I read the blog, and I left feeling sickened that women are STILL being passed over and treated so unequally in this day and age. I would have been so stressed and demoralized working in that environment. It’s a testament to her fortitude that she was able to stay as long as she did. I sincerely hope that she is happier now. Blizz didn’t deserver her.
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I could not stand it if i worked there as a male, and i can pi$$ myself off of things like these. I imagine i would’ve stood up against those people, harassing and looking down on women, even if i got fired for it. But than i could broke some noses whitout regret, and thats a win in my book. 
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This is the hard part. VERY few people have the finacial flexibility to quit or get fired easily. They NEED their jobs. They also know the industry is small-ish, and everyone knows each other. If you piss off someone well known or powerful, even if you are 100% RIGHT, you may find yourself needing a totally new career.
Most people don’t have the spare cash to face that and get through the other side. I have been lucky enough to quit before - when the school admin was trying to force me to falsify grades and do things that were not in the best interest of the students. I don’t falsify things, I don’t lie, and I do hope people accountable for their own actions. I quit mid year. I was lucky to have savings, student loans paid off, and very small bills at the time.
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The sad truth probably is that most of us think we would stand up against harassments, but in an actual situation a lot of us wont do it anyway. Either because we also dont dare to speak up against ‘the culture’/leaders, or because we convince ourselves that ‘it probably wasn’t that bad’.
I bet most of the people who did nothing at Blizzard are perfectly fine human beings, and would also except themselves to speak up against harassments.
In the end, most of the responsibility lies with management and HR for not doing anything when people did speak up.
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You don’t have to tell me, i live in a $hithole country, but i still would not be bothered if i got fired for standing against injustice.
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Oh, they did something. They suddenly get very different performance reviews when before they were positive. They get vague negative statements made about them, they get left out of meetings, they get shuffled to dead end or low priority projects, they don’t get critical info they need to do a project well, they don’t get promoted… That is if they don’t get laid off directly.
They do something alright, but what they did is not the right thing. They punish the person who raised the issue.
Something else I found. Even if you DO manage to get an investigation done. Very few people cooperate out of fear of retaliation. People you watched be harassed, stalked, preyed on, etc - who talked to you about it. Refuse to talk to HR out of fear of losing their jobs. So now the predator keeps going…
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A bit off topic (like so much else 
), but imo this is part of why it is important to have a decent level of unemployment benefits. Making it easier for people to live while looking for a new job.
Some capitalist-minded people love saying (as seen in that other thread) that workers will just find another job if their current one is problematic, and that the market will solve itself out. Even if you believe that, it can only happen if we allow people to take the risk of quitting, without catastrophic financial consequences.
Fair correction. Of course meant doing something against the perpetrators 
But yeah, their role in this is the most disgusting (well, after the perpetrators of course).
“HR, you literally had one job!”.
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And this is the double edge sword. Many victims will not express their complaints for fear of retaliation. They have already been abused, but if they speak up, they will get punished for it. There are so many ways to retaliate where it isn’t very obvious, or is easy to prove. Many people know this and fear this, so they will not come out with how they have been abused until their is a big line of people coming forward with the same complaint because it is far more difficult to retaliate against a big line of people.
What a lot of people don’t understand is that these complaints against Blizz aren’t just isolated to this company or the industry. It happens across every industry, some more than others, but it happens. My company, retaliation used to be the rule rather than the exception. It has gotten better in recent years, but there still are a lot of management who can punish you without looking like they are punishing you. I have been punished many times after bringing things up management didn’t want to hear or know about.
It is very sad when you have to hesitate before bringing situations that are abusive or dangerous because you have to weigh the danger of getting punished for bringing up that bad behavior. It is also very sad when you have to decide “is the abuse I am currently experiencing worse than the abuse I will get for bringing to attention the current abuse”.
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Exactly 
It is a widespread and very long term issue.
A long and sad read, thank you for putting it up here.
For me it really shines a very different light on Neva. I admit I didn’t like her very much as a CM. Now I can finally understand why you always defended her when we complained about lack of information or total ignoration of all our feedback.
I hope she found a better place in her new job and wish her all the success, luck and happiness she deserves.
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Ah, good point and very true, social interaction drains the hell out of me lol
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She was the best CM we ever had, period. I mean, the current CMs poke their heads in once in a while, but never offer substantive community outreach, and almost never discuss player/community feedback. Nev did those things and much, much more.
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I had no idea (at the time) if the trouble we had with D3 was developer, CM, or Activision, or all three. I remember that Nev used to do a “Play with the CMs” diablo segment. That probably wasn’t something she had to do.
To find out she was a passionate voice about Diablo behind-the-scenes is a revelation, and her treatment? a sad, frustrating one. Game would probably have been a lot better if they listened to her (and by extension, us).
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His daughters see it from a male perspective every single day, SunStrider.
Why not ask how fish feel about water.
That is absolutely bull puckie. Unless he’s a single dad raising his daughters, there’s a mother involved as well. And if you’ve ever had daughters yourself, you know damn well their viewpoints cannot be ignored. There’s kids and there’s parents. Learn the difference.
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Thank you. Especially in the after waves of the horrible DI announcement. That was not her fault and she was left out to dry. She tried to prevent it all. Seeing the forums try to trash her upset me and yes, I told them rightly to blame the suits, not the messenger. So if she was not around they went after me. Heh. Yay? That was a fun time.
I have said before, CMs have very very little control over what they can say here, and while they DO relay a lot of what we say, that does not mean those things are acted on. And the CMs are not allowed to come back and tell us what happened with the feedback.
I knew a fair amount of that stuff - mostly I guessed or read between the lines. Brandy was very professional and never complained directly.
She did an amazing job with a very difficult situation and always was a voice for the players. Not being able to share what she did and why changes did not happen was frustrating, to say the least.
There is a reason I NEVER applied to be a CM at Blizzard.
Brandy is a very competent team member, great at her jobs (and all the other ones they dumped on her that were not her job), and a fantastic person. She never did deserve the hate, which is why I have always tried to explain the situation - or i guess you call it defending her.
Wizards of the Coast is lucky to have her!
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In recalling that Blizzcon debacle and what the egomaniacs did by circling the wagons, leaving Brandy to fight off the “savages,” reminds me of Marie Antionette saying “let them eat cake.”
It took almost 2 years for people on the forums to stop making threads blaming her and asking her to “follow up on the PR/Legal” boilerplate they made her post.
She took a long break from posting after that. Not that she did not read or collect feedback, but she just did not put herself out there to get trashed for things she could not control.
I got blamed a lot for it too, and for telling people to leave Nev alone. That this all happened at the PR/Executive level, not her. Nothing she presented was something she had control over, including the infamous “hype” video.
So yeah, I just sort of tanked the forums after that so at least some folks could get help on tech stuff, questions answered, etc. People were less likely to yell at me seeing as I don’t work at Blizz and they know that I had nothing to do with the announcements.
It did not help that I was there in person that year at Blizzcon and was heartbroken. I knew what a massive screw up that was and what was going to happen. I was so upset I did not even try to talk to Brandy again after the announcements. I did not want her to see what state I was in because it would only add to her burden.
I had a friend(male) left in a similar situation by similar egotisitical d*cks, that literally almost got him killed. He had to escape an enraged, armed mob in a scene Hollywood would have paid for.
I am so sorry to hear that Sun! Nobody should ever have to go through that. Nobody.
Further, I get people being angry, upset, heartbroken, feeling punched in the gut, etc. I did. No matter how bad you feel about it though, that is never a reason for violence or verbal assault either.
I hope your friend is ok and was able to change to a job that did not put him in that kind of position anymore. Scary!