Blizzard Entertainment Welcomes Jessica Martinez as Vice President Head of Culture

[Jester Joe]

It's not fake, it's bogus. And what were they supposed to do but capitulate? Spend years and the even more money fighting the case that the CA govt would end up winning anyway because of ambiguous legislation and terrible judiciary? I'm surprised there are any business left in CA at this point.

Yes, check her linkedin and see she has no skills other than "communication." Doubt she has anything to do with the success of anything Disney ever did. xD

I'm sure she's very concerned with what nameless armchair expert #6457 thinks about Blizzards hiring process.


Because you know, I'm sure it's very logical to think a major company is going to be up for wasting money.

[Linkedblade]

She has a masters degree and rose from analyst all the way up to the level of chief of staff to the CTO at the most successful entertainment company in the world.

I'm sure your resume is much more impressive.

Yeah, it is. I have my own master degree and journeyman in a trade.

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I'm sure she's very concerned with what nameless armchair expert #6457 thinks about Blizzards hiring process.


Because you know, I'm sure it's very logical to think a major company is going to be up for wasting money.

Well, they got conned into wasting money into armchair experts.

[MoanaLisa]

It's silly people keep acting like Blizzard didn't have an HR department for the last few decades, and not all of a sudden they need two or three redundant teams of nonsensical waste.

Given what we've learned about Blizzard's HR group it's not total nonsense that it be expanded, reworked and management duties be split up. After all, whatever the cost for the new positions, it's certainly less money than fighting off being sued. For fuck's sake, one of the main legal problems they face was in part caused by the HR department that Blizzard had for the last few decades.

[Linkedblade]

Given what we've learned about Blizzard's HR group it's not total nonsense that it be expanded, reworked and management duties be split up. After all, whatever the cost for the new positions, it's certainly less money than fighting off being sued. For fuck's sake, one of the main legal problems they face was in part caused by the HR department that Blizzard had for the last few decades.

From the suit, it was clear that the people causing problems had left or been fired before the suit was submitted or investigated. Seems like successful hr to me.

But now they have a VP/culture, VP/d&e, and whatever structure they had before. Not to mention outside contracted boards. just so much redundancy for something that wasn't even a problem to begin with.

If anyone actually read the suit it was nothing but silly allegations and a pitiful attempt at a real class action suit. Because of how poor it was the CA govt used new ambiguous legislation to force it anyway. And atvi tanking decided to settle it rather than fight it.

So, yeah it's just the CA govt taking advantage to make some money amid the pandemic, and these nonsense "diversity studies" types shoehorning their way into money.

That's what happened. It's not even an argument.

[Magical Mudcrab]

From the suit, it was clear that the people causing problems had left or been fired before the suit was submitted or investigated. Seems like successful hr to me.

But now they have a VP/culture, VP/d&e, and whatever structure they had before. Not to mention outside contracted boards. just so much redundancy for something that wasn't even a problem to begin with.

If anyone actually read the suit it was nothing but silly allegations and a pitiful attempt at a real class action suit. Because of how poor it was the CA govt used new ambiguous legislation to force it anyway. And atvi tanking decided to settle it rather than fight it.

So, yeah it's just the CA govt taking advantage to make some money amid the pandemic, and these nonsense "diversity studies" types shoehorning their way into money.

That's what happened. It's not even an argument.

What the fuck are you talking about? The DFEH investigation started in 2019 and the most notable person of interest in the investigation, Alex Afrasiabi, was forced to leave in 2020 after reports to HR had gone without response since at least 2013. Additional firings would occur throughout 2020 and 2021 as the investigation continued, very obviously only being done in response to the investigation as people became more public and vocal about making accusation. These firings included the head of HR, and other members of HR staff, who was implicated for protecting serial harassers . Say what you want regarding the idea of positions like Head of Culture or Chief Diversity Officer, but to say that Blizzard's HR was functional is either astoundingly stupid or displays such a complete and utter ignorance of the subject matter that it begs the question of why you would even make a statement.

[Thelxi]

Another woman hired for diversity. If you only hire women, you'll get equality and diversity...

This take is funny to me. They hire someone in one of the weirdest corporate positions I have ever heard of, obviously to fix the PR disaster, and all this guy can comment on is her gender lol. As if they would ever hire a man for this position anyway.

[Jester Joe]

Well, they got conned into wasting money into armchair experts.

You can keep insisting that she's not an expert in her field, but it just shows your bias and agenda.

But the games were great.
I say let them have their fun as long as the games are good again.

Words cannot truly express how disgusting that idea is.

"Let them drink their co-worker's breast milk, as long as I can have a video game!"

[NineSpine]

Yeah, it is. I have my own master degree and journeyman in a trade.
Well, they got conned into wasting money into armchair experts.

Let’s see your LinkedIn big shot. I can’t wait to see how many Fortune 500 companies you’ve been advising at the top of.

[Moozart]

Yay for more fake positions!

[MoanaLisa]

From the suit, it was clear that the people causing problems had left or been fired before the suit was submitted or investigated. Seems like successful hr to me.

