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Activision Blizzard Hires Notorious Union-Busting Firm WilmerHale
- post_break 5y agoThe problem I see with them is the brain drain if the influential people leave. They have options at other companies, and if enough people leave Blizzard they may be stuck. But this is just me looking from the outside in. This also signals they are scared of them unionizing.
- failuser 5y agoAre there any influential people that might be on the receiving end of the frat boy culture?
- post_break 5y agoSorry I don't understand your comment, can you expand on it?
- failuser 5y agoWhy would influential people leave as a result of such scandals? They built that culture and will benefit from its proliferation.
- cratermoon 5y agoYou seem to be equating "influential" with "culture leading".
- jjoonathan 5y agoTo what extent are the people acting out the same people who command enough respect to leave and take an elite team with them? I would be surprised if there was more than, say, 30% overlap. IME people who act out generally aren't the most productive and generally don't command the most respect from the most productive people.
- post_break 5y agoBecause they wouldn't want to work for a company that tries to cover up and ignore culture that is sexist? It might lead to trying to find other jobs and seeing Blizzard on a resume in a negative connotation. Oh you worked for Blizzard? We need to do a check to see if you were one of the people supporting the Bill Cosby hotel room.
- xnyan 5y agoI'm a software developer, not trying to brag because I have serious doubts about my skills but right now I'm in a great job and have a few serious offers with great pay and benefits. I've done some research and the claims people are making about the bad environment at Blizz are not without merit - can't say they are real because IDK but too strong to just dismiss. I would not even consider a job there without real and verifiable proof that my worries are unfounded. I'm probably not going to consider them over the many other viable offers I have.
- cratermoon 5y agoWhy wouldn't there be? Gamergate generally? Also remember the example of Ellen Pao at reddit. Influential people can lose.
- okhuman 5y agoEllen Pao was always meant to be temporary. She didn't lose only played the role she was brought on to do.
- cratermoon 5y ago> only played the role she was brought on to do How is that different from losing? Just because she was set up to lose?
- monocasa 5y agoNo more than a contractor with a fixed length term loses at the end of the contract.
- cratermoon 5y agoHmm, do contractors also normally get hung out to dry to cover for their employer's failures?
- monocasa 5y agoA lot of contractors are hired to be a lightning rod for the blame that should have gone to management of the employing company, yes.
- fvold 5y agoYou don't have to be the recipient of bad behavior to sympathize. I, for example, have never worked for Blizzard, yet I find these allegations to be appalling, and would not want to work with Blizzard until I knew the allegations were false or that the problem was properly dealt with. Influential people can dislike the culture, and leave so their reputation is not besmirched by the much Blizzard is currently being dragged through.
- sergiotapia 5y agoInfluential people book the Cosby suite. https://kotaku.com/inside-blizzard-developers-infamous-bill-cosby-suite-1847378762 https://kotaku.com/inside-blizzard-developers-infamous-bill-...
- hn_go_brrrrr 5y agoYes. I'm extremely influential at setting technical direction where I work (not Blizzard) but I'm not a manager so I can't discipline people. I can only attempt to advocate for the culture I want to see, or vote with my feet.
- babyblueblanket 5y agoI already heard several lead devs have left + took their teams with them to start new studios.
- tvirosi 5y agoI know we don't want to say this but there might be a possibility some of the talent secretly are indeed sexist (wouldn't surprise me in the gaming world) and thus actually prefer to stay at a place that preserves the male dominated culture. That might be part of the strategy behind activisions anti walkout move here. Just a thought (I don't know).
- haha1234__ 5y agoShouldn't influential people push for better working conditions with all their influence?
- post_break 5y agoThey absolutely should, I should have clarified that my "them" is Activision/Blizzard the company, not the employees.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zamalek 5y agoI'm really interested to see what happens here. Amazon busted the efforts of people with few options, people who could be threatened with bullshit/propaganda. I wonder if big law is sufficiently aware of the substantial impact that the recent years of ethical discussion have had on the gamer and game dev psyche. No matter the individual ethical stance of an employee, this sub-culture has had practice critiquing words and ideas. It looks like the employees are almost universally on the equality end of the ethical spectrum (given how widespread the walkout was), which is even worse news for union busting.
