Activision Blizzard Situation Thread

[Moonface]

I'm sure everyone has heard about it to some degree today, which is the story about Activision Blizzard having a lawsuit filed against them for... well I don't think I can really summarize it up into a simple catch all that does justice to what was actually done so I'll just share the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/21/busin...wsuit.html

[Dragon Lord]

As I do with all such cases, I shall sit back and just watch and see what kind of facts come out of any investigations that are done. While I'm no fan of Activision Blizzard, I also stick with the whole "Innocent until proven guilty thing," and in this day and age it's way too easy for the whole sexual harassment thing to get thrown around to destroy someone's or some company's reputation. While it's important to take the allegations seriously and have them investigated to the fullest extent, it's equally as important not to jump the gun until it's been absolutely proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Too many times we see people on the internet attack someone/"cancel" them because of a baseless accusation, and even after it's been proven false, the damage is already done and it's far too late to repair it. So until we know for absolute sure what happened, I'm going to just sit back and watch. Take everything with a grain of salt for now.

If these accusations do prove to be true, then... well, I never cared for the company, so nothing will really change for me in terms of what I think of them. The only game of theirs I've played is Diablo 3, I believe, so I don't have much attachment to the company at all.

[Moonface]

Given the response by Activision so far, I get the feeling at least some degree of the lawsuit will turn out to be true. It has very similar shades of Ubisoft, although given this has a lawsuit attached to it I'm hoping that whatever gets found actually results in consequences, and not the pitiful response Ubisoft gave to the allegations against them that were true.

[Monocle]

blizzard devs are saying it's true so I hope they suffer for it. disgusting. All these huge corporations that think they're invincible. Fuck them.

[ShiraNoMai]

blizzard devs are saying it's true so I hope they suffer for it. disgusting. All these huge corporations that think they're invincible. Fuck them.

The correct response. I had stock in them, and I sold it a while ago and I'm glad I did. Toxic culture and behavior. One victim actually killed themselves over it all. Just absolutely despicable.

[Monocle]

The correct response. I had stock in them, and I sold it a while ago and I'm glad I did. Toxic culture and behavior. One victim actually killed themselves over it all. Just absolutely despicable.

I hope they demolish Bobby Kotick. that man is trash immaculate. Continues to separate staff while the company has records highs and he gives himself bonuses that are higher than his salary. It's all beyond disgusting. He's one of the worst.

[Moonface]

I've seen this video making the rounds today on Twitter and it apparently shows this attitude has been a problem for a long time:

I've not had a chance to watch the video myself yet but wanted to share it before it gets lost in the endless sea that Twitter is.

[Dragon Lord]

I'll be interested in seeing if people are just gonna be outraged on Twitter/Social Media and still buy up all of Blizzards games, or if they're going to actually impact Blizzard's bottom line by not giving them money.

Usually it's the, "I can't believe you did this! ...I'm still buying all of your games, BUT I AM SHOCKED!"

[Moonface]

The only thing I saw so far that was an actual protest was players doing a sit in or something in WoW and all of them cancelling their subscriptions at the same time during it.

[Dragon Lord]

WoW has been dying pretty fast from what I've been hearing around. Heard of lots of WoW players migrating to Final Fantasy XIV (before all of this come to light).

I imagine plenty of people are going to still get the Diablo 2 Remake (me included) regardless of the situation though. Especially people who played the original and want to relive that nostalgia, but with the better graphics.

[ShiraNoMai]

Now's a great time to become a pirate, DL

Hoping their bottom-line gets affected enough that they start to make changes and no SCABs hang around to reinforce the status-quo of the environment at A/B, but who knows. At least with western companies, there's a higher chance of change happening rather than it getting severely swept under the rug, as do most eastern, notably Japanese companies tend to do with these kinds of scandals.

[Dragon Lord]

Nah, I'll leave the justice dealing to the legal system and proper authorities. There's no reason good enough for me to turn to something as pathetic and scummy as piracy.

[Moonface]

The responses from the higher ups have been convincing me they know there's a severe degree of truth to the allegations, because even Ubisoft didn't do this much damage control. I've seen at least four different letters and statements from the top brass in the past week or so and some don't even line up.

Just found out that a game I play is closing down in three months and after that you can't play anymore. Shame because I liked the game and now don't know if I can care to keep playing until the end date.

[Karo]

What game is that Moony?

I actually was getting back into Overwatch when this happened so I decided to stop playing it at least until I actually se some change...which might be forever cause I honestly believe....that the whole triple A gaming industry is rotten to the core.

Ubisoft, Riot, Electronic Arts, and Blizzard are all very shitty companies with very shitty work environments so I don't really hold out hope for much maybe when they were small companies, but as they grow and old CEOs that have attachments or actually do gaming stuff tend to fall away and they get replaced by the money bottomline CEOs who don't care about anything else except money.

So I tend to think of piracy as pretty cool I don't really do it now cause honestly most games aren't worth it, but I do think it a valid alternative to not giving a shitty company money.

[Maniakkid25]

Konami is right on that list, as well, because Konami is Konami, and Konami is the worst. What with legal threats to ex-employees and the way they treat new hires, it's just a toxic work environment in that company. Granted, this was years ago that those reports came out, so maybe they've changed their tune...but I doubt it.