Activision-Blizzard Sued By California

[Rennadrel]

https://diabolical.substack.com/p/th...tm_source=copy

Erik Kane goes pretty in-depth on his blog quite often and this one really outlines the fallout of GamerGate in 2014 and what really got missed by those who opposed it and that's the blatant discrimination of women and minorities in the gaming industry itself, and not just bullying and harassment from gamers by people who intentionally fanned the flames with hit-pieces like "Gamers are Dead".

This bit in particular was an interesting perspective in particular

What the anti-GamerGate movement missed, obviously, was the real problem facing women in the video game industry: The industry itself. The institutional hurdles facing women in video games at video game companies. The bad people who worked at these publishers.

I noted at the time (somewhere, can’t find it) that it’s surely not gamers’ fault that the only women you see at E3 or GDC seem to be in PR. That’s not because GamerGate was driving women out of the industry. Hell, there weren’t that many women in the industry in 2014 to begin with compared to men.

It’s because of the Old Boys Club.

The fucking Cosby Suite was a thing at BlizzCon in 2013, a year before GG was even a twinkle in Adam Baldwin’s eye (but many years after the first Cosby sexual assault allegations were made)—but we’re supposed to think that it’s a ragtag group of anonymous gamers on 4chan that present the biggest threat to women in video games? This kind of corporate misogyny and abuse was going on long before GamerGate and kept going on, unabated, during the intervening years even with the rise of the #MeToo movement. The real threat facing women in video games isn’t some asshole on Twitter. It’s the asshole behind the desk writing checks and making hiring decisions and calling the shots and turning a blind eye.

What have I been saying for a decade now? What has Jim Sterling been saying? We’ve been pointing out, over and over again, that this industry stinks. Ethics in game journalism is a concern not because journalists are horrible people but because these publishers are all about money and don’t care one single iota about the working conditions their workforce faces (until it becomes a scandal) or the sexual harassment and abuse women face from their superiors (until it becomes a scandal) or the shitty business practices they employ, like loot boxes (until it becomes a scandal).

Why waste precious time writing about how awful these incel gamers are when the real villains, the mustache-twirling motherfuckers, are the ones in the high towers calling the shots, not holding their managers accountable, not paying their employees well enough, burdening their developers with crunch, turning a blind eye to rampant sexual harassment, laying off hundreds or thousands of employees while laughing all the way to the bank with their bonuses and stock options and massive profits? Sure, there are plenty of bad, racist, sexist annoying gamers also. The video game community can absolutely suck at times (anyone who plays competitive games knows this) but you can’t change human nature. You can, on the other hand, hold companies’ feet to the fire. Or you can try.

Gaming journalists like Jason Schreier have known about this as far back as 2014, maybe even earlier because the boys club mentality has been a thing in the gaming industry as far back as the 80's. Why didn't it get reported on? No doubt because many of the insiders and contacts these journalists have at these gaming companies, are those perpetrating and upholding the harassment and denigration of women in the industry. Yet he tries to deny any knowledge of it and has the audacity to insult people for calling him out for his lack of ethics. There's a lot more to that article, and it's definitely worth a read because Kain has no qualms with criticizing people who were both supporters and those against GamerGate.

[unfilteredJW]

You have to be fucking kidding me.

[Draco-Onis]

Gaming journalists like Jason Schreier have known about this as far back as 2014, maybe even earlier because the boys club mentality has been a thing in the gaming industry as far back as the 80's. Why didn't it get reported on? No doubt because many of the insiders and contacts these journalists have at these gaming companies, are those perpetrating and upholding the harassment and denigration of women in the industry. Yet he tries to deny any knowledge of it and has the audacity to insult people for calling him out for his lack of ethics. There's a lot more to that article, and it's definitely worth a read because Kain has no qualms with criticizing people who were both supporters and those against GamerGate.

Even if he knew what should he have done? Blizzard employees sign NDAs and are forced into arbitrage for any complaint. If he came out with an article Blizzard would sue Kotaku which he worked for at the time into the ground there' no way he would have gotten the go ahead to publish this. Since Alex was very blatant about his behavior doing it at Blizzon yes lots of people knew but it's not what you know it's what you can prove.

[Edge-]

Even if he knew what should he have done? Blizzard employees sign NDAs and are forced into arbitrage for any complaint. If he came out with an article Blizzard would sue Kotaku which he worked for at the time into the ground there' no way he would have gotten the go ahead to publish this. Since Alex was very blatant about his behavior doing it at Blizzon yes lots of people knew but it's not what you know it's what you can prove.

