A Letter From CEO Bobby Kotick to All Employees
Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker)
This has been a difficult and upsetting week.

I want to recognize and thank all those who have come forward in the past and in recent days. I so appreciate your courage. Every voice matters - and we will do a better job of listening now, and in the future.

Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf.

It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding.

Many of you have told us that active outreach comes from caring so deeply for the Company. That so many people have reached out and shared thoughts, suggestions, and highlighted opportunities for improvement is a powerful reflection of how you care for our communities of colleagues and players – and for each other. Ensuring that we have a safe and welcoming work environment is my highest priority. The leadership team has heard you loud and clear.

We are taking swift action to be the compassionate, caring company you came to work for and to ensure a safe environment. There is no place anywhere at our Company for discrimination, harassment, or unequal treatment of any kind. We will do everything possible to make sure that together, we improve and build the kind of inclusive workplace that is essential to foster creativity and inspiration.

I have asked the law firm WilmerHale to conduct a review of our policies and procedures to ensure that we have and maintain best practices to promote a respectful and inclusive workplace. This work will begin immediately. The WilmerHale team will be led by Stephanie Avakian, who is a member of the management team at WilmerHale and was most recently the Director of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement.

We encourage anyone with an experience you believe violates our policies or in any way made you uncomfortable in the workplace to use any of our many existing channels for reporting or to reach out to Stephanie. She and her team at WilmerHale will be available to speak with you on a confidential basis and can be reached at ATVI@wilmerhale.com or 202-247-2725. Your outreach will be kept confidential. Of course, NO retaliation will be tolerated.

We are committed to long-lasting change. Effective immediately, we will be taking the following actions:

  • Employee Support. We will continue to investigate each and every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action. To strengthen our capabilities in this area we are adding additional senior staff and other resources to both the Compliance team and the Employee Relations team.
  • Listening Sessions. We know many of you have inspired ideas on how to improve our culture. We will be creating safe spaces, moderated by third parties, for you to speak out and share areas for improvement.
  • Personnel Changes. We are immediately evaluating managers and leaders across the Company. Anyone found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences will be terminated.
  • Hiring Practices. Earlier this year I sent an email requiring all hiring managers to ensure they have diverse candidate slates for all open positions. We will be adding compliance resources to ensure that our hiring managers are in fact adhering to this directive.
  • In-game Changes. We have heard the input from employee and player communities that some of our in-game content is inappropriate. We are removing that content.
  • Your well-being remains my priority and I will spare no company resource ensuring that our company has the most welcoming, comfortable, and safe culture possible.

You have my unwavering commitment that we will improve our company together, and we will be the most inspiring, inclusive entertainment company
in the world.

Yours sincerely,

Bobby

Blizzard Offers Paid Time Off For Employees Participating in Walk-Out
Jason Schreier tweeted today that Blizzard has offered paid time off to any employee participating in tomorrow's walk-out.


This article was originally published in forum thread: A Letter From CEO Bobby Kotick to All Employees started by Stoy View original post
Comments 1053 Comments
  1. cparle87's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Sentynel View Post
    Where is our paid time off for not getting any development on the product we paid for?
    You don't get any. You pay for the game as is and Blizzard is not obligated to EVER add new content or even fix bugs. It's in the EULA.
  1. Soon-TM's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by zorkuus View Post
    That's right. I don't believe what women say, I believe what they do (often in direct contradiction).
    That legit creeped the hell out of me, and I'm not even a woman.
  1. xdunpealx's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TrollHunter3000 View Post
    So you believe there aren't any females that have the merit to hold those roles?

    Pretty sexist.
    Are you dumb? California REQUIRES WITHOUT merit, meaning they have to put someone less qualified based solely on the principle that they are non-white, non-male.
    In what way does this say I do not believe females don't hold these roles? The law it's self is racist.
  1. kevincuomo's Avatar
    Blizzard is trying so hard to damage control this... paid time off for people walking out ?? LOL I honestly hope Blizzard burns to the ground, tired of this company putting out crap content.
  1. Santti's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by kevincuomo View Post
    Blizzard is trying so hard to damage control this... paid time off for people walking out ?? LOL I honestly hope Blizzard burns to the ground, tired of this company putting out crap content.
    I'd rather they turn this around, and be better. Blizzard burning to the ground means nobody has to learn or change anything.

