This week outside the office Blizzard a rally was held, which was attended by about 100-150 employees Activision Blizzardwho expressed their disagreement with the actions of the management of the publishing house. And journalists continue to unearth more and more unpleasant details.
California last week filed a lawsuit at Activision Blizzard. After a two-year investigation, officials said the company’s management allegedly promoted a culture of “student brotherhood” and that female employees were discriminated against in the workplace.
The main blow fell on the Blizzard studio, which is based in California. And July 28 passed strike, within the framework of which a rally was held outside the walls of the Irvine office. An open appeal against the leadership of Activision Blizzard has been supported by more than 2,500 former and current employees. A hashtag was also launched on social media #ActiBlizzWalkout…
However, this did not help to gather an impressive crowd. According to the posters, the Irvine building was largely attended by activists and “fighters for social justice.” The suspicions are reinforced by the fact that the organizers of the rally asked journalists not to speak with individual employees, as they fear revenge from the top management.
President of the company Bobby Kotick has already went to meet subordinates, promising to make a number of changes. However, they considered the promises of the head of the publishing house insufficient.
“Kitty’s letter does not introduce the changes that we hoped to see,” they said.
The media tried to add fuel to the fire, but with varying success. So, the portal Kotaku published dirt on the former creative director World of warcraft Alexa Afrasiabi…
The developer’s name appears in the lawsuit. It is known that in 2023 he suddenly left Blizzard, but the reasons were not announced. At the same time, the case file mentions that he molested women, and his number was nicknamed “Lux Cosby” (in honor of the notorious actor Bill Cosby).
Now all references to Alex Afrasiabi are being removed from the MMO. The developer himself declined to comment.
The journalists also released photographs taken in 2013 that Afrasiabi posted on social media. It was revealed that the Cosby Suite was full of alcohol, and Blizzard employees even posed with a portrait of Bill Cosby himself.
The creative director’s room was considered a place of informal communication between studio staff at the conference BlizzCon. There was also a private chat called Blizzcon cosby crewin which they discussed “hot chicks”.
Some of the Cosby Crew members still work at Blizzard. Among them is the leading developer Jesse McCree, lead designer Corey Stocktonas well as working on a new MMO in Riot games Greg Street.
“This is possibly the greatest group chat in human history,” Stockton said in 2013.
No one could say for sure why they called themselves “The Cosby Team.” Presumably this was a reference to the monstrous design of Afrasiabi’s room or Blizzard’s office. At the same time, in 2013, the Bill Cosby scandal was already gaining momentum.
Kotaku, citing anonymous sources, also claims that Blizzard molested not only women, but also men. The HR department refused to accept complaints, believing that this would become an unnecessary reason for gossip in the office.
Senior managers of the company also took part in “games”, one of which was called “Cockerel“(Gay chicken). The winner was the person who first grabbed a colleague by the genitals. The California investigation also includes the testimony of three men who complained of harassment.
There was madness in other Activision Blizzard offices as well. So, an employee of the IT department of the office in Minnesota Tony Ray Nixon admitted that in 2018 he installed hidden video cameras in toilets for men and women. The man was sentenced to a suspended sentence, but later he violated the conditions of parole.
But the journalist Bloomberg Jason Schreier managed to discredit himself. He confessedthat he had received rumors about the situation at Blizzard, but the journalist considered them insufficient for publication, and also began to blame GamerGate in spreading misinformation.
In response, bloggers and ordinary readers poked Schreier’s nose into his old rumored materials. The journalist himself does not take criticism well, preferring to ban offenders on Twitter.
See also: The Fall of Blizzard: Harassment, Boycott and Flight of Players
Blizzard Confusion: World of Warcraft Suspended
