Activision Blizzard Situation Thread

[Moonface]

What game is that Moony?

Dr. Mario World. I get that it's because the player count has never been very high for the game and therefore the gacha stuff probably doesn't make much money as a result, but it's so stupid that the single player content is also going to be killed off because it's a cloud based game. I'd rather Nintendo just disable online components and let everyone play the game offline.

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.

It's not even just the CEO's, but also the investors and stuff that basically drive the company to focus on money, and unfortunately money goes hand in hand with toxic work environments because dealing with it is seen as an expense. Yet I would expect that if such things were stamped out as soon as they are reported and investigated, money wouldn't be impacted because your workers would care more and not become burnt out by mentally exhausting toxic behaviors. If anything it would be better because you don't end up getting a lawsuit against your company and countless employee's participating in a walkout, such as the one happening at Blizzard today.

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.

I doubt it, considering their focus on pachinko machines because of the money they bring in. Also didn't Konami restrict Kojima from appearing at The Game Awards only a couple of years ago?

[Maniakkid25]

More like 6 years, but yep, that was Konami's doing. Being in video game development just sounds like a horrible work environment in general, between Crunch, toxic work environments, and mass layoffs after a hit release (and don't even get me started on QA testers...). I'm glad I never had any interest in the dev side of gaming.

[Moonface]

More like 6 years, but yep, that was Konami's doing.

Holy shit that was six years ago?!

And yeah, I think the only decent way to do game development is to be an indie developer because they seem to avoid the problems all the bigger studios have. I recall Supergiant (the developer of Hades and Bastion) were praised for how they run their company and it was reported on around the time that everyone and their mother were writing stuff about Naughty Dog.

[Maniakkid25]

You say that, but then you have studios like Team Bondi, the developers of L.A. Noire. They famously had it come out that they had a rather poor work environment, to the point that Rockstar (?!) decided to part ways with them and they couldn't get a new publisher, leading them to bankruptcy (and lets be honest, if a 2k Games publisher says your environment is toxic enough to stop doing business with you, you're screwed!). Or you have people like Scott Cawthon, who had it come out that he donated literal tens of thousands of dollars to anti-LGBT candidates for state and federal elections, and the conversation immediately got so toxic that he announced he'd quit making video games. So, yeah, not even being an indie dev can save you from the curse that is the video game development cycle of destruction.

[Monocle]

man. This blew up so much. devs waking out and Bobby Kotick's bullshit attempt at trying to control this. gonna link a really good video of the info and his reaction.

[Karo]

Kotaku has reported on this and I figured I'd share what they say: Kotaku

For those of you that are too lazy to click it basically Blizzard has released a statement announcing that Brack will be stepping down and being replaced by Jen Oneal And Mike Ybarra.

To all members of the Blizzard Community,
We want to let you know about an important leadership change at Blizzard Entertainment.
Starting today, J. Allen Brack will be stepping down as the leader of the studio, and Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will co-lead Blizzard moving forward.
Jen joined Blizzard in January as executive vice president of development, where she’s been providing senior development leadership and support to the Diablo and Overwatch franchises. Jen is the former head of Vicarious Visions (which is now part of Blizzard Entertainment).
After many years at XBOX, Mike joined the company in 2019 as the executive vice president and general manager of platform and technology, where he’s been overseeing the evolution of Battle.net and our development services organization.
Jen and Mike have more than three decades of gaming industry experience between them. Moving forward, they will share responsibilities over game development and company operations.
Both leaders are deeply committed to all of our employees; to the work ahead to ensure Blizzard is the safest, most welcoming workplace possible for women, and people of any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or background; to upholding and reinforcing our values; and to rebuilding your trust. With their many years of industry experience and deep commitment to integrity and inclusivity, Jen and Mike will lead Blizzard with care, compassion, and a dedication to excellence. You’ll hear more from Jen and Mike soon.

Brack has once again released a statement of his own once again after dealing with those tough video games moment:

I am confident that Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra will provide the leadership Blizzard needs to realize its full potential and will accelerate the pace of change. I anticipate they will do so with passion and enthusiasm and that they can be trusted to lead with the highest levels of integrity and commitment to the components of our culture that make Blizzard so special.

One other thing to note that in the lawsuit Brack himself is named in the California lawsuit for failing to deal with the internal reports of sexual harassment and sexism.

What do you think of this is this an actual attempt at change for Blizzard or is he just a sacrifice for the press and nothing more?

