Mike Morhaime Response to Blizzard Lawsuit

[Raven]

I read that as a critique of management's tone deaf statements less than critique of his buddy J. Allen brack. Brack is specifically mentioned in the suit, mike isn't. All this "blame mike" talk may have merit, but it does seem like Lore is just trying his damndest to save his buddy from consequences by saying "he isn't responsible, he inherited it" when J Allen Brack was covering for Afrisabi LONG before he became president according to the suit, this was something going back about a decade with J Allen Brack (covering for Afrisabi) if you believe the suit which i do.

And then we are back to the part of people both victims and witnesses that claims they talked to and mail directly with Mike, im not protecting Brack i belive he is one of those that has to be fired, of course Mike didnt know everything that happened, but come on this happened for years and years and not only 1 or 2 was guilty, there is no chance he didnt know it happened, maybe didnt know the scale of it, but yeah he knew it happened.

[justandulas]

And then we are back to the part of people both victims and witnesses that claims they talked to and mail directly with Mike, im not protecting Brack i belive he is one of those that has to be fired, of course Mike didnt know everything that happened, but come on this happened for years and years and not only 1 or 2 was guilty, there is no chance he didnt know it happened, maybe didnt know the scale of it, but yeah he knew it happened.

I do think Mike is guilty too, he had to have known and there's evidence piling up that he did. I was just saying that Lore's statement seemed to be trying to deflect the heat off his good buddy J Allen Brack... and it's clearly JAB is guilty of covering it up and has been for a long time. But i didn't say he was alone. it's starting to look like the entire tree is rotten

[Kevyne-Shandris]

It amazes me how many people are coming out of the woodwork to talk about what happened at blizzard. You were there, you knew, and you did nothing. Coming out after the fact just confirms it.

The sheer amount of scrapbots/moderation/suspensions/bans from forums and social media it's NOT easy to speak truth to power!

They come out during times like this, because people are WILLING to even listen.

In 2016 people were YELLING about Bannon. The media did nothing and the Orange Fool was elected.

A lot of people NOW scream about HIM in the media now, they sure didn't do a damn thing in 2016 to prevent what happened ... because again ... scrabots/moderation/suspensions/bans that protect the PATTERNS of abuse by ...

From the #1 Cata review on Amazon.com: "Blizzard's greatest misstep was blaming players instead of admitting their mistakes.
They've convinced half of the population that the other half are unskilled whiners, causing a permanent rift in the community."

[Cosmic Janitor]

I said i think Mike's guilty too, but he clearly isn't AS guilty as covering it up as JAB or he'd be the one listed in the lawsuit, him no longer working there would not stop his name being part of this lawsuit. Maybe the state needs to make an amendment and look into his role into this too, there seems to be plenty of heresay and evidence in that regard.

He's not in there because he isn't the perpetrator, is not subject of the current lawsuit as he is no longer with the company and wasn't investigated during the last 2 years because he left 3 years ago. They are suing the company because of systemic issues that are still prevalent, that have been brought before them and have not been sufficiently adressed during the last 2 years.

[Makabreska]

Think it's time for anyone with stock to perhaps sell it.

Eh, they release OW2/D4 and they are gucci.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

I mean, Lore also called out current leadership so I don't think it's about deflecting.

https://twitter.com/devolore/status/1418857789640740865

Well, if you saw my inbox from Gamebreaker.TV (where Lore came from before being hired by Blizzard) you will have a different response.

Blizzard purposely had a voice actress write a HATE piece about Holy Paladins there -- and I responded -- wow, got an instant ban.

But WHY?

Because on their forums I found some threads about Blizzard management and stated my peace.

They didn't like it.

Same thing happens on MMOChamp, more so even months after you leave and seeing a mailbox full of scrapbox "warnings" for the very same cop outs.

Everyone is in each other's trough. MMOChamp included (Blizzard LIED about having no Blizzard employees posting on MMOChamp -- that warlock dev did), which means, yeah, the same top/down moderation played at Gamebreaker was here, too.

[Jester Joe]

Well, if you saw my inbox from Gamebreaker.TV (where Lore came from before being hired by Blizzard) you will have a different response.

Blizzard purposely had a voice actress write a HATE piece about Holy Paladins there -- and I responded -- wow, got an instant ban.

But WHY?

Because on their forums I found some threads about Blizzard management and stated my peace.

They didn't like it.

Same thing happens on MMOChamp, more so even months after you leave and seeing a mailbox full of scrapbox "warnings" for the very same cop outs.

Everyone is in each other's trough. MMOChamp included (Blizzard LIED about having no Blizzard employees posting on MMOChamp -- that warlock dev did), which means, yeah, the same top/down moderation played at Gamebreaker was here, too.

