Blizzard Employee Letter to Leadership, Other Responses to Lawsuit

[OrangeJuice]

I bet their board game releases right on schedule.

[Xilurm]

Nothing. But it's now longer PC to say it, and apparently you will be retroactively judged for something you said that was acceptable over 10 years ago.

Meanwhile in FFXIV, people walking around with the 2B pants and no one cares, infact everyone is loving it.

[Soon-TM]

I bet their board game releases right on schedule.

The funny thing is that the only way it could somehow be on schedule is if it had been outsourced. Because if it was being developed in Irvine... GG.

[uuuhname]

It's so strange how sexualising female characters now is like some big taboo, but men having 80 inch chests and 40 inch biceps is completely and totally acceptable. I don't have a problem with either, why do people try to impose politics on to art?

People are free to go make their own games with their own characters that look however they want if they really don't like it

The West is actually fucked at this point.

what's really strange to me is the idea that criticism of video games is what's going to lead to the fall of the west. really peculiar.

[Doombringer]

Jeff Hamilton blaming HR and Activision. Alex Klontzas blaming literally us. Ghostcrawler insinuating hes just misunderstood. Brack claiming to be unaware. Morhaime saying everyone else is also doing it. Metzen blaming man-culture. Even Blizzard's official response was to blame DFEH. Literal pieces of shit incapable of taking any form of responsibility.

This is the Blame Game. Jeff Hamilton has the right of it, the blame rests with HR and the management structure.

The official response is the most hilarious though... "this is just a witch hunt by the California because they hate business!" Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me. This is a disgusting deflection of the issue at hand written likely by a man, or a woman in a prestigious untouchable position. The employee response letter was right... that corporate response shouts from the ivory tower "nothing is wrong here!" and completely invalidates whatever experiences employees have had or are having. W O W.

This company has gone to shit.

[Indigenously Abled]

Every large franchise has had stuff like this happen. The Blizzard allegations are small fry compared to the stuff that the big franchises actually had going on behind the scenes back in the day. For example, Star Trek, with TOS, Denise Crosby in TNG, Terry Farrell in DS9, Jennifer Lien and Jeri Ryan on Voyager, etc. But people didn't stop watching ST because of that.

The groping of women in Japan on trains and in the workplace is well known, but you don't hear drama about that hear in the West. It seems odd to hyperfocus on Blizzard as if they are they are the biggest bad. Or maybe people just only have a limited attention span and Blizzard is what they know, so that's why they focus on it?

I mean, it's the current topic, so yeah, people are going to be focusing on it.

Meanwhile in FFXIV, people walking around with the 2B pants and no one cares, infact everyone is loving it.

A buff to the cheeks was needed for some races.

[PenguinChan]

Changing corporate culture is hard. Installing something like discipline in a free-for-all culture like Blizzard's is harder.

There's been a lot of back-and-forth about whether or not Blizzard is too big to fail. That might be irrelevant. Blizzard survives this.

The real question is whether or not they're too big to change. That's an open question.

Exactly, which is why I find it amusing when people keep trying to point fingers at the merger and all that nonsense. It's the developers being the same as they were many years ago - leads changed hands but even some remained the same. It's their fault not some company buyout - though that still has influence, I won't disagree on that part. But I digress!

Exactly - they're way too big to fail off of something like this. But will they change? Ehhhh.

That's a big ol' probably not. I'm sure some people will get fired and there will be a shake-up on some key management positions... But if a huge majority still reside in the company, I don't see that mentality changing.

[MoanaLisa]

The top comment on Reddit perfectly sums up my feelings for that Alex guy

Anyone who believes that work on the game is going to stop for more than a few days is kidding themselves. Yep, there will be meetings and such but people are going to mostly be back at it this week sometime. As far as their customers go, that's how they get out of this. The people on the ground: the coders, the engineers, the producers pull management's fat out of the fire for them. Was there a disruption? Sure. Is it going to go on for weeks or months? No, it won't.

[Raysz]

So nobody can criticise Blizzard's (probable) wrongdoings without being the second coming of Jesus, it would seem. How convenient for those supporting this crappy state of things.

All I'm saying is that it's very easy to sh*t on Blizzard while most of us don't give a sh*t about far greater injustices in the world. Ones you can actually avoid being part of. It's seems very selective and convenient to me.
Your whole 'being Jesus' statement basically tells me that you don't want to be consistent, you only care about the injustice you can afford to care about.

[MoanaLisa]

Exactly, which is why I find it amusing when people keep trying to point fingers at the merger and all that nonsense. It's the developers being the same as they were many years ago - leads changed hands but even some remained the same. It's their fault not some company buyout - though that still has influence, I won't disagree on that part. But I digress!

Exactly - they're way too big to fail off of something like this. But will they change? Ehhhh.

That's a big ol' probably not. I'm sure some people will get fired and there will be a shake-up on some key management positions... But if a huge majority still reside in the company, I don't see that mentality changing.

If Brack is allowed to stay around, that will be on him. He strikes me as someone who, when they get really determined about something, will do what it takes to get it done. He's taken a very large hit on this with the Afrasiabi thing so he now has something to prove. Internally I expect he will be something of a hard-ass about this. It might work. Then again, he might be gone by Friday.

[mrgreenthump]

He's fucking right though. You value game content more than the welfare of people.

Uhm, no. You know nothing about me. I cannot improve the welfare of those people that got abused, how am I responsible for there being asshole in the company that can't respect other people. They need to face the fact that the value of the product will not be on par for the foreseeable future and not guilt trip paying customers into not cancelling their subs when we have another mid expansion 8 month content drought.

