Mike Morhaime Response to Blizzard Lawsuit

[shise]

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.

You can´t blame Mike, you simply don´t know how much of it he knew. Besides, as I already said, that persons could have easily found another job with her CV: report the company with actual evidence (use your phone) and leave them behind.
Obviously, this person had other problems that drove her to do what she did. As tragic as it is.

I think that this whole thing is being blown apart into huge scales of what it might have actually been... fact is, Blizzard sacked one of the co-founders.. basically.

[Ivarr]

This has literally been my point in this entire thread.

But people are like "BUT BUT - WITNESS STATEMENTS - BUT BUT INVESTIGATION POINTS TOO"

how about - letting someone - who is far more involved in the case - actually judge the evidence - before you start pointing your virtuous fingers at every person who you can put in a box that you arent in.

My motivations are anything but virtuous. I want to see the shareholders roll the dice on new management and this is a beautiful pretext, one that may be more effective than actual merit.

[Sorrowseer]

Yo if if theres any girls out there... im virtue signalling so hard for yall rn, please love me

I guess this a joke to you.

[Kumorii]

I guess this a joke to you.

Think that it depends on what you refer to as "this".
This as in lawsuit and situation? Probably not...
This as in people virtue signalling? Probably yes...

[Gaidax]

It's pre-emptive damage control.

It's a dangerous game of poker where he probably knows a bluff isn't going to work, and it's probably due to this investigation by the state potentially having enough evidence to prove everything true. You generally take the 'can't comment' stance if there's any chance of getting away with deniability. I think the evidence is stacked against him given the amount of hearsay, the dwindling public trust in the company as a whole, and many more factors.

He may be put in a position where all he can do is admit to knowing something but failing to act in time of need. It's the best means of saving face, given that any deniability may just dig a deeper hole than admitting he knew and wasn't aware of how bad it got. His hand is already caught in the cookie jar, so to speak, considering his close personal ties to the accused, and how it's literally his responsibility for having kept them around. Shit like that can't stay secret, and 'no comment' is not going to help him publicly.

At least with his latest statement, and with support from tweets directly from Cher after talking with her, he's creating an image of deniability in the form of inaction, rather than ignorance. That is his best move right now, given that the evidence for what happened may already be too damning to deny.

I would probably be more convinced of a 'no comment' move if he weren't actively founder/CEO of a new startup that he needs to continue to build trust in. If he was just retired and didn't need to be in the public eye, then sure, he could just fall on deniability.

Pretty much.

No statement is not an option there and I am sure that good guys Mike and Chris lawyered up real well before they released what they released exactly because of what you have written. They are walking on a thin ice with their new ventures that have a lot riding on "done by good 'ol Blizzard guys" even aside from obvious potential legal accountability.

Metzen for sure has his nose deep in shit, because Afrasiabi was practically his protégé, so he can't really nope out of that one. That's why I imagine he did not write some nonsense about how he did not know outright, like Mike did. At best he could say "I did not know how bad it was", which I think he did? But I imagine it will be a line of defense for all of them.

- - - Updated - - -

You can´t blame Mike, you simply don´t know how much of it he knew.

Honestly, comments like this are laughable.

Can't blame Mike for cancer culture that grew under his leadership and among people he proudly in past claimed he's buddy buddy with? What, he got hit with sudden blindness/deafness/amnesia? Really?

And it's not like whoever did that shit is some one off random middle management peon from some god forsaken branch office. It was Afrasiabi, he was a member of the brass. If Morhaime (and ofc Metzen lulz) were not aware of what's happening in the inner circle, then shit - they led their company with blinders on.

I already said, some people here would buy Morhaime's and Metzen's bath water if he'd sell it and while I respect Metzen a lot (and quite less so Morhaime with his last decade of failures, even aside from this) - claiming they did not know is like...

[Ivarr]

Being unaware is not an excuse for being negligent, the two are synonymous when you're a chief executive.

[Thelxi]

Mike's statement was better than Metzen's imo.

[HumbleDuck]

Mike is definitely guilty of negligence, any further judgement requires more information to come to light. Don't get me wrong, I'm eagerly waiting for that and Until everything is figured out and justice is served, I'm not giving actiblizz a dime.

However to people who say " we knew this was going on for years, and we stand by our colleagues", I'd say: fuck you! You missed your chance to be the good guy.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Mike's statement was better than Metzen's imo.

I guess that is sarcasm in regards to how he hasn't made one yet?

[Xilurm]

I don't want the company to crash and burn. I want it to be cleansed from within so people who like working there can keep working on the worlds that people love and enjoy.