I'm going to be honest.

Between this post and your other post, I have no idea what you're trying to say.

It almost sounds like a conspiracy that you think Blizzard is trying to suppress people, including here? But that sounds a bit uh...out there honestly and I've never heard of this kind of take on this, so I'm thinking I'm misunderstanding.

[Skylarking]

The sheer amount of scrapbots/moderation/suspensions/bans from forums and social media it's NOT easy to speak truth to power!

They come out during times like this, because people are WILLING to even listen.

In 2016 people were YELLING about Bannon. The media did nothing and the Orange Fool was elected.

A lot of people NOW scream about HIM in the media now, they sure didn't do a damn thing in 2016 to prevent what happened ... because again ... scrabots/moderation/suspensions/bans that protect the PATTERNS of abuse by ...

From the #1 Cata review on Amazon.com: "Blizzard's greatest misstep was blaming players instead of admitting their mistakes.
They've convinced half of the population that the other half are unskilled whiners, causing a permanent rift in the community."

Yeah man remember the method Josh shit that happened. Once it was all out in the open many victims came forward with their story. Didn't think that guy Bay from finalbosstv was a piece of shit.

[MoanaLisa]

I said i think Mike's guilty too, but he clearly isn't AS guilty as covering it up as JAB or he'd be the one listed in the lawsuit, him no longer working there would not stop his name being part of this lawsuit. Maybe the state needs to make an amendment and look into his role into this too, there seems to be plenty of heresay and evidence in that regard.

If you read the filing carefully you'll see a couple of paragraphs mentions a number of DOES (10 I think). Those are something like unnamed co-conspirators that are expected to be named later once more evidence has been collected. I wouldn't make any conclusions whatsoever about anyone being more or less guilty than anyone else. Brack probably needs to go. Whether or not he will is another question. Morhaime, on the other hand, despite the nice phrases in his statement was there and in charge when the corporate/office culture was created. It's his creature and no one should be giving him a pass based on their own personal feelings about Brack and Morhaime.

If you've lived inside of corporate culture long enough it's genuinely difficult to see all the ways it may have gone off the rails. That's not an excuse for this. It's more the knowledge that as a member of a management team you continually have to reassess. Everyone here is focused on the harassment stuff but the stuff about promotions and advancement, pay equity, and retaliation is clearly a long-term thing and dates well back before Morhaime and the rest left. Unless Blizzard decides to settle very soon this will all come out.

I've also seen a lot of people express the hope that Metzen had no part of this because, you know, he's a nice guy. Well, he knew Afrasiabi for years and hand-picked him to follow into his job when he retired. It's difficult for me to believe that he didn't have a read on Alex Afrasiabi's character.

The main lesson here is: don't trust too much in heroes.

[justandulas]

If you read the filing carefully you'll see a couple of paragraphs mentions a number of DOES (10 I think). Those are something like unnamed co-conspirators that are expected to be named later once more evidence has been collected. I wouldn't make any conclusions whatsoever about anyone being more or less guilty than anyone else. Brack probably needs to go. Whether or not he will is another question. Morhaime, on the other hand, despite the nice phrases in his statement was there and in charge when the corporate/office culture was created. It's his creature and no one should be giving him a pass based on their own personal feelings about Brack and Morhaime.

If you've lived inside of corporate culture long enough it's genuinely difficult to see all the ways it may have gone off the rails. That's not an excuse for this. It's more the knowledge that as a member of a management team you continually have to reassess. Everyone here is focused on the harassment stuff but the stuff about promotions and advancement, pay equity, and retaliation is clearly a long-term thing and dates well back before Morhaime and the rest left. Unless Blizzard decides to settle very soon this will all come out.

I've also seen a lot of people express the hope that Metzen had no part of this because, you know, he's a nice guy. Well, he knew Afrasiabi for years and hand-picked him to follow into his job when he retired. It's difficult for me to believe that he didn't have a read on Alex Afrasiabi's character.

The main lesson here is: don't trust too much in heroes.

that's a very good post, and i agree completely about Metzen. It's harder and harder not to think practically all of the upper management, current and old, were responsible for where we're at now. they are all complicit in some way or another. It's just a shame, this whole story is just disappointing to read considering i once held blizzard on my mount rushmore of gaming devs... but i'm not one to deny the obvious truth.

People trying to say it's he/she said... i mean, the state or feds wouldn't file the charges if they weren't 100% confident they'd win. It's just how they operate

[Berndorf]

It is amazing how some of you go into such conclusions.

Chances are he did not know any of it, like Mike. IF you know anything of big companies, you know that.

