Mike Ybarra - Blizzard Trust and Culture Efforts Update

[Muhammad]

I refuse to play games from companies whose main goals are: "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion".

US Woke culture should not be encouraged. It is destroying rational thought, wisdom, fairness and justice in everything it touches... and apparently creativity, customer satisfaction and soul too if Blizzard's games are any indication recently.

[Meow]

I refuse to play games from companies whose main goals are: "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion".

US Woke culture should not be encouraged. It is destroying rational thought, wisdom, fairness and justice in everything it touches... and apparently creativity, customer satisfaction and soul too if Blizzard's games are any indication recently.

When a company or a government keeps claiming something, they are actually something it never fulfilled.

[Utrrabbit]

Liar, liar, liar. He somehow proved unworthy for his position.

Huh? Are you just a negative person who makes up stuff with every post?

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You don't just have to deliver on a more regular basis, you have to deliver `better` content. Shadowlands had so much promise and failed so hard to deliver on that promise.

They need to fix the in house issues first before they can even do that. 90% of the reason quality has suffered is because you have employees who do not feel safe or are not happy with how the company is doing things.

Fix that issue first and I can garuantee quality will improve.

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as long as abusers and enablers like bobby kotick arent removed there is no real progress
also didnt the new co leader leave cause she was underpaid in comparison to mike even so they where literary covering the same spot ?

Yes she did but mike was literally one of the people since day 1 on the boards asses to pay her the same wage as him.

Also if we go with the reports they were in the process of writing up a new contract to increase her pay. A prospect that can take months sometimes due to legal reasons. You cant just write a new contract when their is a fully legal one already. Do not know if it is true or not, not going to get intk that debate.

[Darth Vowrawn]

• a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) leader solely focused on our progress across multiple efforts in this area
  

- Mike "Qwik" Ybarra

It's almost like he WANTS a class action lawsuit for discriminatory hiring practices. All based on Neo-Marxist BS. Being racist "but, like, in a positive way, brah!" is why California is a vile Commie cesspit.

[Utrrabbit]

Useless mouthpiece "leader" roles to be paid a lot to be so... Good luck attracting me back with that nonsense.

You are not the intelligent are you?

[Souflikar]

Just make the game better ffs or all other efforts will be in vain. Might need to put a bit more emphasis on the people who supply your paychecks, the players! As for internal strife, treat your internal peers with respect, it shouldn’t be that difficult. And finally, don’t go overboard trying to look overly inclusive and diverse, ie, this fruit bowl BS. Anyone who finds paintings in a 16 year old game offensive shouldn’t play or work on a game where you kill animals, blow shit up and slaughter your enemies. How long before that becomes offensive?

[Utrrabbit]

It's almost like he WANTS a class action lawsuit for discriminatory hiring practices. All based on Neo-Marxist BS.

What the actual fuck are you talking about. Are you one of "those" people.

I will make this extremely clear to you. So even someone with such a small brain can understand. The statement was saying they will be hiring based on if you are best for the job not for what your race, sex, religion or gender identification is. I also have news for you so you can understand this. Currently the gaming msrket is dominated by white males. Not because they have the skills or the knowledge, only cause they are white and a male. This is just a fact. And for you to even come on here a spew that crap is hypocritical bs.

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I don’t give a flying fuck about them trying to be more diverse with their workforce. Just give us better games. Be like old blizzard. Because todays Blizzard hasn’t given us a solid hit in fucking years. Hearthstone being the only game that is still strong. Most fans contrary to popular belief don’t give a shit about the inner workings of the company and don’t even know about them. We do know however when a game sucks ass.

And before anyone jumps down my throat for being uncaring, ask yourself if you buy from WalMart, Target, or Amazon. Congrats you’re supporting companies far worse than Blizzard ever was.

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I won’t. I’ll cheer for it. I want the people who have been making the games the last seven or so years gone. Just get new blood in at this point. They can’t do any worse than this generation of shitters.

You mean old blizz that had the actual sexual preditors and are the main reason this happened.

You are smart.

