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tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Content Warning: Descriptions of sexual abuse and suicide.

VideoGames posted:

This topic is for Game Industry news only.

This is NOT a chat thread.

This means there will be probes for going off topic.
I will not tolerate snippy fights against each other here.
Wild speculation about twitter accounts and the truth behind motivations is off topic.
Posts that are whitenoise or :gas: will also be hit.
Do not cheerlead others or disparage others.
This is subject to my interpretations so if I have missed something I would like to see reports with clear information.
I am reading and monitoring this thread when I am online.
My time zone is different to the majority of the forums so there should not be a need to grant emergency probes or bans - please allow me time to catch up.

The nature of content in this thread can be emotionally negative so if you find yourself getting angry or heated because of the discussion please do something else for a bit.

We are going to try this as strict as we can. This is NOT to be an RSS twitter feed or link thread - there can be discussion but it needs to be wholly unlike what has been happening here lately.

Thank you.

Welcome to the Blizzard's Decline & Fall thread.

Before we get into anything else: off-topic chat is strictly forbidden.
This thread was created out of a want and need to have a space to discuss the topic at hand without cross-talk. If you're interested in a more casual environment or simple deathwatch shitposting, the Blizzwatch thread will be happy to have you.

Over the last 5 years, there has been a growing perception of wrongdoing in the videogame industry by big name actors in the development scene. There have been three notable players in this space: ABK, Riot, and Ubisoft.



If you somehow don't know who ABK are, they're a conglomerate of Activision (Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot), Blizzard (Warcraft, Starcraft, Diablo), and King (Candy Crush). On the whole, ABK's issues could fill a library, so I'm not going to directly write a blurb on each of them and instead link to a relevant wiki article (given the wiki has links to the relevant news articles directly). However, it's worth noting that for many years, Blizzard was considered to be THE studio to work at to build prestige, having created multiple beloved franchises and generally being considered an industry giant due to its overwhelming cultural influence.

Current topics

California Department of Fair Employment and Housing v. Activision Blizzard - without going into too much detail, the State of California lodged a court case against ABK relating to a culture of workplace sexual harassment, where women were functionally treated like second class citizens and sexual objects.

Additionally covers Blizzard's treatment of staff and fans at Blizzcon (the infamous "Cosby suite" - reportedly not named after Bill Cosby's conduct but because "A rug in the room looked like one of his sweaters").

On a related point, it's just came out today that it looks like the Blizzard case may be moving from State Court to Federal Court

https://twitter.com/josheidelson/status/1437813878461644803?s=20

Blitzchung "Free Hong Kong" controversy - Blitzchung was an esports player of hearthstone from Hong Kong who in October 2019 after winning a round of Hearthstone live on stream put on a mask similar to those worn by those in Hong Kong protesting the Chinese Government's actions and said "Liberate Hong Kong, the revolution of our times".

This specifically lead to the stream being cut, the casters who were hosting it had their contracts terminated, and Blitzchung himself was banned from that tournament and others.

The public outcry to this was swift, brutal, and far reaching to the point that the US Senate ended up issuing a letter to the company, several comentators / streamers chose to no longer stream blizzard products.

During Blizzcon 2019, Blizzard chose to address the controversy without actually addressing the controversy by promising to "do better", and then promptly deleted the apology from the VODs.

ABK hires a literal GWB Era War Criminal as compliance officer - this isn't the only one!
===============================================

The following two topics are specifically relating to Ubisoft (Developers of Assassin's Creed, Rainbow Six Siege, etc) and Riot (League of Legends, Valorant), however I want to specify ahead of time that I am not fully across the relevant allegations here and are included principally because of the proximity of the allegations to ABK - more relevant information can be found in the #metoo thread where people have discussed this in more detail as information has come to light.

