Employee Response to Bobby Kotick, Additional Information on Cosby Suite

[Tooshie]

The blight of a white, straight man. Can't even rape, grope and harass at work without some woke leftists making a fuss about it.

[Tooshie]

so bill cosby wasnt acussed til like 2015 right? i think the cosby suite thing might of been a inhouse joke that didnt age well but given that no one has been accused of drugging and raping people like cosby was, and unless there is those accusations i think the cosby suite and cosbys rape accusations are unrelated, what could it be? who knows but given there is multiple public tweets found about it, i doubt anyone would tweet about something rape related, maybe it was a juxtraposition to his former "family man" persona to their frat culture thing, still not a good look but nowhere as bad as what people initially assume

This is just desperate.

[Clbull]

so bill cosby wasnt acussed til like 2015 right? i think the cosby suite thing might of been a inhouse joke that didnt age well but given that no one has been accused of drugging and raping people like cosby was, and unless there is those accusations i think the cosby suite and cosbys rape accusations are unrelated, what could it be? who knows but given there is multiple public tweets found about it, i doubt anyone would tweet about something rape related, maybe it was a juxtraposition to his former "family man" persona to their frat culture thing, still not a good look but nowhere as bad as what people initially assume

That's what Ghostcrawler said.

Their green-room was apparently called the Cosby Suite in reference to an old picture of Bill Cosby they found in a flea market.

[Tooshie]

Did any of you rocket scientists who are downplaying this even bother to read a line from the court material btw?

[Ezyah]

I'm sorry, where are the 'jokes' in that group chat again? You know the topic of the discussion in this thread? You know not made up gishgalloping hypotheticals?

Here's an idea how about you stop defending sex pests?

And where exactly are the offense in that exact image ? He's not threatening to do anything against anyone will ?

It's just a bunch of dudes making buddy's jokes. Maybe they're of bad taste YES but nothing that is scandalous. What world do you live in ???

[Cæli]

J needs to resign and they need to promote or hire a woman into the position who can clean up their act, and it would probably be great for WoW and their other games as well.

why a woman? a competent person in the position of leadership can also be a man...both can work, the gender doesn't determine if the person is able or not to do this job

[Tooshie]

And where exactly are the offense in that exact image ? He's not threatening to do anything against anyone will ?

It's just a bunch of dudes making buddy's jokes. Maybe they're of bad taste YES but nothing that is scandalous. What world do you live in ???

In this context it's pretty bad look. When you're just being accused of sexual harassment and predatory behaviour and shit like cosby suite and some pasty middle aged dude talking about bringing "chixx" or whatever the fuck corny term was used again, then yeah. Pretty unsavoury shit.

[Gadzooks]

To all the coping MRAs shrieking about how the Cosby suite must be innocent because the bombastic allegations only came out in 2014 (despite their being numerous earlier allegations and public knowledge he was a massive party hound). It was still used to gain access to and ply alcohol to 'chixx' for the purpose of gaining a supply of sex with or without consent. By blizzard employees, at what is obstinately a work event.


Forced arbitration has actually already been banned by the CA legislature, the amendment is just being buried under litigation by big business to suppress it as long as possible. Frankly as someone who works in a non-US jurisdiction, I'm still shocked every time I find out it was ever legal since it directly undermines the judiciary and the law of contract.

Also, yes a union would be good, the more Americans who wake up and realise pretty much every western country has better working conditions then them because their labour movements weren't killed by corporatists the better.

I'm on the fence regarding unions. Some are good, some are bad, and if you end up with a bad one, it's impossible to remove. But it's their decision, not mine. Here in the US we have a rocky history with unions - granted, a lot of the abuse was/is from mob and government corruption, so it's not really easy to just assume we'd have good EU style unions forming in the game industry, not that it would be a bad thing in many cases.

A lot of Europeans (and yes, I've lived there and know many from there) tend to assume that what works there, would work here. Like the UK healthcare system - that would be impossible here with the level of corruption and outside influence from industry and lobbyists, which is why we didn't get it with Obamacare. I don't want our current pack of degenerates in the Congress anywhere near a new system like the British healthcare system, because they're just not rich enough to not loot the entire thing and throw us scraps.

But we'll see. A union forming for game devs is an interesting idea, since self-policing has worked so well with companies like Riot and Blizzard. (/s, obviously)

[Byleth]

I hope some of the ‘fans’ go with them.

The levels of toxic douchebag behaviour on display in these threads has been mental.

The extreme and growing levels of toxicity in the WoW community is the number 1 reason I quit the game. Clearly this behavior is endorsed by Blizzard as they do nothing about it. I cannot continue to support a company like that.

[vincink]

I suspect that for the employee "collective", no matter what Acti-Blizz does, it will never be enough. This has all the marks of progressive activist-driven non-sense. Wherever such activism thrives, victims of actual injustice-- such as those women and men who were allegedly sexually harassed-- will be forgotten. It appears they've already been forgotten.

[Nimin]

I hope some of the ‘fans’ go with them.

The levels of toxic douchebag behaviour on display in these threads has been mental.

Agreed, some people seem incapable of rational thought.

[Saltysquidoon]

And where exactly are the offense in that exact image ? He's not threatening to do anything against anyone will ?

It's just a bunch of dudes making buddy's jokes. Maybe they're of bad taste YES but nothing that is scandalous. What world do you live in ???

Just some bros making some bad taste 'jokes'. It's not like anyone suffered as a consequence of those innocent bantz

Maybe the takeaway here shouldn't be to defend sex pests because you said something edgy in chat before but rather; to analyse if what's being said in those chats are really as innocent as you think?

[RoKPaNda]

Fire every single person involved. Sadly this is very common behavior.

