What does change look like?

Wyrmrest Accord
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Given the statements from inside Blizzard over the last week, it’s pretty clear that Blizzard created a disgusting working environment towards women and minorities that has festered for years. There’s a rot in the leadership, and there’s a rot in the company.

There’s obviously been a lot of reactions to this news from all sorts of people. While the condemnation is universal, there is a considerable divergence in actions suggested, from boycott them forever to cynical apathy (And all ranges in between). Putting aside the people whose livelihoods depend on either content creation or working for Blizzard, I have seen the argument raised that boycotting Blizzard at this stage may not actually help victims of Blizzard’s culture who are still currently employed there, with the suggestion that it will lead to firing and downsizing.

I think HazelNuttyGames had a mostly sober take on the situation that expresses this direction: https://youtu.be/UCrP8CD2AO4?t=431

After reading ABK’s corporate statements (which contained unsubtle political dog whistles) and corporate leadership statements/leaks (Blizzard President J Allen Brack particularly), I personally do not believe that the majority of those in charge are particularly sincere or actually interested in changing their company towards the values they pretend to embody.

It is my belief that further financial support of this company under its current leadership will not send them the message that they need real structural change, but instead that they need to double down and fight this out while confessing nothing, repenting nothing, and changing only superficially. While a lack of support does have the potential to destroy Blizzard as an independent studio, ABK is a large company that grew during the pandemic and has access to a lot of investment funds. If they cannot afford to fire their leadership and replace their predators and enablers with qualified diverse candidates even while operating at a partial loss for at least a somewhat extended expansion cycle, then Blizzard was already failing and this only hastens what was imminent.

I think the argument espoused by HazelNutty could eventually hold water, even if it doesn’t now - if Blizzard throws their corrupt leadership overboard (which may be possible, judging from the internal revolt) and finishes rooting out their predators and replaces them with people that don’t suck - that’s a company that I maybe could support. I don’t want to hate Blizzard and I don’t want to hate WoW, but I can’t support them as they are.

This has been a long time getting to the point, but the question is how do we as consumers see if that has happened? The lawsuit is almost certainly going to be settled, which is not necessarily a bad thing but does make it pretty hard to check up on things. We will probably never have a full list of offenders, and the women/inclusivity panels at the last Blizzcon have shown that Blizzard is eager to lie about this stuff to deflect criticism.

I unfortunately don’t have a good answer to the question posed. Is it firing everyone with C in front of their title? Kotick probably had nothing to do with these specific allegations, but he is absolutely no saint when it comes to sexual assault cases. What kind of transparency would make you feel differently about Blizzard, if it’s even possible at this point?

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Toss it in the bin.
Toss it all in the bin.

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I’m inclined to agree with Vanndrel, but the more I think on it the more I wonder if that’d hurt the victims as well? I mean who’s gonna suffer most from losing their job, if Blizz gets mass boycotted or sued to the point of collapse? The rich executives, or the low-level employees who are just paying the bills?

That said it sounds like this was endemic across the company’s ranks so maybe the unemployment is the lesser of two evils. Tricky one!

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The only meaningful change here will be to burn it all down.

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The company whose game we’ve all loved for decades is :poop: and as it turns out has always been :poop: . They have ruined their games for me…games I have spent decades loving…but all of that is moot because a woman is dead likely driven to suicide from the bullying and harassment she endured at this company.

Burn it to ash. Investigate and prosecute where necessary. Leave all those involved destitute. Unfortunately, that is not the world we live in…so I doubt we will see any sort of significant change or justice outside of firings and sacrificial lambs.

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At this point the low-level employees are better served elsewhere in the industry or in life in general.

The problem is Blizzard’s entire culture is tainted by this. I used the example in the 9.1 thread, but my own workplace is still dealing with policy decisions and violations done by a general manager who is at this point three individuals removed from being general manager now. We’ve gone through THREE since this guy and are still spraying his :poop: off the walls years later.

You could scrap everyone presently there and install brand new folks - outside hires even coming in “fresh” - and it’s still going to be the same enviornment. Because the court case has documents from 2004. That stuff has bled into the orientation materials at this point. Nearly two decades of abuse and neglect…there’s no way it hasn’t.

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Really surprised this hasn’t been locked or deleted. Anyway, I had been slow on cancelling my sub. The game holds a lot of good memories for me and letting my sub go felt like I was going to let all that go too. But I’m over it now. I can keep my memories and not continue to funnel money to a company run by sentient garbage. I would like to believe that the company can fix itself, but when something has been allowed to go on for so long it is hard to believe that it can or even trust it to give it an honest try.