Ubisoft Sexual Misconduct - This is a large topic, however similar to the Blizzard allegations, Ubisoft have been hit by several waves of sexual harrassment allegations that have claimed the scalps of several executives. The issue here however is that the allegations have not ceased and are continuing as at time of writing with the Singapore studio currently under investigation indicating that the french studio's problems span company and worldwide.

Riot Games Sexual Misconduct - Similar to Ubisoft, Riot's had extensive issues for several years, which is understandable given the cross pollination between ABK and Riot Games. Specifically allegations of Sexual harassment stemming directly from the CEO, (an internal investigation later found "no evidence" of this conduct by the CEO), as well as ongoing gender discrimination in terms of pay rates. Riot specifically has attempted to avoid government ire here with specific private settlements with individuals that prevents them from speaking to the government.

===========================================

It is specifically worth pointing out as a final note here that the scale of information that's come out over the last few years is staggering in its depth and as such the information presented in the OP is specifically intended as a high level view only and specifically omits information because there's just no way to cover it all in a summary.

If you're eager for reading up on similar subjects outside of this specific thread, there is the #metoo thread and the TG Industry thread.

Mazed posted:

My testimonial as ex-Blizz doesn't weigh as much in comparison to the utterly ghastly anecdotes that flooded social media in the wake of the story breaking, mostly from women impacted directly, which is where so much of the real raw meat of this shitshow lies.

I can, however, vouch for the utter wretchedness of the HR department and how they'd work very diligently to nickel-and-dime us if we needed some kind of accommodation, medical or otherwise, and was very keen on reminding us that we were lucky to even keep our jobs, let alone be given such indulgences as, oh, being permitted to use the restroom as long as we loving clocked out to do it.

Knowing that this is the same HR which dutifully shredded incriminating documentation in the wake of the investigation is precisely as unprincipled and idiotic as any of us might've expected.

There's also the way the general philosophy in managing customer support gradually took us further and further from actually having some presence in the wider player community, while piling onto us more and more expectations and strict, demanding KPI-based metrics, but that's mostly just corporate customer support in general...although granted, most tech support types generally deal with people with actual problems than idiots demanding free stuff in a video game that they were mad at.

Oh, and without a single substantial pay raise -- just free blizzbux codes and literal toys.

Zil posted:

KPI talk reminds me of something, were you there for the four boxes thing? Where you had four categories to reach and if you were above the average you were considered epic. Oh and you needed to have four epic boxes three times in a row to be considered for promotion. Also if you had 1 sick day you immediately got a red box for attendance.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.


Heran Bago posted:

I can't keep track of what and when Blizzard poo poo went down. Some news sites have their own timeline but it's always missing things. I started my own to summarize each one concisely but there's just so much that it balooned. I also include an out-of-context quote for most to help me remember and contextualize that specific poo poo. Anyone leaving the company I called "quitting" which isn't accurate. I think I forgot a couple employee protests or company-wide emails, so if I missed or misplaced anyting please speak up and I'll edit.


BLIZZARD poo poo TIMELINE

2014
Diablo 3's gold and real-money Auction House closes before the release of its first major expansion. "despite the benefits of the [auction house] system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot."

World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor sucks pretty badly. The expansion costs more and contains less content than previous expansions. Subscriber numbers dip to under 6 million for the first time in 9 years. Producer J. Allen Brack issues a public appology, claiming everything has been fixed. "we're very proud of this expansion, so stumbling out of the gates like this was very disappointing for all of us."

2016
World of Warcraft: The Beginning: The Feature Film debuts and bombs. It's a commercial and critical failure. Apparently it did well in China though. "just as it’s ending, 'Warcraft' leaves all kinds of plot threads dangling for the ambitious possibility of a sequel. But you’ll be likely to cry 'Game Over' because this first one is easily a contender for the worst movie of the year."

