J. Allen Brack's Internal Email, Warcraft III: Reforged Production Backstory

[Ianus]

LMAO wowhead closed comments.

well they are blizz shills after all even though they are good site

[munkeyinorbit]

Damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't. If he didn't send anything out, people would be bitching about "OH LOOK AT HOW THE UPPER EXECS ARE BEING SILENT! THEY MUST BE GUILTY!"

He is guilty. He let this happen. "Leaking" an email like that shows how out of touch he is. Everything there is a PR trick. Nothing more. He is not sincere and nothing will change.

[Tiwack]

Everything from Actiblizz atm comes off as dmgcontrol directed at their shareholders smh

[Couchpotato2013]

Swifty and Kael'thas' voice actor being thrown under the bus was indeed a humongous dick move. If this lawsuit was true I'd almost call it karma. But this ain't it chief.

We’ll see. Others have said correctly so that people will forget or misremember facts (cause people are genuinely dumb). But for me this just adds another nail in the iron maiden.

My family already has found next to no reason to play any blizz game besides WoW (classic and retail). All of us think classic was delivered wrong but one pushed on for r14 and region rankings. And that person dislikes tbcc altogether even though they have champion of naaru, and full haris pilton bags. They are playing ffxiv now.

And then for me the wowtoken boost enabled by boosting communities (look at gallywix and their labeling on events throughout bfa vs anything earlier in wow), soured my drive to go after real prestige things. Like for example I was one essence short of azeroth’s champion (needed 2400) and to look at a metadata site (wowranks.io) and from people I played during summer 2020 for azshara runs saying they paid for boosts, really ruined my view on wow. Which is reinforced by blizz making more money than ever but having lost 29% of customers since the first half of 2018. That easily says that value added transactions have grown, and why wouldn’t blizzard the sole provider of that not quietly double down on that in terms of content design?

This coming to light and blizzard’s pacing of content and broken reward structure for WoW have got me wondering why I am even subbed.

But yes I will wait until things have been processed by the legal system and not from a mob wanting immediate vindication and vengeance.

[Cubster20038]

A lot of people say they are shock and not for this, but they say that to look good, but in reality they just saying it and not really meaning it. I rather wait to see what the state will prove as there evidence in court.

[Polybius]

Imagine assuming someone is guilty before its legitimately proven.

I tend to agree but the state government investigated and waited to compile evidence. This isn’t the Internet pretending to be a courtroom, this is real.

[Gadzooks]

Taken to it's extreme? Wolf of Wall Street.. Or actually just being a real stock broker working on Wall Street.

Neither is healthy.

Or, the culture in Mad Men, in their office.

[Clone]

"We will name the defendants once we go through discovery and find out who they are. Also, they are all acting vicariously with one another and the company. Whoever they are."

This is a Californian agency trying to gain clout. They made a mountain out of a molehill as their "gotcha!" moment to blackmail Blizzard. Most people are just going to see the headlines "BLIZZARD SUED FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT" and that's what they will think; they won't dig deeper. The goal of the agency is to push for a settlement and then tout this as their big investigation because they know that software companies don't want to go through discovery.

Most lawsuits about sexual harassment are complete bogus, a political shakedown. Remember that Michael Jackson was found innocent and so was Bill Cosby.

I thought your alliance fanfic was just an one time goof, but this post cements your piece of shit status.

[Mojo03]

I've already posted my feelings on Golden. I don't believe her when she says she was unaware of it, when so many current blizzard employees are saying everyone knows about it, and aren't surprised by it. But honestly, she doesn't matter to me, or Danuser's comments, as my feeling towards him as a creative professional and his all around creepiness is unchanged. I'm a bit annoyed with Asmondgold being thrown around as an arbiter of ethics and morality, but it's not unsurprising in this fandom.

I've also posted concerns that naming Brack and Afrasiabi, and the story about the woman who took her life were salacious bits the state threw in to pressure Blizzard to settle. Don't know if it's true, but it's within the realm of possibilities.

And, you could use the unnamed Does as a potential fishing trip by the state. That's within the realm of possibilities, too.

The current devs speaking out are what are influencing me the most. It's not an outpouring of "Everything is perfect here, CA is just being greedy", it's "There's good people here, but yeah, this is a thing, and we all know about it."

And, both parties are acting in bad faith, probably. The state wants a lot in terms of remedy here, and the corporate response by Blizzard is beyond problematic.

That's why I think this gets settled. It's already damaged Blizzard, and if this reaches court, will leave a smoking crater in the company. If they settle, the state gets some of what they want, and Blizzard might be able to recover.

I don't have a horse in this race, I'm just trying to point anyone willing to listen towards the reasonable center based on known facts, and not wild conjecture.

Ya, and that's the thing about Afrasabi. They don't actually have much of anything on him based on the document, yet people are getting the their pitchforks and already treating him like he's the next Cosby.

The Cosby Suite nickname could literally be one person saying that, even making it up. That's all it takes to put in the document. All they're trying to do is make him and the company look bad and sound like they have a case. I feel if that was a well known thing, there would be people coming forward about it and they would of made a clear point in the document that it comes from multiple people, but they don't. I guess we'll see if people do, but right now no one has that I've seen.