    But I think we all know Blizzard isn't going anywhere. They'll show a trailer for some upcoming game, and all is forgiven. Hell, they don't even need to do that. We can see this from the "But what about me?" reaction Alex Klontzas produced with his tweet, in these very forums.

    Besides, Blizzard has been a regular Triple-A for a long time now, and Triple-A and quality don't go together. At all.
  1. PenguinChan's Avatar
    This rings so hollow when a similar issue got swept under the rug in 2010. It took 11 years and a blow up for him to actually do anything - which is clearly reactionary. I wonder if he harassed someone since then and if they'll come to light if so.

    I mean we'll take it no matter what - if they genuinely clean house despite the fact Bobby is up top and a known sexual harasser.
  1. Laerrus's Avatar
    We will be creating safe spaces
    I can see this riling up a certain demographic of WoW player, GOOD!
  1. Pannonian's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by xdunpealx View Post
    Are you dumb? California REQUIRES WITHOUT merit, meaning they have to put someone less qualified based solely on the principle that they are non-white, non-male.
    In what way does this say I do not believe females don't hold these roles? The law it's self is racist.
    California got a law for private entities to not hire any white men if there are other candidates? Got a link for that?
  1. pacotaco's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TrollHunter3000 View Post
    We're not generally talking about jobs where physical differences actually matter. So, these examples are moot
    Well, while we all technically the same intellectually, our socio-economic raising have a toll in how we work.
    A person raised on a wealthy family is more prone to take risks than one raised on a poor home (because he knows that failing doesn't imply end in street beging for food). That makes that people have an advantage on executive and stock market jobs.
    Also women tend to get social and humanitarian jobs while men do the same with technological jobs. While we can suspect that there's social pressure (and in some cases it's true), there are several studies that confirm that when being able to choose freely (if I'm correct Spain, Norway and Finland were the prominent examples) it even exacerbated it (for example, here in Spain, in a matter of a few decades, the healthcare system moved from being male dominated to being completely being female dominated).

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by TrollHunter3000 View Post
    You're just going to be willfully ignorant because of you being racist. You're go against anything anyone says contradicting your baseless belief that those advocating for DEI efforts are actually pushing discrimination against white men.

    Just stop being racist.
    - The possitive (racial) discrimination is good
    - Well, I'm not sure about that. Wouldn't it be better not looking at race at all?
    - Shut up, racist!

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by schwank05 View Post
    If everyone is in on it and it is accepted by all involved then I see no issue. Most of these cases are something that is 7-10 years old, why not bring them up at the time if its that big of a deal?
    Maybe at the time they didn't surface, or the shame didn't allow the victim to say anything. Or maybe they were a few cases that were piling over the years and not something that happens everyday all around the office.

    Remember, it's a few people on companies with thousands of employees. The most probable thing is that almost noone was aware of the things that happened.

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by schwank05 View Post
    Then I guess find a new industry most employers in a lot of fiends don't give 2 shits about what your college degree or past work experience is as long as you are willing to learn and work hard they will hire almost anyone, I know I don't look at anything other than if you can do what I ask of you when hiring.
    A sad thing that the world doesn't work like that. For example, if you're over 50 it's almost impossible to change career, as in no employer would take an old person learning a new job while they can pick a young one with studies on the field, that can be paid much less and would not fight for his rights like an older person would.
  1. TrollHunter3000's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by xdunpealx View Post
    Are you dumb? California REQUIRES WITHOUT merit, meaning they have to put someone less qualified based solely on the principle that they are non-white, non-male.
    In what way does this say I do not believe females don't hold these roles? The law it's self is racist.
    Where does it say without merit in that law? Can you quote it please?