2018
September
World of Warcraft: Battle for Azeroth sucks really badly. Competitive PvP is removed from the game. Subscriber numbers dip to under 1.7 million for the first time in 12 years. Director Ion Hazzikostas apologizes and pinky-promises to fix it. “We’re certainly not entirely happy with how the system is playing out, and all of these are very valid concerns. We agree that it’s a problem“

October
Co-founder and president Mike Morhaime quits, replaced by former WoW producer J. Allen Brack. “One thing that won’t change going forward – our deeply held commitments that are core to who we are as a company”

November
Diablo Immortal is announced. Fans expecting Diablo 4 are angry about the mobile-only game. “do you guys not have phones?”

December
Heroes of the Storm’s pro scene is cancelled. Game staff is gutted. Employees and casters alike find out via a public announcement. “This is such bullshit and I'm so upset for everyone who has ever put a minute into this scene.”

2019
January
Former Hearthstone eSports employee Julian Murillo-Cuellar speaks out about racial discrimination and bullying. Blizzard releases a statement about its commitment to an inclusive and respectful work environment. “Nobody will ever understand the anger I feel towards Blizzard Entertainment because they drove me to almost take my life countless of times.“

February
Activision Blizzard lays off 800+ employees despite record earnings in 2018. Esports and internal IT are gutted. “It’s a bloodbath here.”

July
Co-founder Frank Pearce quits. “Blizzard is a special place and a special community, and everyone with whom you interact is important to the Blizzard journey as it continues forward”

October
Chung "Blitzchung" Ng Wai is suspended from pro Hearthstone for saying A Thing about Hong Kong. Two Taiwanese casters who happened to be covering the event are fired. Some large sponsors pull out of Blizzard events, some US politicians finger-wag the company, and some employees stage a walk-out. “Liberate Hong Kong, revolution of our age”

Blizzcon 2019 is swarmed by free speech protests. President J. Allen Brack takes to the stage to confirm that the two Taiwanese casters will remain fired. “We didn't live up to the high standards we set ourselves.”

Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick is linked to Jeffrey Epstein. His name, two phone numbers, and company email address are listed in Epstein' little black book.

2020
January
Warcraft 3: Reforged is released. Holy poo poo. The new version guts features of the original. The original can no longer be played on battle.net. The EULA states that anything you make in the game, Blizzard owns. Blizzard will not refund the game. “It's incredibly important to us to first get it right for the existing community, and then we want to do things to appeal to more people”.

February
Blizzard changes its policy and begins issuing refunds for WC3:R. President J. Allen Brack offers the players a non-apology, insisting that the game will continue to be updated and patched. “Our community has come to expect really amazing things from us, and we've heard from them that we did not achieve that bar.”

June
Hearthstone pro Savjz, spouse of former employee Christina Mikkonen, is blacklisted from esports because she said unfriendly things about the Blizz on Twitter . Blizzard claims that he’s not blacklisted, just not invited to events. “Are you loving serious right now Chris”

July
WoW Creative Director and NPC Alex Afrasiabi quits. There is no public announcement; people only notice this on LinkedIn at first. It later becomes very clear why: “Afrasiabi was so known to engage in harassment of females that his suite was nicknamed the ‘Crosby Suite’ [sic] after alleged rapist Bill Crosby [sic].”

August
Employees share spreadsheet documenting pay disparity. “Our goal has always been to ensure we compensate our employees fairly and competitively.”

November
World of Warcraft: Shadowlands sucks badly at first, and even worse as it goes on. Over the next year, prominent streamers put down the game and there is a player exodus. "There has to be an absolute f$#king idiot at Blizzard designing and deciding these things."

2021
March
Activision Blizzard hires Trump administration members Frances Townsend and Brian Bulatao. These people may or may not be torture advocates or war criminals. “Brian’s unparalleled success in the business world and distinguished career as an Infantry Captain in the US Army make him an excellent addition to our leadership team.”

April
Vice President and Overwatch Lead Designer “Papa” Jeff Kaplan quits. “Never accept the world as it appears to be.”

