Employee Response to Bobby Kotick, Additional Information on Cosby Suite

[TheRevenantHero]

Yeah but you are speculating by ignoring evidence. The evidence is that the majority of people didn't know in 2013, Cosby was still getting shows planned in 2013, that the Blizzard devs took a public photo in the room with a picture of Cosby and that none of the private chats that were revealed showed any knowledge of Cosby being a rapist.

I said the majority of people didn't know because all evidence we have points to the majority of people not knowing until Hannibal pissed off a bunch of Philadelphians and they went to prove him wrong and found out he was right. Why was Wikipedia only able to find 2 articles pre 2014 and both were in Philadelphia? Why can't you find any proof otherwise?

There is absolutely zero evidence that can prove that the majority of people didn't know in 2013. Stop acting like your speculation is gospel.

[qwerty123456]

There is absolutely zero evidence that can prove that the majority of people didn't know in 2013. Stop acting like your speculation is gospel.

My speculation has evidence. The fact that tons of Blizzard fans saw the photo as did the women working at Blizzard and nobody until a year later talked about Cosby being a rapist. And the fact it took Hannibal 6 months of touring to convince people it was a joke and was only able to do so because he pissed off people in Cosby's hometown.

Why is it that you can never post any evidence and just keep claiming I'm wrong because my proof isn't a 2013 poll of 6 billion people or what ever the world population was at the time?

Why do you need them for them to have created the room with the knowledge that Cosby was a piece of crap? What agenda do you have? My agenda is to point out what facts we have and try and get ignorant people to actually think before they speak.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Yeah I've stated multiple times that some people knew but the majority didn't. Hannibal told people to google it after Philadelphians got pissed and didn't believe him since thats Cosby's hometown. He had been saying that bit about Cosby for 6 months with people thinking it was a just a joke. Half a year with not a peep until he pissed off Cosby's hometown.

He was trying to say that because Blizzard is in the "entertainment industry" that its likely they knew, decided to name it the Cosby Room cause they wanted to use it as a rape room, never talked about that fact in the private chats that were leaked and yet posted a public photo, and that even though the women were also part of the "entertainment industry" were somehow completely unaware of the name even after there was a public photo. There are thousands of Employees and Blizzard and they had millions of people see the photo and yet nobody called out Cosby being a rapist until a year later.

Whats more believable, that Afrasiabi was secretly googling rapists I can look up to and name a room after or that people are projecting future knowledge on an event in order to connect two unrelated events?

And you didn't see people complaining en masse about the Cosby Suite immediately after 2014 either, with it only really becoming public knowledge after the lawsuit was filed, making the "well people didn't talk about it until after 2014" a bit of a moot point. Additionally, the idea that people can know something and not openly talk about it isn't some far fetched concept, we've already seen instances like with Weinstein that thousands of people can know about some open secret and not spread it around, either to save their own skin or because they simply don't care.

Going to the motives of naming the room, you seriously implying that it's somehow unbelievable that Afrasiabi, who worked in a company whose culture was known for being willing to tell rape jokes around women, would not also have a twisted sense of humor and used the name a room in which they pursued women after a sexual predator? Really? Like, this isn't about googling rapists and choosing one, it's about someone who is in the entertainment industry for around a decade knowing about sick rumors and naming it in homage of that.

[TheRevenantHero]

My speculation has evidence. The fact that tons of Blizzard fans saw the photo as did the women working at Blizzard and nobody until a year later talked about Cosby being a rapist. And the fact it took Hannibal 6 months of touring to convince people it was a joke and was only able to do so because he pissed off people in Cosby's hometown.

Why is it that you can never post any evidence and just keep claiming I'm wrong because my proof isn't a 2013 poll of 6 billion people or what ever the world population was at the time?

Why do you need them for them to have created the room with the knowledge that Cosby was a piece of crap? What agenda do you have? My agenda is to point out what facts we have and try and get ignorant people to actually think before they speak.

So now you're taking to lying and claiming all these people didn't know about Cosby because you said so. I posted a link that chronicles Cosby's history of allegations. You've done nothing but essentially say "Dude, trust me." You haven't posted ANY facts. I will say this AGAIN, you are posting speculation. You can't speak for every single person. You can't say with certainty that you know that everyone back then didn't know about Cosby's allegations.

But you will continue your narrative that nobody knew about Cosby to defend Blizzard's utterly awful treatment of women.

