.
- ekianjo 5y agodiablo 2 is a hack and slash. not a story driven RPG. poor comparison.
- p1necone 5y agoTotal Annihilation is an entirely different type of RTS than Starcraft. Command and Conquer is probably a closer comparison. Likewise (and even moreso) Baldur's Gate 2 is a totally different subgenre of RPG than Diablo 2 (unless you're talking about Dark Alliance 2 on consoles). Baldur's gate is a hybrid turn based DnD rules adaptation with multiple player characters and more of a focus on characterization and storytelling. Diablo 2 is a single player character, full real time, random loot, multiplayer focused action RPG. There aren't really any contemporary games that were a "better version" of Diablo 2 because in improving what they did with Diablo 1 it popularized the subgenre and made way for later games. Later games that could be considered improvements to the formula are things like Titan Quest (great first playthrough experience, but less replay value) and Path of Exile (really feels like a true successor to Diablo 2, with it's endless replay value and deep build customization).
- Millenialboomer 5y agoTo be fair, the decision to make the original Baldur's Gate real time with pause instead of turn based was supposedly due to the popularity of diablo at the time. That doesn't take away from your point, but I do think it's an interesting connection to note.
- SecretDracula 5y agoThey may have been different in many ways, but they were directly compared to one another on the playground in the late 90s (at least on my playground). They were competing games.
- nielsbot 5y agoWouldn't forming a union help them better negotiate as a group? FTA: "Activision Blizzard employees are also calling for an end to mandatory arbitration in employee contracts, which prevent workers from taking conflicts with their employer to court, policies to improve representation of women and marginalized groups, the publication of salary data, and an audit of the company by a diversity, equity and inclusion taskforce."
- elefanten 5y agoIt sure as hell would accelerate the outsourcing of game development, which has rapidly growing capacity outside of the US & Western Europe. We're already very near the tipping point where non-Western studios will produce >50% of global industry revenue.
- d4mi3n 5y agoThere’s a whole line of discussion to be had around the realities of outsourcing to be had, but I’d like to focus on discussing employee rights. Are we OK with employees being treated like this? Are we willing to make concessions on our relationships with our employer under threat of losing our jobs (outsourcing is just one of the many ways a job can be taken away). I’m of the thinking that companies should not be able to abuse the inherent power they hold as employers to deny some pretty basic rights like the ability to sue from individual employees.
- chadcmulligan 5y agoUnions do this, they negotiate agreements that are fair and equitable for the members. I grew up with unions and have seen them go out of favour, and the practices that caused the unions in the first place are rising again. The part I find surprising/despicable is how much money is put towards denigrating unions so that the workers think they're bad - the recent amazon vote comes to mind.
- winphone1974 5y ago
- SwSwinger 5y agoWithout harassing frat boy culture, how else could they convince developers to work long hours for such little pay compared to the rest of the industry?
- vernie 5y agoYou can still engender a sense of camaraderie that makes it easy to exploit passionate engineers and artists without resorting to creep shit, but it's probably harder.
- jayd16 5y agoDon't be silly. There's still plenty of starry eyed hope and misplaced loyalty to run a death march through the holiday season.
- me_me_me 5y agoless and less every year. The reality of game dev life are often discussed online and at this stage if you consider the career you'd hear about it.
- ditonal 5y agoDid the walkouts at Google change anything? Not only did Sundar enable the disgusting, predatory behavior of Vic Gundotra and Andy Rubin, but as far as I can tell, he’s still a darling of the press. Even on HN Sundar and Google get the kid gloves despite the abhorrence of the culture they created. Walkouts are pointless. True Employee organization and collective bargaining is the only answer to holding execs accountable , whether it’s at Google, Activision, or anywhere else.
- tdeck 5y agoGoogle removed its mandatory arbitration clause for sexual harassment cases in response to the walkout: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/technology/google-forced-arbitration.amp.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/21/tech... > True Employee organization and collective bargaining is the only answer to holding execs accountable , whether it’s at Google, Activision, or anywhere else. What do you imagine this path to "true employee organization" might look like, if it doesn't involve actions like these along the way?
- micromacrofoot 5y agoWalkouts are an easy way to get more attention to an issue and it costs an employer real money. A single action doesn't need to solve everything.
- taeric 5y agoThe sceptic in me is unsure how much money this costs. They aren't an assembly line, so did any deadlines get pushed back? Similarly, they are not a services company, so no services were lost. Certainly bad press. And I hope it has impact. But I'm not seeing direct lines to it.
- bigmattystyles 5y agoAgreed, human nature being what it is, I guarantee you most of the work missed during the walk out was made up that evening by the same employees working late without being asked to do so.
- blitz_skull 5y agoeSports teams and streamers didn’t post on social media for the duration of the walk out. Am I missing something? Was this supposed to do literally anything to support it? I’m genuinely puzzled. That’s like saying I stopped writing in my journal for the duration of women’s suffrage “in solidarity”. Aren’t you supposed to do something people will notice?