That's not how it works. Blizzard could try to sue Kotaku, but they have no real standing to do so and could only try to go after any employees that spoke with him. And it would have already been published at that point, so the damage would have been done. I don't doubt that many of these stories were known about, but if the victims didn't want to speak with media about them officially (anonymously), it would be extremely poor form for media to report on them and ignore the victims wishes. Even if there were many victims they knew about.

That being said, I honestly don't know why we're detouring down goobergummer road. I guess some people can't let a pointless, stupid, drama filled event go even years and years after it's been totally irrelevant.

[Kokolums]

Holy shit Blizz is not getting it. THEY are the ones being toxic. Trying to shift focus onto players being toxic by removing the /spit emote is fucking disgusting. I hate Blizz even more now. This is the WRONG time for such a move.

STOP FUCKING UP BLIZZARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is Blizzard trying to change the narrative. They cannot deny the allegations, the horrific behavior, so they are going to start hitting us every week with new examples of attacking "player toxicity". The goal is to get people to stop being mad at Blizz and start getting mad at players.

They need to fire everyone in management immediately. This is BLATANT and reprehensible.

[Jastall]

That's not how it works. Blizzard could try to sue Kotaku, but they have no real standing to do so and could only try to go after any employees that spoke with him. And it would have already been published at that point, so the damage would have been done. I don't doubt that many of these stories were known about, but if the victims didn't want to speak with media about them officially (anonymously), it would be extremely poor form for media to report on them and ignore the victims wishes. Even if there were many victims they knew about.

That being said, I honestly don't know why we're detouring down goobergummer road. I guess some people can't let a pointless, stupid, drama filled event go even years and years after it's been totally irrelevant.

Move the conversation towards more favorable grounds, perhaps. Someone else tried (emphasis on the word) to do so not that long ago in the thread after all. It was "why aren't you worried that women do it too??" now it's "why didn't the anti-GG movement fix everything??" line of questionable questioning.

[Edge-]

Holy shit Blizz is not getting it. THEY are the ones being toxic. Trying to shift focus onto players being toxic by removing the /spit emote is fucking disgusting. I hate Blizz even more now. This is the WRONG time for such a move.

STOP FUCKING UP BLIZZARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I thing getting angry about them removing the /spit emote towards other players in the TBC Classic server is like, fairly inconsequential. Especially since they never said why and people are just assuming it's because "they think players are toxic".

[Kokolums]

I thing getting angry about them removing the /spit emote towards other players in the TBC Classic server is like, fairly inconsequential. Especially since they never said why and people are just assuming it's because "they think players are toxic".

OH stop being a Blizz apologist. ITS CLEARLY THE TIMING. YOU NEED TO STOP POSTING.

[Edge-]

OH stop being a Blizz apologist. ITS CLEARLY THE TIMING. YOU NEED TO STOP POSTING.

Aight dude, truly this is as grave an insult to the players as the harassment that female and male employees suffered for years at Blizzard and Activision. You think good 'ol Bobby put in a call to the team to demand this change?

Pointing out that you're flying off the rails over a trivial in-game change in a thread actually discussing the longterm harassment and abuse that employees suffered and how Blizzard and Activision allowed it isn't being an apologist.

[unfilteredJW]

OH stop being a Blizz apologist. ITS CLEARLY THE TIMING. YOU NEED TO STOP POSTING.

Is there anything you don't have batshit takes on?

[downnola]

Aight dude, truly this is as grave an insult to the players as the harassment that female and male employees suffered for years at Blizzard and Activision. You think good 'ol Bobby put in a call to the team to demand this change?

Pointing out that you're flying off the rails over a trivial in-game change in a thread actually discussing the longterm harassment and abuse that employees suffered and how Blizzard and Activision allowed it isn't being an apologist.

You have a lot more patience than I do to respond to a dude rationally after freaking out on you in all caps because Blizzard removed an emote (of a disgusting action that would get you punched in almost every circumstance) from the game.

[muto]

After seeing Muffinus' tweet, I'm hopeful that Blizzard may start enacting serious in-game moderation more on the level that Square Enix does in FFXIV. And before any troll puts forth their little pity party complaint, I'd much rather have "forced" kindness than natural toxic bullshit.

The problem is there’s no way to enforce the most toxic of behavior like joining a RBG group and then having people leave after the match starts. I was doing RBGs a few months ago and we had some people join our group, and as soon as the game started they dropped the “n bomb” in Discord, and left, and yeah we lost cause 8 v 10. I don’t even think they got deserter, because it was a premade,
but either way even if they did that’s hardly a punishment compared to us losing 20 points, and they were clearly tanking their ratings.

