Activision Blizzard Shareholder SOC Letter, Diablo II: Resurrected Early Access

[Lumy]

Activision Blizzard Shareholder SOC Letter
Today, one of Activision Blizzard's shareholders has released a letter that criticizes the company's response to the recent lawsuit and the promises to improve its work culture.

In this letter, the SOC Executive Director has shared a list of changes for Activision Blizzard to make, including increasing board diversity and equity by adding a woman director, removing bonuses from executives found to have engaged in or enabled abusive behavior, and undertaking a company-wide Equity Review.

While we appreciate the improved tone and increased detail in CEO Kotick’s recent letter to Activision Blizzard employees, customers, and shareholders, the changes Mr. Kotick has announced do not go nearly far enough to address the deep and widespread issues with equity, inclusion, and human capital management at the company. To wit:

• No changes have been announced or proposed that would in any way alter the current process for filling vacancies either to the board of directors or to senior management.
• No changes have been announced with respect to executive pay, either with respect to clawing back compensation from executives who are found to have engaged in or enabled abusive practices, or to align executives with the equity goals Mr. Kotick articulated.
• The announced review by Wilmer Hale is deficient in a number of ways: this firm has a sterling reputation as a defender of the wealthy and connected, but it has no track record of uncovering wrongdoing, the lead investigator does not have in-depth experience investigating workplace harassment and abuse, and the scope of the investigation fails to address the full range of equity issues Mr. Kotick acknowledges.

We believe that to ensure smooth operations and a strong reputation going forward, Activision Blizzard should commit to the following changes:

• Increase board diversity and equity by adding a woman director – preferably one with a history of advocacy for marginalized people and communities - by the end of 2021, committing to gender-balance on the board by 2025, and reserving at least one board seat for a nominee selected by current employees as their representative.
• Claw back bonuses from executives found to have engaged in or enabled abusive behavior, award no bonuses for 2021, and make future bonus awards contingent on the company as a whole achieving clearly articulated and independently verified milestones for diversity and equity.
• Undertake a company-wide Equity Review, similar to the Racial Equity Reviews that Facebook, Air B&B, Starbucks, and BlackRock have completed or promised, but that will encompass the full range of concerns (including inequities rooted in gender, gender-identity, sexuality, and race) articulated by Mr. Kotick, Activision Blizzard employees, and customers: equity and representation issues in game design, the development process, and in user forums and similar settings.

Source

Diablo II: Resurrected Early Access
Blizzard has announced the Early Access and Open Beta dates for Diablo II: Resurrected. Early Access testing will begin on August 13th, and the Open Beta weekend will begin on August 20th.

• The upcoming test weekends will feature two additional classes for players to experience: the Druid and the Paladin. Classes from the last alpha test (the Sorceress, the Barbarian, and the Amazon) will also be available for testing.
• Multiplayer will be enabled alongside cross-progression on Windows® PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation®5 and PlayStation®4.
• Like in the Technical Alpha, both Act I: The Sightless Eye and Act II: The Secret of the Vizjerei will be fully playable. The fully remade Act I & II cinematics will also be viewable in the Diablo II: Resurrected Early Access and Open Beta tests.

[Icecat]

...encompass the full range of concerns articulated by... user forums.

Oh man, a weird thing to point out, but I think it's interesting that a shareholder even acknowledges the discussions happening on forums. It's felt like the community has been completely ignored for so long, but maybe someone with actual power does bother to actually read into the community.

EDIT: Also love the Wilmer Hale drag and the focus on putting diverse people and women in actual Board seats. I think this is exactly the kind of pressure we need that Blizz might actually respond to.

[tomolak]

Well, knew that was coming. Good, old "equity," aka complete opposite of meritocracy. Will be saying goodbye to WoW after Shadowlands and not looking back.

[Voidism]

Everyone is dancing around the biggest issue: Kotick.

[hulkgor]

"Equity"... seriously?

What a complete shit show this is at this point.

[Femininity]

There goes the neighborhood.

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i have problems reading but this just looks like they are going to hire activists in an attempt to try and quiet the other activists down

has this ever worked ever anywhere for any type of business?

This happens every day.

[rhorle]

Oh man, a weird thing to point out, but I think it's interesting that a shareholder even acknowledges the discussions happening on forums. It's felt like the community has been completely ignored for so long, but maybe someone with actual power does bother to actually read into the community.

