Mike Morhaime Response to Blizzard Lawsuit

[Soon-TM]

So to be clear this was the Blizzard part of Activision Blizzard?

Yes, and by the looks of it, especially (part of) the WoW team, since Afrasiabi is singled out as one of the biggest offenders.

[Newname1234567890]

Yes, and by the looks of it, especially (part of) the WoW team, since Afrasiabi is singled out as one of the biggest offenders.

I'll be honest considering wows appearent push for increased females writers etc I assumed it was gonna be the cod guys.

Anyway fuck Blizzard!

[Tic Tacs]

Is it universal because it happens everywhere in the globe or is it universal because predominantly america has had these issues and now america has a toxic feminist movement doing the exact same thing as the toxic masculine movement used to do?

I think Blizzard is one of the few feminist social justice gaming company on the market right now. I remember they even bragged about hiring 200% more women few years back. If we are talking about catering towards feminist crowd, Blizzard is no doubt on the top of the list.

Last two expansions many female characters were introduced into the main story line, major ones were Jenna in BfA and Sylvanas in Shadowlands. I expect some bad apples going to get fired for sure.

Otherwise, business as usually for Blizzard, maybe they will introduce another store mount as charity to some feminist organization. Real question is how many players they going to lose because of this.

[GUZ]

It goes - with saying - me too

[Rexosaurus]

I just wanted to mention that it is possible for people to not know about horrible behavior by coworkers. I had a horrible year at one unit in the marines, and my husband had no clue what the culture was like. Our coworkers respected him (possibly feared his reactions), he was a dude, and he only ever heard others talking shit one time about the women. He was in the unit for 3 years, and had no idea. Most of the bosses had no clue either, and the two ding dongs in leadership who participated made sure not even a hint made it up the chain. So yes, I believe Metzen, and (most) of the others. They had HR, they had policies in place, there were over 1,000 employees, and I'm sure he was NOT involved in day-to-day personnel management. In a unit of 50, guys were able to hide it, I'm sure it was much easier in offices spread around the world.

Yeah, I definitely have to agree with you and I'm at least willing to suspend my (mostly useless) judgement on Metzen's culpability because of that. My squadron in the air force had a similar situation going on. I was largely kept in the dark about sketchy shit that was going on after duty hours because I had a reputation for bringing the hammer down on anyone that I found pulling it. Unfortunately, many people teach their kids from a young age that no one likes a tattle-tail or a narc, so a lot of people are basically conditioned not to speak up about serious situations like this and they'll actively avoid anyone that will blow the lid off of it. Not to mention the rest of the complicated emotions that a victim feels about speaking up. That can definitely lead to instances where leadership/mid-line supervisors don't know about a lot of insidious crap that's going on. At that point I'm not sure who you should blame except for the d-bags that are committing the crimes.

That said, I don't know the full situation at Blizzard. I'm sure that it's a little bit different in every company. So if a bunch of their employees/former employees say that they tried to reach out to these Blizzard execs and found no help, or if said execs were aware of how ineffective their reporting system was, then I'd be inclined to believe those employees that are calling them out. I haven't seen anyone directly attack Metzen yet, but I definitely saw one woman lighting up Morhaime on twitter.

[DingDongKing]

Yeah, I definitely have to agree with you and I'm at least willing to suspend my (mostly useless) judgement on Metzen's culpability because of that. My squadron in the air force had a similar situation going on. I was largely kept in the dark about sketchy shit that was going on after duty hours because I had a reputation for bringing the hammer down on anyone that I found pulling it. Unfortunately, many people teach their kids from a young age that no one likes a tattle-tail or a narc, so a lot of people are basically conditioned not to speak up about serious situations like this and they'll actively avoid anyone that will blow the lid off of it. Not to mention the rest of the complicated emotions that a victim feels about speaking up. That can definitely lead to instances where leadership/mid-line supervisors don't know about a lot of insidious crap that's going on. At that point I'm not sure who you should blame except for the d-bags that are committing the crimes.

