Explanation of Activision Blizzard’s Gender Discrimination Lawsuit


Activision Blizzard, the developer and publisher of mega-franchises like World of Warcraft, Diablo, and Call of Duty, is in crisis. The company faces far-reaching and highly damaging allegations that it maintains a toxic work environment that is hostile to women, employs disproportionately low numbers of women, pays them less, and subjects them to sexual harassment, the perpetrators of which are not punished in any way. significant.

A two-week cycle of bad news and mediocre responses from the company has demoralized developers, particularly within Blizzard Entertainment, and gamers and fans of its games. The company’s share price has fallen more than 12 percent since the story broke. Two top executives are at Blizzard, and others who no longer work for the company are yet to be held accountable for what happened during their time there.

What’s going on? Who left the company? What does this mean for the games they make? We will try to recap all the developments in this story, updating this post as more details emerge.

Who is suing Activision Blizzard?

California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard on July 20, 2021 for 10 violations of state labor law. This followed a two-year DFEH investigation of the company’s labor practices. DFEH’s report of that investigation, dated June 24, 2021, found that Activision Blizzard “discriminated against female employees in terms and conditions of employment, including compensation, assignment, promotion, termination, constructive termination, and retaliation.”

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The investigation also found that Activision Blizzard employees “were subjected to sexual harassment” and that the company’s leadership “did not take all reasonable steps to prevent unlawful discrimination, harassment or retaliation.” The DFEH alleges numerous violations of California labor law, citing examples from 2010. (This complaint is a civil lawsuit, not a criminal case).

Additionally, a shareholder filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard on August 3 alleging that the company’s negligent leadership contributed to the cycle of bad press and market reaction, causing a significant drop in the company’s share price. That lawsuit seeks class action status to represent investors who have purchased Activision Blizzard stock over the past five years.

Why is California suing Activision Blizzard?

It is unknown what, specifically, caused the state to begin its investigation into Activision Blizzard. In August 2020, Bloomberg reported that Blizzard employees had been anonymously share a spreadsheet of your wages and raises, after many had previously told the company through a survey that they were unhappy with their compensation. Activision Blizzard’s follow-up efforts regarding payment were apparently unsatisfactory, leading to the spreadsheet circulation.

The week after the Bloomberg report, Dexerto reported that the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had contacted several Activision Blizzard employees, informing them that it was investigating their company “regarding allegations of sexual or gender-based harassment.” That communication asked employees to complete a questionnaire describing their work experience at the company.

It is unknown where the EEOC’s Activision investigation is now.

J. Allen Brack, Executive Producer of World of Warcraft and New President of Blizzard Entertainment

J. Allen Brack resigned as president of Blizzard Entertainment on August 3, 2021.
Photo: Blizzard Entertainment

What parts of Activision’s business are allegedly discriminatory?

Although the DFEH lawsuit names subsidiaries Activision Publishing and Blizzard Entertainment, along with its parent company Activision Blizzard, as defendants, most of the specific allegations in the complaint involve Blizzard Entertainment.

The claim allegation of a “frat house” or “frat boy” culture is directed at Blizzard Entertainment. There, says the DFEH, the women were subjected to “crawling on buckets,” a kind of office party in which male employees, who had been drinking, prowled the workplace and subjected the women to unwanted advances. , lewd behavior and other types of sexual harassment.

“Employees who work for World of warcraft The team noted that male employees and supervisors would beat them, make disparaging comments about the violation, and otherwise engage in demeaning behavior, ”the lawsuit says.

J. Allen Brack, who until this week was president of Blizzard Entertainment, allegedly knew about this and other misconduct, but only gave “a slap on the wrist” to the only offender named in the complaint, the former World of warcraft creative director Alex Afrasiabi. (Afrasiabi is not a defendant). Brack is also said to have been told in early 2019 that female employees were resigning “due to sexual harassment and sexism,” but apparently did nothing about it. Brack resigned from Blizzard on August 3, 2021.

Blizzard said on July 28 that it fired Afrasiabi in the summer of 2020. Public attention has focused on Afrasiabi ever since. a report in Kotaku described his behavior at the past BlizzCons, the company’s annual fan show. In the complaint and in that report, it is alleged that Afrasiabi made propositions and approached co-workers at the convention, attempting to kiss them in front of supervisors.