July
The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing files a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard. The lawsuit alleges “constant sexual harassment, including groping, comments, and advances due to a frat boy workplace culture.” 2,500+ employees sign an open letter condemning the leadership. Some employees stage a walkout protest. A spokesperson denies all the accusations. “groping inebriated female employees at company events and was known for making hiring decisions based on female applicants' looks”

The Cosby Suite is put under the spotlight. “I am gathering the hot chixx for the Coz.”

Chief Compliance Officer Frances Townsend holds a Zoom meeting with exactly 500 women at Blizzard. Women who don't join quickly enough are promised a video of the meeting afterwards. Later that day, Townsend steps down as executive sponsor of the Activision-Blizzard-King Women’s Network. The video is never made available to anyone.

CEO Bobby Kotick emails staff an awful non-apology statement, and apologizes for the tone-deaf apology a few days later. Some employees do a walk-out protest and #ActiBlizzWalkout trends hard. 2000+ employees sign an open letter in support of the lawsuit. “Today, we stand up for change. Tomorrow and beyond, we will be the change.”

All work on WoW halts pending the active lawsuit. References to Alex Afrasiabi are scrubbed from WoW, marking the best content update the game has seen in years. “Those of us in leadership understand that it is not our place to judge”

August
Shareholders file a class-action lawsuit against Activision Blizzard over withholding info on all the harassment. They allege that false or misleading statements, including S.E.C. filings from as far back as 2016, lead to artificially inflated stock prices. Current CEO, current and former CFOs are named. Blizzard brushes off all accusations. “such routine claims and lawsuits are not significant and we do not expect them to have a material adverse effect on our business, financial condition, results of operations, or liquidity.”

Senior HR Vice President Jesse Meschuk quits. "anyone found to have impeded the integrity of [Activision Blizzard's] processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences will be terminated."

President J. Allen Brack quits. Executive VPs Mike Ybarra and Jen Oneal (of Xbox and Vicarious Visions respectively) take over as studio co-leads. “they can be trusted to lead with the highest levels of integrity and commitment to the components of our culture that make Blizzard so special."

Director Luis Barriga and Lead Director Jesse McCree quit. All references to Luis Barriga, Jesse McCree, and Jonathan LeCraft in Overwatch and WoW are removed or planned to be removed. The next Overwatch update is delayed as a result. “we believe it’s necessary to change the name of the hero currently known as McCree to something that better represents what Overwatch stands for."

September
Employees file a charge with the National Labor Relations Board accusing Activision Blizzard of illegal union busting. “management is using coercive tactics to attempt to prevent its employees from exercising their rights to stand together and demand a more equitable, sustainable, and diverse workplace”

Former Disney Vice President Julie Hodges takes over as new Chief People Officer. Former Delta Airlines Vice President Sandeep Dube takes over as Chief Commercial Officer. “A workforce where everyone feels valued is critical to the success of our business, as is a trusting, engaging and safe environment”

The S.E.C opens an investigation on Activision Blizzard. CEO and other executives are subpoenaed. "While we continue to work in good faith with regulators to address and resolve past workplace issues, we also continue to move ahead with our own initiatives to ensure that we are the very best place to work."

Chief Legal Officer Claire Hart quits. “The past three years have been full of unexpected twists and turns”

Overwatch Executive Producer Chacko Sunny quits. “has been an absolute privilege and one of the best experiences of my career.”

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tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Dreylad posted:

didn't Blizzard North do Diablo 1 & 2, which was a completely separate studio? then again, not sure if they also had allegations in their studio that's long since disbanded

They are a separate studio yes, no allegations have been made against blizzard North that I'm aware of.

The man responsible for that studio has been extremely open with his disgust. Can't remember his name but he came up in the other thread when the news broke of the California case.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



BisbyWorl posted:

Which might as well be no mods period, imo.