[qwerty123456]

And you didn't see people complaining en masse about the Cosby Suite immediately after 2014 either, with it only really becoming public knowledge after the lawsuit was filed, making the "well people didn't talk about it until after 2014" a bit of a moot point. Additionally, the idea that people can know something and not openly talk about it isn't some far fetched concept, we've already seen instances like with Weinstein that thousands of people can know about some open secret and not spread it around, either to save their own skin or because they simply don't care.

Going to the motives of naming the room, you seriously implying that it's somehow unbelievable that Afrasiabi, who worked in a company whose culture was known for being willing to tell rape jokes around women, would not also have a twisted sense of humor and used the name a room in which they pursued women after a sexual predator? Really? Like, this isn't about googling rapists and choosing one, it's about someone who is in the entertainment industry for around a decade knowing about sick rumors and naming it in homage of that.

You're telling me that people in 2014 didn't remember a Cosby photo a year earlier? I remember every photo I see and even when I saw them.

Weinstein could destroy anyone who knew about him. Afrasiabi could only ruin the lives of people who worked with him. You seriously don't think fans would have called out the photo at the time had they known about Cosby? Weinstein was also a million times more powerful than Afrasaibi.

I find it unbelievable they would have named the room willingly after a rapist, not mention it at all during their private convos, AND take a public photo of it while working in the "entertainment industry" that all the other men and women in the company work for and have those other people who should also have the same "insider" knowledge because they also work in the "entertainment industry" be blissfully unaware of the real Cosby.

There's a difference of between a guy telling a holocaust joke to his friend and a group of guys going to a holocaust memorial for work in front of 600 survivors on camera and telling holocaust jokes. I can certainly believe the first would happen. The later could possibly happen but unless there's actual evidence they said the jokes and weren't just there I'm not going to believe it.

So now you're taking to lying and claiming all these people didn't know about Cosby because you said so. I posted a link that chronicles Cosby's history of allegations. You've done nothing but essentially say "Dude, trust me." You haven't posted ANY facts. I will say this AGAIN, you are posting speculation. You can't speak for every single person. You can't say with certainty that you know that everyone back then didn't know about Cosby's allegations.

But you will continue your narrative that nobody knew about Cosby to defend Blizzard's utterly awful treatment of women.

Thats not what I said. I said statically speaking and given the fact they didn't reveal the reason in the private linked convos as being Cosby being a rapist, the fact the women who worked in the same industry still went to the room even after seeing the cosby photo makes it pretty unlikely that the intentionally named it after him because he was a rapist. You linked the history but the history says most people didn't know until Hannibal pissed off Cosby's home town.

Nor does the Cosby room being unintentionally named after a rapist defend Blizzards awful treatment of women. Pretty sad how you gotta try to say one equals the other to get sympathy.


Strange how all you can ever do is say "no you are a liar" and attack people. It's almost as if you are doing something thats against the forum rules.......

[TheRevenantHero]

You're telling me that people in 2014 didn't remember a Cosby photo a year earlier? I remember every photo I see and even when I saw them.

Weinstein could destroy anyone who knew about him. Afrasiabi could only ruin the lives of people who worked with him. You seriously don't think fans would have called out the photo at the time had they known about Cosby? Weinstein was also a million times more powerful than Afrasaibi.

I find it unbelievable they would have named the room willingly after a rapist, not mention it at all during their private convos, AND take a public photo of it while working in the "entertainment industry" that all the other men and women in the company work for and have those other people who should also have the same "insider" knowledge because they also work in the "entertainment industry" be blissfully unaware of the real Cosby.

There's a difference of between a guy telling a holocaust joke to his friend and a group of guys going to a holocaust memorial for work in front of 600 survivors on camera and telling holocaust jokes. I can certainly believe the first would happen. The later could possibly happen but unless there's actual evidence they said the jokes and weren't just there I'm not going to believe it.




Thats not what I said. I said statically speaking and given the fact they didn't reveal the reason in the private linked convos as being Cosby being a rapist, the fact the women who worked in the same industry still went to the room even after seeing the cosby photo makes it pretty unlikely that the intentionally named it after him because he was a rapist. You linked the history but the history says most people didn't know until Hannibal pissed off Cosby's home town.

Nor does the Cosby room being unintentionally named after a rapist defend Blizzards awful treatment of women. Pretty sad how you gotta try to say one equals the other to get sympathy.


