Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
  • Post
  • Reply
Itzena
Aug 2, 2006

Nothing will improve the way things currently are.
Slime TrainerS
In brighter news, noted racist, LGBTQphobic, fascist-funding, war crimes denier (and occasional Dragon Quest composer) Koichi Sugiyama finally died.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Itzena posted:

In brighter news, noted racist, LGBTQphobic, fascist-funding, war crimes denier (and occasional Dragon Quest composer) Koichi Sugiyama finally died.

I appreciate the rundown there. A few friends were pasting me a bunch of Twitter posts reveling in the death and I was over here going “who the actual gently caress is koichi sugiyama”

Moola
Aug 16, 2006
I lust for fash death

ErrEff
Feb 13, 2012

Him and Shinzo Abe were great buddies.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
To elaborate a little more on this latest Blizzard news, what appears to have happened is that Blizzard was telling the State of California investigators "Nope, we don't have those documents anymore, we gave them to the EEOC for their investigation, ask them." They were trying to pit the different investigations and levels of government against each other to slow down all the investigations, limit the damage any of them could do, and try to put a lot of evidence into bureaucratic limbo.

The state investigators, not being morons, have not been impressed by this tactic and have successfully halted the resolution of the EEOC's investigation until Blizzard's people stop being twats.


EDIT: I also learned a bit more info about the Blizzard investigations from Bellular, of all places, specifically detailing what the SEC has subponead from ActiBlizz. In short, they 'requested' everything Bobby Kotick's said to ActiBlizz's board and other parties for the last few years. The SEC is specifically gunning for Kotick right now, or at minimum he's where their investigation is starting.

That cannot possibly be comfortable for ActiBlizz. One of the more powerful regulatory agencies in the US government has specifically targeted the CEO and is going over everything he's said on record since before any of these currently ongoing investigations officially started.

Cythereal fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Oct 8, 2021

Malah
May 18, 2015

Yeah, those are the messy strategies I'm expecting A-B to start pulling out as the pressure ramps up and people in charge get more uncomfortable. Wonder who Bobby's going to throw under the bus first?

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!
i wouldn't get too erect over the SEC investigation, as the SEC doesn't really send people to jail. even madoff was an FBI thing, not the SEC.

in an ideal world the SEC dredges up a pattern of fraud and refers the entire thing to the FBI for criminal prosecution, but that's multiple steps away.

cheetah7071
Oct 20, 2010

honk honk
College Slice
Lying to investors is the only crime a rich person can commit, because it's a crime against other rich people. Not surprised they're going after actual humans instead of the corporate entity for that.

Kanos
Sep 6, 2006

was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

cheetah7071 posted:

Lying to investors is the only crime a rich person can commit, because it's a crime against other rich people. Not surprised they're going after actual humans instead of the corporate entity for that.

Yeah if there's any hope for there to be any consequences for anyone out of this entire affair it's the fact that rich investors feel like they've been wronged here. The surest way for a rich person to suffer actual penalties is to screw other rich people.

Cao Ni Ma
May 25, 2010



Itzena posted:

In brighter news, noted racist, LGBTQphobic, fascist-funding, war crimes denier (and occasional Dragon Quest composer) Koichi Sugiyama finally died.

:toot:

Just in time for the DQ reboot. Hopefully we get actual new music in it now

claw game handjob
Mar 27, 2007

pinch pinch scrape pinch
ow ow fuck it's caught
i'm bleeding
JESUS TURN IT OFF
WHY ARE YOU STILL SMILING

Cao Ni Ma posted:

:toot:

Just in time for the DQ reboot. Hopefully we get actual new music in it now

Terrible news, according to a few statements he had "finished his composition work" for 12 before he passed. Expect to be underwhelmed by two town themes for fifteen locations again, especially if he rushed it.

Cao Ni Ma
May 25, 2010



The fucker is dead, the contracts hold no power over SE anymore! They could just have someone else in house push out new tracks while the game is finished.

