Blizzard Employee Letter to Leadership, Other Responses to Lawsuit

[Clbull]

Diablo Immortal is one of the most scandalous things they've done in recent years; they weren't capable of even re-releasing Warcraft III without completely ruining a legendary game; there's no Overwatch 2 in sight; WoW isn't being developed and Hearthstone, like all their succesful IPs, are the result of the "old guard" doing their job.

I'm surprised Immortal is taking this long to come out. Isn't it basically a reskin of an existing NetEase ARPG?

Or was the original plan to reskin a crappy mobile Diablo clone scrapped after Blizzcon 2018's backlash?

[Magnagarde]

Sure, blame the victims. Hey, that woman was asking for rape, by wearing that skirt, right? Right?

Why are you creating a strawman arguement? Where did the user you quoted say or even remotely imply that?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome aboard! We would like to inform you that todays flight will not take place, as our co-pilot has some girlfriend trouble (with Sally, from accounting). If your reaction to this going on right now is to complain that your flight is going to take longer to reach its destination, then you need to take a step back and realize that you are part of the problem. Continue to pay us money while we do not provide the service you desired!"

[sil3ntearth]

I want the people responsible for this shitshow to be punished. I also think the employees of Blizzard need our support right now. Yes, we pay for their product, yes we deserve a a product in return, but they are human beings as well. Let's be careful not to condemn an entire company because some asshats in positions of power abused and traumatized the people underneath them. What message does it send to further traumatize them by condemning them and their body of work.

Compassion. Our society seems to be out of it at the moment. I stand with the employees at Blizzard that work their ass off providing their best work for us.

[Gadzooks]

Reading the UpperCutCrit article. Yeah, this is gonna get worse.

When asked about unionization by one of the employees, Taub’s answer was again pushing for internal handling of these situations. “The best way for protection is reaching out to your supervisors, hotline and avenues,” Taub allegedly responded, once again pushing for employees to trust in systems that have clearly already failed them.

So I'm guessing the culture at the ATVI offices in Santa Monica is worse, if true.

[DingDongKing]

I want the people responsible for this shitshow to be punished. I also think the employees of Blizzard need our support right now. Yes, we pay for their product, yes we deserve a a product in return, but they are human beings as well. Let's be careful not to condemn an entire company because some asshats in positions of power abused and traumatized the people underneath them. What message does it send to further traumatize them by condemning them and their body of work.

Compassion. Our society seems to be out of it at the moment. I stand with the employees at Blizzard that work their ass off providing their best work for us.

10. On. 10. Excellent post, dude.

[Gadzooks]

Why are you creating a strawman arguement? Where did the user you quoted say or even remotely imply that?

You know what you posted, and you know that I'm right. Stop posting childish things, and stop being part of the problem. It's not a hard job, not being an asshole. Even little kids can get that done, but it seems to escape you.

[Femininity]

Sure, blame the victims. Hey, that woman was asking for rape, by wearing that skirt, right? Right?

In what possible alternate dimension is calling the bystanders and onlookers that shrugged their shoulders while contributing to the continued proliferation of this toxic work environment... victim blaming?

You've got to be kidding me. Silence is complicity. Suddenly seeing the light when it's safe or advantageous to do so doesn't make you any less complicit.

All these people are recalcitrant now, while the roaches scatter.

[Grim32]

I do so love people believing allegations, and acting on it. Innocent until proven guilty, right? Oh... never mind.

[Giannis-GR]

Sure, blame the victims. Hey, that woman was asking for rape, by wearing that skirt, right? Right?

No. He/She is actually saying the opposite.

What you say, e.g. the victim blaming, was most likely being done by - at the very least - SOME of the people signing the letter.

Otherwise, if at least some of those signing, who knew what was happening, did something about it, then we wouldn’t know about it years after the events.

Fact is: these people signing, by their own words, saw harassment in front of their eyes. What did they do?

A) They condoned it quietly by keeping their mouths shut;

B) They victim-blamed; or

C) They called it out.

We know for SURE they didn’t do “C”.

Because we would either know about it or they’d been fired for speaking up.

You can sugarcoat all you want. The above “A, B, C” is a logical fact

[Morgaith]

How dare people expect the working product they are paying for!

[Queen of Hamsters]

If the next patches and expansions become delayed as they work things out internally, I wouldn't be the kind of person to whinge about it. If people believe that their sub is for continued development rather than access to the servers, those same people can just oooh... Unsub? Simplicity at its finest.

I have to say though, I don't feel like this is some sort of "Apocalypse", I remember the Hong Kong incident just fine with its cries on social media. That, and the other companies where these sort of things came out about the company atmosphere and culture...

Just take it piano, stop subbing if you feel like that's something you have to do, be it in solidarity or because you dislike the idea of paying when there's no development happening, and all will be fine.

[MoanaLisa]

Not by her - more Kotick. I'd never heard of his sexual harassment case, until this weekend. He wasn't the harasser, but man, that dude is one egotistical turd blossom, in every respect. I would wager that his personal hire being told to step down did not go over well.