Strange how all you can ever do is say "no you are a liar" and attack people. It's almost as if you are doing something thats against the forum rules.......

Right a man with a history of sexual misconduct at Blizzard definitely didn't name the suite after ANOTHER famous person who had several sexual misconduct cases against him. I can't even take your responses seriously anymore. There is absolutely no evidence proving that nobody knew until 2014. That's nothing but you doing mental gymnastics to defend Blizzard.

You repeatedly insist that your speculation is facts and disregard every single point that proves your speculation is likely wrong. If this is the hill you want to die on then so be it.

[Magical Mudcrab]

You're telling me that people in 2014 didn't remember a Cosby photo a year earlier? I remember every photo I see and even when I saw them.

Where was the outrage? Where are the posts of people lambasting the company for having a Cosby Suite in 2014? There wasn't any. The group had a room called the Cosby Suite and even after the allegations of Cosby became more widely known, everyone at the company was dead silent. That's why I say that people not speaking up prior is a moot point, because even after the actions of Cosby became more mainstream knowledge, people still didn't care, or at least didn't speak up about it.

Weinstein could destroy anyone who knew about him. Afrasiabi could only ruin the lives of people who worked with him. You seriously don't think fans would have called out the photo at the time had they known about Cosby? Weinstein was also a million times more powerful than Afrasaibi.

The power differential between Weinstein and Afrasiabi is totally irrelevant. Afrasiabi had a high level position at Blizzard and was actively enabled by the rest of the senior staff. Do you have any concept of how terrifying that is for employees? The fact that speaking out against this person could lead to retaliation (as we saw in other cases in the lawsuit) in the most likely scenario, which could include endangering your position at the company, or humiliation (as per the allegation of someone being forced to apologize for being over sensitive to the person who victimized them), and in the best case scenario will lead to no action whatsoever, as we saw with management taking no action against Afrasiabi and, instead, it just leading to Brack having a 1-on-1 chat with him. Moreover, being fired from a job at a high profile company like Blizzard, and consequently receiving no reference, is a black mark that could heavily damage your career in the games industry. Afrasiabi still had the power to monumentally fuck peoples lives up within the industry.

I find it unbelievable they would have named the room willingly after a rapist, not mention it at all during their private convos, AND take a public photo of it while working in the "entertainment industry" that all the other men and women in the company work for and have those other people who should also have the same "insider" knowledge because they also work in the "entertainment industry" be blissfully unaware of the real Cosby.

There's a difference of between a guy telling a holocaust joke to his friend and a group of guys going to a holocaust memorial for work in front of 600 survivors on camera and telling holocaust jokes. I can certainly believe the first would happen. The later could possibly happen but unless there's actual evidence they said the jokes and weren't just there I'm not going to believe it.

If someone is blatantly and openly sexually abusing women in the workplace, including at events and has targeted both employees and fans (albeit enabled by senior staff), you think he's going to have the sense to not make a public joke like that? Like, where do you think this conceptual line is for someone like him? He's OK with public sexual abuse, but public jokes about it are no-go zones?

[TheRevenantHero]

Where was the outrage? Where are the posts of people lambasting the company for having a Cosby Suite in 2014? There wasn't any. The group had a room called the Cosby Suite and even after the allegations of Cosby became more widely known, everyone at the company was dead silent. That's why I say that people not speaking up prior is a moot point, because even after the actions of Cosby became more mainstream knowledge, people still didn't care, or at least didn't speak up about it.



The power differential between Weinstein and Afrasiabi is totally irrelevant. Afrasiabi had a high level position at Blizzard and was actively enabled by the rest of the senior staff. Do you have any concept of how terrifying that is for employees? The fact that speaking out against this person could lead to retaliation (as we saw in other cases in the lawsuit) in the most likely scenario, which could include endangering your position at the company, or humiliation (as per the allegation of someone being forced to apologize for being over sensitive to the person who victimized them), and in the best case scenario will lead to no action whatsoever, as we saw with management taking no action against Afrasiabi and, instead, it just leading to Brack having a 1-on-1 chat with him. Moreover, being fired from a job at a high profile company like Blizzard, and consequently receiving no reference, is a black mark that could heavily damage your career in the games industry. Afrasiabi still had the power to monumentally fuck peoples lives up within the industry.



