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This is not a good year for Activision Blizzard. First the World of Warcraft exodus, and now the lawsuit for what they call a type of sexual harassment a 'frat boy' culture.

Not only that, but it also cites a certain incident where a female employee who was sexually harassment committed suicide during a work trip with a male supervisor who brought a butt plug and lube for the trip. IGN is interviewing Activision Blizzard on the current situation and they said that California rushed to file an inaccurate complaint.

I'll leave the links below to check out the rest. It's even trending on Twitter too, and people (mostly women) are not happy campers about it.

IGN – Activision Blizzard Sued by California Over Allegations of 'Frat Boy Culture' And Sexual Harassment
Bloomberg Law – Activision Blizzard Sued Over ‘Frat Boy’ Culture, Harassment

How fucking difficult is it for AAA company employees to NOT be sex pests

First Ubisoft, now Activision. I'd boycott them but I don't buy their games anyway because I already hate microtransactions and ocean-wide-inch-deep game design

I'm very blessed that I work at a very female- and LGBT-friendly games company so I can enjoy the annual dunk on A-B even more. I've definitely seen the alcoholism and the delegating to avoid work at other studios though. The more relaxed environment of a game studio compared to other software development industries can make people think that a lessened degree of professionalism and common courtesy is acceptable, when it isn't. Upper management that doesn't present good guiding examples of behavior to their employees and poor (or nonexistent in some cases if the studio is small enough) Ops/HR teams will ruin a work environment. A toxic HR manager was part of the reason I left one of my last jobs.

Triple-A gaming companies could look to your company as an inspiration. I'm glad there are some safer spaces for women there.

What were they smoking?

Tons, according to the court docs.

This machismo fratboy BS in gaming communities needs to stop.

Meanwhile, Yoshi-P wishes fans not to attack World of Warcraft as he finds it irritating. It may be a tough order, but at least he's adult about it, unlike the devs from Activision Blizzard who would treat their customers like crap. Especially on Twitter.

Don't forget Riot was caught in a similar shitstorm a few years ago

At one point I used to think of Activision of the "lesser of two evils" when it came to them and EA, now they've managed to get to a point where EA has managed to become the "lesser evil" (even if only by a small margin, EA is still very guilty of costing game devs jobs when they buy out companies only to close them a short while later).

The ashes of their own burning company.

It's times like this that make me wonder why I even still fucking bother trying to break into creative industry, considering it's apparently a toxic hellhole run by assholes that favors reboots over new ideas and all I have to look forward to is people canceling me over minor shit that happened decades ago or because they're not getting their way.

Well if that's the case, you'd certainly fit in perfectly.

They just organized a walkout yesterday. If you really want this to sting, don't buy a thing from them.

Also

Want this to sting more? Donate to the employees who would be hurt by such work cultures.

I mean, I seem to be doing this through the power of Optimistic Nihilism where I just make the stuff I like and don't really give a fuck about what's happening around it; because nothing really matters in the end, so why let any of it get you down, right?

People are starting to recognise me and my work on other sites now and it's really weird.

I got curious and found some of my stuff had been posted to Funny Junk by doing a reverse image search, and if that's not a sign of success, I don't know what is.

Also, the change will never come, unless there is someone there with the drive and the will to make it happen.

A Toxic Culture is the result of societal stagnancy caused by complacency and a "I'm sure someone else will fix this" mentality.

And so, in order to fix it, we must follow the advice of that wise, old wizard:

How hard is it to have lots of money and not be a sexual deviant douchebag? You would think it would be easy

If this news broke years sooner I wonder if FromSoft would have chosen a different publishing partner for Sekiro, or if Nintendo would have allowed Zelda content in the Switch port of Diablo 3. Just a random thought.

Nerds at blizzard have time to do this? How come they are not doing their crunch time todeliver in time?

So J. Allen Brack at least is no longer president of the Blizzard side of the company, but how much you wanna bet it's gonna take something bigger to get Kotick to finally step down? Dude fires his own employees just to keep his bonuses, he probably thinks he's untouchable in this whole ordeal.

