I’m sorry only responding OP’s scenario that said they were ‘threatened’ to do it - I’m glad you agree it’s implausible.
In your scenario, you are essentially saying they are straight lying that it came from them. Team 4 and the community manager said it came from them so either they are lying (which would be despicable) or they are not.
I choose to believe they are not, you choose to believe they are.
That’s fine.
PR would have absolutely blessed this message as it’s positive and all external comms in a crisis for large companies are approved before being sent out but I refuse to believe this originated there as that would make team 4 liars.
Uhh no? That is not a thing. We can do more than one thing at a time. No one fell for anything; literally everyone knows it’s a PR thing but a PR thing doesn’t mean a bad thing. We already knew they were destroying documents, of course they’re trying to silence employees or coerce them. I don’t know if you’ve heard but the whole thing began because we know there’s a huge problem in the workplace culture. The name change has nothing to do with this, it’s a good change and it’s something that the developers can do to make things a little bit better, the reason it’s happening is because it’s one of the easier things to implement. Workplace culture shift is a huge undertaking; won’t happen as easily. Don’t need to treat every expected event like a revelation.
But the announcement renewed discussion about the lawsuit and Blizzard’s abusive workplace. You can’t talk about the name change for long without bringing up the events that directly led to it. I honestly don’t understand how people can reach this conclusion. The decision to rename Mccree, and the ongoing scandal at ActiBlizz are intrinsically linked. To draw attention to one is to draw attention to the other.
I mean, here’s the same assertion that I was complaining about before once again… Where are the hypothetical people that are reacting this way? I’m not as terminally online as some people but if this attitude is really as common as so many seem to insist, I think I would’ve seen at least one example?
Where are the equivalent posts for the other extreme? Seems like a classic strawman to me, so people can claim that the statement was effective damage control when all the discourse over the past week or so suggests the opposite.
No, it renewed old discussion, not what was happening in the moment.
Yeah, but you seem to be unable to comprehend that cause they dropped unpopular news that covered up more stuff that blizzard was actively doing involving the case which drew ALL the attention away from the current events that it really wasn’t ‘talking about the case’.
Dropping the McCree name change was a good way to make the people (like yourself) just stop paying attention. It worked, really well. People fall for it every time, some scandal comes out, person in said scandal drops something that is ‘mind blowing’ at the moment, people latch to that like sheep.
I’m not terminally online either. I saw posts in this forum when it first happened that were basically racist towards white people, then I saw a few twitter screen caps that were much more blatantly racist while celebrating the name change and blizzard for being so amazing and awesome in doing so and how the company is ‘saved’. Cause you know, McCree being a vaguely white cowboy stereotype is a reason for that.
If I shared any of the examples I saw, I’d be taken down faster than me going in on a bowl of mac n’cheese.
Cause on the forums, the mods remove and or ban things that are obviously inflammatory and bigoted. You didn’t want to see the other extreme cause you are on the side of the other extreme. I saw both sides of the extreme and it was equally dumb, but I don’t think he should have his name changed, but at the same time it doesn’t really bother me if he does have it changed.
Logic doesn’t work on these people. They’re not actually mad about the harassment. They’re mad about gay characters and name-changes and are glad they can disguise their anger as something more palatable to the masses.
The whole notion of anyone ‘trusting’ a company to just ‘do the right thing’ is hilarious in its naivety. Companies exist to make money and they (for the most part) will whatever they legally can to make as much money as possible.
Activision-Blizzard deserved to be raked over the proverbial coals where they’ve broken the law. And the laws also need to be improved so that women and minorities are safer at work both at Activision-Blizzard and many other companies within the tech and gaming industries where abuse and discrimination are rife.
Do you mean the document shredding stuff, and the union-busting firm they got? As I’d read plenty about both these things when the Mccree announcement was making it’s waves. Or do you mean something more recent? I guess the Unfair Labour Practice charge was new to me on reading this thread but the Mccree controversy was already beginning to lose steam by the time it dropped (on the 14th I think?), plus I first heard it reading this thread… a post about the Cree name change.
Sigh. So once again I just have to take someone’s word that these people definitely, totally absolutely exist.
Like, I can go to the statement itself on Twitter, and scroll through the replies. There’s less outrage about it compared to here, but the response is still largely negative, nobody is taking this strawman position of ‘Well done, Blizzard, you have indeed redeemed yourself.’ The closest thing I could find is a comment (with zero likes) that goes like “I think changing the name is a step in the right direction, and I also think they are also fixing the issue behind the scenes” Which is a stupid comment but not even they try to say Blizz is in the clear, though I guess you could argue it’s in the ballpark or something. People are bringing up the document shredding in that thread, too…
Well, didn’t mean just the forums really. I lurk on most major social media sites and haven’t seen compelling examples anywhere.
You say I don’t see because I don’t want to see, but I’ve been actively looking…
Sounds like our personal positions are pretty close, anyway. I like Mccree’s name the way it is, but I recognize it doesn’t affect me in any meaningful way and I want the OW team to make the decision. If they believe it makes a positive difference to themselves or their colleagues who got harassed I’d say it’s worthwhile change, even if I think I wouldn’t make that decision in their position.
(Also, if I type ‘Blizzard’ into Twitter’s searchbar, all the results are about the recent labour violations and the new charge. If I search ‘mccree’ it’s mostly memes and fanart… Where’s the super effective Mccree name change smokescreen??)
I was going to respond to some of what you posted, but after this when you said you aren’t ‘terminally online’ but you ‘lurk’ it is completely hypocritical and contradictory. Judging by reading the rest of your post, you are more terminally online than anyone else I have seen in this thread.
Why would I be mad about that lol? I’m literally in gay relationship. I’m mad that people think Blizzard’s actually doing anything significant to actually change their ways. Like I’m not against the name change, but the way they went about it made it look like they were going for desperate brownie points. This is something they should’ve announced when they had a name ready.
They’re not getting better. If anything, they’re getting worse.
Lol so many of you acting like you care… another scause to make for a cause… put it on your paws…
Who cares… play the game… don’t play the game… end of the day it will make zero diff and they are free to just fffff quit working at blizz… please sir… take my report for trolling
Lmao you think these people have a choice? Finding a job isn’t easy. Especially people who live near Blizz HQ. The cost of life in California is stupidly high. They quite literally need this job to survive.
Ah yes… forced at gunpoint to live some place stupidly priced /facepalm so stay somewhere that you are being harrased by bosses? This seems like a yank concept to me… In Australia i am yet to meet a single person who didn’t go to workplace authorities about sexual harassment… hell we have a had high level politicians fired easily over such things
You gotta remember America’s a different beast. They’ve had at least two presidents in a row with rape accusations. ‘Just go the workplace authorities’ often doesn’t solve anything.