If someone is blatantly and openly sexually abusing women in the workplace, including at events and has targeted both employees and fans (albeit enabled by senior staff), you think he's going to have the sense to not make a public joke like that? Like, where do you think this conceptual line is for someone like him? He's OK with public sexual abuse, but public jokes about it are no-go zones?

Everything about what you say is completely accurate. People who abuse people openly and never face punishment get bolder and bolder because they now view themselves as untouchable. Blizzard did NOTHING about Afrasiabi's abuse for years so he thought that he could do anything he wanted. That's what so many people just don't understand. People also gloss over the fact that Afrasiabi was in a pretty high position so most employees likely felt they couldn't say anything because if they did, they probably thought they'd just get fired. I've been in that position with a company before and it SUCKS.

[User517849]

So just as a forward, what I'm about to say isn't meant to be insulting: as a layperson, any factor you could consider has likely already been considered by a professional. When they conduct these studies it's not a simple univariate analysis that hyper-focuses on a single factor and tries to measure its effects, instead they're multivariate and contain complex rationales using a mix of both cross-sectional (i.e.: essentially the results of a single study) and longitudinal (i.e.: essentially sets of cross-sectional results on the same data points, carried out over time) data. These studies are complex, they are comprehensive and simple factors like hours worked (incl. overtime) will be taken into account if relevant for that study.

The reason why I say the Uber article was not broadly applicable is because the Uber findings aren't even that surprising. The idea that a system that merits long working hours and speeding would result in men earning more, who work more hours on average and are more likely to speed (which is one of the reasons why men also get in more car accidents) is not new information, it's just Uber covering for themselves to avoid having their payment practices called sexist. Moreover, their algorithm is basically a closed system (i.e.: the only relevant factors are quantitative metrics provided by the application). This is not comparable with the real world, which is realistically more of an open system and is prone to tampering due to things like implicit bias. Also, just to clarify, the problem isn't the gap, it's an unexplainable gap, which is why Uber's results aren't interesting while those found by studies that are more broadly applicable are.

I'm aware it's been considered. I've read studies on both sides (one that stated part of the problem was women weren't assertive enough with pay raises, etc). I'm also aware it's multifactorial, there's not one specific reason that it's one way or another. I was pointing out that in a completely merit based system that women came out behind. I do understand it's just a single study, but I definitely think it's a very interesting study.

First, to optimize $/hour, you wouldn't necessarily want long hours (and I don't know that Uber necessitates long hours, it depends from driver to driver). I don't see how their algorithm could be called sexist. It's entirely based on getting someone from A to B so I doubt it was trying to cover anything (nor have I ever heard any idea that the Uber algorithm was considered sexist).

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No it doesn't. It states that he was known to harass women and that it was named the Cosby suite because of that (whether that is true is unclear; none of the explanations seem to paint the whole picture). It doesn't say that it was the harassed woman that invented the name.
It seems clear that some knew and went to the Cosby suite, and didn't think it was a reference even to sex (and surely not rape). DFEH implies that some thought differently; I'm not sure we will ever get the true story.

Fair, I shouldn't have specified the women specifically (I knew Afrasiabi allegedly only harassed women from the accusations I read). It was more that the harassers (or others) considered calling him Cosby, what better way to cover for it then get a giant Bill Cosby picture and make a joke out of it. It'd explain a lot.

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It doesn't state that women gave it the name.



Doesn't say by who. So either you're intentionally misleading people or don't know how to read.

I assumed it was given by the women since they were the ones being harassed. My mistake.

More or less my point was I wondered if Alex found out about it, bought a giant Bill Cosby picture and the people that didn't know why thought it was because of the picture. Definitely a stretch, but then again, it would've been rather clever.

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I’m not sure I buy it being a case of them getting it wrong. There’s so many people that knew about it. Hundreds from reports. Hard sell that DFEH wouldn’t of known what it really was. It seems intentionally misleading.

Alex for sure seems like a womanizer, but I’m not sure we’ve seen anything to suggest more than that. Like he’s not drugging women, or aggressively harassing, or anything like that from what they’ve said so far. Realistically more just a guy thats a little too friendly with women for the tech world, not a serial sexual predator like people are making it out.

But, maybe there’s more. We’ll see.

He did allegedly grope one chick at Blizzcon 2013. Her allegation is on Twitter.

[DingDongKing]

Really no need for antisemitism. That’s disgusting.

[Forogil]

Yeah, I don’t see it as important so I’m rhetorically questioning why anyone else would.