[damonskye]

I’m all for diversity, equity and inclusion. I think it’s a great thing to strive for.

But once again, all this is, is more promises. And I think ALL of us know how much a Blizzard promise is worth these days. THAT is the real problem inherent in the company… not just shitty treatment of its employees, but a total lack of respect for its players.

Remember, WoW retail fans: ONE CONTENT UPDATE IN FOURTEEN MONTHS. ALMOST FIFTEEN.

One.

In a game we must subscribe to, to play.

You want us to trust Blizzard again, Mike? Don’t just fix your HR issues, which yes, you certainly do need to do that. But also, fix the broken product supply chain within your company. That’s the main reason players are jumping ship.

[Utrrabbit]

I wish you were right. Unfortunately, that is not how it works. Quite to the contrary. Workplace diversity looks like this:

- If you recommend a person for hire, you get $2500 kickback. If that person is a "diversity" hire, you get a $8500 kickback. The kickback scales with the position.
- If you have a corporate board and you're headquartered in California, you must have a certain percentage of diversity representation on your board. Or you face fines. Other cities and states are following suit.
- Complete diversity training, or face a pay cut. Or termination.
- Use inclusive language. Or face a pay cut or termination if you don't.
- Use prefered pronouns. Or face a pay cut or termination if you don't.

How do I know this? Because I work at a large, global tech company where these very policies are in effect. I would happily take a job at place that holds the policies you describe as workplace diversity. In a heartbeat.

That is not how it works at all.

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I’m all for diversity, equity and inclusion. I think it’s a great thing to strive for.

But once again, all this is, is more promises. And I think ALL of us know how much a Blizzard promise is worth these days. THAT is the real problem inherent in the company… not just shitty treatment of its employees, but a total lack of respect for its players.

Remember, WoW retail fans: ONE CONTENT UPDATE IN FOURTEEN MONTHS. ALMOST FIFTEEN.

One.

You want us to trust Blizzard again, Mike? Don’t just fix your HR issues, which yes, you certainly do. But also, fix the broken product supply chain within your company.

Ok and? I dont care about the content delays and neither do any of my guildies or the 5 other guilds I play with or the people I talk to daily.

The people who care about it are the fakes who just want instant gratification.

Honestly I wish patches would last a full year and they'd put up 3 or 4 patches so one expact would last 3 or 4 years. This would give more times to develope the story and future content.

People want stuff right away and than wonder why the quality has dropped.

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All I read was

BLAH BLAH BLAH microsoft please dont fire my ass when the deal closes nobody is gonna hire my army crawlin, puss grabbin, shitty game making butt.

I like how you are so blind with stupidity that you are blaming someone who literally has nothing to do with what is currently happening at blizzard. Smart you are not.

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They are all gone


<Mod Edit: Please do not post images that contain character/server names by which other players may be identified. Thanks>


A patch per year.

And is only the first sentence lmao. People love corpotalk

I play monk and I would have just laughed at him.

Than id either do one of the following

1. Out heal them
2. Out dps them
3. Kill them in pvp
4. Tell them that they should seek councelling and than block them.

I should whisper this person and mess with them.. for fun, harmlessly of course nothing mean.

Perhaps drop them an in game mail on my fresh monk.

Simply saying

"Enjoying playing my monk. It is a fun class. To bad you can not enjoy all this fun"

Than send them an ingame mail everytime I dig with just the words

Monk dinged 5
Monk dinged 6
Monk dinged 7

And so on. Lmao.

[Darth Vowrawn]

What the actual fuck are you talking about. Are you one of "those" people.

I will make this extremely clear to you. So even someone with such a small brain can understand. The statement was saying they will be hiring based on if you are best for the job not for what your race, sex, religion or gender identification is. I also have news for you so you can understand this.

Bullshit. The fact that "you people" have to crawl out of the woodwork in order to run defense for what, many rightly suspect, to be Commie BS, is telling. "Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity" is Commie speak for "racial and sexual quotas", as well as enforcing SJW ideology on the company. They do the same thing at College campuses as they do at corporations.

