A Letter From CEO Bobby Kotick to All Employees

[Magnagarde]

Not one person is saying Blizzard hasn't made successful games. But the games aren't in question here. The behaviour of a number of people is.

A number of people. Not all. That's the key point. A further issue is the wilful ignorance of the leadership in response to this behaviour.

And I don't disagree with you on any of this.

[anon5123]

You then clearly don't know how to read and/or interpret information.

"u r dum"

Very compelling argument.

[natham]

Its funny watching you all how pretend you give a damn about all this ))))))))))

[Yarathir]

Man 21 century is really screwed up... damn snowflakes man. Everyone is offended and every b*tch think is sexually harassed because some guy is looking at her. Pathetic.

This lawsuit is by the state itself after 2 years of investigation and reports of sexual and verbal harassment and abuse and a person committing suicide.

Yes, there are opportunistic vultures on twitter leaping on all of this to add their own meager microaggression whinges for the sake of receiving "sweaty ur so brave a literal kween <3 <3 <3" and other e-cred, but that doesn't take away from the fact that there are actual victims, some men included from what I've seen.

[TrollHunter3000]

I'm making the assumption to humour the guy. Follow his chain of thought and explain how it's still erroneous.

Because at its core, there is no amount of transparency that will convince some people that diversity in the workplace is a good thing.

Even if it's completely natural and not some engineered process.

You have more patience than I do. From your posts, it definitely seems you're well read into these issues. I deal with people a daily basic who don't understand the math I do to calculate expected (expected used in a statistical sense) outcomes and why not meeting these expectations can be evidence that there is a systemic issue. Luckily, my job is to do the math and it's someone else's job to convince these people that they need to do something about it.

[natham]

This lawsuit is by the state itself after 2 years of investigation and reports of sexual and verbal harassment and abuse and a person committing suicide.

Yes, there are opportunistic vultures on twitter leaping on all of this to add their own meager microaggression whinges for the sake of receiving "sweaty ur so brave a literal kween <3 <3 <3" and other e-cred, but that doesn't take away from the fact that there are actual victims, some men included from what I've seen.

As I said, damn 21 century snowflakes.

[Yarathir]

What here is a buzzword? Do you know what buzzwords are?

Imagine thinking being educated is the same as being indoctrinated.

I mean, education can be indoctrination. Calling something education doesn't immediately make it good or flawless.

[Nimin]

Oo, this racism and discrimination discussion is going places... People still get triggered and are offended by diversity.
It's apparently totally ok to get a job because you are a white male over a woman, a poc or a gay person with the same qualification.
But it is totally not ok if the latter group gets the job.

Nobody should get a position based on their skincolor, correct.
Neither the white guy nor the POC or whatever person. You got us.

[uuuhname]

"u r dum"

Very compelling argument.

equally as compelling and unique as the other hundreds of posts crying over "diversity".

[Ivarr]

The assumption people have that the state of gaming right now - mostly white dudes - is a result of hiring for most qualified and that is fundamentally incorrect.

When mostly white dudes apply for these positions then mostly white dudes holding these positions is evidence that there is no discrimination taking place. The demographic share of the applications needs to reflect the demographic share of the hired.

[TrollHunter3000]

I get you. Just sick of this HR rainbow/woke capitalism barely sugarcoated "We'll hire more of x."

Especially when it seems to be used as a way to get back in people's good graces after something as horrendous as this. I hope that makes sense.

This is one of the major issues though. People thinking that all that is being done is "we'll hire more of x". Is that happening? Probably sometimes. But I can assure you that is it not an acceptable practice and with the dozens of companies I've worked with who have hundreds of thousands of employees, that is not the accepted practice.

[DingDongKing]

People who want to argue against basic equality always act as if suitability for a job is an objective measurement like length of a stick as opposed to a collection of various things. One of the biggest examples of that is how people argue that what some folks would dismiss as "diversity hires" are rejected because they "dont fit in to company culture" but what Blizz, and Riot, and Ubisoft and so many others has laid bare is that their "company culture" is absolute rot. Which lays it very bare two things. One that even if they advertise equal opportunity hiring they're not actually doing it (so all the folks saying theyre mad at diversity hiring in gaming are basically lying) and that two they're hiring people who will either not speak out against a culture of sexual harassment, or be targets of that harassment, or be perpetrators.

