A Letter From CEO Bobby Kotick Regarding Progress and Commitments Made at Acti-Blizz

[kranur]

If there are a number of talented candidates that are a great fit for a role preference will be given to people who increase the diversity quota.

Not really. The core areas, responsible for developing the games the drive profit, will most likely continue to be male. What will happen is that supporting departments (in my old company, it was finance and hr), where work schedules are more regular, will become female dominated in order to balance it out. They'll figure out ways to make it look like everything is diverse in the numbers they report (maybe integrate finance and hr people into the development department, for example) but it won't be truly diverse.

But ... wouldn't targeting specific genders just swing the discrimination the other way around?

[GUZ]

Dude is taking a pay cut. Kudos

[Very Tired]

Question, how is $62,500 the lowest amount California will allow for people earning a salary? Wouldn't that be more around minimum wage?

[Coniferous]

Coming soon to a blizzard office:

Scene: Performance review.

Manager: "I have to tell you that we're really unhappy with your recent performance and I am not sure about your long term future with the company."
Sly male employee: "I apologize, I've been going through a lot of turmoil recently. I'm just having trouble living the lie these days. You see... I'm non binary."
Manager (thankful that his diversity quota just got easier to attain): "Oh my goodness! I appreciate you sharing that with me, and I understand completely!"
Sly nonbinary employee: "But just one thing, let's keep this between us..."

[MoanaLisa]

It has nothing to do with society and history. It is natural for boys to be interested in games or programming much more than girls, for example. It is natural that a girl focuses on her appearance and clothes much more than boys. Can a boy focus on his appearance and clothes? Of course. Can a girl love games or programming? Of course. But it will be NEVER equal, never. And it's okay, so nature works, you know.

However, decisions about who to hire should never be about what is quoted above.

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Question, how is $62,500 the lowest amount California will allow for people earning a salary? Wouldn't that be more around minimum wage?

Salaried and hourly workers have different rules.

[lolslap]

Sooo how does this work, talented candidates that are a great fit in a role will have their applications declined if they're male?

Am I missing something or is this just pure idiocy?

Educate yourself please, commitment to diverse hiring is never at the expense of excluding talent based on a diversity quota (or at least if it has any hope of succeeding then it cannot be). It’s about attracting a more diverse candidate pool….if you continue to set hiring criteria that’s based on the same criteria as your non diverse white male dominated makeup then the only valid candidate you’ll find are the ones that match your existing bias.

So yes, you are missing something. A top down drive towards more diverse hiring is essential to break the cycle of hiring people who have the same profile as the existing dominant group. Sure it’s a threatening concept for the mediocre folk getting by based on their social advantage but for anyone legitimately ‘talented and a great fit’ this sort of policy should be something they require from an employer to ensure they are working somewhere that doesn’t wallow in mediocrity (as well as basic human decency).

Based on the general malaise about the state of wow I’d suggest that Bobby attempting to improve the caliber of his workforce is something we should all be supporting……

[Adamas102]

How about blind hiring? Let the best people apply for the job, not the people with the right skin color, sex and other things?

Don’t be stupid. We get to this point because “blind hiring” has never been a widespread thing. Nor would blind hiring NOW fix what decades worth of discriminatory practices have done. Qualified people will still get hired even with a more focused eye on diversity.

[Darth Vowrawn]

Oh, boy! Another excuse to shove more SJW BS into the game through hiring more "D.I.E" cultists. That will totally improve their products! By making them even more shit! Meanwhile, their going to blow vast mountains of cash trying to get more "women" into the workplace when women aren't applying in the required numbers to meet the quota (because men and women have different job preferences because of sexual differences), which means either it will take forever to fill needed roles because the applicants don't meet the "diversity" standard, or we will get shrill and hateful SJW d-bags like Madeline Roux as official hires.

[Very Tired]

Salaried and hourly workers have different rules.

Sure, but I've work with plenty of salaried people in the state and California sure as heck lets them get paid far below 62k a year.

[The Stormbringer]

And it certainly sounds like it's presumably the one with the least impact on your life. =D

Not really? I had to drop several products that I really enjoyed. Buncha Crunch, Nestle Chocolate, Nesquik, Laffy Taffy, Digiorno, Hot Pockets, and a handful of other lesser things.