Kotaku’s report said that Afrasiabi’s reputation for sexual harassment was so well known that her hotel room at BlizzCon was called “Cosby Suite.” A social media post dated 2013 showed Afrasiabi and other Blizzard developers gathered on a bed with a framed photo of Bill Cosby, who in 2014 and 2015 would be accused by more than 45 women of rape, sexual assault or attempted battery. , leading to a 2015 indictment and a 2018 conviction.

Activision Publishing, the part of the company responsible for franchises like Call of Duty, is mentioned by name only twice in the factual allegations in the lawsuit. “An Activision Publishing HR employee was delayed and did not receive a promotion despite receiving positive performance reviews, doing far more work than her male counterpart, and taking on the actual responsibilities of the person leaving,” the claim says.

Women working in Activision Publishing’s accounting department also told DFEH “that men were paid significantly more than they were despite doing the same or less work and having fewer responsibilities.”

What is Activision Blizzard’s official response?

When news of the DFEH lawsuit broke, the company immediately released a statement to the media saying the case was based on “distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past.”

Activision Blizzard said that DFEH also “was quick to file an inaccurate complaint,” rather than “having good faith discussions with us to better understand and resolve any complaints or concerns before initiating litigation.” The company also said it was “sick” from DFEH complaints about the death of an employee by suicide and the suggestion that it was caused by a toxic work environment.

This was followed by an internal note to staff, written by Fran Townsend, the company’s executive vice president and chief compliance officer. “A recently filed lawsuit presented a distorted and false image of our company, including old, out of context and indeed inaccurate stories, some from more than a decade ago,” he wrote.

Blizzard employee setback was immediate. On July 26, more than 800 signed a letter calling the company’s response, and specifically Townsend’s note, “abominable and insulting to all that we believe our company should stand for.” More than 1,800 employees would jointly sign the letter the next day, and Blizzard workers staged a strike at the company’s headquarters in Irvine, California, the next day.

That caught the attention of Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, who issued a statement on July 27 apologizing for the company’s “muffled” response to the DFEH lawsuit. “I am sorry that we have not provided adequate empathy and understanding,” he said.

Kotick announced that Activision Blizzard had engaged an outside law firm “to conduct a review of our policies and procedures,” and encouraged any employee “with an experience that they believe violates our policies or in any way made them uncomfortable at workplace “to contact the principal investigator for that company.

A photo of the Sorceress in a church in Diablo 4

Blizzard Diablo 4, Announced at BlizzCon 2019, it doesn’t have a release window, except that it won’t be out this year.
Image: Blizzard Entertainment

How has this affected the development of Blizzard games?

The weekend after the DFEH lawsuit was filed, a senior designer at Blizzard said that “almost no work is being done on World of warcraft right now as this obscenity unfolds. “The following Tuesday, the Wow The development team posted a statement on the game’s forums promising “immediate action” to make their games and community more inclusive and welcoming. This specifically meant removing two references to Afrasiabi, whose name was the basis for at least two NPCs and various world elements.

On August 3, Brack stepped down as president of Blizzard Entertainment, leaving development executives Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra in charge. On the same day, Jesse Meschuk, Blizzard’s head of human resources, also left the company.

Brack had been at Blizzard for 15 years, rising to his highest position after founder and CEO Mike Morhaime left in October 2018. Before that, Brack had been a leader in the World of warcraft Development team.

Also on August 3, Blizzard announced that Immortal devil, the mobile adaptation of the action RPG, had been delayed until 2022, beyond its original release window for the second half of 2021. However, Blizzard’s statement on the delay did not refer to the confusion caused by the lawsuit. of California DFEH.

The company’s quarterly earnings call with investors on Aug. 3 was predictably dominated by the issue of lawsuit. Oneal, present at the discussion, told an analyst that Blizzard was “doubling our development recruiting as we expand the reach and vision of our franchises.”

She continued: “When we came together, we created some of the best games in the industry, and now we are seeing that energy applied to our culture, which is equally important. We have a lot of work ahead of us. But passion and productivity are here. And when our people feel safe and supported, the rest will take care of themselves. ”


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