Well, and this is the fence, right? If one stays, then they retain a voice, and continue the employment of the many workers who were not involved or condoned the corporate culture. We want Blizzard to be better than this, so we’re going insure many are laid off?
On the other hand, it’s hard to stand by an entity that has turned away from doing the right thing. It doesn’t matter if “that’s the way it is” or “of course this happened”, it’s obviously deplorable to allow this alleged corporate culture to have persisted.
As for myself, I think I will see what comes of this, and what changes are made. Then I can step back and assess.
Welcome to the game industry as a whole. As a woman who worked at several video game companies, they’re all like that. I can tell you that Square Enix is not any better.
As a business owner - (Not an attorney, no legal training[1], and don’t play one on TV…) - I agree this is very bad.
There are two sides to every story, and this is just the start of a long process. Having said that…
First - State counsel know this is the big league, and this is a target with the ability and means to fight. So reading the filing is… stunning. This is to let the target know what they’ve got. They aren’t going to put anything in there that they aren’t 1000% sure of. (Maybe I’m wrong on that; don’t think so.)
Some of my current clients litigated stuff like this in the… 80s and 90s! They lost. I haven’t seen/heard of incidents like this for companies we work for in a couple of decades. Does stupid stuff still happen? Yes. At scale? Not within the limited bubble of which I am aware. And not to the level alluded to the the filing. I have personally watched clients terminate employees and walk them off premises on the spot for less.
Second - The Blizzard response is cringe. I can’t imagine, as a business person, ever issuing a statement like that. I can’t imagine corporate, or outside, counsel would ever have approved that statement for release. I can imagine that someone high up in Blizzard, thinking they know how to manage press, could think that was a viable response. Talk about poisoning the well.
I honestly don’t think this gets to court. Blizzard rolls over and folds on this, because no way are they going to allow discovery. With what is in the filing. If they get a grownup in to handle the case they’ll do whatever and pay whatever to make it go away.
[1] Except my day of deposition training, and my day of “how to read a contract” and not do something stupid as a corporate officer…
has to do with due diligence of the company to vet employees much like any job. You wont want a hospital to hire a 15 year old to do heart surgery, much like you wouldnt expect a co-worker at a big gaming company to be a sexual predator whom reaches into your pants each day.
examples:
Let say company A hired me and you, and i constantly grabbed your butt. you report me to company A and they fire me. they did their due diligence in the eyes of the law.
Now lets say the same thing happened at company B but they simply tell you “well you probably liked it”, its their legal responsibility to handle employee conflicts and not doing so makes they liable.
Also you do realize thats its the same reason why we dont sue police officers and instead the department right? they failed at due-diligence of keeping a minimal standard for their employees which is why X happened.
The easiest way ive had it explained to me is… while you are working you are company property. aka company is at fault for your screw ups
edit: the “you are company property” was told to me by a boss whenever i worked with expensive machines and was always overly cautious because i didnt want to break them, thus id take a bit longer
Companies are social environments that reflect the values and the image of the people running them. They can change over time for better or worse.
There is a thing called Corporate Culture. Just work with startups. They are often mirrors of the founders personalities with all the strengths and faults. Just compare Amazon == Jeff Bezos. (If you want to talk psychotic pathology…)[1]
This reads like a case of Blizzard started with a group of young men fueled by booze and ambition that never made the transition to professional management. The rowdiness and start up culture were not directed in a positive direction and were left to twist into the malevolence visible today.
Remember when Clinton was president? Same stuff, different day. Still happens all the time. Let’s not be holier than thou. Humans being humans. Next case.
Uhhh quick question…
Is that 15 year old the living and breathing embodiment of Doogie Houser MD? Is he or she the best cardiac surgeon in the hospital?
If so… I don’t care about their age… scrub in kid. We have a game to win.
nope just an unqualified kid who they hired for 1/3 the price of a regular surgeons … because Iraedar thinks people and not companies need to be held responsible for bad HR hires.
Do you have any idea how illegal this is? I mean not only is doing this against the law, it’s almost like you copy pasted the laws very example in its definition.
This has to be a troll…… I seriously hope you’re just a low level manager at Walmart…. But based on what we are seeing at Blizzard, I’d guess you’re an MBA……
This definitely should be investigated, but I do find some of the things in that Bloomberg article ridiculous. Do we really believe that people are getting drunk and doing “cube crawls” on company time in a place like Blizzard?
Perhaps you should read this Greg Street Quote about Chris Metzen:
From and Ask.FM interview with Greg Street about Chris Metzen when he announced he was leaving Blizzard:
Q: One of your former colleagues, Chris Metzen, just announced that he was retiring at 42. I know Chris as the legendary creator of Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft, my childhood, but can you tell me what Chris was like in the office and how you feel about him
Greg Street: Chris was a rockstar. That guy you saw on stage at Blizzard? That’s 100% legit Metzen. He’d call us brothers and sisters. He’d call us cats. I think once he called me baby. I can’t get away with talking like that, but he didn’t fake it. That’s who he was. He bleeds for his story, his characters, Blizzard, and most importantly, the players. I first met him at a party, a few years before I went to work at Blizzard. He yelled at the top of his voice in a Scottish (dwarvish?) accent the entire time. Sometimes in meetings he would get a far off stare, and you’d know something was bubbling up inside his mind and something great was about to come out. Once at Blizzcon, he hugged me for like a really long time in the middle of a busy men’s room. We blocked the doorway and made a lot of people wait in line that much longer. A possibly apocryphal story: when Kaplan was new to Blizzard, Metzen came into his office, crashed on the couch for like an hour nap, woke up, asked “Do you know why they won’t let us drink at work any longer?” Got up and left. (P.S. Blizzard let us drink at work all the time, so I’m not sure what that was all about.)And maybe my favorite story. At a Blizzcon party we were all at, there was inexplicably a bowl of powdered donuts with the snacks. Chris took a donut, rubbed it under his nose (so that there’s this light dusting of white powder) and then left it there all night as he bearhugged and did the Top Gun high-five to everyone at the party. He’s one of the top 5 or so most authentic and yet almost supernatural forces I’ve ever met. I am lucky to know him.
----So, uh, yea. Cube Crawling in that office is a totally believable thing.
are you nit-picking me?