[Kumorii]

A diverse workplace is better than a non diverse one. It’s not like there aren’t talented female/NB developers out there

Diversity of thought is the most important thing. If you have Diversity in race and gender but everyone comes from the same place, environment or peers. Then you just get a circle jerk. You get the exact same problem as when everything is just white dudes that know each other. The thing most people who are for Diversity hire complains about. It's literally doing the same thing. Nothing gets solved, it just shuffled the deck. Still the same games.

[bloodmoth13]

Sooo how does this work, talented candidates that are a great fit in a role will have their applications declined if they're male?

Am I missing something or is this just pure idiocy?

Its idiocy.
Problem was some grab happy guys with god complexes and crap management of complaints.
The solution to that problem isnt hiring more woman, 'non-binaries' or non-whites.
They just know that the people who will make a big deal about all of this will be appeased by this complete non-solution.

I think it might be wise to jump ship now before the already low quality preachy crap in the story plummets to further depths.
Cant wait for the next expansion where we smash the patriarchy and get a black female king of stormwind

[Trumpcat]

Too long, don't care about the drama. Would be interested when they have new content for wow and the other franchises.

[Sunshah]

the entire entertainment industry has been creatively bankrupt for over a decade regardless of race or sex anyway. might as well give the delusional gender benders a shot. either they accidentally make something decent or end up shoveling the soil back into the grave.

[Noobslayer]

So basically, Mr CEO, your turnover will be going through the stratosphere. Zero tolerance = zero opportunity to help people become, well better people. Look at someone the wrong way...get fired.

[Trumpcat]

Sooo how does this work, talented candidates that are a great fit in a role will have their applications declined if they're male?

Am I missing something or is this just pure idiocy?

That's precisely how it works and I've seen it in action first hand in my company. A perfectly fine candidate applied, smooth interviews, bit nervous as is normal, passed the challenges with highest score, was good looking too. But he was a white guy. Position went to a girl that was underperforming in every aspect.
Similar cases happened later, must be the result of the diversity officer in HR.

[Magnagarde]

His solution to some employees harassing other employees is to make sure there are more "non-binary" and female employees? Can you imagine the kind of direction Warcraft as a franchise is going to take? Female bodies are already being turned into fruitbowls and the franchise is being rinsed of anything even remotely funny, naughty or "controversial"(which is pretty much everything these days). Questionable behaviour of certain employees aside, the apparently(I guess?) too white and too male Blizzard, which was packed with nerds who were into fantasy RPGs, managed to make an amazing franchise which is now unreckognizable. Blizzard used to make memorable and greatly appreciated female characters since the early 2000s across all their IPs. Unsurprisingly, the more ActivisionBlizzard doubles down on "diversity", the worse their writing and representation gets. Their creations don't seem to come from a position of inspiration, understanding of what they do and overall love for it, but the position of mandatory quotas and virtue signalling.

[Darth Vowrawn]

That's precisely how it works and I've seen it in action first hand in my company. A perfectly fine candidate applied, smooth interviews, bit nervous as is normal, passed the challenges with highest score, was good looking too. But he was a white guy. Position went to a girl that was underperforming in every aspect.
Similar cases happened later, must be the result of the diversity officer in HR.

It will also lead to lawsuits because the new "diverse" and "inclusive" hires will begin firing all of the white males and straights in the company, leading to a James Damore situation.

[Magnagarde]

That's precisely how it works and I've seen it in action first hand in my company. A perfectly fine candidate applied, smooth interviews, bit nervous as is normal, passed the challenges with highest score, was good looking too. But he was a white guy. Position went to a girl that was underperforming in every aspect.
Similar cases happened later, must be the result of the diversity officer in HR.

It's kinda hillarious considering that it can potentially end up improving their competition; if many of them join this one company and then jump at eachothers throats for the most mundane of things on a daily basis, then the people who know how to do their job can work in peace elsewhere.

[FelPlague]

lol... why the fuck would you not have zero tolerance to it from the start?

read the rest, before they gave warnings, now its "you do it? your out, no warnings"

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i wonder if anyone will abuse the zero-tolerance policy to threaten co-workers?

give me your lunch money or i will tell bobby you touched me!

they will not be firing people just becuase someone says "X did Y" they will launch investigations because of such, but they wont fire just on word.