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I think the thing that would most give me some confidence that things have changed for the better is for the employees to unionize. A union will add another layer of protection where a company fails. A union will ensure conditions, pay, etc… are all fair and good, and I’d feel confident a union would act much faster and more severely at accusations of sexual misconduct, harassment, and abuse.

As has been said elsewhere, Blizzard has been pretty thoroughly tainted. So, it needs an ever-present third party to protect the employees.

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don’t worry, the thread (and all others like it) will probably disappear with the “maintenance” coming wednesday.

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Horrible stuff happens in big corporations. The smart ones even have psychologists and other qualified mental health professionals to find the psychopaths and try to prevent them from getting to the executive level. You’re going to get scandals out of many companies, game companies included.

The big difference here, to me at least, is that this goes back to way before the merger – before tokens, before the social aspects of the game were whittled down for player convenience, before the sparkle pony…

They have claims going back to the earliest days of WoW, tainting all the nostalgia and goodwill that many had for the Blizzard that existed before Bobby Kottick got his claws in it.

And some of the people involved, their history of disturbing behaviour goes further than that. Of course, right? It’s not like people became predatory at Blizzard. For me it’s just that when they were way smaller how did they not vette that out? Oh, because they all hired their friends from previous engagements or games, regardless of how perverse or deranged they were – and now pretend they were too high up to know, as if everyone doesn’t know everything within a few months of working in any mid to senior level role.

Blizz-Activision has executives who previously held high-level roles in government. As a company, they are already used to getting what they want – to putting pressure on policy makers in foreign countries to get their goods into the market. Their legal defense team will, no doubt, do a world-class job in court. Their marketing and PR teams will run damage control.

Even if they lose, they will spin the paying of a huge fine along with implementation of better safeguards and training into the illusion of major change. For the sake of anyone who stays, I hope it’s more than an illusion but in my view, they have serious problems at the top and Kottick has been with Activision for a long time.

Meaningful change, to me, would be Activision replacing Bobby and other c-level people while also cutting Blizzard loose. Sell the Blizzard IPs to another company. They scrub all references to these people from the game, Metzen the Reindeer included. Revamp the lore and some of the aesthetics to remove cultural appropriation and caricaturization. Drastic and unlikely I guess!

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I don’t have an answer for how Blizzard can go about regaining consumer trust if there’s anything left for them to regain. And if we’re familiar with any kind of company controversy, especially large ones, this will be but a hiccup as they make adjustments so they can continue to fill their bottom line without problems.

But me personally I like(liked) Blizzard games. And I want to continue liking Blizzard games without a conflict of conscious. For me, and speaking only for me, I would be “content” with them getting rid of problematic persons and then going about creating a work environment that’s fair, decent, etc. The first of those requests can be met fairly immediately. The later is something to hold them accountable over the course of time.

Any other demands/request to me border on the realm of unrealistic.

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And probably the posting privileges of the unsubbed.

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If no one see’s me posting after Wednesday, that’ll be why.

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Very true. In that case, I love you all! Well, some of you at least. Farewell my lovelies!

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I would say this post would be a great start.

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I spoke to my 70 year old dad about this. And his points were interesting.

Blizzard is 100% headed for a reckoning.

Executives are getting fired or even going to jail. This WILL happen. He guarantees it.

He’s worked in corporate settings all his life and that blizzard doesn’t have active anti harassment and sexual misconduct training is a failure of their responsibility to protect their employees.

The leadership is 1000% at fault because it is their duty to protect their employees. And if HR hid information fron them HR is done for.

His direct quote was “No man would want this to happen to the women they love, so they should not find it acceptable for it to happen to strange women they don’t know. If either you or your sister had been harmed like this I would bring holy hell down on whoever was responsible.”

All leadership and execs need to be fired. All those who partook should go to jail. Let the board of directors put in place a whole new team beholden to the standards they hold in their code of conduct.

If every problem person is gone I don’t see blizzard as a problem. It’s just a company name. It’s the people who taint it.

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I fully anticipate to be forcibly ejected by the company. They’re going to kick us “freeloaders” out and slam down the shutters.

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hellfire~~🎶

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I’d wager against a reckoning. You’ll likely get settlements, fines and maybe a few terminations. Most of it will be sealed.

Remember when Riot settled for $10 million over discrimination, a toxic work environment, sexual harassment, bro culture, etc…pretty much the exact same issues in this lawsuit?

Yeah, that was 2019. How many people even remember it outside the industry?

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Enough lawsuits will make waves.

Google “TTECH lawsuits” or “Teletech lawsuits” they went through similar issues and are still hurting from it.

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