One thing people don't quite reckon with is that the "golden days" of gaming they hearken back to would be characterized by rockstars of talent who weren't part of the frat boy culture being systematically denied hiring, advancement, equal pay, and in some cases just straight up being pushed out of the medium.

I’ve always found the ‘they didn’t fit the culture’ part hilarious. They should just use that when not hiring white males just to infuriate them to high heavens. They’d find a way to cry about it.

[anon5123]

Why? Nobody gives valid reasoning to this

He fosters and encourages the "us VS them" mentality that plagues the modern political climate. That's why. He's loud, abrasive, and divisive.

[Yarathir]

As I said, damn 21 century snowflakes.

Being sexually harassed and verbally denigrated to the point of suicide isn't a snowflake thing. Crying online about how your manager complimented you on your strong, inspiring go-getter attitude but dared to criticize you for being a little too passionate and uncooperative is.

[DingDongKing]

This is one of the major issues though. People thinking that all that is being done is "we'll hire more of x". Is that happening? Probably sometimes. But I can assure you that is it not an acceptable practice and with the dozens of companies I've worked with who have hundreds of thousands of employees, that is not the accepted practice.

Thanks for handling this one.

[TrollHunter3000]

It is possible.

But, and I know this is a cliché, can you tell me why there's fewer garbagewomen than men? Oppression? Societal discrimination? Or might it just be that a lot of women don't really like the notion of that job? Gaming isn't for everyone, film making isn't for everyone, teaching isn't for everyone, sports aren't for everyone, and we have no problem conceptualizing or even acknowledging that except for the industries that seem glamorous. Which, to be honest, I think gamedev isn't all that glamorous in practice. Only on the surface, from a consumer standpoint.

Again, this is why we use math and take into consideration the labor market. you keep giving me examples of "why is this field mostly X???" when in most cases, that isn't an issue because that's what's available in the labor market.

- - - Updated - - -

Because it doesn't?

If the reason a company has a majority of white male employees is that white males are proportionally more interested in the area/industry, then the problem isn't on the company's hiring practices or in their "outreach efforts". Potentially there isn't even a problem, but if there is it's more likely to be a wider problem drawing from social and economic factors, rather than any given company's practices.

And if that's the case then that would be what the numbers tell us when we calculate expectations. That's what I said in the rest of the post that you cut off.

[DingDongKing]

He fosters and encourages the "us VS them" mentality that plagues the modern political climate. That's why. He's loud, abrasive, and divisive.

Wait are you talking about Trump?

It’s because he’s a racebaiting, xenophobic, bigot. Even his own Lindsey Graham said so.

[EyelessCrow]

He fosters and encourages the "us VS them" mentality that plagues the modern political climate. That's why. He's loud, abrasive, and divisive.

Oh my fucking god, is that seriously your reason? You just described the entire government body on both sides. But HE'S the problem...just admit it, you go by red and blue and nothing else. You squawk what you're told to squawk

[TrollHunter3000]

With your expertise, can you reflect on what Nike is doing then?
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/11/nike...k-to-them.html

I don't know how they arrived at their numbers. I would like to believe they based it on the available job market but I wasn't the one who calculated those numbers.

[Yarathir]

This is one of the major issues though. People thinking that all that is being done is "we'll hire more of x". Is that happening? Probably sometimes. But I can assure you that is it not an acceptable practice and with the dozens of companies I've worked with who have hundreds of thousands of employees, that is not the accepted practice.

Yeah, and offering women less money for the same job has been illegal for over.. what, two decades?

Yet if I were to bring that up, I'd undoubtedly get people rolling their eyes and going "heh, yeah well that doesn't mean anything because they do it anyway, educate urself sweaty" Not saying you would say that, but I've had retorts of similar nature before.