- ikr678 5y agoWithholding content in solidarity sort of hurts Blizzard's attempts to keep interest in their E-sport franchises. I'd prefer they didn't actually stream either, but they make their living from Blizzard products in a more precarious way than the direct employees do.
- ryathal 5y agoBlizzard doesn't have much of an e-sports scene. The leagues are largely independent at this point for most of the games.
- blitz_skull 5y agoI’d hardly classify NOT TWEETING as withholding content. Withholding streams? Sure, yeah I could see that. But tweets? No one is sitting on the edge of their chair waiting for their favorite streamer to TWEET something.
- trs8080 5y agodoes being written up in the Guardian not count as being noticed?
- bryan_w 5y agoNot really, because it's the Guardian, but in a better newspaper, sure
- IntelMiner 5y agoWhat's wrong with The Guardian?
- epicureanideal 5y agoIs there a VC out there that can just throw a few tens of millions of dollars at these employees and literally just teleport them from Blizzard to NewBlizzard in the same roles in a new company with a culture they prefer? I'm actually surprised this isn't "a thing". If a large percentage of a well known, profitable company doesn't agree with a direction it's taking... why doesn't a VC or private equity just help finance a new company and absorb those people into it? If the people have anything to do with the products they create, they should be able to compete with their former employer as relative equals, and possibly even with an advantage because their former employer has lost a significant amount of staff.
- mandelbrotwurst 5y agoThat VC would need a lot of confidence in the team to be willing to fully fund them with no revenue, clients, or IP.
- epicureanideal 5y agoSure, but to whatever extent the human resources are the engine that drives creation of revenue, clients, and IP, it would seem that taking a large chunk of an existing working machine would have better odds than some other startup, right?
- winphone1974 5y agoThat's the point, they aren't. You need developers to execute but with today's triple A franchise titles and marketing-heavy launches it's not sufficient.
- wonderwonder 5y agoI don't think they are. I think at most companies most people are replaceable. Each company has a few key players that are truly cornerstone employees. Almost everyone else can be swapped out as needed. Not saying losing a key Sr. wont cause a set back but with the right hire (and they are not that scarce) they are back on track in a bit. Most of us think we are super valuable and that a company will suffer when we leave but reality is that it rarely happens; there are of course exceptions. Blizzard already the has the IP, everything else is just cogs.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- poisonarena 5y agoFrom the article: "Just 20% of Activision Blizzard’s 9,500 employees are women, and leadership at the company, one of the largest video game makers in the world, is largely white and male." I am 36 years old, white male. I imagine alot of the employees there are within my age range give or take 5-10 years. For me it just makes sense. in the late 90s and early 2000s if you asked me, an obsessed computer gaming white guy nerd teen, what company I would want to work for, it would probably be Blizzard(I was more of an Everquest fan but still). It makes sense those people would want the jobs and there would be mostly those type of people in the spots. I don't understand how this is a bad thing. I consider computer gaming a part of my culture or subculture, and yes there are other people that get into it, lgbt, women, trans, but I feel like this stuff was specifically marketed to young men.
- meristohm 5y agoWhy would a publicly-traded company not want to appeal to as many potential gamers as possible?
- poisonarena 5y agoThats not my argument, I just think the whole thing is silly, yes men and women should get paid the same according to their position and value to the company, but the idea that there should not be a company with "too many white men" seems crazy.
- lmm 5y agoBecause a fanatical niche audience is more profitable than a barely-interested mainstream one? Games are fundamentally cultural objects, especially in these days of multiplayer and streaming, but also because the medium demands it; Blizzard's breakout hit was a barely-disguised knock-off of a barely-disguised knock-off of a barely-disguised knock-off of Lord of the Rings, and could only succeed because it was part of that cultural fabric.
- georgeburdell 5y agoSome of those gamer groups are more profitable than others, even if it comes at the expense of other groups. Consider why there are so many women-specific clothing stores.
- runawaybottle 5y agoI just saw the Kotaku article about Blizzard devs having their own ‘Cosby Suite’: https://kotaku.com/inside-blizzard-developers-infamous-bill-cosby-suite-1847378762/amp https://kotaku.com/inside-blizzard-developers-infamous-bill-... You know, I’m not condoning or excusing anyone, but it might be time to stop drinking together as coworkers. You cannot come up with this kinda shit if your sober. Keep the beer out the office, keep the parties an hour long at most. We can’t handle it, it’s obvious.
- shapefrog 5y agoSo basically no friends at work? But still be there for 16 hours a day ...
- danaris 5y agoIf you can't be friends with someone without alcohol, then you might need some help.
- shapefrog 5y agoWhere is the line and who sets it? Drugs, Alcohol? fine. Caffine is a drug, probably not that, definately not those caffine drinks. No hugs? Fine. No positive feelings at all? No involuntry dopamine hits to the brain? If you cant be friends with someone whithout the dopamine, then you might need some help.
- thobond 5y agoI'm glad I quit playing games that are related to Activision before this news got out. I don't particularly appreciate how they build their games; I'm glad Destiny cut ties with them.