That said, I don't know the full situation at Blizzard. I'm sure that it's a little bit different in every company. So if a bunch of their employees/former employees say that they tried to reach out to these Blizzard execs and found no help, or if said execs were aware of how ineffective their reporting system was, then I'd be inclined to believe those employees that are calling them out. I haven't seen anyone directly attack Metzen yet, but I definitely saw one woman lighting up Morhaime on twitter.

Multiple people have come forward saying Morhaime knew and did nothing, which is the issue. If he was actually in the dark, it would be a different matter. This is more a case of him ignoring it, in the hope that it would go away. Pure douchebag behaviour.

[MoanaLisa]

I just wanted to mention that it is possible for people to not know about horrible behavior by coworkers. I had a horrible year at one unit in the marines, and my husband had no clue what the culture was like. Our coworkers respected him (possibly feared his reactions), he was a dude, and he only ever heard others talking shit one time about the women. He was in the unit for 3 years, and had no idea. Most of the bosses had no clue either, and the two ding dongs in leadership who participated made sure not even a hint made it up the chain. So yes, I believe Metzen, and (most) of the others. They had HR, they had policies in place, there were over 1,000 employees, and I'm sure he was NOT involved in day-to-day personnel management. In a unit of 50, guys were able to hide it, I'm sure it was much easier in offices spread around the world.

It is possible but there are a number of things that need to be pointed out here: Where were the team leaders and supervisors during the cubicle crawls? Were they reporting up to their bosses? If so, why were they largely ignored? How does an office environment descend to "frat-house" level with management not knowing?

It doesn't pass the smell test that you can have that sort of stuff going on in an office environment, never mind the tales of drug use and the rest that we're all familiar with (Hi Chris Metzen...), and the management team is completely ignorant about it. A management team I might add that are all pretty much gamers themselves and often claimed that they were close to the artists, developers and the rest who are on the ground. "We're close but didn't know about this." Hard to swallow.

Have to wait for details as this moves forward barring a settlement that locks all of this away.

[Rexosaurus]

Multiple people have come forward saying Morhaime knew and did nothing, which is the issue. If he was actually in the dark, it would be a different matter. This is more a case of him ignoring it, in the hope that it would go away. Pure douchebag behaviour.

Oh yeah, the tweets that Cher Scarlett sent out seemed pretty damning as far as Morhaime goes. I've kind of already written him off.

Metzen is the big 'question mark' in my books. I'd like to believe him because he seems like a nice and thoughtful person on the surface, but we'll see if anyone comes forward/calls him out specifically.

EDIT ---

How does an office environment descend to "frat-house" level with management not knowing?

That's probably my biggest hang-up on them being "in the dark." If this was going on at work, then I do find it a little harder to believe that they didn't know about some of the allegations in the suit. That said, I really have no idea how their offices are set up or how present someone like Metzen was around the office (especially during his mental breakdown and/or drugs? phase).

[Zinstorm]

cant they just segregate men and women at blizzard everyone can still do their jobs without any risk of feelings being hurt

.....yea because segregation in general has worked very well in the past.... do you honestly think the issue would magickly be "fixed" if blizzard separated their workers based on sex? Do you honestly believe that this situation came about just because a bunch of people just got "hurt feelings"?

If the answer in your mind to ether of those questions are yes... then you clearly haven't been paying attention.

[qwerty123456]

Oh yeah, the tweets that Cher Scarlett sent out seemed pretty damning as far as Morhaime goes. I've kind of already written him off.

Metzen is the big 'question mark' in my books. I'd like to believe him because he seems like a nice and thoughtful person on the surface, but we'll see if anyone comes forward/calls him out specifically.

I didn't read all her tweets but I think in one she said he knew and told someone to "take care of it" which she thought ment firing her or what ever. How much of that is her interpretation? If someone's job is to do dishes and I ask them to take care of it and someone thinks I ment for the person to throw them away clearly they are misinterpreting my intent.