Grondoth
Feb 18, 2011

Malah posted:

I'm generally pessimistic on the odds of capital actually suffering consequences for their horrific actions, but there are so many different suits and agencies going after Blizz simultaneously that one or even several could do serious damage. Assuming that the govt actually does something to stop Blizzard from destroying (further) evidence or silencing (more) witnesses, without screwing up each othe-

Also, these are actions by and on behalf of capital.

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




Cao Ni Ma posted:

The fucker is dead, the contracts hold no power over SE anymore! They could just have someone else in house push out new tracks while the game is finished.

On the other hand, if they thought he went too far in his personal life, why didn’t they already start looking for a replacement composer years ago? Was his employment contract just that ironclad?

Kanos
Sep 6, 2006

was there a time when speedwagon didn't get trolled

Regalingualius posted:

On the other hand, if they thought he went too far in his personal life, why didn’t they already start looking for a replacement composer years ago? Was his employment contract just that ironclad?

Sugiyama wasn't just a composer, he was also a rich and relatively powerful dude who had a seat on the biggest copyright board in Japan and also owned his own record label. Coupled with his status as "the dragon quest music guy", actively removing him would probably have kicked up a huge controversial shitstorm over an issue that doesn't really seem to be seen as big of a deal in Japan as it is in the west. Most of the "hell yes I'm glad that fucker is dead" stuff is coming from the western audience.

Unfortunately the dude basically had tenure until he willingly retired or keeled over dead.

Detective No. 27
Jun 7, 2006

Yeah, he was well known. I get the impression he was sort of a John Williams of Japan as far as composers go. The story goes that he filled out a registration card for I think a golf game that Enix released and then Yuji Horii called him up asking if he wanted to compose music for this Dragon Quest game he was making. It wasn't like say, Nobuo Uematsu who was a bright young upstart.

Ziddar
Jul 24, 2003

Time Travel: Not Even Once



okay maybe a few times


Detective No. 27 posted:

Yeah, he was well known. I get the impression he was sort of a John Williams of Japan as far as composers go. The story goes that he filled out a registration card for I think a golf game that Enix released and then Yuji Horii called him up asking if he wanted to compose music for this Dragon Quest game he was making. It wasn't like say, Nobuo Uematsu who was a bright young upstart.

More or less. Uematsu is currently only 62 and was a mere 26 when he joined Square. Sugiyama was already in his mid-50s and had a plethora of composition and orchestration credits by the time Dragon Quest was even an idea.

Best Friends
Nov 4, 2011

The big likely downsides to any given SEC investigation are maybe a small fine and the targets getting some mild lols at them at their country club by their senior executive friends. We're in a post Tesla universe, nothing matters.

Heran Bago
Aug 18, 2006



Minrad posted:


the armor change is a lot less cool, but afaik they already walked the change back. it's a fantasy game played by adults (especially anyone who's been playing it for 18 years or whatever at this point) and feeling sexy in an over the top way is something adults should be allowed to do. removing that option is effectively slut shaming, especially with the huge amount of non sexualized armor available in the game. the change would've made more sense if all the armor in wow was like that, but it's not. and to bring it back to the first point: people here are behaving as if all armor in the game *is* sexualized, so they can be properly outraged about it. lol

https://www.wowhead.com/transmog-sets#gallery

the infamous "boob plate" is one sexualized armor set among literally hundreds, and that one redeeming feature makes it popular. people like being sexy, especially in a fantasy game.
What armor change did they do? This is way more interesting than the paintings since presumably a bunch of horny nerds and real women sunk hours and money into that e-cleavage.

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.
So, it looks like that senior writer at Blizzard who left the other week didn't just leave on his own. It's now looking like he was pressured into resigning by Blizzard HR because he was corroborating and supporting complaints by women at the company, judging by a couple of videos looking at his social media history and other communications.

One of his final social media posts before his resignation was "Word to the wise, if you're going to go to HR to corroborate complaints by people at the company, get a good lawyer first - you're going to need one."