If it was REALLY based on just hiring people, regardless of race or sex, it wouldn't require an ideological term to be blurted out, nor would it require the constant trumpeting of racial/sexual "statistics" in order for Commies to justify being bigots. You can be racist against white people, you can be sexist against men. Making a codified thing in hiring is not getting rid of bigotry, but making it worse.

Currently the gaming msrket is dominated by white males. Not because they have the skills or the knowledge, only cause they are white and a male. This is just a fact. And for you to even come on here a spew that crap is hypocritical bs.

"Dominated by white males", another Commie lie. You do know that demographics are not by choice, right? You will never have your perfect Commie utopia, you will never get 50% of every single category imaginable, and forcibly hiring/firing people based on your Leftist bigotry is not "progress", you are just creating white racists by giving them a reason to be spiteful towards those who are given jobs when they have equal qualifications, but tick the "diversity" boxes while the evil "white male" doesn't.

[Dr Assbandit]

-Nonstop walls of pure rubbish-

That poor poor white persecution complex.

You're way too obsessed with nonexistent "commies" mate. May I suggest you go out and touch some grass?

Or you know keep on spouting the same rubbish you already are, it's quite enjoyable.

I'm happy they are being mindful about hiring practices and am glad its a trend catching on in general no matter how much you lot cry about it.

[Jester Joe]

Bullshit. The fact that "you people" have to crawl out of the woodwork in order to run defense for what, many rightly suspect, to be Commie BS, is telling. "Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity" is Commie speak for "racial and sexual quotas", as well as enforcing SJW ideology on the company. They do the same thing at College campuses as they do at corporations.

If it was REALLY based on just hiring people, regardless of race or sex, it wouldn't require an ideological term to be blurted out, nor would it require the constant trumpeting of racial/sexual "statistics" in order for Commies to justify being bigots. You can be racist against white people, you can be sexist against men. Making a codified thing in hiring is not getting rid of bigotry, but making it worse.

"Dominated by white males", another Commie lie. You do know that demographics are not by choice, right? You will never have your perfect Commie utopia, you will never get 50% of every single category imaginable, and forcibly hiring/firing people based on your Leftist bigotry is not "progress", you are just creating white racists by giving them a reason to be spiteful towards those who are given jobs when they have equal qualifications, but tick the "diversity" boxes while the evil "white male" doesn't.

I mean, you just...I'd say doubled down, but more like quadrupled down on it.

The fact that you think it's about 50% or some even split even shows that you're not actually looking into it. And I'm genuinely not sure where you're getting this whole red scare agenda from either.

[damonskye]

Ok and? I dont care about the content delays and neither do any of my guildies or the 5 other guilds I play with or the people I talk to daily.

The people who care about it are the fakes who just want instant gratification.

LOL… whatcha smoking over there, buddy?

If you don’t realize that the VAST majority of the player base of WoW is sick of Korthia dailies and Maw invasions, and desperately wants 9.2 to come out… well, you must be smoking something really good, then. Because you’re wrong. You don’t even have to leave MMOC to realize it. Just literally read this forum for five minutes. I mean… half of them are so sick of Shadowlands completely that they’re even already over 9.2 and can’t wait for 10.0 just to see if they’re right that it’s Dragon Isles or whatever.

I mean, talk about reading the room wrong.

[Darth Vowrawn]

I mean, you just...I'd say doubled down, but more like quadrupled down on it.

The fact that you think it's about 50% or some even split even shows that you're not actually looking into it. And I'm genuinely not sure where you're getting this whole red scare agenda from either.

Then what is it about? If it isn't about hiring people solely because of their race and sex, then why does it need to be pushed? Because, all you get out of it is people being put into positions solely for "muh Diversity", where they are incapable of being promoted or going anywhere, and eventually they just quit because they were never hired for their skills, just for a "feel good" percentage increase. It happens a lot in Hollywood, mind you.

That poor poor white persecution complex.

You're way too obsessed with nonexistent "commies" mate. May I suggest you go out and touch some grass?

Or you know keep on spouting the same rubbish you already are, it's quite enjoyable.