    and what does it have to do with race? lmao

    - - - Updated - - -

    Quote Originally Posted by pacotaco View Post
    Well, while we all technically the same intellectually, our socio-economic raising have a toll in how we work.
    A person raised on a wealthy family is more prone to take risks than one raised on a poor home (because he knows that failing doesn't imply end in street beging for food). That makes that people have an advantage on executive and stock market jobs.
    Also women tend to get social and humanitarian jobs while men do the same with technological jobs. While we can suspect that there's social pressure (and in some cases it's true), there are several studies that confirm that when being able to choose freely (if I'm correct Spain, Norway and Finland were the prominent examples) it even exacerbated it (for example, here in Spain, in a matter of a few decades, the healthcare system moved from being male dominated to being completely being female dominated).

    - - - Updated - - -



    - The possitive (racial) discrimination is good
    - Well, I'm not sure about that. Wouldn't it be better not looking at race at all?
    - Shut up, racist!
    You literally just did what I described people doing. No one doing this correctly is advocating for any sort of discrimination, "positive" or whatever you describe. You're literally quoting me already calling people out for mischaracterizing these efforts that way and then continue to mischaracterize it yourself.

    You're going to have to provide sources for those studies because everything I've ever seen shows the exact opposite. The US is fairly unique in that women tend to have more freedom in choosing their career path than many other places in the world yet they continue to cave to societal pressures that 100% still exist that prevent them from ever going into certain careers or push them out of it because of the very sexist culture within them.
  1. pacotaco's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by TrollHunter3000 View Post
    You literally just did what I described people doing. No one doing this correctly is advocating for any sort of discrimination, "positive" or whatever you describe. You're literally quoting me already calling people out for mischaracterizing these efforts that way and then continue to mischaracterize it yourself.

    You're going to have to provide sources for those studies because everything I've ever seen shows the exact opposite. The US is fairly unique in that women tend to have more freedom in choosing their career path than many other places in the world yet they continue to cave to societal pressures that 100% still exist that prevent them from ever going into certain careers or push them out of it because of the very sexist culture within them.
    The mere moment you look at the race to factor in if that person must have some sort of different treatment, you're being racist.


    About the studies, this is the most recent and complete: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs...rnalCode=pssa&
    It's under a paywall, I read several articles about it, but I couldn't find an english one on a quick search, but I link you one just in case:
    https://www.xataka.com/investigacion...s-y-tecnologia
  1. Jetpistol's Avatar
    This is really unfortunate but not surprising at the same time. 95% Companies around the world wether that be gaming or not all have what blizzard did except they have been exposed yet. All those MMOs who've seen WoW reign for some time is beginning to crumble at a fast rate, Basically what i'm saying this will more than likely spell the end of Blizzard with medicore games. As fucked up as this sounds, their only survival is to make an overly ambitious expansion but it wont happen lol.

    Another thing is that cancel culture isn't a real thing. Blizzard isn't going to get cancel and will still continue. But god dammit, Method's "exposing" plague has infected Blizzard which is a good thing.
  1. schwank05's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Valkyrst View Post
    Yeah, sexual assault = someone said something mean to someone.

    This is what people mean by privilege. You have the privilege of never having experienced something like this directly. But instead of empathising with people as a result of your privilege, you bask in the ignorance you’ve fostered as a result of it.

    What a stand up guy.
    If full blown Rape happened then I totally side with the victims in the cases, I do not however buy into placing blame until someone has been proven guilty which you are not until you have been found so by a jury of your peers, not in the court of public opinion. The issue with all these allegations in this case and most others is that the media runs wild with every story and blows it up before it goes to trial or is settled, it would be best if media didn't report on these cases until after a verdict or settlement has been reached. As it stands now like most things that used to mean something is that Sexual Assault does not mean what it used to mean or actually means people have watered it down to encompass Rape all the way down to I felt bad after having sex and now I am going to say I was raped.

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