To me it comes across more as getting back to having community engagement like they did in the past rather then caring about the topics of discussion. I don't envy the job of a WoW community manager but they could certainly do more.

[Exedore]

So reading up on SOC Investment Group (formerly CtW Investment Group), they label themselves as activists. They primarily seem to write strongly worded letters to the boards of companies in which they invest. However, they don't seem to own a large stake in any of these companies.

My takeaway is that this letter doesn't seem like anything more than a forum rant (it has next to no weight behind it).

[dess]

and ......... Nothing is going to happen just more words.

[Trbn]

why did he spell his surname wrong in the document?

[Aleksej89]

extremely against hiring based on sex/gender/culture/religion/race.

meritocracy is the only functional way.

[Tooshie]

extremely against hiring based on sex/gender/culture/religion/race.

meritocracy is the only functional way.

Why are people under the impression that making sure you're not going for the all white dude approach automatically means hiring less qualified people?

That's sexist mindset in itself.

[Very Tired]

This guy obviously just isn't accustomed to the Blizzard way. Big talk and apologies with no changes and this bound to happen again... before promoting another 6 month sub mount.

This on top of banning a tournament player for supporting pro-democracy protests in China, I wonder how many more times Blizzard is going to make national news for their screwups.

[Nilinor]

Why are people under the impression that making sure you're not going for the all white dude approach automatically means hiring less qualified people?

That's sexist mindset in itself.

Its because the moment something like this letter comes out, the people that do get hired are going to think:

"Was I hired because I was qualified for the job, or was it to fill a quota."

I am sure there are many that do not care either way as long as they get paid, but thats whats going to come across MANY peoples minds. When something becomes mandatory, those little questions start to appear, and if something bad happens outside of anyones control, its going to be pointed out "Hey, look what happened when we DID do this." et, while anything good (unless its like 5-10 years down the line) will be attributed to people before they came on board due to plans/projects that were already in the pipeline.

[Very Tired]

Why are people under the impression that making sure you're not going for the all white dude approach automatically means hiring less qualified people?

That's sexist mindset in itself.

You're the only one here assuming someone against gender based hiring means white men only... That's a sexist and racist stance to take.

[Trbn]

Why are people under the impression that making sure you're not going for the all white dude approach automatically means hiring less qualified people?

That's sexist mindset in itself.

it just means white dude with same qualification as trans won't be hired because 'equity'

[crejack]

I agree with everyone here, blizzard should keep doing what they've been doing with their hiring pracitices, it's working so great with them!!!!

/s

[Kallisto]

Everyone is dancing around the biggest issue: Kotick.

Replace Kotick with basically anyone and nothing will change. Ceo is a Ceo is a Ceo. They all have to by nature of the job put profit first, profit second, profit third. They have to find ways to make more profit while they eat, drink shit and sleep.

Real change won't happen in the board room. It comes voting in people that will fight these businesses in DC and state capitals. As well as capitals around the world.

[Narzok]

if we promote equal representation, shouldn't we take the ratio of who studies the job as a metric?
if 70% of people who study game dev are male, then the natural result would be that 70% of game devs are male.
same with all other jobs.

if 10 apply, and you must hire 5 men and 5 women, but there are 7 men and 3 women, does that mean the 3 women get a free pass?

[FelPlague]

"Equity"... seriously?

What a complete shit show this is at this point.

what is wrong with Equity?

- - - Updated - - -

This guy obviously just isn't accustomed to the Blizzard way. Big talk and apologies with no changes and this bound to happen again... before promoting another 6 month sub mount.

This on top of banning a tournament player for supporting pro-democracy protests in China, I wonder how many more times Blizzard is going to make national news for their screwups.

it was not because he supported pro-democracy protests, many people said these things on their own streams, their own channels, etc with no reprecussions, one of them even being paid to come to blizzcon and do the Q&A.

it was because he hi-jacked their live stream to give his message.

Would you be ok with a guy whos winning speech is about how trump is right and its all fake news and the earth is flat and this and that?

Yeah one is real, the other is hilariously sad, but if you say "people have this right" you have to give everyone the right, cause if you shut down the trump supporter, the right will say you only did so cause hes right wing.

its all or nothing, and a video game stream, people want video game chat, not political.