Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Update - Contract Workers and HR Interference Added

[BossManRoth]

Except it 100% is NOT a civil suit. You literally say it yourself in the last sentence. The STATE is suing.

its not a criminal complaint

[Tiwack]

We're just supposed to believe them when they say the problematic individuals have been replaced? Like that removes them and the company from any culpability? The allegation of shredding is serious but I'm not surprised if it's true, big companies like to move fast and loose with the law when it benefits them.

[FossilFree]

Shredding documents really makes me doubt their commitment to positive change. Makes everything they have done recently seem incredibly disingenuous.

[RoKPaNda]

Except it 100% is NOT a civil suit. You literally say it yourself in the last sentence. The STATE is suing.

I understand what your confusion is there, but it's still a civil suit. It's not a criminal suit. A civil suit just means that it's a lawsuit alleging violations of civil law by the defendant. That the state is the plaintiff doesn't change that. The end result here is that Activision Blizzard if they lose (they will) will be fined monetarily.

Looking back at the last 5-8 years, do you have faith in Blizzard making games worth playing?

I mean personally I've enjoyed a lot of Hearthstone content, WoW Classic, TBC Classic, parts of WoD, Legion, parts of BFA, D3's expansion / necromancer. I enjoyed Heroes of the Storm, and some of the StarCraft content. I enjoyed the D2R beta recently immensely. So yes I still do have faith in Blizzard to make games worth playing. Do I think some of their design decisions are dumb? Absolutely. Do I think they're a bad company? No. I think, if I'm completely honest, that the Blizzard community is very similar to the LoL and CoD communities where there will be a lot of vitriol on social media regardless of what the company actually releases. They're far from perfect but I think in a lot of cases they deserve more credit than they get from their fans.

[BossManRoth]

Shredding documents really makes me doubt their commitment to positive change. Makes everything they have done recently seem incredibly disingenuous.

the state tacking on actual criminal behavior this far from the original complaint reeks of state sponsored extortion. im not saying blizz didnt do anything wrong, but this is all looking like the state trying to force them into settlement because the state doesnt want it to go to court. they dont have a good track record there, only with forcing settlemements.

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I understand what your confusion is there, but it's still a civil suit. It's not a criminal suit. A civil suit just means that it's a lawsuit alleging violations of civil law by the defendant. That the state is the plaintiff doesn't change that. The end result here is that Activision Blizzard if they lose (they will) will be fined monetarily.

i dont think blizz losing in court is a certainty. DFEH is better at forcing settlement than going to court.

[Gadzooks]

Except it 100% is NOT a civil suit. You literally say it yourself in the last sentence. The STATE is suing.

It's 100% a civil suit. The state is not bringing criminal charges against the company. Please learn the difference between civil suits and criminal charges.

[muto]

i dont have a clue on what this is about could any1 kindly give me a tldr version plz

They had a bunch of Bill Cosby’s in the office.

[shadowmatrix]

Except it 100% is NOT a civil suit. You literally say it yourself in the last sentence. The STATE is suing.

Civil court uses the word sue, criminal court uses the word fine. Main difference is one involves the possibility of being incarcerated.

[justandulas]

if they were really committed to change, they'd be 100% open and transparent... not hiding evidence, and shredding papers

[Empower]

This lawsuit gets content patches faster then wow.

[Aggressive]

Nobody is being hired for their race or gender. It's not like you can be a black woman and get the job even if a white guy is slightly better.
Stop feeling attacked by minorities and women getting equal treatment.

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Except it 100% is NOT a civil suit. You literally say it yourself in the last sentence. The STATE is suing.

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You're assuming the design team has creative freedom.

Well someone is. The game didn't make itself. A person or people are responsible for it being complete ass. Whoever they are, they need to get the fuck out. WoW is nothing but complete shit now.

[Veggie50]

Maybe the big evil of next expansion will be the HR department…

[Exkrementor]

Yes, overwatch
starcraft remake
diablo remake
world of warcraft legion
hearthstone
heroes of the storm
starcraft 2 legacy of the void and heart of the swarm

they have made lots of good games in the last 5-8 years.

Really?
The Starcraft remake is literally just a higher resolution.
Diablo 1 remake wasnt done by Blizzard and neither was the Diablo 2 remake. Also all of these games are just remasters and not remakes. Dont forget the WC3 remaster, which was an absolute shitshow.
Hearthstone is a pay2win mobile game.
Heroes of the storm is dead.
Overwatch is midly entertaining for a few hours.
Legion was a mess at the start but it was pretty good at the end.
Starcraft 2 was alright. Probably personal taste but Wings of Liberty was the best out of the 3.

So the best Blizzard can do nowadays is mediocrity.

[shimargh]

Nah, F'em already,

[Velerios]

I don't want the company to go under at all; actually I'm wanting them to pull thru. I was just concerned that with the new details of this lawsuit if they'd be able to recover and or if it might lead to cancelled upcoming games and or the shutdown of current games. This lawsuit is massive and will be a hard hit.