I'm happy they are being mindful about hiring practices and am glad its a trend catching on in general no matter how much you lot cry about it.

So, you're just a racist, then? That's good to know, bigot.

[Aradur]

Ye, nobody cares. Let’s bring some Infos about the next xpack.

[Niwes]

Unfortunately, I think the concept of "diversity hires" is one of those things that's best described by the saying, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." It's similar to Affirmative Action in a way, where the end result is just fighting racism using racism. Ultimately, the question that should be asked is why are you doing such an action and is the action itself part of the problem. I've seen the arguments that it's for having more diverse experiences and opinions/perspectives, but that's assuming that just because my skin is a certain color or I have certain genitalia between my legs, I'm a monolith with anyone who has those same physical properties... also, when you delve into the minutia and supposed explanations, it's basically just 'socially accepted racism/sexism/etc.' at the end of the day. If you're hiring based upon someone's race, religion, gender, etc., that's probably a problem (unless the job specifically needs one of those things).

Despite some of the posts I've seen, the main thing that will gain the trust of the customers back has nothing to do with the social stuff... it's the products. I'm sure there's a bunch of people in this thread who have iPhones, Nikes, etc., and it's no secret the social stances and conditions in which these products are made, yet people are happy to be loyal customers. While some people will make a stand based on social issues, realize that you are in the vast minority. At the end of the day, most customers do not care what the employees are doing to each other or what the employees are subjected to in terms of working conditions. Customers want the products they paid for, and the only time they may care about the social stuff is if they see a direct link to said stuff and them not getting the product they want, when they want, for the price they want.

This isn't to dissuade people to make decisions based upon their morality, quite the opposite actually. If you don't want to be a customer to a company that you think does something immoral, that's absolutely fine. That being said, it's getting sliiiightly hard to do so when companies keep merging and businesses become larger conglomerates or essentially monopolies. Making a moral stand is much easier when there's a viable alternative, and it's much harder when there's no alternate. Such is the way of humanity, and all of us are guilty of looking the other way on some level just to get the result we want.

I could put this in a more philosophical perspective as to demonstrate why there's a rift in people about this topic, and it's about what people fundamentally believe. If you believe that humans are fundamentally good, you will likely believe that things such as forced diversity hiring is a good thing (as it's ultimately about external factors being evil, not the humans). If you believe that humans are fundamentally flawed/broken, you'll likely believe that things such as forced diversity hiring are just the same evil as it's trying to replace, leading to the same outcome that you're trying to fix (as it's ultimately about humans being humans, and the external factors are just exposing what was already there).

this.

very well spoken.

10/10

[Dr Assbandit]

So, you're just a racist, then? That's good to know, bigot.

Hilarious coming from a fragile white dude who thinks workspaces should remain mostly white .

Also it's adorable you lot think playing the reverse racism card holds any sort of merit in the civilized non-conservative world lol.

Now run along calling people commies or soyboys or whatever flavor of the month idiotic insults you lot have cooked up .

[Tiev]

Huh? Are you just a negative person who makes up stuff with every post?

They need to fix the in house issues first before they can even do that. 90% of the reason quality has suffered is because you have employees who do not feel safe or are not happy with how the company is doing things.

Fix that issue first and I can garuantee quality will improve.

As much as I agree you can't work properly under those conditions, the lack of quality certainly has much less to do with work conditions and much more to do with top-down business decisions looking for quick bucks rather than long term health of the game.

The Art team continues to pump out great work while working under the same conditions. One thing definitely impacts the other, but there is no certainty that the quality of the game will increase to the point of being a good MMO since the constraints will still be there unless a change in business direction focusing more on player satisfaction rather than MAUs and engagement metrics happen. Those are deceptive, once a good competitor pops in the market and you're just trying to monetize your users for short term gain, you'll lose those users to the better MMO.

[Grimalkin of Old]

That's cool and all, but Hazzikostas is still employed.

[Puupi]

I don't give a flying fuck about your trust and culture efforts.

You are a game developer, I'm interested in your new products and/or updates to your current products. Got any of that? No? Then stfu until you do.