Blizz is literally at the bottom of barrel right now. Can only go up from here.

[Guyviroth]

I guess that is sarcasm in regards to how he hasn't made one yet?

Metzen has. Its on the front page of WoW head news.

https://www.wowhead.com/news/former-...apology-323543

[Cosmic Janitor]

Metzen has. Its on the front page of WoW head news.

https://www.wowhead.com/news/former-...apology-323543

Oh I see, I had missed that. Well his reponse seems even more apologetic and he might have a slightly better chance of not have known as much, but I find it difficult to believe that he never heard about such things. That stuff is usually the talk of the office before lunch and after the whole comapny knows it, so I have a hard time blieving either of them never even got a hint of that.

[Gaidax]

he might have a slightly better chance of not have known as much

KEKW

How? Afrasiabi was quite literally his protégé, an appointment to his job approved by him. While you could like, by stretching REAL hard, say that MAAAAAYBE Morhaime was not quite aware of the severity of the issues with Afrasiabi, but Metzen? lulwut?

Afrasiabi's practically Metzen's boy. There is no bloody way in any shape and form Metzen had no idea, he probably just did not give a fuck, which is a whole different story.

I really respect and like Metzen as a creator of universes I enjoyed for many years, but that does not make me blind to obvious BS.

[Forteofgray]

That's why they make millions of dollars. To know these things and fix them and to keep them from happening.

if I've learned anything working for giant, soulless corporations, it's that they rarely use their accrued wealth to fix their crumbling infrastructure. they just use it to maintain their shareholders and upper management bonuses.

[Verdugo]

I cant wait for Golden and Danuser to start making excuses, even though they were directly working with Afrasiabi.

[Cosmic Janitor]

KEKW

How? Afrasiabi was quite literally his protégé, an appointment to his job approved by him. While you could like, by stretching REAL hard, say that MAAAAAYBE Morhaime was not quite aware of the severity of the issues with Afrasiabi, but Metzen? lulwut?

Afrasiabi's practically Metzen's boy. There is no bloody way in any shape and form Metzen had no idea, he probably just did not give a fuck, which is a whole different story.

I really respect and like Metzen as a creator of universes I enjoyed for many years, but that does not make me blind to obvious BS.

Calm down, you'll get a stroke otherwise. There is a reason why I worded it the way I did and gave it a best a slightly better chance. According to metzen's tweets they had few story jamming sessions together, I'm in no position to argue how much "protege" this makes him, how much time they spend together and who groomed who here, because I have no idea how you would define that in the hiercharchy of their company and who claimed that either. Unless someone comes out and gives a detailed account on what happened I can only speculate. I certainly can't bleive a CEO would not have known about such things, even more so given the culture in american companies and the way it can cost them (as we see right now). But as I said I have very little reason to believe either of them knew nothing. Or let me rephrase it, I believe Morhaime even less that he didn't knew a thing, not that I believe him in the first place.

Btw, I'm usually very cricitical about Metz's writing, so I'm hardly a fanboy of his stuff either, in fact I think his work on WoW was meh at best and his new stuff with the D&D book reeks of pretty much every RP sin in the book, only made possible because his RPG friends couldn't get past his ego.

[Soon-TM]

Saying any less than Morheim did would have been unadvisable. Saying any more would risk him getting openly involved in all this !@$%, so it's a smart PR move, and nothing else. I personally think that he was involved as well - maybe not actively but just turning a blind eye every time someone (more often than not women) got harassed or discriminated. The sad thing is that we'll never know for certain, since this suit is very likely to be settled out of court imo.

[Daronokk]

I don't want the company to crash and burn. I want it to be cleansed from within so people who like working there can keep working on the worlds that people love and enjoy.

Blizz is literally at the bottom of barrel right now. Can only go up from here.

Lol, it can become much worse. It's already batshit woke but it can go beyond that. Anyone that isn't with them is against them, that sort of thinking. They are going to become hostile instead of defensive.

The company is dead. Politics seem more important than making fun games. Good on everyone that left the last few years.

[lockybalboa]

Mike's statement was better than Metzen's imo.

Metzen at least acknowledged that any apologies now is pretty pointless while Morhaime is just being a complete hypocrite here.

[Soon-TM]

Metzen has. Its on the front page of WoW head news.

https://www.wowhead.com/news/former-...apology-323543

Thanks for sharing m8.

I can't help the feeling that Metzen's apology sounds at least a tad more sincere than Morheim's. He even admits being way too disconnected from the ordinary employee to actually realise what was going on.