The rest of the details completely lack context and seem to be totally blown out of proportion.

Unless someone specifically comes forward to accuse him of something, they really don't have much of anything other than he was flirty to woman he knew at a company parties and that he groped one, which is actually something.

It's still pretty messed up they singled him out and ruined his life and reputation if this is all there really is. This department is California is doing some dirty, dirty, dishonest PR stunt so far from the looks of it.

I guess we'll see if there more.

[Gadzooks]

Ya, and that's the thing about Afrasabi. They don't actually have much of anything on him based on the document, yet people are getting the their pitchforks and already treating him like he's the next Cosby.

The Cosby Suite nickname could literally be one person saying that, even making it up. That's all it takes to put in the document. All they're trying to do is make him and the company look bad and sound like they have a case. I feel if that was a well known thing, there would be people coming forward about it and they would of made a clear point in the document that it comes from multiple people, but they don't. I guess we'll see if people do, but right now no one has that I've seen.

The rest of the details completely lack context and seem to be totally blown out of proportion.

Unless someone specifically comes forward to accuse him of something, they really don't have much of anything other than he was flirty to woman he knew at a company parties and that he groped one, which is actually something.

It's still pretty messed up they singled him out and ruined his life and reputation if this is all there really is.

I guess we'll see if there more.

Well, generally filings don't have all of the evidence in a case, and discovery is the next part of the process to gather more, if a settlement isn't reached. So I wouldn't assume guilt for anyone just yet. This is a common thing with lawsuits, people think everything will be listed in the filing, when that's not how it works. The bulk of the evidence will be submitted when the actual trial starts - and I doubt the State has even assigned this to a judge yet. (Most likely will be on a specific judges' docket by Monday for sure.)

Also keep in mind Afrasiabi is not on trial here, the whole company is. As far as anyone knows, he didn't do anything criminal past groping women. If criminal charges are going to be filed, it can be completely disconnected to this case. But if he was allowed to operate in unacceptable ways due to the culture the leadership allowed to fester at the company, as the State is alleging, then he's fair game.

But again, I've posted that naming him and J Allen is potentially problematic.

[Sithalos]

So, it's shoot first ask questions never when it comes to Swifty and Quinton Flyn, but when Blizzard are in the hotseat it's a "distorted and untrue picture of our company".

Fuck you.

[Lorgar Aurelian]

I found Christie Golden's tweets about this to be disgusting. "I'm a queen and treated like one, and I'm gonna pretend I didn't know about any of it, because I was in a position of power to do something about it, and didn't."

Any chance you link her tweets about being in a position of power?

[cuafpr]

these emails and tweets the top people are putting right now are all 100% screened by legal, HR and PR.... but some people seem to think its all from the person and open dialogue,esp the tweets. this is a legal matter and the prosecution is for sure reading this stuff, one of says the wrong thing and BAM case gets even worse (not that it can get a lot worse at this point)

[Lorgar Aurelian]

Oh I'm well aware, it's just that calling for those 2 besides Brack specificially seems a bit too easy. Certainly in the case of Danuser who is head of a small team and at least Golden pretents to have never witnessed anything, and I'm sure she'd be the first to report on it on twitter if given the chance.

Golden doesn’t actually work on the wow team there could very well be stuff she wouldn’t have seen from not being on said team.

[Saltysquidoon]

So, it's shoot first ask questions never when it comes to Swifty and Quinton Flyn, but when Blizzard are in the hotseat it's a "distorted and untrue picture of our company".

Fuck you.

It shouldn't shock you that a souless company would divest itself of a toxic asset and the first sign of trouble but rise to defend itself (despite almost assuredly being guilty).
Its almost like limited liability companies are definitionally evil.

[Nite92]

well they are blizz shills after all even though they are good site

Or they don't want to moderate toxic comments? I would've done exactly the same.

If they were a blizz shill they wouldn't have posted it.

[Daedius]

And no mention of the sudden departure of Alex Afrasiabi, a prominent figure of WoW, and the purging of his online profiles, hmmz...

[Saltysquidoon]

*snip*

The suit is as a result of a two-year-long compliance action by the state after which the state determined Blizzard had failed to make the changes it required to ensure compliance with the relevant acts.

It's mindboggling you think the department of employment has the time or resources to file a frivolous suit against a multibillion-dollar company just to destroy the life of a random blizzard exec.
An exec who clearly jumped before he was pushed which means blizzard didn't intend to stand behind him in their defence (make of that what you will).

EDIT:
This stuff about Golden is wild. I'm no fan of her wow world building but holy shit. Does she even work on the campus? She was a contractor like three years ago why are people pretending its her personal responsibility to stop sexual harassment at blizzard?

[Mojo03]

It's mindboggling you think the department of employment has the time or resources to file a frivolous suit against a multibillion-dollar company just to destroy the life of a random blizzard exec.

What are you talking about?

[caninepawprints]

Those emails just look like they're trying to do damage control and save their reputations. Not going to work. The damage has been done.