Employee Response to Bobby Kotick, Additional Information on Cosby Suite

[DingDongKing]

Well, for what it's worth, it seems the sexual assault allegations only started becoming "viral" in September 2014: August 2014 vs September 2014.

Even if they kept the joke going after that, at that point it was already an inside joke to them, which they were discussing privately, so it's entirely possible that it wasn't in any way a rape/abuse joke.



Well yes, that's the point. Let's not lose our minds over how scandalous every little out-of-context comment any Blizz develop has made over the last 10 years might sound now, and focus on discussing facts and supporting the employees how we can.

Honestly, I don't care about the whole Cosby suite thing. And I think most people focussed on the bigger picture don't.

There's mainly two parties focussing on it.

Party A is just going to get mad at every detail regarding the cases of harassment, which I can somewhat get.

Party B is using the timeline of the naming of this Cosby suite as grounds to try and dismiss the entire notion of sexual harassment. Which is dumb.

No, the point is she was involved in that situation and undoubtedly knew about shit. Now this comes out and people look at her with a raised brow, expecting her to explain what she meant and she goes "Actually, I was a victim too, I just didn't want to tell anyone," therefore deflecting any potential complicity and involvement, and people eat it up and call her brave for sharing her story where she was pressured into it.

What she purports to have happened to her may well have happened, but it doesn't take away her part in knowing about what was going on. If it was a small time male developer in the same situation, he'd have been ripped apart if he so much as tried to deflect.

It's a delicate one. I know how hard speaking up in a case of sexual harassment is. I've had someone at a previous company under my reporting chain experience it. I had to raise a HR case to get her to talk about it, because she didn't want to go through the trauma of the grievance process.

And as her manager, I can tell you it was fucking EXHAUSTING then having to detail every little thing and watch her relive it.

So it's really no point trying to ascertain the intent behind why she didn't speak up. Could've been apathy, could've been fear. Many things.

[Timester]

Guys, it could be the Madre Teresa room for all I care, the important is what was happening inside and outside that room.

[DingDongKing]

Guys, it could be the Madre Teresa room for all I care, the important is what was happening inside and outside that room.

Bingo. We have the winning answer. Inb4 the denial crew goes 'BUT HER TWEETS!' and then rename her Hilary Clinton.

[zorkuus]

Alex was fired because of it, Blizzard itself considered him guilty.

Yes, that doesn't mean they all had a part in sexual harassment, or cover-up. Some may have simply taken part in a cringey inside joke they didn't know had a deeper meaning to those few perverts.

[Yarathir]

It's a delicate one. I know how hard speaking up in a case of sexual harassment is. I've had someone at a previous company under my reporting chain experience it. I had to raise a HR case to get her to talk about it, because she didn't want to go through the trauma of the grievance process.

And as her manager, I can tell you it was fucking EXHAUSTING then having to detail every little thing and watch her relive it.

So it's really no point trying to ascertain the intent behind why she didn't speak up. Could've been apathy, could've been fear. Many things.

Yeah, I get that. But it just feels it's brought up now to not be implicated, especially what with the constant unsolicited bringing up of the name in twitter threads as a hahafunny injoke.

[Mardux]

Those responses to GC adding context that Kotaku chose to not include (contextually accurate portrayals tend to get less clicks than buzzwords and bandwagons) read like the typically inept trolling of the average MMOC user. Its kind of gross.

[DingDongKing]

Yes, that doesn't mean they all had a part in sexual harassment, or cover-up. Some may have simply taken part in a cringey inside joke they didn't know had a deeper meaning to those few perverts.

No one is fucking saying they all contributed to the sexual harassment, but it's also extremely naive to assume they didn't know.

Whether they covered up or not is a different matter. And this is all regardless of this Cosby Suite. Sort yourself out.

Yeah, I get that. But it just feels it's brought up now to not be implicated, especially what with the constant unsolicited bringing up of the name in twitter threads as a hahafunny injoke.

It's likely brought up now because people would've dug up her old tweets and she's now explaining what happened back then.

[Kolvarg]

Party B is using the timeline of the naming of this Cosby suite as grounds to try and dismiss the entire notion of sexual harassment. Which is dumb.

Can you quote anyone doing this?

[DingDongKing]

https://www.wowhead.com/news/investo...against-323598

RIP Activision-Blizzard

It's no big deal. These happen all the time in the industry. It's basically an investigation to understand why the investigation was just lobbed out into the world all of a sudden, without the investors having any forewarning of it. The opposite of this is when material non public information gets leaked during an acquisition, thus allowing someone to buy stock of a company before an expected bump in valuation. Separate to this, Fran Townsend needs to be sacked. She's probably reduced a lot of investor confidence with her dumb fucking statement a few days ago. Total bloodbath.

Can you quote anyone doing this?

Read the last few pages of the thread. There's enough trolls implying it left, right and centre.

Cosby Suite? Bah, it's just an in-joke. Nothing happened. It's just a joke. Snowflakes!

[cirdanx]

Again, Blizzard AND The State of California have carried out their own investigations. Blizzard also carried out an INDEPENDENT investigation.

All three investigations came to the conclusion that Afrasiabi was culpable of sexual harassment. So it's not alleged.

If you're upset that harassment happens at Blizzard or just that harassment happens, that's fine. Just don't be in denial to make yourself feel better.

Blizzard would fire him anyway, realistically speaking because his reputation now is ruined and that reflects back at the company.

Yes, you are right with the investigation. But that´s what the lawsuit is for. If the investigation is actually correct it will reflect in the court. As long as there is no court judgment on that i´m not jumping to conclusion. Though, I do believe the Afrasiabi case to be true. My point is that we lack context.