Also a very random aside, since this whole thing has lead to development within ActiBlizz owned studios to grind to a halt, anyone else wonder if this might be the first time in forever Call of Duty actually doesn't see a yearly release? I'm fairly certain I read that devs from Infinity Ward, Treyarch, Raven, and Sledgehammer participated in things like the walkout and whatnot, so I get the feeling development on this year's CoD (I think it's supposed to be a "Sledgehammer year") has been halted. I can only imagine EA's higher ups are going "good thing it's not us getting the hate this time" as now they can release the new Battlefield without any real competition (and Microsoft might have a better idea on a release for Halo Infinite, as everyone keeps speculating that Microsoft doesn't want to announce a date until they know when CoD's coming out so this way Halo won't be cannibalized).

It'll take more than J. Allen stepping down to bring forth change at all.

It takes boycotts, awareness, aand more. Hell I've heard that rapist devs move from one company to another. Kinda like the Catholic Church and the pedos there.

Axios – California expands lawsuit against Activision Blizzard

It alleges, in part, that "documents related to investigations and complaints were shredded by human resource personnel" in violation of what it asserts is the game company's legal obligation to retain them pending the investigation.

Sounds like Activision Blizzard is caught destroying evidence in the sexual harassment lawsuit.

As if they weren't disgusting enough as a workspace.

Honestly, the whole thing is heartbreaking for a former Overwatch fan like me.

So now they intend to rename McCree in Overwatch because of this…

It's such a pointless gesture to rename McCree. I don't believe anyone on this planet with a sane mind believes that McCree the character has anything to do with his real world counterpart. The only reason I actually see them doing this is because somebody at Blizzard felt like they had to force an unnecessary change because a few OWL players refused to say their name. The whole scenario is dumb any way I look at it.

"Quick blame the fictional white guy!"

this is how this feels like

Employees of Activision Blizzard have filed an unfair labor practice suit accusing the company of union-busting and engaging in the intimidation of workers.

Are they trying to be more hated than EA? Because they actually are succeeding!

Say what you want about EA, but their greed is hardly as depraved as Ubisoft and Activision's sexpestery and extremely harsh treatment of employees

Replacing women with fruit. Stunning and brave.

Hey, at least Blizzard devs wouldn't rape fruit… Or would they?

Blizzard is a muslim company. Confirmed.

Why the fruit though? Are they running out of characters to make gay? (I ain't even against more gay characters I am just sayin)

Dexerto – US government calls CEO Bobby Kotick to court over Activision-Blizzard allegations

This lawsuit is the gift that keeps on giving.

No, no, no, this is actually the "Turn a character gay and claim you're advancing society to deflect legitimate criticism" trick, except that instead of turning a character gay, they made a painting gay…

…They made the painting fruity!

Women were fruit all along

Bobby Kotick subpoenaed and under investigation by the SEC

IT BEGINS

Activision Blizzard Employees Walk Out After New Explosive Allegations

It continues!

That Bobby Kotick sounds like a real piece of shit. He must walk out.

Blizzard: We do get worse

Fuck Kotick and the Activision-Blizzard board

Kotick's days may legit be numbered to some capacity because the heads of both Sony and Xbox have stated they're reevaluating their relationship with Activision. Given Sony and Microsoft were big partners for Call of Duty in the past this could be just the push needed to at least get Kotick out the door. Yeah the scumbag's likely gonna end up leaving with a massive severance package, but I'd just be glad to see him no longer have a presence in the industry.

Surprised you didn't try to add a "chichong wingwong" to that comment as well.

And now Nintendo of America's Doug Bowser has sent out an internal memo to employees at NoA, Retro Studios, and Next Level Games addressing the situation and calling the whole thing "disturbing." When the heads all of three first party companies are calling Activision-Blizzard out, you know things are super fucked up. Add to this the fact their biggest money maker, Call of Duty, is also seeing a notable decrease in sales this year it's only a matter of time now before Kotick gets the boot, be it him leaving of his own volition or the company board kicks him out.

And now it's Playstation's turn to be sued.

Hey dudes remember Naughty Dog getting a lot of shit for crunching their devs during TLOU 2's development?

feels relevant here