After the Civil Rights Agency of California filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for repeated acts of discrimination, sexual harassment and wage discrepancies, a thousand anonymous employees of the company organize themselves to ensure that the publisher will assume its responsibilities.
An open letter was released overnight by nearly 1 people who work or have worked at Activision Blizzard, decrying the company's "abhorrent and insulting" response to the case breaking out late last week.
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Internally, trust is broken
While Activision Blizzard multiplies the declarations internally to try to calm the game, it appears that the company is doing worse than better and setting fire to the powder.
Since last week, we have seen countless testimonials on social networks from employees or ex-employees of the company, which attest to the toxic work atmosphere that reigns in its premises. Only Activision Blizzard's latest attempt to put out the fire — by describing the case as "factually incorrect, dated, and taken out of context" — has caused quite the opposite. Namely the speech of a thousand people in the open letter here.
“To the leaders of Activision Blizzard,
We, the undersigned, acknowledge that the statements of Activision Blizzard, Inc. and their legal advisors regarding the DFEH lawsuit, as well as the subsequent internal statement of Spagnes Townsend, are abhorrent and insulting to all that we believe our company should defend. To put it plainly and unequivocally, our values as employees are not accurately reflected in the words and actions of our leaders.
We believe these statements have been detrimental to our continued pursuit of equality inside and outside of our industry. Categorizing claims that have been made as “distorted and in many cases false” creates a corporate atmosphere that does not side with the victims. It also casts doubt on the ability of our organizations to hold abusers accountable for their actions and foster a safe environment for victims to come forward in the future. These statements clearly show that our leadership does not prioritize our values. Immediate corrections are needed at the highest level of our organization.
Our company leaders have said steps will be taken to protect us, but in the face of the lawsuit — and the troubling official responses that have followed — we no longer believe our leaders will place employee safety above their own interests. . To claim that this is a “baseless and irresponsible” lawsuit, while seeing so many current and former employees speak out about their own experiences of harassment and abuse is simply unacceptable.
We call for official statements acknowledging the seriousness of these allegations and showing compassion to victims of harassment and assault. We call on Spagnes Townsend to keep her word to resign from her executive position of the ABK Women Employees Network due to the damaging nature of her statement. We call on the leadership team to work with us on meaningful new efforts that ensure employees — as well as our community — have a safe place to speak up and come forward.
We stand with all of our friends, teammates and colleagues, as well as members of our dedicated community, who have experienced abuse or harassment of any kind. We won't be silenced, we won't stay away, and we won't give up until the company we love is a workplace we can all be proud of again. We will be the change. »
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Activision Blizzard's image deeply chipped
Since last week, and in addition to the support received by employees who are victims of violence within the company via social networks, actions have been organized within World of Warcraft, Activision Blizzard's ultra-popular MMORPG.
The Sanctuary City of Oribos has indeed been the scene of several protests from players gathered by the Fence Macabre guild on the Wyrmest Accord and Moon Guard servers. When asked by Polygon, many players at the event reportedly terminated their subscription to the game in protest.
Prima Games, which notably publishes strategy guides, has also indicated that it will no longer publish on Activision Blizzard or Ubisoft games – accused of the same evils for a year now via various investigations.
Finally, the specialized site TheGamer has meanwhile announced that it will no longer cover Activision Blizzard news “until there is a real change of primer and that this gaslighting bullshit stops (sic) “, writes on Twitter Kirk McKeand, its editor. The GameXPlain YouTube channel also made this decision.
