Bragging that women make up a mere 1/4th of the company on par with the industry isn’t exactly a flex.
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Kind of a weird thing to be flexing about if you ask me. Like what does it prove?
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That they are doing the bare minimum like the rest of the industry.
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Sadly, doing the bare minimum is sometimes an improvement.
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They don’t have adequate diversity levels at every game team. The overall race or gender makeup of the company, or specific subsidiaries of it, doesn’t matter.
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Oh, but don’t you see, that’s just how the industry is. You can’t possibly blame them for being like their industry peers, can you? /sarcasm
Yes, the entire games industry has problems similar to Blizzard, that’s why this stuff is so awful and insidious. Stating that your demographics are comparable to your also-horrible industry peers should be something to apologize for, not to be proud of. Or have we already forgotten the similar lawsuits against Riot and Ubisoft?
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On its own not really. But if this becomes a regular thing it can at least provide useful information to people who want to keep their feet to the fire. I think it’s a good small step in the right direction, but we’ll have to see how the data looks as time goes on and if they keep releasing it. Assuming the data is accurate of course
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North America has its first union in the gaming industry. There NEEDS to be one at Activision Blizzard.
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Also, it seems Geoff Fraizer (Nebu), the guy who works on news posts and guides on the official WoW website, is an extremely racist and sexist right-winger. I don’t know how that came out, or when, but I saw it on Twitter.
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It was today, Jessica exposed him since he was allowed to leave quietly and is apparently already at a new studio and is selling all his Blizzard merchandise.
Dude was at blizzard for 14 years and brags about being able to manipulate other departments to harass and expose and out people publicly.
Really makes you think.
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This is one of those moments where I feel little joy, and pure disgust, about being 100% right.
For years, I have been arguing about the Gamer Culture and its Far Right Wing bent. Anti woman, anti glbt, anti minority. How it is top down as well as bottom up, and pervasive. It is why any small change is met with a barrage of “woke” and “snowflake”.
It is one of the reasons I don’t consider myself a Gamer. Put me in a room with 10 people who consider themselves Gamers, and I don’t see that going well.
People have been trying to shut down that debate. But it is bursting out like a volcano.
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I just hope that this will lead to gaming industry and culture reform but I know realistically we won’t see change for another 20 years at least.
It’s already been 30 years with minimal progression, despite women amd PoC making up half of “gamers.” Part of this is breaking down the misconception that “the majority of gamers is white male.”
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It’s just really disgusting how pervasive this toxic mentality is in the gaming industry and community. Like how bad is society that people normalized this sort of behavior for so long?
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He called Maxine Waters a crack w all the way back in 1997.
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True, but not all of the abusive or bigoted devs identify as right-wingers.
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The news caught up with it.
https://kotaku.com/longtime-blizzard-employee-spouted-hateful-garbage-on-d-1848276468
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Thanks for the heads up. It was an interesting read.
ABetterABK founder and organizer Jessica Gonzalez tweeted screenshots of Fraizer, allegedly under the username Nebu, exposing his intolerance of disabled people, women, LGBTQ+ folks, and other “libtards,” as he put it.
Yeesh. Even disabled people. Not that hating the rest is OK, but I haven’t really seen disabled hate lumped in with the rest since…
No. The Right does not have a monopoly on that. And absolutes are rare in general, especially when it comes to human opinion. But there are clear trends and patterns that should be acknowledged.
My point stands. Especially when you consider:
“The Right Wing of Gaming” is a Discord server where people go to complain about Activision Blizzard and other workers like Jessica who are supposedly “ruining the whole company,” according to a message from Fraizer in September.
As an aside - regarding “Nebu’s” statement about Juneteenth… I remember learning about Juneteenth as a kid - and not in school. On my own. I always thought it should be more prominent in our history.
I was always a history buff, and would read about the revolutionary war and civil war from books that I got from the city library while I was in elementary school. When I learned about Juneteenth, I felt like it was an important day to recognize.
The US had to send the army to Texas to let the enslaved people know they were free, and to defend that freedom. Months after the war ended.
It’s like what they say about history - if you don’t learn from it, you likely will repeat it.
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The “right wing of gaming” more like the overlap between “the gaming sphere” and “the manosphere” it isn’t particularly about political party affiliation it’s more about male culture in general. Or “meme” culture as that also overlaps.
Men in general just need to Do Better.
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And we need to stop normalizing bad behavior
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I really want to know who else was on that server!
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