/spit is hardly toxic compared to the aforementioned.

[Collegeguy]

I thing getting angry about them removing the /spit emote towards other players in the TBC Classic server is like, fairly inconsequential. Especially since they never said why and people are just assuming it's because "they think players are toxic".

Not a bad change though. They could do something about men making skimpy female transmogs and using female avatars for their own personal enjoyment.

[nocturnus]

OH stop being a Blizz apologist. ITS CLEARLY THE TIMING. YOU NEED TO STOP POSTING.

I think you need to get your priorities in order; no one in their right mind cares about the /spit change, especially now.

- - - Updated - - -

After seeing Muffinus' tweet, I'm hopeful that Blizzard may start enacting serious in-game moderation more on the level that Square Enix does in FFXIV. And before any troll puts forth their little pity party complaint, I'd much rather have "forced" kindness than natural toxic bullshit.

Granted, I haven't played FFXIV in a long time and the time I did spend in it, was fairly short. But I do recall it was toxic in its own right; something that was brought over from 11, or so I'm told.

- - - Updated - - -

Not a bad change though. They could do something about men making skimpy female transmogs and using female avatars for their own personal enjoyment.

Why would they do that? There's nothing wrong with [partial] nudity, there is something wrong with people being offended by it. And why did you specify "men" making characters with (in your opinion) "skimpy" transmogs? This suggests discrimination, no?

[Fantomen]

I think you need to get your priorities in order; no one in their right mind cares about the /spit change, especially now.

Blizzard did care so mutch that they removed /spit in the first place, it tell you all about Blizzards prioritization, hollow virtue signaling.....

[Forogil]

The problem is there’s no way to enforce the most toxic of behavior like joining a RBG group and then having people leave after the match starts. I was doing RBGs a few months ago and we had some people join our group, and as soon as the game started they dropped the “n bomb” in Discord, and left, and yeah we lost cause 8 v 10. I don’t even think they got deserter, because it was a premade,
but either way even if they did that’s hardly a punishment compared to us losing 20 points, and they were clearly tanking their ratings.

/spit is hardly toxic compared to the aforementioned.

When changing things there are a number of considerations: time to implement, visibility, complexity of implementing, etc.

If they are planning to do a number of things it makes sense to push out the ones that they can do quickly first, like removing /spit; but redesigning RBG-rating systems (so that there is less benefit to throwing the game) would be more complicated and time-consuming.

But it could also be that they only plan to do token actions, and will only remove /spit; and it could be that it was scheduled before any of this.

- - - Updated - - -

No, but that has no bearing on the current topic since all the reports of misbehavior, and the lawsuit, focus on the men in the company harassing women, and other men.

The focus is on that - but it's not that there wasn't anything else.

Murillo Cuellar felt he was harassed by female employees at Blizzard; and in the law-suit we don't know who in HR misbehaved in terms of not keeping reports confidential.

The work atmosphere was toxic according to descriptions, primarily from men, and the goal should be to make it non-toxic - not to make all employees equally toxic.

[nocturnus]

Blizzard did care so mutch that they removed /spit in the first place, it tell you all about Blizzards prioritization, hollow virtue signaling.....

Yes, obviously blizzard "cared". Very astute remark.

- - - Updated - - -

The WoW community is toxic asf, even on here. So, yeah, a welcome change, even if it is during all this.

Anonymous internet communities tend to be. Though I do think "toxic" is thrown around far too easily. Imo, people have become too soft, too sensitive and to entitled. Free speech is an interesting thing, anno 2021; you can say whatever you want as long as it's in line with what is considered politically correct.

I love Italy for that reason; people say what they think and no one whines about it. Unfortunately my country has also a lot of imperfections, which is why I left that shit hole ^^

[Yadryonych]

Holy shit Blizz is not getting it. THEY are the ones being toxic. Trying to shift focus onto players being toxic by removing the /spit emote is fucking disgusting. I hate Blizz even more now. This is the WRONG time for such a move.

Saw people unironically unsubbing after this.

They didn't care about this harassment situation in the company, they were fine even with what they did to Chromie, but this blatant woke signalling is a last straw

[Saltysquidoon]

They didn't care about this harassment situation in the company, they were fine even with what they did to Chromie, but this blatant woke signalling is a last straw

Capitalised on an intern spelling error that had been in the game for over a decade? Those monsters, those fiends.

[nocturnus]

Saw people unironically unsubbing after this.

they were fine even with what they did to Chromie

What is chromie and what did they do to it?