And you have gotten several answers for why it is important, despite your feigned uninterest.
Having a different reason for the name doesn't make the known sexual harassments less severe, or remove the pay gap - but it reduces the air of suspicion around some others.

Thinking more I remember one more thing, and realized something.

First and foremost the only clear statement that it was named after Cosby's allegations is a speculation in the Kotaku article (and that speculation could, as previously stated, have happened late in 2014 or even later). The law-suit only implies that it was due to Cosby rape allegations, but it can be read as if it was named for other reasons.

Second - if the government know it was based on Cosby's allegations that indicates that one of the persons who were in on the naming is talking (otherwise it is just speculation); if it were women who were assaulted at a previous conference who named it, then there will be more information about these sexual assaults which makes it systematic (but we haven't seen any such indication) - if it were men who were proud of it (Alex?) it seems at least one of them are spilling the beans (we haven't seen that; but it's possible).

So, why are people so insistent that it must be based on Cosby's sexual allegation, without any real evidence, and despite the obvious inconsistencies?
The only reason I can see is that they want to view all who discussed the Cosby suite as part of some sexual harassment ring, including Dave Kosak, Greg Street, Olivia Grace, ...

The idea that everyone in show-biz knew is so ridiculous that it can be dismissed directly: all of Cosby's victims didn't know about the other cases until 2014; so clearly not everyone knew.

[MoanaLisa]

And you have gotten several answers for why it is important, despite your feigned uninterest.
Having a different reason for the name doesn't make the known sexual harassments less severe, or remove the pay gap - but it reduces the air of suspicion around some others.

Perhaps. The accompanying group chat has always been more of a problem than either the picture or who named the room. I expect we will sooner or later see more of that and I'm not confident that it's going to absolve anyone of anything. All of this noise over who named the room and why has sort of left the group chat excerpt behind. I'm not sure that is going to stay that way.

[Mehrunes]

The discussion is not about most people. It's about a very specific group of men who were well connected to the entertainment industry in Los Angeles and had been since the mid-2000s.

Which (as per your posts earlier on in the thread) you based on the stellar logic of "People like Mark Hamill were doing voice acting for games since the 90s so game dev is totally well-connected to the movie entertainment industry as a whole", merrily ignoring that Blizzard isn't hiring voice actors of that caliber even now and back in 2013 they still did a fair share of it in-house, with Metzen voicing half a dozen of some of the highest profile WoW characters. Most of the people involved in the Cosby suite weren't even responsible for the creative side of WoW. The idea that a bunch of class and system designers for a game are well connected to Hollywood circles needs something more substantial than treating the entertainment industry as some kind of a monolith.

What’s also frustrating is that it’s highly unclear what the goal of the people going with the ‘no one knew Cosby was a creep’ statement is. Are you saying the naming of the Suite was innocent? Okay. Does that change the way Alex behaved all those years? No. Does it exonerate other people who went to the Cosby Suite? It does nothing. Nothing worse or better really.

Because even if the suite didn’t have such a contentious name, the chances are enough people knew he was a creep. And did nothing of note to stop it. That said, no one is implying Kosak actually ‘gathered chixx’ for the Suite. In fact Kosak has supported women in their claims against Alex. So yeah.

This is just one of those stupid round robin arguments. If anyone wants to die on the hill of ‘Eureka! Alex wasn’t a creep and the Cosby Suite naming paradox proves it!’ Then say so. Otherwise, this is just dumb.

Your sanctimonious "Pah! This tangent is ackshually irrelevant and I've been discussing it on pages on end only to humor you peasants." nonsense that you constantly resort to whenever you feel the need to dismiss something for reasons that are totally unknown would have more weight behind it if you actually paid attention to what's being discussed in the thread and, as such, what it is that you're even trying to dismiss.

Because people most certainly did try to claim that they were gathering chixx for the suite. Saltysquidoon outright claimed the group chat about the suite is an instance of people not only gathering women but gathering women specifically to ply them with alcohol so they would be more susceptible for taking a sexual advantage of. Right at the start of the thread. And while their misrepresentation-based hot take was the most extreme post of such nature, it was not the only one.

Likewise, the whole naming of the suite discussion really kicked off in the previous news thread that contained Ghostcrawler's tweets. Because it and the fact he's been at the suite had been used as "proof" to discredit GC and to "expose" him as a liar in regards to his claims about now knowing certain things. In which case if the naming of the suite was innocent it would exonerate GC against the actual accusations that were levied against him in regards to the Suite.