It is impossible for the upper CEO of a company to know what cooks in the office on specify departments, nor should he really know. In a good work environment, you allow certain level of freedom, where managers take care of professional and personal work related matters. The CEO has to put his trust on the different layers all the way down to the employees, the last thing he needs to worry is that certain management levels, even high ones, are corrupted. Obviously, they will not go and report this to their superiors but hide it.

Either way, they did leave the company, and I´d bet they did leave in a part also because of this shit going down.. obviously they did not want to be involved.. so they did the right thing: get out of there.

Also, about the name on tweeter... you would have done the same, ANYONE would have done the same. IF you are guilty or innocent, you will certainly want to know, right away, if your name is somewhere on that mess... pretty natural thing to do.. right away.

Don't agree at all with any of this. To begin with, there is already a woman who claims to have sent copies of complaints she made directly to MM multiple times and he did apparently nothing with. Next, people like Jobs were known for being involved with many aspects of their companies and to say the last thing they should be worrying about is how their hr dept is handling things is ridiculous for the simple fact of how much that can impact the company both in terms of work environment and publicly if a problem arises due to it. Which can also result in that ceo getting fired. MM is not at all exempt from responsibility in any of this. MM didn't know that there was a pervasive problem partly because he didn't want to know.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

There are several holes in the lawsuit.

• The lawsuit was filed by a government entity called the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. If you go to their website, you see that they say "You may file your own lawsuit for employment discrimination in court rather than using a DFEH investigation." You should be asking: why aren't the women involved in this lawsuit suing Blizzard themselves or together? Private attorneys only take a lawsuit case if they think they have a good chance of winning and getting a good money. A lawsuit costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. No one is going to take it on unless they think they are going to win. Blizzard is a big company, so winning a case would get them a lot of money. The fact that the women are having to use the government as their baseball bat would imply that private attorneys don't think they would win the case. But the government will do it because they are paid salaries in taxpayer dollars, regardless if they win or lose.

• They said they had been doing this investigation for more than 2 years, but they don't know who they are suing. Once you get down to the parties, you get to something really interesting. "Defendant DOES ONE through TEN". 10 people is a lot. 10 unnamed people. "DFEH is ignorant of the true names or capacities of the defendants." So they don't know who they are suing. They don't know who did anything after a 2 year investigation. "DFEH will amend this complaint to allege their true names and capacities when the same are ascertained." In other words, they will name who they are suing as responsible once discovery begins. So after 2 years of investigation, they don't know who did what and don't know who they are suing. "We did a very thorough 2 year investigation but we don't know who did anything! Let's go on a fishing expedition and we will find out who our 10 imaginary defendants are!".

• Then you have the "factual allegations". No one is named except for Alex Afrabsabi. The rest is just "yeah, we talked to somebody and they heard that someone did something, but they don't know who". There really wasn't that much of an investigation. They're throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. In lawsuit, you're allowed to commit unlimited defamation. They can allege whatever they want. They alleged that Bret Kavanaugh was involved in giant rape orgies, etc. High profile sexual allegations are more likely to be false than true, whether it be Michael Jackson, or Bill Cosby, or Bret Kavanaugh, or Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or Donald Trump, etc. Notice how none of the allegations ended up sticking through the courts. Almost none of them, because they are usually spurious, done for political reasons.

• The lawsuit lasted 2 years. Blizzard is a huge company. If the sexual harassment was as pervasive as the lawsuit claims, then why didn't Kotaku makes tons of articles on this? if this was happening, you wouldn't be able to hide it.

The point of this is to get Blizzard to settle. Discovery is very bad for software companies. Discovery can last years and would really harm Blizzard's business as their projects are uncovered, which would influence their stockprice and influence competitors. Blizzard will settle and Alex Afrasabi will be thrown under the bus as the sacrificial scapegoat. The women cough up easy money from Blizzard and this government agency gets a trophy on the wall.

[Black Goat]

I feel like this is the beginning of the end for Blizzard.

In truth, I hope it is.

[Video Games]

I feel like this is the beginning of the end for Blizzard.

In truth, I hope it is.

Lol. Ubisoft was worse and valhalla broke sales records. Keep dreaming

[uuuhname]

The point of this is to get Blizzard to settle. Discovery is very bad for software companies. Discovery can last years and would really harm Blizzard's business as their projects are uncovered, which would influence their stockprice and influence competitors. Blizzard will settle and Alex Afrasabi will be thrown under the bus as the sacrificial scapegoat. The women cough up easy money from Blizzard and this government agency gets a trophy on the wall.

who cares. fuck Blizzard.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Yeah man remember the method Josh shit that happened. Once it was all out in the open many victims came forward with their story. Didn't think that guy Bay from finalbosstv was a piece of shit.