No it won't, as any lawsuit before: This lawsuit will take on years, years where they will still release games and still make tons of money. At best this will cost them around 1 Call of Duty-Release, and that is already far fetched. Yes, some heads will roll, but this will be done individually, not for the whole company. As said before: this is not a company that makes big losses.

Just look at the Car industry: they broke the law professionally, but you can't say that they are now ruined. Or what happen with companies that did actually kill people: did the tobacco-industry broke down? Nope. And this will not happen here too.

What might happen is that Activision now will take over Blizzard faster than before: they restructurate Blizzard to be completely under Activision, for worse or even more worse (nope, there is no better in this; blizzard downfall was thanks to the fusion by Activision thanks to Vivendi who wanted to package both gaming companies to sell them)

In worst case for Activision is that some other company might buy activision for a deal, but that's still pretty doubtful. But who knows: Microsoft nowadays buys a lot of companies: getting the whole Call of Duty Franchise both for Game Pass and Xbox Exclusive might be worth it after everything settled down.

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Oh, and one thing: while this might go down the court for years, what will happen is that they will probably make a deal and that's all. They will get a fine and move on.

[RoKPaNda]

Really?
The Starcraft remake is literally just a higher resolution.
Diablo 1 remake wasnt done by Blizzard and neither was the Diablo 2 remake. Also all of these games are just remasters and not remakes. Dont forget the WC3 remaster, which was an absolute shitshow.
Hearthstone is a pay2win mobile game.
Heroes of the storm is dead.
Overwatch is midly entertaining for a few hours.
Legion was a mess at the start but it was pretty good at the end.
Starcraft 2 was alright. Probably personal taste but Wings of Liberty was the best out of the 3.

So the best Blizzard can do nowadays is mediocrity.

If you'd actually played D2R in the beta you'd know that a lot more effort was put into it than their other remasters. They've actually gotten better there.

Hearthstone is not pay to win. The most popular Hearthstone mode at the moment is completely free (Battlegrounds) and Classic doesn't require any monetary investment either. They did a great F2P overall earlier this year.

Heroes of the Storm esports is quite dead, but the game itself is still alive.

Overwatch wasn't for me but it was one of the more popular games. StarCraft2 I enjoyed but the esports portion of it did die off. Legion was WoW at it's best for me, I didn't really buy into the community complaints about Legendaries or grinding despite being in the subset of the playerbase that whined the loudest about those things. For me legion was peak WoW so far.

Blizzard has always churned out a lot of mediocre products, the different is that now they have competition. D3 would be the pinnacle of ARPG gameplay if it wasn't for PoE. Despite dozens of other ARPGs coming out since D3 and PoE those two dominate the market.

[Laqweeta]

You can say whatever you want about him ruining the game but to hope the man is responsible for making employees hate their lives by exerting force only paints you as a monster.

I hope you seek professional help as you clearly have projected a lot of negative emotions and feelings onto someone you don't know anything about. That's a dangerous place to be.

Thanks, I still hope he gets fired.

Rahhhhh me monster

[Gadzooks]

I was wondering if and when contract workers would come into this. Now they have. That's not better for Blizzard. While y'all spent weeks on the National Inquirer(esque) story of Afrasiabi and the Cosby Room this was always going to be the part of the lawsuit that was going to be the crux of things. Harassment is a whole lot of different things and Blizzard—as well as the industry generally—was doing a lot of them.

I have also been keeping it very in front of my mind ATVI is still planning on fighting the lawsuit, despite the changes they're claiming to have made - most of which should have been done 2 years ago when these charges were initially made by the state - and that the lawsuit only exists because ATVI/Blizzard didn't make any of the changes/enough changes the state was demanding back then.

If you look past the salacious aspects of the suit, ATVI Blizzard really don't want to lose this case. ATVI/Blizzard is facing potential injunctive and declarative relief in the suit, and as an actual lawyer explained it to me, this means that the judge can declare officially that what Blizzard/ATVI is accused of doing exists, and then getting an injunction against the company that if they're found to have done any of what's been declared again moving forward, they can be hauled into court for contempt. Imagine having every hiring, firing and promotion being under a microscope by the state. One can understand why they'd fight against that, but it's hard to have sympathy for a corporate entity who allowed it's practices to become so bad that the state is seeking it. That's on top of the massive amount of money on the line, as the state is asking for people to be re-instated, paid money the court thinks is owed, and damages and fines. It makes me wonder why they don't try to settle this, and avoid the injunctive/declarative aspects of the trial...or maybe they tried, and the state said "Nope, you had your chance for that." Who knows?

I found the claim by Blizzard of "We've proven there is no pay disparity" to be quite amusing. Unless it's along the lines of "We pay everyone way less than they deserve and what the industry pays across the board."

[Alicianna]

They had a bunch of Bill Cosby’s in the office.

If he /she missed the Blizzard Scandal - maybe Cosby is news as well. Think of all the misunderstandings here

[deenman]

how is forced diversity going to fix this?do minorities or women not abuse others?