This specific discussion has never been about Alex and the idea it's to prove Alex wasn't a creep is just a monumental straw-man on your part.

Where was the outrage? Where are the posts of people lambasting the company for having a Cosby Suite in 2014? There wasn't any. The group had a room called the Cosby Suite and even after the allegations of Cosby became more widely known, everyone at the company was dead silent. That's why I say that people not speaking up prior is a moot point, because even after the actions of Cosby became more mainstream knowledge, people still didn't care, or at least didn't speak up about it.

The power differential between Weinstein and Afrasiabi is totally irrelevant. Afrasiabi had a high level position at Blizzard and was actively enabled by the rest of the senior staff. Do you have any concept of how terrifying that is for employees? The fact that speaking out against this person could lead to retaliation (as we saw in other cases in the lawsuit) in the most likely scenario, which could include endangering your position at the company, or humiliation (as per the allegation of someone being forced to apologize for being over sensitive to the person who victimized them), and in the best case scenario will lead to no action whatsoever, as we saw with management taking no action against Afrasiabi and, instead, it just leading to Brack having a 1-on-1 chat with him. Moreover, being fired from a job at a high profile company like Blizzard, and consequently receiving no reference, is a black mark that could heavily damage your career in the games industry. Afrasiabi still had the power to monumentally fuck peoples lives up within the industry.

Why are you limiting it to just the employees when they publicly posted on Twitter about the suite in 2013 and @qwerty123456 explicitly raised the fan tangent in what you're replying to here? Because it'd be one thing if people on there didn't react to the name of the suite in 2013. But somehow there was still no retrospective reaction to it after the Cosby shit hit the fan. Or are you under impression that Twatter was any less of an outrage cesspit at the time? Because it wasn't. And yet the Twatter outrage mob, that never forgets a thing, still made no connection there to rail about even when armed with 2014 hindsight about Cosby. Or is it that Afrasiabi had a senior position in the workplace of everyone on Twitter to keep them silent as well? How did he even get the time for that between all his bouts of molesting women?

If someone is blatantly and openly sexually abusing women in the workplace, including at events and has targeted both employees and fans (albeit enabled by senior staff), you think he's going to have the sense to not make a public joke like that? Like, where do you think this conceptual line is for someone like him? He's OK with public sexual abuse, but public jokes about it are no-go zones?

And now you're limiting it to Afrasiabi alone when he wasn't the only one behind the Cosby suite. Unless I missed some new data, it's not even known if he was responsible for naming it. So unless that was the case or unless you have some inside scoops about how everyone involved in the Cosby suite was also a molester, this is just meaningless.

[Magical Mudcrab]

Why are you limiting it to just the employees when they publicly posted on Twitter about the suite in 2013 and @qwerty123456 explicitly raised the fan tangent in what you're replying to here? Because it'd be one thing if people on there didn't react to the name of the suite in 2013. But somehow there was still no retrospective reaction to it after the Cosby shit hit the fan. Or are you under impression that Twatter was any less of an outrage cesspit at the time? Because it wasn't. And yet the Twatter outrage mob, that never forgets a thing, still made no connection there to rail about even when armed with 2014 hindsight about Cosby. Or is it that Afrasiabi had a senior position in the workplace of everyone on Twitter to keep them silent as well? How did he even get the time for that between all his bouts of molesting women?

The fan tangent is not and has never been relevant. This entire argument about whether <insert arbitrary percentage here> of America or the World knew about Cosby at the time is a red herring and has no importance in the discussion. The whole thing started from whether someone in the entertainment industry would have known about Cosby prior to 2014 and has slowly changed to some stupid back-and-forth about the general public knowing which (surprise, surprise) is a much harder target for one party to prove while the other gets to pretend to claim victory after having blatantly moved goalposts.

The point quoted was more-or-less that the lack of digital outrage about the Cosby Suite in 2013 is a meaningless point to bring up. Post-2014, with the additional context, there was no outrage about it, and in fact was not publicly discussed until the lawsuit became public; however, people within the company knew about it and it was significant enough to make it into the lawsuit. People knew about it at the company, people at the company found it problematic, hence why there was a focus on the blatant intimidation against Blizzard employees and why I came down hard on the stupid implication they made, that somehow the power differential between Afrasiabi and Weinstein matters within the context of retaliatory actions that can be taken against employees, especially given that Weinstein was being used as an analogy to show that open secrets can be known by thousands of people without it being a mainstream topic of conversation (i.e.: people within the entertainment industry, or tangential to it, could be aware of a fact and not make it publicly known).