It is possible but there are a number of things that need to be pointed out here: Where were the team leaders and supervisors during the cubicle crawls? Were they reporting up to their bosses? If so, why were they largely ignored? How does an office environment descend to "frat-house" level with management not knowing?

It doesn't pass the smell test that you can have that sort of stuff going on in an office environment, never mind the tales of drug use and the rest that we're all familiar with (Hi Chris Metzen...), and the management team is completely ignorant about it. A management team I might add that are all pretty much gamers themselves and often claimed that they were close to the artists, developers and the rest who are on the ground. "We're close but didn't know about this." Hard to swallow.

Have to wait for details as this moves forward barring a settlement that locks all of this away.

Well there is the saying "When the cat's away, the mice will play". And I think there was a report that like 40-50% of all internet usage at jobs in the US is non work related which I think kinda shows alot of people are overestimating the ability of a supervisor to know all the shit that's going down around them. Especially when they have multiple things to do besides just watching over a single group of people. I think another good example everyone should be familiar with is teachers in school. We all were kids once and unless you were homeschooled I guarantee you know of some incidents where in a confined space students did shit that the teacher didn't notice. Hopefully not sexual assault levels of bad but I'm sure you know several things a teacher was blissfully unaware of. I'm not sure how many of the dudes that allegedly did the stuff in question were so ballsy as to try and grab a titty in front of a higher up unless that person was doing the same thing. It will be interesting to see how this plays out and if alot of the higher ups were just kept out of the loop or what.

[Powerogue]

I mean it's not like we can tell him "get in your time machine, go back 3 years and fix this then!" People can say it's hollow, but he's not in a position to do more.

[Varjo410]

Funny how everybody always never saw it or heard about it. Just like the Weinstein, Epstein situations.
Especially Metzen claiming he never had dealings with Afrasiabi non-work-related when it's clear from their Blizzcon interactions they were close buddies.

[PenguinChan]

Right now it's not really a 'did they know' situation it's more of a 'what did they do' situation. Obviously those in power who did nothing are to blame, those who had no power or very little were ignored. And seeing as how Mike (Seemingly) had wind of this going on and did nothing... Yeah, this makes me look very unwelcoming to Blizzard, let alone old Blizzard. I'm hoping a few key members and leads are exempt from this culture and shit - but I'm not keeping my hopes up.

[Pheraz]

Funny how everybody always never saw it or heard about it. Just like the Weinstein, Epstein situations.
Especially Metzen claiming he never had dealings with Afrasiabi non-work-related when it's clear from their Blizzcon interactions they were close buddies.

I have this dark feeling that metzen and samwise are actually one of the worst of them all. They really stress this overly manly man behaviour of dwarfs and orcs in some of their fantasies. But yeah. Just a feeling

[Muxtar]

This is such a ridiculous amount of hyperbole. At worst some people will stop buying their games and the people who are named in the lawsuit will find it harder to find new jobs though some of them probably already have. People are allowed to voice opinions on the internet. That does not = 'mob justice'. Just as we as consumers can use whatever sense of corporate responsibility we want to apply to companies to decide whether we want to buy their products.

These 'opinions on the internet' ruin people's careers and future, because way too many companies which are afraid of public reaction (and profit decrease), hurry to fire people 'in advance'. Most recent and vivid example is the case of Kael'Thas voice actor, which was fired immediately, but later it was clarified that accusations were false. And guess what? He didn't get his job or reputation back.
It is not just 'opinions on the internet' at all.

[natham]

Why people pretend they actually care?

[arboachg]

https://twitter.com/gamedevconnie/st...80007973642242

[Saltysquidoon]

Not shocking someone is calling Metzen out the guy always shot from the hip and when you mix that with being so coked out he probably thought he was thrall for a big period at the company he's definitely going to have said some stupid shit.

[DingDongKing]

Metzen's probably culpable from a perspective of sheer inaction and ignorance. It's a stink show across the board.

[ClassicPeon]

Metzen's probably culpable from a perspective of sheer inaction and ignorance. It's a stink show across the board.

And the vultures emerges in throves.

Its like people have been waiting dormantly for something like this for ages