Fresh blood will be good for the game, good for the company, and good for the industry as a whole.

[Nimin]

There is evidence all over the place. There are numerous people coming forward to speak against the rampant sexual harassment in the Blizzard offices. And your mentality is exactly why nothing was done about it for so long.

Hold on.
People coming out and accusing Blizzard of stuff is not evidence, it's accusation.
Why are you confusing the two and acting as if they're all one and the same?

[Schmittay]

There is evidence all over the place. There are numerous people coming forward to speak against the rampant sexual harassment in the Blizzard offices. And your mentality is exactly why nothing was done about it for so long.

Wouldn't be surprising if the people who dismiss it are the ones perpetuating it. Probably thinks it's normal behaviour. Maybe he needs to look in the mirror and ask if he'd like his mother / sister / daughter / whatever treated as nothing but a walking fuck doll for the blokes to have a crack at, at every opportunity.

[TheRevenantHero]

Wouldn't be surprising if the people who dismiss it are the ones perpetuating it. Probably thinks it's normal behaviour. Maybe he needs to look in the mirror and ask if he'd like his mother / sister / daughter / whatever treated as nothing but a walking fuck doll for the blokes to have a crack at, at every opportunity.

Oh absolutely. Very very often I've noticed that people who trivialize cases like this are typically the kind of people that sexually harass their coworkers or are predators themselves. There's so many people on these forums basically getting mad they can't make sex jokes, rape jokes, or other disgusting kinds of jokes. Because how dare they be held accountable for their toxicity!

[Saltysquidoon]

I'm on the fence regarding unions. Some are good, some are bad, and if you end up with a bad one, it's impossible to remove. But it's their decision, not mine. Here in the US we have a rocky history with unions - granted, a lot of the abuse was/is from mob and government corruption, so it's not really easy to just assume we'd have good EU style unions forming in the game industry, not that it would be a bad thing in many cases.

Something not working because they were wither intentionally white anted by government or corporate interests doesn't really speak to the efficacy of the thing. I'm Australian btw (although I live in Europe at present) and we have (had, thanks based Murdoch) the strongest labour movement in the anglosphere pretty much. We don't have 'bad unions' and it's not a surprise our worker protections and working-class wages are so strong.

I understand the US's history is different, but let's be fair when you're the outlier the problem's probably more with some external force than the concept of unions.

[ArdentVeteran]

What people are seemingly ignoring is that Fran was a puppet of Bob's the entire time. She was only there for 4 months and anything that woman touches is corrupt. These people think muh woman is the future but everyone can be conniving and tactical. That woman is monstrous and the conversations she must have had with Bobby are interesting considering they have been friends for 20 years.

As a European unions suck. You can employ some really shit programmers who are not fitting to the job and it could take years to remove them.

[Gadzooks]

And where exactly are the offense in that exact image ? He's not threatening to do anything against anyone will ?

It's just a bunch of dudes making buddy's jokes. Maybe they're of bad taste YES but nothing that is scandalous. What world do you live in ???

The lawsuit alleges a "frat boy" culture at Blizzard, that image props that idea up.

Nobody in that image is under criminal investigation as far as anyone knows, and it's salacious enough to be the focus of attention right now. "The Cosby Suite" is in extremely poor taste, but nobody is facing charges over it, it's just part of the overall picture of the culture at the company.

And yes, dudes engage in locker room talk. The bigger picture here is these guys demonstrably took it way, way out of the locker room. Which is what the State is accusing the company of, and one of them was in fact fired for his conduct. What's not established yet that I've seen is any specific accounts of harassment or inappropriate behavior from that suite, that year. Afrasiabi seems to have had a long, colorful history of harassment and drunken escapades, but if and until any allegations are linked to that suite that year, this is just a salacious example the state put in their filing painting a partial picture of the Blizzard culture.

You may not think it's scandalous, but if the state attorney's use it in court, the judge and jury may have a much different opinion of it. It's not good look for Blizzard to have floating around while defending itself.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

The Kotaku article is the confirmation I needed: Alex Afrasiabi really is a JERK in real life. FACT!

It's personal as I came from the EQ/II franchise to WoW where Alex Afrasiabi's HATE for paladins was total. His FoH guild buddies that also came to WoW to be devs supported that hate, too (and did nothing in WoW to stop his nastiness). It's not that a person simply didn't like to play a class type of preference, it's the destruction OF a class and all the excuses that made Afrasiabi's protests (and in WoW, design) so ugly. He led that. I personally always use a paladin character to give Afrasiabi "the finger". My guild song too. Will triumph over that HATE.

It took over a decade to get justice, but he was fired (some relief).

My larger concern now is the effects of that CULTure in gaming itself, especially with women and WoW's part in the whole Gamergate mess. I'm not one of these cancel culture protestors, but I got a game to cancel now, as immortalizing the JERK is enough for me to do so. I will not support games that will treat women like trash. Bad enough for a decade getting all that nastiness in WoW, it should not continue with memorials and nostalgia, too. Let it die and NOT be resurrected.

The employee demands are reasonable. They're asking for 3rd party oversight and transparency with personnel issues. That can be done.

It still bothers me that a woman committed suicide DUE TO that CULTure and was TRAPPED (puts ugly spin on WoW's "It's a trap!" memes, too). A CULTure that spread throughout TECH itself. That has to be amended. NO ONE needs to die for a video game, folks. No character/class/instance/PvP or developer is worth dying for that "cause". It's nonsensical.

I'm skeptical with Blizzard will lead that change (they always do things extremely, not with moderation), as we seen TOO MANY lies from them over the years that the CULTure will change. They have to show me they are serious to change that CULTure (and not how they usually do it too, find scapegoats and worse).