And now you're limiting it to Afrasiabi alone when he wasn't the only one behind the Cosby suite. Unless I missed some new data, it's not even known if he was responsible for naming it. So unless that was the case or unless you have some inside scoops about how everyone involved in the Cosby suite was also a molester, this is just meaningless.

No, don't misrepresent it, that's who qwerty123456 limited it to multiple posts in the chain ago. They even did so after I explicitly said that some individuals in the picture, such as Greg Street, had provided a plausible reason for why he did not know about the allegations (i.e.: his conduct in private appears to be benign, and there's no reason to believe he would for some reason privately not be a serial sexual harasser and yet somehow be comfortable making such a public joke about a sexual assault room). It should also be noted that every individual who has come forward so far has claimed that they were told the name, which includes Greg Street and anonymous individuals both quoted in the lawsuit as well as in the various online publications and websites, such as Kotaku. Afrasiabi, on the other hand, may not have this same deniability given his sexual misconduct in public and private (i.e.: there is no reason to believe that someone would be OK with groping someone in public or at work yet would for some reason draw the line at making a joke in bad taste).

[Forogil]

The point quoted was more-or-less that the lack of digital outrage about the Cosby Suite in 2013 is a meaningless point to bring up. Post-2014, with the additional context, there was no outrage about it, and in fact was not publicly discussed until the lawsuit became public; however, people within the company knew about it and it was significant enough to make it into the lawsuit.

Well, based on the "there must always be a Cosby suite" and the likely case that there was a previous Cosby suite one might wonder whether there would have been a Cosby suite at BlizzCon 2014 if the Cosby-case hadn't exploded.

I'm just speculating, it might also be that the joke had gotten too old (the old guard thought it was their joke, but now that the new-comers like G.Street had taken over it they didn't want it anymore); or they simply lost the photo of Cosby in the drinking.

Basically even if the Cosby-suite wasn't seen as linked to the Cosby's sexual assault issues one could still see that people thought that it wasn't a good idea to have a "Cosby suite" again; or bring a giant portrait of Cosby. If some other employees heard that 'probably not a good idea to have a Cosby suite this year' they might obviously draw their own conclusions; and be too intimated to ask why.

But that doesn't mean that they thought about looking through old tweets and removing bad references to the Cosby suite; as they didn't see any link between the Cosby suite and what Cosby was accused of - or simply they didn't look back at all.
Just speculation.

[Ringthane]

There is nothing good to be gained by keeping Blizzard on life support.

Even if we're somehow to handwave the apparent harassment and abuse, there's still the garbage tier wages that force people to take multiple jobs and the crunch culture. To want to stay with Blizzard at this point is Stockholm Syndrome. Rip off the bandaid and find a better place.

Yes, you're absolutely right. The best way to fix all the labor and economic problems in this country is to boycott a video game company. Why didn't we think of that before?

/sigh...

[DingDongKing]

Which (as per your posts earlier on in the thread) you based on the stellar logic of "People like Mark Hamill were doing voice acting for games since the 90s so game dev is totally well-connected to the movie entertainment industry as a whole", merrily ignoring that Blizzard isn't hiring voice actors of that caliber even now and back in 2013 they still did a fair share of it in-house, with Metzen voicing half a dozen of some of the highest profile WoW characters. Most of the people involved in the Cosby suite weren't even responsible for the creative side of WoW. The idea that a bunch of class and system designers for a game are well connected to Hollywood circles needs something more substantial than treating the entertainment industry as some kind of a monolith.




Your sanctimonious "Pah! This tangent is ackshually irrelevant and I've been discussing it on pages on end only to humor you peasants." nonsense that you constantly resort to whenever you feel the need to dismiss something for reasons that are totally unknown would have more weight behind it if you actually paid attention to what's being discussed in the thread and, as such, what it is that you're even trying to dismiss.

Because people most certainly did try to claim that they were gathering chixx for the suite. Saltysquidoon outright claimed the group chat about the suite is an instance of people not only gathering women but gathering women specifically to ply them with alcohol so they would be more susceptible for taking a sexual advantage of. Right at the start of the thread. And while their misrepresentation-based hot take was the most extreme post of such nature, it was not the only one.

