Activision-Blizzard Sued By California

[Sunseeker]

Most people buy video games to be entertained. Now if someone is acting inappropriately and breaking the law while creating said games, then they need punishing in accordance to the law and this is the most common way people who buy games see this. If consumers prioritized people whenever they pick a product off the shelf, then very few products - if any - would be picked up in the first place. They'd be picking a chocolate up while crying for the people who work in the cocoa farms. That's not how these very devs live their lives and that's not how the majority of manking behaves. Such a view would paralyze consumers.

The idea that we need to just tolerate shitty behavior because the end product is good and entertaining is what got us in this position to begin with.

If consumers actively put energy into buying products produced by companies that showed good behavior, and bear with me because this may surprise you: COMPANIES WOULD BEHAVE.

Like, JFC. People being a bunch of lazy fuckers who don't give two shits as long as they're entertained is EXACTLY WHY WE'RE HERE.

Fuckin christ.

Just...fuck.

[Gaebryel Quintyne]

Which fuckin sucks, because she's absolutely qualified as shit for the job and has kicked ass running Vicarious Visions.

I also believe this definitely. What's really messed up and mind-boggling that they hired her as a co-lead with Ybarra in the first place so they would lead Blizzard equally together. And ActiBlizz were ticking off every point in terms of having diversity in the company: she is a woman, she is a PoC and she is (supposedly) queer (I read this somewhere but it's awesome nonetheless). I mean how badly can a company fail so hard when they are the ones who said they were changing their workplace and yet didn't? There is some serious management problem going on as well in all of this, I think.

[Doffen]

Just another level of stupid not to pay Oneal and Ybarra the same immidiately after they took on the job. With all that has happened, that got denied over and over?

Nice PR right there. Even if equal pay is something they don't care about, that should have been priority, no matter what to not have another blowing up in their face.

[minteK917]

Just another level of stupid not to pay Oneal and Ybarra the same immidiately after they took on the job. With all that has happened, that got denied over and over?

Nice PR right there. Even if equal pay is something they don't care about, that should have been priority, no matter what to not have another blowing up in their face.

Apparently like edge said they remained at their previous rate.. which is fucking odd.... it was a promotion for both. Why didnt they both increase, both increase to the same rates wtf? They give them more responsibilities and yet they dont get an increase lmao. The only reason someone should get more in the same position is if one of them had been in that position longer, which is hard since they both got the same job at the same time lol. How does this even happen its like 2 of your very top managerial employees, some of your most important employees, how does this even slip.

"Oups we forgot to raise the two employees we put at the head of one of our biggest division."

But its okay guys, bobby gave himself the minimum salary this year, the salary that means hes gona pay less in income taxes then the janitors at the company this year lol.

[Al Gorefiend]

Jen herself said she had faith blizzard was heading in the right direction during her resignation. Why did she clearly lie

[Draco-Onis]

Jen herself said she had faith blizzard was heading in the right direction during her resignation. Why did she clearly lie

The answer is in the article nothing goes out without Bobby's approval and he ghost writes responses under other people's name. If you take into account that it wasn't amicable and she is most likely under NDA you can figure out the rest.

[Doffen]

Apparently like edge said they remained at their previous rate.. which is fucking odd.... it was a promotion for both. Why didnt they both increase, both increase to the same rates wtf? They give them more responsibilities and yet they dont get an increase lmao. The only reason someone should get more in the same position is if one of them had been in that position longer, which is hard since they both got the same job at the same time lol. How does this even happen its like 2 of your very top managerial employees, some of your most important employees, how does this even slip.

"Oups we forgot to raise the two employees we put at the head of one of our biggest division."

But its okay guys, bobby gave himself the minimum salary this year, the salary that means hes gona pay less in income taxes then the janitors at the company this year lol.

It just doesn't make sense. Its almost if its made up because they should at least look at it from a PR point of view, but even that got overlooked.

Like you mention, with all the possibilities they have to turn this around, the best example, or rather the most obvious example they could show for was to give those two the same pay.

[Nurasu]

Apparently like edge said they remained at their previous rate.. which is fucking odd.... it was a promotion for both. Why didnt they both increase, both increase to the same rates wtf? They give them more responsibilities and yet they dont get an increase lmao. The only reason someone should get more in the same position is if one of them had been in that position longer, which is hard since they both got the same job at the same time lol. How does this even happen its like 2 of your very top managerial employees, some of your most important employees, how does this even slip.

"Oups we forgot to raise the two employees we put at the head of one of our biggest division."

But its okay guys, bobby gave himself the minimum salary this year, the salary that means hes gona pay less in income taxes then the janitors at the company this year lol.

I imagine that it all comes down to the massive bloat and bureaucracy at the company today - I'm sure their contracts got tied up in legal or HR or both. It's mind boggling they don't all have the same priorities when the company is practically on fire, but I think that's what happens when you over departmentalize with no one communicating.

[Edge-]

It just doesn't make sense. Its almost if its made up because they should at least look at it from a PR point of view, but even that got overlooked.