- pm90 5y agoIs there any way to break the stranglehold of large studios and enable smaller studios to build high quality games? I loved Blizzard back when they made their OG triad (Diablo, Warcraft, Starcraft) now it just seems indistinguishable from…EA. How can we enable more scrappy Blizzards?
- cratermoon 5y agoAre you familiar with Frost Giant Studios? https://www.frostgiant.com/ https://www.frostgiant.com/
- babelfish 5y agoGive your money to smaller studios! Check out indie gaming marketplaces like itch.io
- failuser 5y agoI think it’s easier than ever. They engines are free and even individual developers can build incredible games. The harder part might be getting enough publicity.
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoEven then, Epic Games will promote the heck out of a small indie launch if it's exclusive for a year. Many of the developers they've worked with are one or two person shops. The days where being buried in the bottom of Steam listings is gone, as long as you aren't insisting on launching via Steam.
- minikites 5y agoThere are some types of games only a big studio with ample resources can make, like two current Blizzard titles: Overwatch and World of Warcraft.
- failuser 5y agoI would like to see why Overwatch is so expensive. They don’t have some cutting-edge tech, it could have been a Quake or Half-Life mod and have the same exact gameplay and marginally worse graphics. Ok, there is the networking and matchmaking. Ok, they need anti-cheat and perfected loot box drop probabilities. Still, free to play South Korean shooters achieve that for way less.
- nyanpasu64 5y agoI've never heard of this news group before, all they offer for contact is a Gmail address with no names, and this domain doesn't even show up when I search Promethean News. I have my doubts about this website.
- cratermoon 5y agoIs this better? https://kotaku.com/activision-blizzard-hires-union-busting-firm-as-workers-1847386654 https://kotaku.com/activision-blizzard-hires-union-busting-f...
- totony 5y agoIn my experience Kotaku has not been a reliable source for much of anything, although I don't know the OP domain either
- cratermoon 5y agohttps://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/activision-hires-wilmer-for-sex-harassment-probe-as-workers-howl https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/activision-hires-w...
- BeefWellington 5y agoIs Bloomberg sufficient?[1] Perhaps straight from the horse's mouth?[2] Or is the issue more with the claim they're a union-busting law firm? Because they even basically claim that on their website.[3] That said they otherwise look like not a terrible choice though as with all things like this the optics to something like this are incredibly sensitive. [1]: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/activision-hires-wilmer-for-sex-harassment-probe-as-workers-howl https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/activisi... [2]: https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-details/letter-ceo-bobby-kotick-all-employees https://investor.activision.com/news-releases/news-release-d... [3]: https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/solutions/labor-and-employment https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/solutions/labor-and-employment -> Executive and Workforce Training: "Throughout the United States we offer a wide range of customized training programs and workshops at our clients’ premises, as well as seminars and innovative programs adapted to clients’ specific needs. Our training programs include: providing a legal-psychological perspective on managing employees through effective communication; preventing, identifying and dealing with sexual and other unlawful harassment; *advising on union awareness and avoidance*; dealing with violence in the workplace; managing the interaction between the FMLA, ADA and workers compensation; enhancing interviewing skills and hiring while minimizing legal risks; and understanding restrictive covenants (e.g. non-competition agreements). "
- seany 5y agoI've never understood why people are confused or upset by these kinds of things. It's almost literally not in the companies best interest to just "let it happen" so why wouldn't they fight it?
- ocdtrekkie 5y agoIt probably depends in some part on the replaceability of your workforce: Burning your workers isn't a big deal if they're cashiers. But if they're software engineers, burning the company's reputation with them may not be in the company's best interest: You might end up with a company that has no unionizers but also lost all its key talent.
