Blizzard Sued By California Over Frat Boy Culture

[NoiseTank13]

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-...at-boy-culture

Activision Blizzard Sued By California Over ‘Frat Boy’ Culture
July 21, 2021, 12:25 PM

COURT: Cal. Super. Ct.
TRACK DOCKET: 21stcv26571 (Bloomberg Law Subscription)
COMPANY: Activision Blizzard (Bloomberg Law Subscription)

Video game giant Activision Blizzard Inc., maker of games including World of Warcraft and Diablo, fosters a “frat boy” culture in which female employees are subjected to constant sexual harassment, unequal pay, and retaliation, according to a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

A two-year investigation by the state agency found that the company discriminated against female employees in terms and conditions of employment, including compensation, assignment, promotion, and termination. Company leadership consistently failed to take steps to prevent discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, the agency said.

According to the complaint, filed Tuesday in the Los Angeles Superior Court, female employees make up around 20% of the Activision workforce, and are subjected to a “pervasive frat boy workplace culture,” including “cube crawls,” in which male employees “drink copious amounts of alcohol as they crawl their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees.”

The agency alleges male employees play video games during the workday while delegating responsibilities to female employees, engage in sexual banter, and joke openly about rape, among other things.

Female employees allege being held back from promotions because of the possibility they might become pregnant, being criticized for leaving to pick their children up from daycare, and being kicked out of lactation rooms so male colleagues could use the room for meetings, the complaint says.

Female employees working for the World of Warcraft team noted that male employees and supervisors would hit on them, make derogatory comments about rape, and otherwise engage in demeaning behavior, the agency alleges.

The suit also points to a female Activision employee who took her own life while on a company trip with her male supervisor. The employee had been subjected to intense sexual harassment prior to her death, including having nude photos passed around at a company holiday party, the complaint says.

The agency seeks an injunction forcing compliance with workplace protections, as well as unpaid wages, pay adjustments, back pay, and lost wages and benefits for female employees.

Causes of Action: Employment discrimination because of sex; retaliation; failure to prevent discrimination and harassment; unequal pay.

Relief: Compensatory damages; punitive damages; unpaid wages; injunctive relief; declaratory relief; equitable relief; pre-judgment interest; attorneys’ fees; costs.

Response: Activision Blizzard didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg Law’s request for comment.

Attorneys: Internal counsel represents the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

The case is Calif. Dep’t of Fair Emp. & Housing v. Activision Blizzard Inc., Cal. Super. Ct., No. 21stcv26571, 7/20/21.

To contact the reporter on this story: Maeve Allsup in San Francisco at mallsup@bloomberglaw.com

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Rob Tricchinelli at rtricchinelli@bloomberglaw.com; Meghashyam Mali at mmali@bloombergindustry.com

oops

[SNES-1990]

Damn.. Felplague's gonna have to get creative with her damage control on this one.

[Jtbrig7390]

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-...at-boy-culture

Video game giant Activision Blizzard Inc., maker of games including World of Warcraft and Diablo, fosters a “frat boy” culture in which female employees are subjected to constant sexual harassment, unequal pay, and retaliation, according to a lawsuit filed by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

A two-year investigation by the state agency found that the company discriminated against female employees in terms and conditions of employment, including compensation, assignment, promotion, and termination. Company leadership consistently failed to take steps to prevent discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, the agency said.

According to the complaint, filed Tuesday in the Los Angeles Superior Court, female employees make up around 20% of the Activision workforce, and are subjected to a “pervasive frat boy workplace culture,” including “cube crawls,” in which male employees “drink copious amounts of alcohol as they crawl their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees.”

The agency alleges male employees play video games during the workday while delegating responsibilities to female employees, engage in sexual banter, and joke openly about rape, among other things.

Female employees allege being held back from promotions because of the possibility they might become pregnant, being criticized for leaving to pick their children up from daycare, and being kicked out of lactation rooms so male colleagues could use the room for meetings, the complaint says.

Female employees working for the World of Warcraft team noted that male employees and supervisors would hit on them, make derogatory comments about rape, and otherwise engage in demeaning behavior, the agency alleges.

The suit also points to a female Activision employee who took her own life while on a company trip with her male supervisor. The employee had been subjected to intense sexual harassment prior to her death, including having nude photos passed around at a company holiday party, the complaint says.

The agency seeks an injunction forcing compliance with workplace protections, as well as unpaid wages, pay adjustments, back pay, and lost wages and benefits for female employees.

Causes of Action: Employment discrimination because of sex; retaliation; failure to prevent discrimination and harassment; unequal pay.

Relief: Compensatory damages; punitive damages; unpaid wages; injunctive relief; declaratory relief; equitable relief; pre-judgment interest; attorneys’ fees; costs.

Response: Activision Blizzard didn’t immediately respond to Bloomberg Law’s request for comment.

Attorneys: Internal counsel represents the Department of Fair Employment and Housing.