30.5 Days
Nov 19, 2006
In other news, it looks like the federal government is going to the mattresses to back up their bullshit shred-it settlement (shreddlement) with blizzard

"Activision-Blizzard lawsuits in chaos as federal agency accuses California's DFEH of ethics violations | PC Gamer" https://www.pcgamer.com/amp/activision-blizzard-lawsuits-in-chaos-as-federal-agency-accuses-californias-dfeh-of-ethics-violations/

Dogwood Fleet
Sep 14, 2013

Cythereal posted:

So, it looks like that senior writer at Blizzard who left the other week didn't just leave on his own. It's now looking like he was pressured into resigning by Blizzard HR because he was corroborating and supporting complaints by women at the company, judging by a couple of videos looking at his social media history and other communications.

One of his final social media posts before his resignation was "Word to the wise, if you're going to go to HR to corroborate complaints by people at the company, get a good lawyer first - you're going to need one."

Bellular confirming this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMsTJIYyPhY

Cythereal
Nov 8, 2009

I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

30.5 Days posted:

In other news, it looks like the federal government is going to the mattresses to back up their bullshit shred-it settlement (shreddlement) with blizzard

"Activision-Blizzard lawsuits in chaos as federal agency accuses California's DFEH of ethics violations | PC Gamer" https://www.pcgamer.com/amp/activision-blizzard-lawsuits-in-chaos-as-federal-agency-accuses-californias-dfeh-of-ethics-violations/

Specifically, what appears to be going on is that the two lead attorneys for the DFEH case previously worked for the EEOC and investigated Blizzard. They never should have been allowed to investigate Blizzard for a second agency.

30.5 Days
Nov 19, 2006
I don't really understand why that is the case, but the two attorneys were removed as soon as the department was told, eeoc's position is that it's suspicious that the case was able to move forward so quickly without them, as though lead attorneys are the main people who prepare paperwork or something. It also drives home that the eeoc waited to notify California until the moment that thought it would derail the case the most and are upset it didn't work.

Arsenic Lupin
Apr 12, 2012

This particularly rapid💨 unintelligible 😖patter💁 isn't generally heard🧏‍♂️, and if it is🤔, it doesn't matter💁.


Cythereal posted:

So, it looks like that senior writer at Blizzard who left the other week didn't just leave on his own. It's now looking like he was pressured into resigning by Blizzard HR because he was corroborating and supporting complaints by women at the company, judging by a couple of videos looking at his social media history and other communications.

One of his final social media posts before his resignation was "Word to the wise, if you're going to go to HR to corroborate complaints by people at the company, get a good lawyer first - you're going to need one."
Jesus, they're dumb.

Dick Burglar
Mar 6, 2006

Kanos posted:

Sugiyama wasn't just a composer, he was also a rich and relatively powerful dude who had a seat on the biggest copyright board in Japan and also owned his own record label. Coupled with his status as "the dragon quest music guy", actively removing him would probably have kicked up a huge controversial shitstorm over an issue that doesn't really seem to be seen as big of a deal in Japan as it is in the west. Most of the "hell yes I'm glad that fucker is dead" stuff is coming from the western audience.

Unfortunately the dude basically had tenure until he willingly retired or keeled over dead.

A whole lot of Japan's population also doesn't believe that the Japanese government committed any war crimes in the 1930s and 40s*, so... yeah, I'm not surprised that a bunch of war crime deniers aren't celebrating that a war crime denier died.

* I'm pretty sure their public education system still denies the war crimes to this day.

Dick Burglar fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Oct 11, 2021

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.

Dick Burglar posted:

A whole lot of Japan's population also doesn't believe that the Japanese government committed any war crimes in the 1930s and 40s*, so... yeah, I'm not surprised that a bunch of war crime deniers aren't celebrating that a war crime denier died.

* I'm pretty sure their public education system still denies the war crimes to this day.

My understanding is that while there are definitely some active deniers, a lot of people have simply never heard about it because, as you said, their education system never mentions it. True ignorance is a little different from denial, imo.