- happytoexplain 5y agoNot trying to be smart by using your words: I legitimately have never understood why this comment is so common, considering how apparently obvious the fallacy of it is. You didn't imply "the company must do X", you implied "people shouldn't be upset that the company did X". The former is a totally reasonable argument to be made. The latter makes absolutely no sense (without extenuating context). You're not really confused as to why people are upset about something a company does that negatively affects people, either in actuality or only in perception, simply because it is in the company's best interests, are you? It's pretty normal for a human not to care about the hazy future consequences of a company hurting itself by embracing some external morality over its own interests as a company, and, depending on the specifics of the case, it can even be pretty reasonable not to care.
- johnchristopher 5y agoIt's just rhetoric clichés. I used to reply "I am surprised some people are surprised that company did X" but why bother.
- seany 5y agoNo I am actually confused. What normal CEO _wants_ a union? A few random ones maybe; but the average CEO? zero. I'm not even anti union, just anti "union protection" which is where we are with unions in the US under the current stat of NLRB findings + case law; which is just a fucking disaster.
- unyttigfjelltol 5y agoWilmerHale is not a notorious union-busting firm. The older set might know their work from A Civil Action, and their grandparents might remember the phrase that turned the red scare, "At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"[1] The marketing material is unfortunate, though, and the connection with Amazon labor work is notable. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Cutler_Pickering_Hale_and_Dorr https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilmer_Cutler_Pickering_Hale...
- juped 5y agoyeah they're just biglaw, any biglaw firm does everything
- xbar 5y agoThis seems accurate. Contextually, ActiBlizz is responding to the DFEH situation with a new biglaw firm. Will ActiBlizz use WH's union-response services? I would be surprised if they don't. WH will likely sell guidance about what can be legally done to chill early unionization pressures. If unionization efforts really get rolling at ActiBlizz, no doubt they will spend more at WH. What is good: WH's tactics at Amazon, AL were monitored and reported as disgusting. If they repeat those at ActiBlizz, there may be pressures for regulators to increase protections against corporate interference of unionization efforts.
- slownews45 5y agoWe need to be crystal clear here that the unionization drive at Amazon, AL FAILED - and it wasn't close. This was a BLOWOUT loss by the unions. I mean, the vote wasn't even close even though they protested something like 500 votes? I didn't know WH was involved on company side - but if so it was a mighty effective campaign.
- leereeves 5y agoI was curious, and just in case anyone else was as well, the vote was 1,798 against unionizing, 738 in favor.
- lizwr 5y agoFrom the outside this seems like some inner tension's already in place.
- andrew_ 5y agoTo folks intimate with the situation: what's the likelihood that they weather this storm like recent, similar industry kerfuffles in companies like Coinbase or Basecamp, that they implode under bad PR, or fundamentally change culture?
- ashtonkem 5y agoUnion busting behavior is not that surprising, but talk about awful timing. Do the people at the top not consider the PR implications of this stuff?
- minikites 5y agoNot enough people are going to unsubscribe from WoW for it to make a difference, enough of the public is anti-union and many of the rest don't care.
- ashtonkem 5y agoI’m actually seeing a lot of rage directed at them from the gaming forums I interact on, including a lot of people claiming that they’ve canceled. Completely anecdotal, I know, but it was not what I expected at all. I think this one is going to hurt more than usual.
- minikites 5y ago>I think this one is going to hurt more than usual. I hope that's true. I hope COVID has woken up labor to the power it has if it organizes (see also the restaurant industry).
- noptd 5y agoThere's a decently sized cohort that hasn't forgiven ActiBlizzard for what they did to Warcraft III as well. Nothing like ruining a 20 year old game by forceably replacing it with a broken, partial reimplementation.
- krastanov 5y agoI am out of the loop, could you elaborate?
- totony 5y agoBlizzard has been under a lot of bad press because they have screwed game releases lately (mostly because of shitty management?). They've also had bad press on political issues like the hong kong esports things and others iirc. for warcraft3: https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/blizzard-botched-warcraft-iii-remake-after-internal-fights-pressure-over-costs-1.1631788 https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/blizzard-botched-warcraft-iii-re...