But he's gotta move, now. They're forcing his hand. We'll see who Kotick is, fairly soon, I'm thinking. He's the kind of guy to wipe the slate to keep his nest egg secure. Like, settle the suit, and then fire...er, "lay off" everyone who signed that. Going by his lawsuit, he's that guy.

Kotick will likely take some heads, maybe Brack to attempt to mollify people and there's good reason to do so given the hand-waving of Afrasiabi and the ongoing disparity in pay and the rest of the lawsuit. The management team at Blizzard has had plenty of time to address that and clearly haven't so they're all vulnerable in that respect. Blizzard's principals who had more to do with their corporate culture than anyone have mostly left over the last two years so apart from possibly throwing them under the bus—something I do expect—the best he can do is move in a different management team.

I don't think it will be everyone who signed that. There's too many for one thing.

Not related to this but probably in the back of Brack's and Kotick's mind: Kotick has likely and rightfully spent the last year up Blizzard's ass about their not releasing any new games. Blizzard didn't do themselves any favor by blaming Santa Monica for their problems with WC3. Personally think that over the long run this is a bigger point of contention between Anaheim and Santa Monica and one that Blizzard has a high degree of responsibility for fixing. All of these 'unannounced projects' that keep getting cancelled points to some serious issues with Blizzard. They need something new and apparently have nothing. I do love Blizzard and their games but for years they've been fat and slow and failed to respond adequately (or at all) to changes in the business (re: see mobile). That's a dynamic that I have to think underlies their relationship today. This lawsuit and Blizzard's inability to stave off the filing of it and meet California half-way is just another match to the fuse.

[La]

Did that douchebag really imply that people complaining about an even longer content drought means they just don't care about abuse or some shit? The fuck are they on. You could've said a million things, but that was what you went with? Not a, you know, unsubscribe or it sucks we can't deliver for a game people pay $15 a month for. Just a.. straight up, you know, you hate wimins

Like, it's even less MY problem that your higher ups were pieces of human garbage, and that your very own employees went along with it *shock* until it was too late. Oh but it's da players that are wrong. What fucking dumbass lmao. You're seriously gonna have the nerve to quote the players on human decency and respect after what's going on at Blizzard? Holy fuck.

[mrgreenthump]

"Good morning ladies and gentlemen and welcome aboard! We would like to inform you that todays flight will not take place, as our co-pilot has some girlfriend trouble (with Sally, from accounting). If your reaction to this going on right now is to complain that your flight is going to take longer to reach its destination, then you need to take a step back and realize that you are part of the problem. Continue to pay us money while we do not provide the service you desired!"

Yeah was going to post about this. We are paying for a service that they are providing and he makes it like we are part of the problem when waiting for value out of the money we are giving them. Now if they came out and said "Sorry, we are a mess. WoW is now free to play for the next 3 months." He might have a valid point, but as is.. It's pure bullshit.

[Clbull]

A "2 year investigation" from the most corrupt liberal state in the country.

They had their conclusion before starting.

Who would you sooner trust, the California Department of Fair Employment & Housing, or a sleazy CEO who lost a sexual harassment suit from 15 years ago and who pockets nine figure bonuses while his subsidiary companies go through layoffs?

[DingDongKing]

This is what a childish post looks like:

@Gadzooks may have misinterpreted what the poster was saying, but even then the post he was reacting to was pathetic.

'Oh they didn't speak up before but are now! What virtue signallers!' No, they were probably afraid of speaking up due to a lack of accountability and presence of retaliation/adverse consequence to speaking up. Furthermore, it's obvious that HR complaints were also being made privately.

So yeah, whilst @Gadzooks may have overreacted, some of the insensitive bile on display in this forum at the moment is just mad.

[Sithalos]

Why are you creating a strawman arguement? Where did the user you quoted say or even remotely imply that?

It's okay. Their snowglobe wasn't being shaken enough, so they have to shake it themselves.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Did that douchebag really imply that people complaining about an even longer content drought means they just don't care about abuse or some shit? The fuck are they on

Given how Ion blamed the customers for why his game is so shitty, it seems that they might have an ego problem.

The problems with Torghast were not easily picked up in the beta because players on the beta were there to simply check out Torghast and didn't have the specific goals in mind that come in a live environment.

Blizzard also did this song and dance with the artifacts and the RNGendaries during the Legion beta. Players - Preach, the forums everyone - called out the problems with them months before release. Blizzard ignored what their testers were saying and released those systems in shitty states, and the turned around said "uh, we didn't know that they were bad! Why didn't our players tell us?". Same with Azerite for BFA, and Chorghast for Shadowlands.

Can you imagine other companies saying "it's not our fault the washing machine we sold to our customers was broken! Our unpaid testers didn't tell us! (even though they did. For several months before release).

[DingDongKing]

Yeah was going to post about this. We are paying for a service that they are providing and he makes it like we are part of the problem when waiting for value out of the money we are giving them. Now if they came out and said "Sorry, we are a mess. WoW is now free to play for the next 3 months." He might have a valid point, but as is.. It's pure bullshit.

He's fucking right though. You value game content more than the welfare of people.