Cover your ass mode, activate.
Val I like you and I agree with you on a lot of things when it comes to videogames but this is some tinfoil territory and not even vaguely representative of how lawsuits work.
Yes, the government can file regulatory actions in its own name regardless of if the victim(s) can or want to press a matter, there is self-evident social utility to it. This entire argument is tantamount to saying every single police case ever should have people asking why prosecutions exist.
The defendant is Activision blizzard in its capacity as an employer. It is safer to hold back on the names of the species in persona defendants until you get a 100% confirmed by blizzard lockdown on what their names and titles were at the time the alleged offenses took place, the statement of claim saying the plaintiff is ignorant of their names doesn't mean it literally is, it simply means they're filling with an abundance of caution.
They can't name the offenders in the complaint and then choose not to name them as defendants (or vice versa) it doesn't work like that, the government filed cautiously that's the way it went.
I suspect if they had named the alleged offenders we'd be here talking about how cruel they are for ruing the life of low-level employees.
First of all, there are articles as far back as 2018 with assault allegations, there was a huge one in 2019. There is no utility in pretending there have been no allegations before now.
Secondly, there are many safeguards in place around discovery and court control of sensitive documents, this isn't the first time nor will it be the last a company has been sued. Even then I'm struggling to think of a situation where documents relevant to sexual harassment claims could reveal top-secret information, even then blizzard can partition the court of extra safeguards. I think it's silly to suggest that discovery is some secret special weapon that is super effective against software companies and the government is just going around strong-arming them constantly.
Hell, I would argue that the fact the Department can't just fine blizzard and instead has to file a civil suit in the general division of the court shows how weak it's regulatory powers are.
Last edited by Saltysquidoon; 2021-07-24 at 10:05 PM.
Tonight for me is a special day. I want to go outside of the house of the girl I like with a gasoline barrel and write her name on the road and set it on fire and tell her to get out too see it (is this illegal)?
The 3 statements/emails that were sent out are just words. No actions, just empty words.
Well according to a series of tweets that happened last night, I'm less convinced of his innocence and and more heartbroken for all these victims.
https://twitter.com/cherthedev/statu...057825285?s=21
OH NO MY STOCK... /inserts damage control statement
looking out of my lonely room day after day
It's not about money now. $10,000,000 in a lawsuit is peanuts for a billion dollar company that has insurance for JUST that reason.
A woman is DEAD due to toxic company culture. That puts everything into DEEP perspective, just like the SWATting incident brought front and center the problems in gaming culture.
Sadly it took her loss of life for regulators and media to even give a damn, too.
That's what's sad in all of this: it could've been prevented if Mike did so. Not just be "PC" on the forums, but being ACTUALLY PC at the office. It shows a long standing culture of Blue Badges and it's inequality in a company so toxic it now killed a dev.
As for Afrasiabi, like Mark Kern, they are "hatchet men" who do what company LOYALTY demanded: Furor "I HATE PALADINS" Plaindefiler's "note" of him being hired by Blizzard to signal people to follow him at the competition; and Mark Kern supporting Gamergate + needing to be a mouthpiece for "Classic WoW" (complete with a Hentai Twitter banner it pulled). Interesting Kern got money afterwards for his game, a guy who after the "Firefall" mess can't work in the industry anymore after screwing some Chinese investors (he did all that to sabotage the competition for Overwatch).
So they''re "big boys" and there's no "victims" on Blizzard's side.
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."
Why shouldnt the accused be defended?Absolutely not surprised that you're defending the accused - yet again
an accusation doesnt constitute proof.
Personally i have been the subject of a bogus malicious sexual harrassment claim, even the allegations ruined my life for a long time, it didnt matter that in the end i was vindicated, people had already made up their mind and added their misinformation and thoughts. All because i wasnt interested in pursuing a relationship with a female employee who was interested in me and couldnt take being turned down.
I also know a gay man who had his life absolutely destroyed by someone who falsely accused him of rape, he was very close to suicide from the abuse he received because people made up their mind after he had been labeled a rapist. he had people vandalising his home, personally attacking or threatening him abusing him the street, people didnt want to work with him because of that label. even after he was proven innocent he suffered abuse for over 2 years, and still gets called a rapist by people to this day.
Trial by media and cancel is dangerous, and is nothing more than mob mentality.
Totally agree here. And - sadly - this is going to be more and more aggressive, mob just loves to lynch anyone who is pointed as potential rapist/harasser/racist/whatever. It was like this in Middle Ages, when mob fried women for 'witching' and church tortured people to death for 'heresy' - and it is going to be like that now, again. History repeats itself.
This is such a ridiculous amount of hyperbole. At worst some people will stop buying their games and the people who are named in the lawsuit will find it harder to find new jobs though some of them probably already have. People are allowed to voice opinions on the internet. That does not = 'mob justice'. Just as we as consumers can use whatever sense of corporate responsibility we want to apply to companies to decide whether we want to buy their products.
Last edited by Berndorf; 2021-07-24 at 11:10 PM.
On a private server???
I like my nostalgia much better!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX13vYvon6I
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."
Haha nope.
They will settle, then release D4, OW2 and new WoW expansion and it all will be forgotten like their other PR fuckups.
Lets be real - the most you will see out of it is some high profile names being let go, more Activision influence (which imo would be good) and some $$ thrown around. No, Blizzard won't die, it will take its slap on the face and will wipe the subsequent tears with $$.