- brainfish 5y agoI cut my teeth on Diablo, and played Diablo II for probably fifteen years after its release off and on as a way to stay connected with a friend who loved it similarly. More recently, I have consistently played Starcraft II since its release and enjoy a sense of mastery over that game unparalleled by my experience in any other. I haven't purchased new Blizzard products since the Hong Kong censorship debacle[1] and quit playing Hearthstone at that time. However I had still played some of my other old favorites, reasoning that I was not providing them further financial support. The recent announcements about their terrible, sexist culture had challenged that notion for me, and I was not sure what to do. This news is the straw that breaks my back. That Activision/Blizzard would double down on their despicable behavior and stance in this way is completely beyond the pale, and I for one will never again fire up those games that I loved so much. Thanks for ruining that for me, Blizzard. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blitzchung_controversy
- runawaybottle 5y agoThey don’t really care that much about the American market anymore really. Something like 90% of League of Legends players are in China. The mobile gaming market is massive over there, hence Diablo Immortal. China does not care about the West’s uproar over most things. Blizzard does not care if you buy Diablo 4, they care if the East buys Diablo 4 and Diablo Immortal.
- biryani_chicken 5y agoIt's dystopian to see Chinese people consume American products at the expense of American workers.
- runawaybottle 5y agoThe irony of what you are saying here is too much friend. Americans consumed Chinese goods at the expense of Chinese workers. I’m no CCP apologist by any measure.
- a1pulley 5y ago> "At WilmerHale 1st year counsel makes $350,000. The 24 year old 1st year summer associate still in law school walks into the office in a $1,500 Burberry suit and makes $202,500 that year. Those Amazon workers they swindled out of higher wages make less than $30,000 a year." The 200k figure is for a first-year associate who has graduated and passed the bar exam [1]. It's interesting to me that you can only hope to crack 300k at a top law firm after working for five years and going to law school for three. I.e., not until you're over 30. The majority of SWEs at FAANG companies get there in two years. I.e., at age 24 [2]. Some might say the potential upside of becoming a partner outweighs higher early career SWE income, but I would retort that making director or VP are comparable accomplishments; not everyone makes partner. Social status hasn't caught up to income, though; family and friends outside my tech circle still respect law and medicine more than engineering. [1] https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/careers/lawyers/entry-level-or-lateral-attorneys https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/careers/lawyers/entry-level-or... [2] levels.fyi
- boromi 5y agoThose FAANG are also in HCOL locations. SWE roles in smaller towns and other states then the coasts don't command nearly as high a salary.
- a1pulley 5y agoAssociates at top firms live in HCOL areas at similar rates as SWEs at FAANG companies.
- andreilys 5y agoNot to mention the upside of owning equity in a startup that IPO’s. Plenty examples of doordash/airbnb/etc. SWE’s with less than 5 YoE making +$1M TC thanks to their equity
- filmgirlcw 5y agoThe majority of SWEs at FAANG companies do not make that. Depending on company and location, they might get a sign-on stock grant that could theoretically get them approaching that, but that doesn’t take into account vesting schedules and cliffs. It’s assuming a best-case scenario and certainly not “the majority.” And even then, a new hire low level SWE straight out of college isn’t often going to get a $500k stock grant on-hire, no matter what levels says. And certainly no matter what Blind says.
- screye 5y agoI am usually against unions in tech because the free market tends to allow a proper balance of supply and demand. However, gaming might just be the perfect sub-domain of tech to benefit from unionization. The supply is massively saturated, with dreamy eyed programmers ready to give their lives to work in gaming. On the other hand, a very small group actually gets to make any of the creative decisions that every gamer has dreamt of making. The wages are below what the market pays, hours are exploitative and the companies are making massive profits. It is really difficult to compete with the AAA studios, because Indie games take years to make and working without a wage for a decade isn't possible for many. On the other hand, medium sized and successful indie studios get acquired before they can grow to a decent enough size to serve as any real competition. There is also a lot of shady practices with monetization, where the employees do not get a say if the company should or shouldn't indulge in said practices. We've already seen soft-unionization of this type in a similar industry : media production. It works. AAA game development in the US has been quite stale for the last decade. The big EA-Blizzard-Activision-Ubisoft have not come up with a single quality game in this time. Even Bethesda, Bioware seems to be on a decline. Rockstar,Valve and Id software seem to be doing fine, but no where close to the hit-after-hit that certain japanese studios are producing. Naughty Dog and Super giant would be the only 2 American studios creating 10/10s consistently, but both have an order of magnitude fewer employees than standard AAA studios. The industry is in dire need of shake up. I hope this goes the employee's way this time around. It's about time.