I can confidently say that even before they were laying off folks in marketing/communications, Blizzard did not really invest seriously in their PR arm.

Not that they'd have had any role in the promotions and salaries, that's purely HR's territory. Which, given that we've had pretty extensive reporting on how dogshit HR was and how they've hired a new head (as of Sept.), I'm not sure this latest news indicates that anything is changing.

[Alduin]

I really like how you there are constantly new reports on what the heck is going on at Blizzard.

The sad part about the whole story is that stakeholder opinion is the only thing that moves Blizzard. In the end it is not about the misconduct or creating a community but rather "well investors wanted bobby's neck cause he cause a 30% value loss year-to-year".

[Jotaux]

Jen herself said she had faith blizzard was heading in the right direction during her resignation. Why did she clearly lie

Because they gave her NPO 1 million dollars.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Apparently like edge said they remained at their previous rate.. which is fucking odd.... it was a promotion for both.

The reality is that it wasn't really a promotion and more a change of job in the same paygrade. They deliberately made them "leaders" as an indiscript title, instead of president or CEO. Especially since the previous head honchos had those titles. It was essentially the first step by Activision to swallow Blizzard properly and likely reduce their autonomy. They may have even been right to do so at first glance, seeing how they clearly couldn't be trusted (ignoring that all of this is all over activison blizzard and deeply rooted). He practically just stayed upper-middle managment, with the beady-eyed trashgoblin being the actual CEO, and it's anyone's guess how they incorporated her into the hierarchy as another former studio head.

I'm actually more surprised that she wasn't payed more than him to begin with, she was head of vicarious visions while Ybarra was.. EVP and GM of the technical part? I guess they already payed him better for that role, which would usually be middle managment.

In general I'm starting to get the feeling that Blizzard's internal structures are a mess and they adjust job discriptions as needed to promote people they want in certain positions.

[Edge-]

The reality is that it wasn't really a promotiron and more a change of job in the same paygrade. They deliberately made them "leaders" as an indiscript title, instead of president or CEO. Especially since the previous head honchos had those titles. It was essentially the first step by Activision to swallow Blizzard properly and likely reduce their autonomy. They may have even been right to do so at first glance, seeing how they clearly couldn't be trusted (ignoring that all of this is all over activison blizzard and deeply rooted). I'm actually more surprised that she wasn't payed more than him to begin with, she was head of vicarious visions while Ybarra was.. EVP and GM of the technical part? I guess they already payed him better for that role, which would usually be middle managment.

In general I'm starting to get the feeling that Blizzard's internal structures are a mess and they adjust job discriptions as needed to promote people they want in certain positions.

Activision already took that first step with the demotion of the head of Blizzard from "CEO" to "President" when Brak took over. And we have plenty of reporting that Activision has had more control over finances within Blizzard for many years now, that's apparently one of the reasons why WC3R was a disaster - the team was unable to get the resources needed to deliver the game they'd marketed. That's a huge change from how Blizzard used to operate, which was usually to give tons of time and very flexible budgets because ultimately they believed the products would pay off in the end (and historically, they have).

As to the difference, VV is a smaller studio than Blizzard is, so it's not surprising that the head of VV would be paid less than the guy in charge of Battle.net, who came from a senior position within Microsoft previously. Battle.net is a huge part of the overall Blizzard (and now also Activision) business, arguably bigger than many of the individual games on the platform.

Reporting bears out that Blizzard is a mess internally like pieces from IGN (https://www.ign.com/articles/special...t-a-crossroads). But the changes to the titles of who's in charge of Blizzard aren't coming from Blizzard. That's coming from Activision, who were more than likely thrilled to be able to exert even more control over Blizzard.

[Cosmic Janitor]

As to the difference, VV is a smaller studio than Blizzard is, so it's not surprising that the head of VV would be paid less than the guy in charge of Battle.net, who came from a senior position within Microsoft previously. Battle.net is a huge part of the overall Blizzard (and now also Activision) business, arguably bigger than many of the individual games on the platform.

Reporting bears out that Blizzard is a mess internally like pieces from IGN (https://www.ign.com/articles/special...t-a-crossroads). But the changes to the titles of who's in charge of Blizzard aren't coming from Blizzard. That's coming from Activision, who were more than likely thrilled to be able to exert even more control over Blizzard.

Fair enough, though it still just shows that the new position of leader was just a horizontal move in the hierarchy, not a vertical one. I guess it explains why they kept their saleries and how this blunder happned. It's still silly that no one bothered to make sure they are payed the same, given the context of it all. Heck even as HR you should realize what is going on there..

As for the last paragraph, I actually ment actiblizz, I'm just too used to writing only Blizzard when it comes to fuck ups, that I forgot the proper nomenclature here.

[Edge-]

Fair enough, though it still just shows that the new position of leader was just a horizontal move in the hierarchy, not a vertical one.