Dick Burglar
Mar 6, 2006
Fine, I'm not surprised that a bunch of war crime deniers people ignorant of their country's war crimes aren't celebrating that a war crime denier died. Just like how a lot of Americans, ignorant of Donald Rumsfeld's war crimes, were confused when so many foreigners were all but pissing on the dude's grave the day he keeled over.

The point still stands: whether they're active deniers or simply never learned the truth, they have no reason to be like "yeah gently caress that guy."

Dick Burglar fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Oct 11, 2021

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.





:sigh:

I just—

How.

How is it so difficult for so many creative types in high places to not harass women?

orange juche
Mar 14, 2012



Dick Burglar posted:

Fine, I'm not surprised that a bunch of war crime deniers people ignorant of their country's war crimes aren't celebrating that a war crime denier died. Just like how a lot of Americans, ignorant of Donald Rumsfeld's war crimes, were confused when so many foreigners were all but pissing on the dude's grave the day he keeled over.

The point still stands: whether they're active deniers or simply never learned the truth, they have no reason to be like "yeah gently caress that guy."

Rummy directly committed, aided, and abetted war crimes. Sugiyama was just a massive racist, one of the side effects of Japan being largely a monoculture.

orange juche fucked around with this message at 08:59 on Oct 12, 2021

Coolguye
Jul 6, 2011

Required by his programming!

Regalingualius posted:

:sigh:

I just—

How.

How is it so difficult for so many creative types in high places to not harass women?

He was corroborating the abuse allegations, not creating more of them.

orange juche
Mar 14, 2012



Also reinforces HR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND, HR IS THERE TO PROTECT THE COMPANY JEEZ DONT TELL HR ANYTHING EVER

Hauki
May 11, 2010


orange juche posted:

Also reinforces HR IS NOT YOUR FRIEND, HR IS THERE TO PROTECT THE COMPANY JEEZ DONT TELL HR ANYTHING EVER

If HR comes to me asking me to corroborate allegations of sexual harassment/assault which I was a witness to, I’m not going to just disavow any knowledge of it even if I think they might fire me over it.

Like, anything else, sure, whatever.

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




Coolguye posted:

He was corroborating the abuse allegations, not creating more of them.

Ahh gently caress, I missed a word or two there.

Though now it’s just back to being frustrated at their HR apparently being more concerned about appearances than actually fixing the issues that lead to this clusterfuck

sirtommygunn
Mar 7, 2013



Regalingualius posted:

apparently being more concerned about appearances than actually fixing the issues that lead to this clusterfuck

HR.txt

Clarste
Apr 15, 2013

Just how many mistakes have you suffered on the way here?

An uncountable number, to be sure.
I mean if they were only concerned about appearances they could just fire the abusers instead of the complainers and that would look even better. The problem is they're NOT only concerned about appearances, they're mostly concerned with protecting the powerful.

Dick Burglar
Mar 6, 2006
Well, yeah. HR's paychecks are signed by the execs, so if the execs are the ones Doing A Bad, then it's HR's job to cover for the execs.

hooray for the state of the world

Poil
Mar 17, 2007

Also if they fire someone for being a sexpest that admits there were (i.e. are) sexpests at the company.

Regalingualius
Jan 7, 2012

We gazed into the eyes of madness... And all we found was horny.




Clarste posted:

I mean if they were only concerned about appearances they could just fire the abusers instead of the complainers and that would look even better. The problem is they're NOT only concerned about appearances, they're mostly concerned with protecting the powerful.

I just figured that went without saying, considering it’s why they’re in this mess in the first place.

And the kicker in all of this is that the brand damage and suits are probably going to wind up costing them way more than if they’d just handled this poo poo the right way at the time, instead of just sweeping it under the rug until that bit them in the rear end. For me, it was just the sheer number of them coming out all at once that pushed me over the edge to “never again “

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

Dick Burglar
Mar 6, 2006
I imagine it's about playing the odds. Most sexpests probably get covered for by HR and successfully fly under the radar, so it's not worth risking "outing" yourself as harboring a sexpest when you can usually get away with it. But if you roll snake eyes, welp, you're in for a rough time.

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • Post
  • Reply