Activision Blizzard s CEO Bobby Kotick admitted that the gaming company s response to a California discrimination lawsuit was tone deaf amid a growing employee backlash and accusations of a frat boy work culture. Every voice matters and we will do a better job of listening now, and in the future, Kotick said in a note to employees on Tuesday. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding. Kotick s response came hours before hundreds of employees staged a walkout on Wednesday to pressure the company to do more to address a host of issues including unequal pay, gender discrimination and harassment.
To say that companies in the games industry are generally pretty awful at handling reports and allegations of abuse, harassment or bigotry within their workplaces is a pretty strong candidate for understatement of the year.
Utterly botching the initial public response and having to backpedal furiously, as Activision Blizzard has done in the past few days, is the norm. The surfacing of these kinds of reports and allegations seem to drive most companies into a state of sheer wild-eyed panic that allows their initial knee-jerk reaction deny, deflect, distract, wave your hands wildly and hope people will look away to survive the strategy meetings and consultations where it ought to be knocked on the head. Activision Blizzard s knee-jerk response last week was an egregious example of the genre, managing to deeply alienate a large group of their own employees as well as making themselves look astonishingly bad in public but the genre itself, sadly, is well-established.
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Activision Blizzard’s presence at a recent trade show.
Video Game Maker Activision Blizzard initially put out a belligerent response to a suit by the state of California Department of Fair Employment and Housing alleging pervasive harassment and discrimination of employees, a “frat boy” culture so outrageous that one longtime developer’s suite at a regular company event was referred to as “The Cosby Suite.”
Employees walked out today in protest of the culture and the company’s response.
While the Company tried to walk back its initial statement in favor of a more standard PR crisis templated one, the employees won support of peers at competitive major studios and World of Warcraft players organized an in-game protest in solidarity.
Токсичные шутки. Как игровой гигант Blizzard теряет миллиарды долларов из-за дискриминации В иске департамента по защите трудовых и жилищных прав Калифорнии к Activision Blizzard говорится о сексистских шутках и самоубийстве
Протест под штаб-квартирой Blizzard. Фото: Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG share
Сотни сотрудников Activision Blizzard, американской компаний по разработке компьютерных игр, вышли в среду, 28 июля, на протест против враждебной атмосферы на рабочих местах. Неделей ранее стало известно об иске департамента по защите трудовых прав Калифорнии против AB из
Сотни сотрудников компании Blizzard вышли на митинг из-за дискриминации internetua.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from internetua.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.