No, it's absolutely vertical for both, even if it's still a demotion from the previous two titles the heads of Blizzard had. Ybarra was no longer just overseeing one (significant) division, but the whole company. Oneal was no longer overseeing a single studio being folded into Blizzard, but the whole of Blizzard.

It's still silly that no one bothered to make sure they are payed the same, given the context of it all. Heck even as HR you should realize what is going on there..

Them being under their old contracts for a brief time isn't surprising and makes sense. But that HR was contacted multiple times to rectify the issue and didn't bother to do so until after Oneal turned in her resignation is what makes this actually awful.

[Cosmic Janitor]

No, it's absolutely vertical for both, even if it's still a demotion from the previous two titles the heads of Blizzard had. Ybarra was no longer just overseeing one (significant) division, but the whole company. Oneal was no longer overseeing a single studio being folded into Blizzard, but the whole of Blizzard.

Blizzard is just a studio as well, a larger, more profitable one admittedly, but it's still just studio head, actually a co-head.

For Ybarra I would argue it was no movement up, because a(n exec)VP and GM is already right below the CEO or at least the President (depending on what roles your company actually has/uses), so within the overall structure of ActivisonBlizzard he didn't move up. Blizzard effectively lost that position and they created a new position with a new name.

Since they were originally co-leads you could even argue that depending on their division of work his overall responsibilities didn't increase much. Frankly they could have kept him as EVP&GM of Battle.net and just differentiate that from the rest of the studio and make Oneal just the same for the studio as such and it would have pretty much stayed the same.

Did they ever state how they split their workload?

[Magnagarde]

The idea that we need to just tolerate shitty behavior because the end product is good and entertaining is what got us in this position to begin with.

If consumers actively put energy into buying products produced by companies that showed good behavior, and bear with me because this may surprise you: COMPANIES WOULD BEHAVE.

Like, JFC. People being a bunch of lazy fuckers who don't give two shits as long as they're entertained is EXACTLY WHY WE'RE HERE.

Fuckin christ.

Just...fuck.

Nobody is tolerating shitty behaviour; we all want it punished equally. Wanting such behaviour to have consequences isn't diminished by the fact that I want Blizzard to deliver good games and for myself to be entertained.

No, nobody who agrees with me is a "lazy fucker" and my position has got nothing to do with the situation some of these employees find themselves; it boils down to a dozen or more people who can't keep their sexual urge in check. That is all there is to it; get these people out of the picture, bring in a mechanism to make sure it doesn't happen in the future and start doing what you're being paid for. It is a simple task that is ahead of them. Don't forget that thousands of employees were perfectly fine with all of this for years and years, while trying to portray Blizzard's HQ as a sex dungeon for the past few months.

- - - Updated - - -

Given that no one was doing any of the things you listed while people were actively sexually harassing people and then putting content in game likely making light of the fact id say it just tells us that the dev's don't like assholes poking fun at them while harassing them.

Some woman on a portrait in a game doesn't have to have anything to do with someone "making light" of things nor does it have to mean someone is poking fun at someone else; it's simply a female body and the female body has inspired art in various forms for millenia. It's just a whole lot of jaded people who got no clue what they're doing because they have a personal axe to grind with anything even remotely "naughty" and I'm stretching the term here because it's just a low-quality picture of a female. They then also took out "greenskins" out of the game because fictional racism is apparently a problem too.

They've all lost their compass, from top to bottom, right down the middle of the company hierarchy.

- - - Updated - - -

Which fuckin sucks, because she's absolutely qualified as shit for the job and has kicked ass running Vicarious Visions.

Of course they'd find someone who'd look as a senseful pick; it helps cover the intent behind the token promotion.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Some woman on a portrait in a game doesn't have to have anything to do with someone "making light" of things

the people in the know who have first hand experience at blizzard disagree so any of your baseless supposition is rather pointless.

[Magnagarde]

In 2018 they had the "Women at Blizzard" panel at Blizzcon. Surprise surprise that lines up pretty well with when California started the lawsuit 3 years ago.

I remember that and I wanted to bring it up. The woman hosting the panel was blonde if I remember correctly? The VAs were pretty interesting(Laura Bailey being a personal favourite), but the host was extremely annoying with all the obnoxious "female power" vibes that she regurgitated every 30 seconds. The VA cast made me endure at the time.

- - - Updated - - -

the people in the know who have first hand experience at blizzard disagree so any of your baseless supposition is rather pointless.

In that case the people "in the know" are simpletons.

Most of the people working on these changes now haven't even been around for when these things were first made. Talk about being "in the know".

They're doing themselves a disfavour, not me. The Warcraft brand is sinking faster than the titanic on a cold Atlantic night and is subject to massive ridicule due to how jaded and ignorant everyone steering the franchise seems to be.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

In that case the people "in the know" are simpletons.

Most of the people working on these changes now haven't even been around for when these things were first made.

or you know there just not ignorant of the situation like you are.

as to the people working on the changes you have no idea what the make up of the team if or how long they have been there.