[Maniakkid25]

Sacrifice for the press. Activision would cut its own balls off if it meant good PR, at this point. Anything to distract from the scumbags running the place. The fact that he's "stepping down" and wasn't sacked, fired, ejected, or otherwise forcibly removed from his position despite being explicitly named in the lawsuit only proves that.

When I first saw this title, I immediately thought "wait, didn't I just read a couple days ago that he stepped into that head position just 3 years ago?!" And lo, he had indeed only been president since 2018! The only thing I can say to that is "HAHAOHWOW!"

[Moonface]

Given how many posts have been collectively made on the Blizzard situation, I merged everything into a singular thread.

As for todays development that @Karo posted, Brack stepping down is nothing more than an attempt at a positive press gesture to look like something worth a damn is being done, when really nothing is actually changing. Removing a guy who failed to properly deal with a situation doesn't actually deal with the situation itself. It's the equivalent to firing a building inspector for failing to deal with a bad wall but the people who actually made the wall itself are still working on the rest of the building, and the bad wall still hasn't been properly fixed.

[Moonface]

Another Blizzard higher up is gone in the form of Jesse Meschuk, the company's head of HR:

I also learned that today was Activision Blizzard's earnings call, and so I expect these removals are an attempt to influence the stocks in a positive way so that the earnings call looks better than it really should right now in respect to that. I bet if that wasn't happening today, none of this news would have happened today.

[Moonface]

Axios: California expands lawsuit against Activision Blizzard

Not that it wouldn't be the case, but Blizzard clearly knows they've massively fucked up when they're putting employee's into NDA's and shredding documents over this lawsuit.

With regards to claims that we have destroyed information by shredding documents, those claims are not true. We took appropriate steps to preserve information relevant to the DFEH investigation.

Who wants to bet they preserved only what they wanted. Preserving relevant information doesn't equate to all relevant information. I could shred 99/100 pieces of evidence and technically claim I still preserved information. Another statement to Engadget also has a spokesperson say they complied with all "proper" requests, which just says "If we didn't think it was proper we didn't comply".
I'm also not going to trust the word of a company that is abusing NDA's to cover up illegal activity, which is not what an NDA can be used for.

Kotick better be kicked to the curb and out of the industry entirely by the time this is all said and done though. Hopefully he's one of those stupid rich people who can't bare to live like a regular comfortable person and runs out of whatever money he has left, assuming this lawsuit rips his personal assets a new one.

[Metallix]

Yikes this is bad but I'd like to point out that the state of California is no better. Corrupt as heck, it's almost satire that they're going after a company for this when what goes on at their capital makes this look like church.

I don't see any outcome where this doesn't cripple Activision to the core. They will still be fine due to Call of Duty but I think they will be hurting from bad press for years.

[Moonface]

I don't see any outcome where this doesn't cripple Activision to the core. They will still be fine due to Call of Duty but I think they will be hurting from bad press for years.

This is probably why almost every single one of their development teams are now working on CoD. They may have gone that route even if this lawsuit didn't exist, but given that it is their most guaranteed source of income and their biggest, this lawsuit likely had them throw the entire kitchen sink at the franchise as a safety net.

[Metallix]

I don't see any outcome where this doesn't cripple Activision to the core. They will still be fine due to Call of Duty but I think they will be hurting from bad press for years.

This is probably why almost every single one of their development teams are now working on CoD. They may have gone that route even if this lawsuit didn't exist, but given that it is their most guaranteed source of income and their biggest, this lawsuit likely had them throw the entire kitchen sink at the franchise as a safety net.

Which is almost where they were headed already but maybe this sped it up. I don't see any scenario of putting all your eggs in one basket being good though. If COD loses popularity, it's game over.

[Moonface]

A relatively small gesture in comparison to the other things Blizzard can do to address this entire mess, but McCree will be renamed in Overwatch:

The short and narrow is the character was named after Jesse McCree, who is one of the people that was outed as a sexual predator and was involved with the Cosby Suite, and to not associate the character in any way to that real person it will be renamed. Any future characters will also not be named after any real living person, so as to avoid real life issues getting into a fictional game.

[Karo]

See I feel like it can be a nice gesture for maybe some well known person in the community dying so I think ruling it out entirely is a bit sad, but I definitely do agree with changing Mccrees name! Too bad even when this change is rolled out I won't be playing overwatch again until blizzard has shown that it has changed.