Likewise, the whole naming of the suite discussion really kicked off in the previous news thread that contained Ghostcrawler's tweets. Because it and the fact he's been at the suite had been used as "proof" to discredit GC and to "expose" him as a liar in regards to his claims about now knowing certain things. In which case if the naming of the suite was innocent it would exonerate GC against the actual accusations that were levied against him in regards to the Suite.

This specific discussion has never been about Alex and the idea it's to prove Alex wasn't a creep is just a monumental straw-man on your part.




Why are you limiting it to just the employees when they publicly posted on Twitter about the suite in 2013 and @qwerty123456 explicitly raised the fan tangent in what you're replying to here? Because it'd be one thing if people on there didn't react to the name of the suite in 2013. But somehow there was still no retrospective reaction to it after the Cosby shit hit the fan. Or are you under impression that Twatter was any less of an outrage cesspit at the time? Because it wasn't. And yet the Twatter outrage mob, that never forgets a thing, still made no connection there to rail about even when armed with 2014 hindsight about Cosby. Or is it that Afrasiabi had a senior position in the workplace of everyone on Twitter to keep them silent as well? How did he even get the time for that between all his bouts of molesting women?




And now you're limiting it to Afrasiabi alone when he wasn't the only one behind the Cosby suite. Unless I missed some new data, it's not even known if he was responsible for naming it. So unless that was the case or unless you have some inside scoops about how everyone involved in the Cosby suite was also a molester, this is just meaningless.

You can keep whining as much as you want. I haven’t really seen anyone make any claims of the group chat being some sexual harassment ring. At best, people have said it looks bad in retrospect. That’s about it. And the reason I keep saying the name is irrelevant is because…it is. The people in that picture aren’t in some sexual harassment ring. So as said as infitum, it should neither make the situation any worse or better. It is…irrelevant. The only people waffling on about it are people like you, who get their jigs off trying to come off as intelligent online. You might be intelligent, but you’re not showing it off right now. It’s ironic that you’re calling me sanctimonious, when you’ve written an essay about nothing valuable.

[Kallisto]

However, thinking more naming it after Cosby makes little sense: if you are a male game developer trying to indicate that this is where you "score" chicks - why call it Cosby suite and not reference Larry Loffler *wink* *wink* (they might even steal a bit of old marketing material I guess)?

Well, I doubt many going to Blizzcon even in 2013 were old enough to remember Leisure Suit Larry. (Although funny enough Sierra made the originals who were also bought by Vivendi around the same time Blizzard was, and got merged into the Activision-Blizzard holding company when Vivendi bought Activision)

[Diaphin]

Yeah, it's a really weird one. I'd like to believe Metzen didn't know. I fucking hope he didn't, in fact.

His wife came out and stated she got PTSD from working with Blizzard, so certainly he did know. But then again, in interviews from 2016 he also described immense burn out and suffering under constant panic attacks from his work there. We know that while women and PoCs were targeted worst there, some men also suffered under the frat boy culture. And everyone who ever observed or was involved in such a culture without being a total asshole knows, how these vultures will als strike at everyone who is not bro enough.

I'm honest, as a feminist, I totally believe the accusations and I question everyone leading roles who claims to not have known things. What I'm open to believe though is, that those who didn't participate in it, the "good guys" didn't say and do anything out of fear of retaliation and becoming a target themselves. Its not heroic, its not nice, it does not make these people martyrs or people to look up at. And I feel like everyone would come better out of the situation if they would just admit that they knew, didn't act out of fear and move on to support the investigations as good as they can.

And everyone here, can you all stop with engaging in the whole Cosby-Suite debate? You make fools of yourself, it is obviously a strawman which the Incels on this website use to distract you from talking about the broader issues of Blizzards corporate culture, because surprise surprise, its not that they don't believe it, its that they feel victimized by the idea that men shouldn't be allowed to do that anymore because its an appealing power fantasy to them. It doesn't matter if the cosby-suite ended up as an ironically fitting name in retrospect or if it started right off the bat as an edgy injoke from a former Incel, it doesn't changes anything relevant.

[Soon-TM]

Yes, you're absolutely right. The best way to fix all the labor and economic problems in this country is to boycott a video game company. Why didn't we think of that before?

/sigh...

Considering that @Yarathir never claimed that a boycott would ever "fix all the labour and economic problems", your post is nothing but a sad strawman.