But I do wonder why people are losing their mind over this. So far it seems ONLY Afrasiabi was actually committing sexual harassment at a party. Meaning his drunk ass fucked up and he will bear the consequences. Did I miss something or are there more “proven/supposedly” acts of sexual harassment in that company?

And no, i´m not upset that anything like that happens at Blizzard, why would I be? Stuff like this can happen at any company/place. I can´t count the times when drunk guys/women got touchy or more when I was partying, I just didn´t scream harassment and tried to take down a company.

[Timester]

Yes, that doesn't mean they all had a part in sexual harassment, or cover-up. Some may have simply taken part in a cringey inside joke they didn't know had a deeper meaning to those few perverts.

They "joke" about Alex's sexual predatory attitude. Shit happened in there, which led to Blizzard firing him and being mentioned on the state lawsuit.

It's hard to believe that the rest of the Cosby Crew knew.

[Nimin]

"I am seriously questioning your leadership ability if you think "it was a joke" is the right thing to say here. Jokes like that are never harmless. They normalize the behavior that led to more abuse towards women."

I don't know who this guy is, but kindly fuck off from our planet.

[zorkuus]

They "joke" about Alex's sexual predatory attitude.

They joke about "bringing in women" and fucking. Nothing in that implies them joking about predatory behavior (or knowing about it). What prudes are you? Many guys talk about shit like that all the time, without sexual harassment involved.

[DingDongKing]

Blizzard would fire him anyway, realistically speaking because his reputation now is ruined and that reflects back at the company.

Yes, you are right with the investigation. But that´s what the lawsuit is for. If the investigation is actually correct it will reflect in the court. As long as there is no court judgment on that i´m not jumping to conclusion. Though, I do believe the Afrasiabi case to be true. My point is that we lack context.

But I do wonder why people are losing their mind over this. So far it seems ONLY Afrasiabi was actually committing sexual harassment at a party. Meaning his drunk ass fucked up and he will bear the consequences. Did I miss something or are there more “proven/supposedly” acts of sexual harassment in that company?

And no, i´m not upset that anything like that happens at Blizzard, why would I be? Stuff like this can happen at any company/place. I can´t count the times when drunk guys/women got touchy or more when I was partying, I just didn´t scream harassment and tried to take down a company.

That's really not true. Companies don't dismiss people based on reputational risk based on unfounded allegations. Because that's a bigger risk.

The lawsuit is not just that. It's a wider civil lawsuit that deals with a number of perceived discriminatory practices, some of which are hard to prove.

The reason people are 'losing their minds' is because he's the only NAMED individual. There are more in the company engaging in similar activity.

It's doubly compounded because there's corroborated information about senior leadership failing to take decisive action in dealing with the matters.

Again, it is a wide spectrum from how touchy to straight up inappropriate. So it's silly to use anecdotal evidence from your own life to draw parallels.

Because just for context, one employee was so severely traumatised by pictures of her body parts being shared without her permission, that she committed suicide. If something like this was to happen at your company, would you just ignore it and trod along like nothing happened?

[cirdanx]

Guys, it could be the Madre Teresa room for all I care, the important is what was happening inside and outside that room.

Probably alcohol, party...and sex...at least i´m sure some Blizzard fan girls wouldn´t say no to some devs. It´s kinda the nature of big events, just go to a rock concert.

Of course, now people think they probably drugged up girls there and did a Cosby because they joked about the room name. /ugh

[Kolvarg]

Read the last few pages of the thread. There's enough trolls implying it left, right and centre.

Just went over the latest 3 pages and didn't see a single example of this. So I ask again: Can you quote anyone doing it, let alone enough to justify claiming they're a significant "party" of the discussion?

[DingDongKing]

Probably alcohol, party...and sex...at least i´m sure some Blizzard fan girls wouldn´t say no to some devs. It´s kinda the nature of big events, just go to a rock concert.

Of course, now people think they probably drugged up girls there and did a Cosby because they joked about the room name. /ugh

You're making a lot of erroneous and blanket assumptions. And what you're leading to is basically, 'they wanted to have fun but are now claiming it wasn't'. Again, you're trying to rationalise what happened. Whether to make yourself feel better or because you're in denial, who knows?

[Kumorii]

Find it odd with the digging of old tweets referring to Cosby that predates people knowledge of his acts... wouldn't that mean anyone who watched Cosby and liked him in 2013 and even earlier need to be called out? This behaviour is really strange to me... I'm sure plenty of people who does the digging actually did like Cosby in 2013 as well.

[DingDongKing]

Just went over the latest 3 pages and didn't see a single example of this. So I ask again: Can you quote anyone doing it, let alone enough to justify claiming they're a significant "party" of the discussion?

How about what? I see stupid jokes. Friends and colleagues do that you know.

do you expect me to read 3 pages if maybe you answered?))))

maybe they heard) maybe the don't)

you just trying to tell me that mythical sound workers who should be in b. office somehow was wondering around hollywood because reason just to spread rumors

and then you are implying they went to devs and spread rumors and then horny dev said "ok, it's funny I'll name our boy club after sexual predator"

or maybe everything was simple someone liked cosby and the name started)))

if you hear hooves think horses not zebras you know

Two posters there, both following a fairly similar line of 'it's just a joke' which is also then surrounded by a lot of denial about the abuse itself.

[Nimin]

Two posters there, both following a fairly similar line of 'it's just a joke' which is also then surrounded by a lot of denial about the abuse itself.

That sounds like a joke. When buddies meet in private they joke all the time about stuff they'd never say in public and whom they don't believe in the slightest, it's part of the fun. Breaking taboos is fun, and if you're with your buddy you know neither's really gonna take that seriously. I see nothing there that suggests they're serious.
Either you're an absolute prude or you lived a very sad life with no real close friends to mess around with.