- nynx 5y agoWhat exactly do you mean by proper balance? What you said later in the comment basically applies to all large companies: > The wages are below what the market pays, hours are exploitative and the companies are making massive profits
- barry-cotter 5y agoIt is impossible for the wages at all large companies to be below what large companies pay. What large companies pay is what defines the market rate because most people work for large companies.
- cs702 5y agoClickbait title for a highly opinonated piece that would never see the light of day in a respectable publication like the Washington Post, WSJ, NYT, Economist, etc. WilmerHale is a well-known top-100 law firm with a long history -- it's definitely not a "notorious union-busting firm." I'm flagging this story because it doesn't belong on the front page of HN, IMHO.
- gotostatement 5y agoTheir own website lists one of their areas of expertise as "advising on union awareness and avoidance" https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/solutions/labor-and-employment https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/solutions/labor-and-employment Under "Executive and Workforce Training" tab
- johnnyanmac 5y agoyes, one of their areas. Now what area are activision utilizing?
- beebmam 5y agoA quote from the article: '"Wilmerhale’s own site advertises its expertise as "union awareness and avoidance."' Therefore, yes, it is accurate to define them as a "union-busting firm". They fulfill other roles than just that, but they do act as union-busters, and they even describe themselves as such.
- sixstringtheory 5y agoEdit: wound up finding the text, it is there. The link in the article doesn’t take you right to it though.
- pirate787 5y agoThere's nothing "notorious" about a maintstream legal practice representing corporations against unions, and "busting" is pejorative. It's opinion click-bait.
- jdmoreira 5y agoWhat world is this where companies hire union-busting mercenaries? Is this the Pinkertons in 2021? What kind of lawless place is the US where you can hire services to stop unionisation?
- leereeves 5y ago> What world is this were companies hire union-busting mercenaries? Is this the Pinkertons in 2021? Excellent example of how this headline can mislead people. They're lawyers "hired to review Activision’s policies", not armed thugs who bust union skulls.
- r00fus 5y agoNo, they just advise what internal tactics to use, and where to hire said external resources.
- leereeves 5y ago> they just advise...where to hire said external resources [mercenaries] Do you have some evidence for that allegation or are you just making things up? That would be quite serious, and illegal, if it's true. If it's true.
- r00fus 5y agoModern companies rarely use [mercenaries] as you put it. Instead it's reputation management firms for the alleged perpetrators and investigators that dredge up personal info about the victims who reported abuses. It's a well known approach.
- leereeves 5y ago"Mercenaries" is the word the comment I replied to used. I thought when you wrote "said external resources" you were responding to that conversation.
- 5y ago
- cbanek 5y agoAs a woman who worked for Blizzard in the past, I have to say, I'm very disappointed. I'll just leave it at that.
- brailsafe 5y agoWhat was your experience like? Surprised/not surprised?
- Justsignedup 5y ago100% fully expected. If 1000 people could unionize independently for a walk-out. They can unionize for a union. Well. Time for employees to make WilmerHale have another fail on its list.