[PenguinChan]

If Brack is allowed to stay around, that will be on him. He strikes me as someone who, when they get really determined about something, will do what it takes to get it done. He's taken a very large hit on this with the Afrasiabi thing so he now has something to prove. Internally I expect he will be something of a hard-ass about this. It might work. Then again, he might be gone by Friday.

Will have to see - I haven't looked deeply into how brack actually is received by the company employee's and if he actually puts in motion what he believes in. Maybe he does? I would love to believe he'll dig heels in and pull back on everything, tear up the bad apples and make sure things get figured out. But I don't know about that honestly.

Him being gone is a possibility anyways, so none of it may come to fruition like you mentioned.

[Soon-TM]

All I'm saying is that it's very easy to sh*t on Blizzard while most of us don't give a sh*t about far greater injustices in the world. Ones you can actually avoid being part of. It's seems very selective and convenient to me.
Your whole 'being Jesus' statement basically tells me that you don't want to be consistent, you only care about the injustice you can afford to care about.

And your whole "world is shit so you can't criticise any particular part of it" looks like you just don't care about injustices at all, not even those you can afford to care about.

[Raysz]

And your whole "world is shit so you can't criticise any particular part of it" looks like you just don't care about injustices at all, not even those you can afford to care about.

I care a great deal. I stopped eating meat years ago, I don't drive a car, I buy clothes maybe once every 10 years. All I'm saying is, be consistent.
To me it seems you pick the things you feel you can be indignant about. Not because it's justified, but because it's convenient. That's being a hypocrite.

[Antherios]

My brother still plays daily, and has not stopped since Wrath. He doesn't like drama and doesn't care to keep updated about it, and even he is noticing people quitting left and right.

He has two accounts and I don't know how many alts, and he told me yesterday that on his main guild so many people quit that they had to completely re-do the raiding teams, went from three down to just one. On his other casual guilds, one is almost deserted and the other went from having 200 people online last monday, to just 60 this Monday.

This seems like might have unprecedented effects on sub numbers just from that small sample.

[Th3Scourge]

what's really strange to me is the idea that criticism of video games is what's going to lead to the fall of the west. really peculiar.

Well the criticism of video games and circulation of comments from 10 years ago really is taken in aggregate with everything else the West is currently going through so yeah that's a pretty dumb take there mate

[arkanon]

I care a great deal. I stopped eating meat years ago, I don't drive a car, I buy clothes maybe once every 10 years. All I'm saying is, be consistent.
To me it seems you pick the things you feel you can be indignant about. Not because it's justified, but because it's convenient. That's being a hypocrite.

You buy clothes? I find that completely unacceptable. How dare someone who purchases clothes sit on their high horse looking down on others. I am a level 4 vegan, which means i dont eat anything that casts a shadow, and you think just "not eating meat" is enough? Complete hypocrite.

[Soon-TM]

I care a great deal. I stopped eating meat years ago, I don't drive a car, I buy clothes maybe once every 10 years. All I'm saying is, be consistent.
To me it seems you pick the things you feel you can be indignant about. Not because it's justified, but because it's convenient. That's being a hypocrite.

Sorry, but all the things you've mentioned don't change world injustice, not even a little bit. And you are perfectly aware of that, aren't you? So much for not being a hypocrite. The solution to the problems of the world isn't about "living like an Amish", as someone said earlier, but actively trying to improve other people's lives, e.g. harassed women at Blizzard. I can't do a great deal for people being brutally exploited in sweatshops in Bangla Desh or some other random third world country, unfortunately. And no, you don't buying those clothes doesn't change their crappy situation in the slightest, so it's perhaps time to do something different.

[Jester Joe]

Uhm, no. You know nothing about me. I cannot improve the welfare of those people that got abused, how am I responsible for there being asshole in the company that can't respect other people. They need to face the fact that the value of the product will not be on par for the foreseeable future and not guilt trip paying customers into not cancelling their subs when we have another mid expansion 8 month content drought.

Nothing about that is guilt tripping.

Literally all that was pointed out was "if you're taking hearing there will be a delayed and complaining about that, you're probably part of the issue".

Which is completely fair to say, because anyone who can see why this is so disturbing it happened would also logically understand it's going to affect the game.

Anyone who hears it and starts still complaining about the content most likely doesn't care about what happened, hence they become part of the problem.

Trying to sugar coat it as "but I have to pay monthly!" isn't justifiable either because you can just cancel until the next patch.
You're not responsible for what happened.
But if your reaction isn't going to extend sympathy, then you can hardly complain if it's pointed out how insensitive that can be.

[Antherios]

Lot of social justice warriors here. I wonder how many of those stopped buying Iphones after they found out that those were produced in countries with horrible working conditions, or stopped buying cheap clothing produced by children for 1 dollar an hour in Asia. Lets not forget buying gas from oil companies that destroy the environment and villages in Africa and other places. It's just very convenient to sh*t on Blizzard.

What happened at Blizzard is horrible, assuming it's true but ignoring the injustices I mentioned above, that's way worse. Bunch of hypocrites.

That's a terrible logic that I see people around here spreading to try to defend their sunk cost fallacy.

With that logic anyone that ever bought an Iphone or clothes in the West should just stop trying to be better and demand better services, as we already used products that came from child labor. Can you imagine what kind of society we would get?

"Oh I already supported this terrible thing! In order to not look like a hypocrite Ill just support ALL terrible things!"