My #BoycottBlizzard post has been getting notes lately because California is suing Activision-Blizzard for its toxic work culture. It's cool to see it get notes, but the news itself is incredibly disheartening and the response to these allegations has been piss-poor on Activision-Blizzard's part.
Basically, for anyone unfamiliar with Activision-Blizzard's activities over the past few years, here's a refresher:
In 2019, a Hearthstone player named Blitzchung said "free Hong Kong, liberation of our times" on a tournament livestream. Blitzchung himself is from Hong Kong, and this was just as the protests were kicking off in that country. Not only did he receive a 1 year ban from competitive play, the prize money he won from that tournament was nullified and the two people who were hosting the stream got punished as well (though this was overturned I think).
Subsequently, people began protesting at live Hearthstone events with signs and chants. At least one event at an American college had its stream ended prematurely by Activision-Blizzard to prevent the negative optics of seeing people protest. They demonstrated clearly and repeatedly that between Hong Kong and China, they sided with China.
In 2020, they released a botched remaster of one of Blizzard's most beloved titles called Warcraft 3: Reforged. This is lower stakes than the other examples, but it's recently come out that the team charged with the remaster lacked direction, resources and time to do the pitch justice as it wasn't seen as enough of an earner, and that the Activision side of things didn't help by allocating a pittance and refusing to communicate with the studio when they needed help.
This is significant because not only is it one of the most downvoted game releases on Metacritic of all time - keeping in mind that Metacritic has gaming review pages going back to the Nintendo 64 - but Activision-Blizzard made it so that if you bought Reforged, you could never download the original product through official channels again. If you upgraded to Reforged, you could not downgrade back to the original copy. This sets a dangerous precedent, and it infringes on consumer rights.
2020 was a record-breaking year for Activision-Blizzard. They made 1.2 billion dollars through microtransactions alone - that's not a typo, $1.2 billion - and the CEO of the company, Bobby Kotick, got a $200 million bonus. Within weeks of that bonus, Activision-Blizzard laid off 190 workers just before Christmas.
That's just scratching the surface - that's the big stuff. The next section of the post is about the most recent events, which are shaping up to be a real doozy.
Just about a week ago, Activision-Blizzard was sued by the state of California for fostering an unhealthy workplace environment. There have been dozens of allegations about male staff members making female co-workers uncomfortable with a very frat-bro, sexually inappropriate sort of atmosphere going on at the office. There have also been several people in power who've abused their power to squash criticism and harass people working under them. So my assumption is that they broke California's workplace safety laws.
There's one specific account involving revenge porn that I'm not going to get into, but needless to say, it is not a pleasant account and the people responsible - including one specific abuser - need to be punished. Furthermore, there's at least one confirmed account of a department head or boss abusing his power and making people afraid to speak out in fear of retribution, and he wasn't fired for years despite persistent complaints from Blizzard staff.
So far, there have been at least four statements released by the company addressing these allegations. The first one was made by Bobby Kotick, and it basically just trotted out the company PR line and made people angry. The second statement - which I believe was an internal email - was from an association within Activision-Blizzard which claimed to represent the women working for the company. They sided with the company and prioritised the need to smooth things out for the sake of stability (as opposed to standing with the victims in the wake of these allegations), which made a LOT of employees extremely upset.
The third statement is from Activision-Blizzard's previous CEO. I haven't heard much about it or read it myself, but the headline is of him apologizing for failing to protect the women of Blizzard - maybe he gave it more of a human touch, maybe it's downplaying his own blame in this situation and making a disgusting, cynical PR move. I dunno. And the fourth and last statement came from Bobby Kotick, apologizing for the first statement and calling it tone-deaf. Which, I mean... too little too late y'know. It just means they thought they could get away with it the first time and now they're sorry they got caught.
In response to the first two responses, over 2500 current and former Blizzard employees signed an open letter condemning the response. They called the attempt to downplay the allegations "abhorrent and disgusting", and they've delivered two copies of the letter to management.
Furthermore, Blizzard employees will be striking today - they're gathering by the statue in the centre of their courtyard in a show of solidarity.
And that's all I know up to this point.
I'll admit that I'm not the most reliable source in regards to those four responses. I did see a video talking about the second response and the open letter, but I'm not the most clear on the other three apart from the fact that they exist.
Activision-Blizzard is especially relevant because they're arguably the biggest video game publisher in America right now. Last year in 2020, they made $8 billion in revenue - the gaming industry has seen a massive boom in engagement due to the pandemic, and they've been making money hand over fist. EA, their closest American rival, made $5.5 billion in revenue - meaning that Activision-Blizzard made roughly $2.5 billion more than they did. They are a massive, massive conglomerate.
So to hear about such a widespread culture problem to the degree that they're getting sued by the state of California for it, and to see them downplay the allegations that have gotten them into trouble, and to see such a massive incensed reaction from within the company as they're being treated with less and less humanity with each coming year - it's particularly fucked up, because they are essentially the head of the American video games industry and this sets an example.
If there's anything I wish to impart through this post, it's how malicious this industry really is and how Activision-Blizzard are willing to fuck everyone over for as much revenue as they can. Not just their employees, who they overwork and underpay and refuse to listen to when issues of corruption and abuse arise. They'll also tread all over consumer rights to wring every last drop of revenue out of as many players as possible. I didn't even mention the patent they filed for a microtransaction system that feeds on the same impulsiveness triggers as phone games and slot machines.
Once again, I have to say - fuck Activision-Blizzard. If you can at all afford to do so, I would recommend avoiding the company that refused to act on abuse allegations, infringed on consumer rights by replacing older games with inferior remasters, and who have actively participated in the suppression of human rights by silencing pro-democracy protestors acting on behalf of Hong Kong's freedom.
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