BECAUSE we're told to "shut up". The usual excuse is "stop talking conspiracies!!!!" or whatever excuse is in flavor at the moment.

But the truth comes out eventually.

The culture of hiding the problems is what's wrong. Not that people talk about the culture that makes it even possible.

So much effort to "control the message" is what got Mike and Crew this ugly situation. It runs down a long list of problems, like what happened with Method and Dream Paragon, too.

People in the know knew, but couldn't SPEAK/WRITE about it. Not that they didn't TRY!

[frebu]

There are several holes in the lawsuit.

• The lawsuit was filed by a government entity called the Department of Fair Employment and Housing. If you go to their website, you see that they say "You may file your own lawsuit for employment discrimination in court rather than using a DFEH investigation." You should be asking: why aren't the women involved in this lawsuit suing Blizzard themselves or together? Private attorneys only take a lawsuit case if they think they have a good chance of winning and getting a good money. A lawsuit costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. No one is going to take it on unless they think they are going to win. Blizzard is a big company, so winning a case would get them a lot of money. The fact that the women are having to use the government as their baseball bat would imply that private attorneys don't think they would win the case. But the government will do it because they are paid salaries in taxpayer dollars, regardless if they win or lose.

• They said they had been doing this investigation for more than 2 years, but they don't know who they are suing. Once you get down to the parties, you get to something really interesting. "Defendant DOES ONE through TEN". 10 people is a lot. 10 unnamed people. "DFEH is ignorant of the true names or capacities of the defendants." So they don't know who they are suing. They don't know who did anything after a 2 year investigation. "DFEH will amend this complaint to allege their true names and capacities when the same are ascertained." In other words, they will name who they are suing as responsible once discovery begins. So after 2 years of investigation, they don't know who did what and don't know who they are suing. "We did a very thorough 2 year investigation but we don't know who did anything! Let's go on a fishing expedition and we will find out who our 10 imaginary defendants are!".

• Then you have the "factual allegations". No one is named except for Alex Afrabsabi. The rest is just "yeah, we talked to somebody and they heard that someone did something, but they don't know who". There really wasn't that much of an investigation. They're throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. In lawsuit, you're allowed to commit unlimited defamation. They can allege whatever they want. They alleged that Bret Kavanaugh was involved in giant rape orgies, etc. High profile sexual allegations are more likely to be false than true, whether it be Michael Jackson, or Bill Cosby, or Bret Kavanaugh, or Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, or Donald Trump, etc. Notice how none of the allegations ended up sticking through the courts. Almost none of them, because they are usually spurious, done for political reasons.

• The lawsuit lasted 2 years. Blizzard is a huge company. If the sexual harassment was as pervasive as the lawsuit claims, then why didn't Kotaku makes tons of articles on this? if this was happening, you wouldn't be able to hide it.

The point of this is to get Blizzard to settle. Discovery is very bad for software companies. Discovery can last years and would really harm Blizzard's business as their projects are uncovered, which would influence their stockprice and influence competitors. Blizzard will settle and Alex Afrasabi will be thrown under the bus as the sacrificial scapegoat. The women cough up easy money from Blizzard and this government agency gets a trophy on the wall.

1: Why would people foot the bill if the government was willing to take the case? Activision has teams of lawyers that will draw this case out for years, its literally the number one reason people don't sue for employer misconduct, the financial burden of a lengthy case(and companies know it).

2: A hint, if you don't want somebody to exit your jurisdiction before you serve them with a lawsuit you don't release their name until you find them.

3. Cosby sentence was overturned because of a technicality, Jackson paid off his accusers and Kavanaugh was never formally charged with anything.

4. They........did? Like the other tech culture pitfalls(like crunch) the general gamer didn't care about but it wasn't a secret and people were talking about it.

[Peacemoon]

Well a number of my guild mates have already unsubbed in disgust, and we’re a pretty casual guild. So I wouldn’t underestimate the rage and disgust out there.

[Berndorf]

Well a number of my guild mates have already unsubbed in disgust, and we’re a pretty casual guild. So I wouldn’t underestimate the rage and disgust out there.

I think it will definitely hurt them in terms of the rest of this exp and probably the D2:R launch. The question is whether it hurts the next wow exp launch.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Lol. Ubisoft was worse and valhalla broke sales records. Keep dreaming

As the WoW culture says, "No king lasts forever".

When the institutional investors say, "enough", even WoW will die.

That's the ONLY thing keeping Activision-Blizzard alive -- those institutions like teacher pension funds that keep funding the very thing they publicly scorn.

The question is: How many people dying will they finally understand the actual cost in lives lost doesn't have a price tag?

It's just bad all around. How many feed on each other's corpse to stay afloat, too.