TLDR: After a 2 year intensive investigation it turns out not only did they have enough to sue Activision-Blizzard, Its that they 100% needed to. The amount of shit found is insane. If anyone wants to read the 29 page document the link will be posted below.

https://aboutblaw.com/YJw

[aceperson]

i was just checking to see if anyone had posted this news here. the key piece to me is the following:

"A two-year investigation by the state agency found that the company discriminated against female employees in terms and conditions of employment, including compensation, assignment, promotion, and termination. Company leadership consistently failed to take steps to prevent discrimination, harassment, and retaliation, the agency said."

this shows there has already been an investigation that shows discrimination. while the rape jokes and such are currently allegations,

"The suit also points to a female Activision employee who took her own life while on a company trip with her male supervisor. The employee had been subjected to intense sexual harassment prior to her death, including having nude photos passed around at a company holiday party, the complaint says."

this lends credence to the allegations. the woman committed suicide while on a business trip with her boss. that doesn't look good no matter how you look at it. even giving blizzard reasonable benefit of the doubt, it looks like the team leads, JAB, and a lot of devs should be fired. as a person who hates what wow has become, this may be a blessing in disguise but i'd have preferred this didn't happen. making a game better is not worth ANY amount of harassment.

[Skylarking]

wow is dying something something

[Izalla]

I uhh... I guess we know why Afrasiabi quietly left/was removed from Blizzard =/

[Skirdus]

blizzard: our company believes in fair treatment and equal rights for everyone, especially those who regularly face discrimination
also blizzard:

[Very Tired]

Jesus... it's like if there was a checklist for every sexual harassment trope, they saved time and just went full 'all of the above'.

Really hope there's some serious punitive damages that come out of this. This type of stuff shouldn't exist in the modern day.

[Syegfryed]

Holy shit, now it will one hell of a ride with people trying to defend blizzard.

the worst part is how this don't surprise me with they being so engaged on twitter, perfect cover

[aceperson]

Jesus... it's like if there was a checklist for every sexual harassment trope, they saved time and just went full 'all of the above'.

Really hope there's some serious punitive damages that come out of this. This type of stuff shouldn't exist in the modern day.

i'm hoping that the lead dev of every game team that participated in this is fired, JAB is fired, and every regular employee that did this crap is fired. i personally want JAB and the game leads fired because it's their job to manage their workers. if this happened under their watch, then they can't be trusted with making a good work environment and NEED to be sacked.

[Nathreim]

A lawsuit being filed isn't proof.

[Kohtra]

I uhh... I guess we know why Afrasiabi quietly left/was removed from Blizzard =/

It's even worse than we thought. According to the lawsuit his office was known as the "Crosby Suite".

[Jtbrig7390]

A lawsuit being filed isn't proof.

How about the death of a person??

Like holy shit there is nothing to defend here, Anyone trying to wants to just ignore what has happen.

[Kohtra]

How about the death of a person??

Not to mention it's the state bringing the lawsuit. They don't do anything without solid evidence.

[Jtbrig7390]

Not to mention it's the state bringing the lawsuit. They don't do anything without solid evidence.

Exactly, a state doesn't come after you unless they 100% know they can win.

[MoanaLisa]

None of that is surprising.

I'm surprised the legal brief got Bill Cosby's name wrong. That's really sloppy. Bill Crosby? The Crosby Suite? That's not a big thing with respect to the case and easily amended but still.....

Anyway, not a bit surprised at any of this. The business about Afrasiabi has been in the wind for a while now.

In any case, the whole deal is likely to be settled out of court with Blizzard making amends for past behaviors and demonstrating that with Afrasiabi gone they've cleaned up their act. No idea if that's true or not. This kind of sexist rot is endemic in the industry. I'm happy that Blizzard was called out by the state.

[Drindorai]

A lawsuit being filed isn't proof.

And we have our first.

[Kaleredar]

Holy shit, now it will one hell of a ride with people trying to defend blizzard.

I'd say these sorts of allegations are quite a bit removed from "the design team has no idea how I should be given talents" and "Leggos have a negative effect on the top 1% DPS parsing, obviously they're a terrible design decision that's ruining the game." So I doubt you're going to see many people defending this sort of behavior.

I wouldn't be surprised if this sort of behavior went back for several years, potentially decades. Blizzard has long been a sort of "frat boy" type company.

[aceperson]

A lawsuit being filed isn't proof.

you're right. the two year investigation the article sites is. anything else to say?

[Randris]

I'd say these sorts of allegations are quite a bit removed from "the design team has no idea how I should be given talents" and "Leggos have a negative effect on the top 1% DPS parsing, obviously they're a terrible design decision that's ruining the game." So I doubt you're going to see many people defending this sort of behavior.

I wouldn't be surprised if this sort of behavior went back for several years, potentially decades. Blizzard has long been a sort of "frat boy" type company.

If the allegations are true it goes back to at least 2013

https://twitter.com/skrutsick/status...06293495762944

This person claims to be one of the women who was being referred to in the section about Afrasiabi.