- cletus 5y agoThe Steve Jobs quote on why Xerox failed [1] strikes again. The finance people have taken over Acti-Blizzard and they've been coasting for 10+ years on their original franchises. All we have is annual CoD releases and Blizzrad coasting on their old properties where Blizzrd hasn't had a significant original release in 10+ years. This effort seems like it's part of the ruthless approach to controlling costs that slowly strangle a company from within. I believe WoW is the #2 property (after CoD) at Acti-Blizzard and it's clearly changed from one of delivering a game to simply extracting as much money as possible from each customer much like how almost all mobile games do. The state of California's complaint is bad. I mean really bad. The fact that 3-4 different people from AB all released different statements in the last week should tell you exactly how bad it is. That's classic panic mode. There should only be one. This latest move tells you the company believes it will blow over and they're looking to do the minimal required to appease the detractors and get back to business as usual without having to pay people more or pay out a bunch of lawsuits. Honestly, the heads of J Allen Brack and Bobby Kotick in particular should roll over this lawsuit. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBjNmXvqIM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlBjNmXvqIM EDIT: commenters have noted (correctly) that I overlooked Overwatch. This was a significant release but it seems to also have waned in popularity and Overwatch 2 is inextricably going in some weird PVE direction. Other than that you have a poor received Diablo sequel, a series of lackluster to bad WoW expansions, a disastrous Warcraft 3 remaster and complete abandonment of the RTS genre that propelled them to success in the first place. WC3 Reforged ("Refunded") was significant in that it was not only underwhelming and plagued with problems it made the original game worse with a forced download and loss of functionality. The most significant change however was Blizzard not wanting a repeat of missing the MOBA boat with Dota 2 by adding a condition that all the IP for third-party maps belong to Blizzard, completely killing that ecosystem.
- brendoelfrendo 5y agoInteresting fact: the current director of World of Warcraft, Ion Hazzikostas, worked for WilmerHale before joining Blizzard.
- gnicholas 5y agoThis makes it much less surprising that they picked WH to represent them. He would know the firm and their specialties, and they would have pitched him for this business. What's really surprising is that a former BigLaw attorney is now the director of WoW! https://lawyers.justia.com/lawyer/ion-hazzikostas-1414500 https://lawyers.justia.com/lawyer/ion-hazzikostas-1414500
- lmilcin 5y agoSeems like good place to work. Complaining you are being bullied? Let's hire a company to bully you some more, this time professionally.
- aejnsn 5y agoWell this company is DONE.
- dylan604 5y agoMark this on your calendar and see how well it ages. Companies have survived much worse.
- filereaper 5y agoFunny that WilmerHale has diversity and inclusion as a "principle" while they actively undermine others and are paid to do so. >"Our commitment to diversity and inclusion starts at the top and cascades throughout the firm. WilmerHale is one of very few AmLaw 100 firms with a woman co-managing partner, and part of an even smaller number of such firms that have had both a woman and a person of color as a co-managing partner. Our diversity and inclusion journey is one of continuous assessment, progress, and partnership with others committed to advancing these principles in the legal profession." https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/about/diversity-and-inclusion https://www.wilmerhale.com/en/about/diversity-and-inclusion
- TaylorAlexander 5y agoSadly the whole industry is like that. They make a lot of noise about "doing better" but they still suppress any effort to gain worker power.
- stephc_int13 5y agoHuge companies like Blizzard benefit from a tremendous inertia, so it can be difficult to see them declining, but I think they started doing so more than a decade ago... At some point Blizzard was my dream video game studio, but the people did the hard work and built it are long gone.
- loourr 5y agoI've spent a lot of time hiring software developers and I usually receive about 25 male applicants for every 1 female applicant. Achieving equal representation across the entire industry is going to be literally impossible without a huge influx of woman into the industry. Further, because the big tech companies are pretending this is not the reality and strive to have equal representation in their workforce it means even sub par female developers are able to get jobs at the likes of google and facebook, further depleting the remainder of the workforce and causing wage inflation disincentivizing smaller or less well funded companies from hiring them because they can find better and cheaper male counterparts. Not defending "bro culture" but I think the industry needs to come to terms with the realities of the situations. Legal action will do nothing to change this.
- myohmy 5y agoOh look, its the hiring manager at Activision! Good job confusing equality for equity. A decent manager could easily achieve gender equity with a "25:1" ratio. Unfortunately it seems that might be beyond your capacity as a sub par hiring manager
- project2501a 5y agoI am Jack's Complete Lack of Surprise