But now they have a VP/culture, VP/d&e, and whatever structure they had before. Not to mention outside contracted boards. just so much redundancy for something that wasn't even a problem to begin with.

If anyone actually read the suit it was nothing but silly allegations and a pitiful attempt at a real class action suit. Because of how poor it was the CA govt used new ambiguous legislation to force it anyway. And atvi tanking decided to settle it rather than fight it.

So, yeah it's just the CA govt taking advantage to make some money amid the pandemic, and these nonsense "diversity studies" types shoehorning their way into money.

That's what happened. It's not even an argument.

Magical Mudcrab has schooled you on facts and timeline regarding this. Suffice it to say that practically nothing in your post was factual.

ATVI has not tanked the California lawsuit. They settled a Federal lawsuit brought by the EEOC. The DFHE legal action is still alive and is now in the news because Governor Newsome appears to be meddling in it. So you got that wrong as well. Last point: There are many other lawsuits pending right now involving ATVI. A new one this week is in the state of New York vs. Bobby Kotick about how the sale to Microsoft was handled.

EDIT: Oh, and the bit about "wasn't even a problem to begin with." Lawsuits like this don't suddenly appear out of thin air. There's a lot of work that goes into them before they are ever filed. Your handwaving of the allegations against Afrasiabi as 'silly' suggests that you think workplace harassment and abuse is no big deal. Well, it is. Hence multi-million dollar lawsuits and settlements.

[Xath]

Do you know who manages how we handle work from home at my company? The culture department.

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The story at Blizzard is not new.

Small company sees big success.
Company grows exponentially very quickly.
Company ends up with a bizarre, toxic work environment.

Why? Because the small company could self police its culture and once it scaled it was unable to do so and had to adhere to the preferences of a handful of executives who almost certainly have no experience running larger companies since they built this company from the ground up.

Why in the world would the culture department need to be involved at all with wfh? It's much more about the managers of each department and whether they believe the work can be completed without being in office which it usually can with some exceptions.

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Because people won't accept associate level even if its their first damn job anymore.

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OW and HS both led to giant waves of similar games trying to copy their success. You aren't living in the real world.

OW was literally just an updated TF2 lol. HS is online simplified magic.

[NineSpine]

Why in the world would the culture department need to be involved at all with wfh? It's much more about the managers of each department and whether they believe the work can be completed without being in office which it usually can with some exceptions.

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OW was literally just an updated TF2 lol. HS is online simplified magic.

Work from home is a lot more complicated than asking a manager if the department should be work from home.

Warcraft was just updated, simplified Dune II.
WoW was just updated, simplified EverQuest.

Blizzards whole brand is updated, simplified takes on things that have already been done.

[Jester Joe]

Everyone has a fetish of some sort, I don't judge, I'm not high and mighty.
I just want good games.
The rest isn't my business.

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Well yes basically.
The women lead them on, flirt, and give themselves to gain favour and move up the ladder, then when one women is legitimately harassed all the others want to jump on the wagon and #metoo, like they didn't agree to it at the time, reality sounds unfair doesn't it.

If the women want to use their bodies to succeed, and the men are happy to comply, and the result is good games for the consumer, what is the problem?

You should reconsider that kind of view point or at least look into it more.

This is basically textbook misogyny at that point. And there's nothing "high and mighty" about being disgusted by the kind of behavior that was shown at ActiBlizz

[Moze]

Ya they didn’t have any of those departments and they then harassed, passed over, and assaulted woman and minority’s under them for years leading to multiple multi million dollar law suits.

Really makes you think.

Not true, they didn't have women or minorities at that time. Makes sense it all goes to shit when you introduce women to a bunch of sweaty virgins who have no clue how to interact with them.

But they made fantastic games tho.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Not true, they didn't have women or minorities at that time. Makes sense it all goes to shit when you introduce women to a bunch of sweaty virgins who have no clue how to interact with them.

But they made fantastic games tho.

They did have woman working there even all the way back then just go check the credits of any of there old games there not hard to spot.

[Alanar]

This seems meaningless... I have seen different people do this culture stuff at thr company where I work.

Reorganisations happen from time to time and guess which function always ends up being.. " not needed in their words"

Good luck to her anyway, but I dont see why this is interesting for us.

[meowfurion]

LOL like China's Ministry of Culture.

Is she gonna complain about how revealing some orc female's leather top is while ignoring that the men are bare chested?

[DarkAmbient]

Besides explicit behaviors, a culture department manages the mindsets and beliefs of a workforce.

That is creepy as fuck.

[Alanar]

LOL like China's Ministry of Culture.

Is she gonna complain about how revealing some orc female's leather top is while ignoring that the men are bare chested?

If it ends up, being this. Saying we have to please every culture. Covering up female parts.. skin colors everywhere needs to be atleast 50/50. Then ye that job is meaningless imo, no offence to any one. But this is reaching hights that are getting rediculous.

[meowfurion]

"Here at Blizzard, because some small handful of employees mistreated another small handfull of employees, we are now hiring a feminist wokelord to control the minds and actions of literally everyone else at the company"