Beyond really simple stuff, I can't see the huge stuff like Median XL or Path of Diablo going through all the trouble of porting it over to D2R when you'll never be able to use it to play online.

I very much doubt they will.

Median XL in particular is basically operating its own version of the d2 executable with a bunch of QOL features and support for modern day resolutions

blizzard meanwhile, stubbornly refuses to support any ultra-wide screen monitor resolutions because "they don't want people with those monitors to have a competitive advantage in multiplayer"

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



A Buttery Pastry posted:

Yeah, I don’t see them trying to stir trouble if they believed their money was in safe hands. A Blizzard at full prestige might have been strong enough to weather this poo poo and calm investors, but incompetently scrambling like they’re doing is like the opposite of what you want to instill investor confidence. It’s not investors going “Wow, Shadowlands was bad, let’s destroy Bobby”, it’s “They kept us in the dark, and clearly have no idea how to get us our money back”.

Incompetent scrambling has been their entire modus operandi since their spiral really started to hit its stride in the last 36 months.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



What, don't you guys have phones?

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Kith posted:

this is a real good post and deserves to be part of the OP imo

Inshallah, it is now

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Natural 20 posted:

Blizzard suck because all the hot blondes were garbage.

Nova, garbage.
Valeera, garbage.
Anduin, garbage.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Desfore posted:

To expand on this a tiny bit, during the WoD beta, there was a split in the outcome of the Kargath raid fight, based off difficulties. I don't recall the full details, but I think LFR-Heroic Kargath would run away at 2%, leaving his severed blade hand as the lootable object; while Mythic difficulty ended the same way it does now. I'm not sure if they had previewed the Mar'gok fight at this point, but a lot of people started complaining about canonicity of fights, and only seeing the "Full story" on mythic. Plus, I think Blizzard realized they couldn't really do anything with Kargath after this fight, or they'd have to spin some weird "I wasn't really dead!" bullshit for people that saw that version of the fight, so everyone gets to kill him.

That was the first red flag I remember before WoD became a lost cause. Aside from Ner'zul dying in a dungeon, this change basically destroyed the hope for a Warlord-themed raid to cap off the expansion.

they do that a lot and I don't like it

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



stev posted:

He didn't even deny that one. Jesus loving Christ what an awful human being.

While it's probable that the root cause of the "we can't fire Kotick" is the fact that they'd have to pay him a third of a billion dollars, might also be worth looking at the board to figure out who old mate's holding skeletons against.

WSJ posted:

In 2006, one of his assistants complained that he had harassed her, including by threatening in a voice mail to have her killed, according to people familiar with the matter. He settled the matter out of court, the people said.

The Activision spokeswoman said: “Mr. Kotick quickly apologized 16 years ago for the obviously hyperbolic and inappropriate voice mail, and he deeply regrets the exaggeration and tone in his voice mail to this day.”

christ alive, he really is just going to post through it.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Every day that something more, and worse, comes out makes me regret the money I've spent on AB products over the years because it feels like tacit enablement of that behaviour - even if it was outside of the public view.

I'm just in awe, really, of kotick writing an email and sending it under someone elses name because they're a woman, and when it landed like a lead balloon, had the temerity to call it tone deaf like he hadn't written it.

Just an absolute all timer.

Old mate really must know where the board's bodies are buried to have them stand by him after all the poo poo that's coming out

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



thetoughestbean posted:

From what I understand, Kotick has a clause in his contract that means they have to pay him a lot of money if they fire him so it’s cheaper to just keep him around

yup

firing him without cause is $265~ mill
with cause is $265k

The Gadfly posted:

It's genius. As a CEO, you basically control the business, so just sign yourself a contract with an insane buyout to make yourself unfireable. If anyone opposes this, fire them immediately. Amazing.

Contract and CEO remuneration is set by the companies board which is supposed to govern and limit this poo poo but well, in activision's case..

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Bentai posted:

https://twitter.com/BanishedJourno/status/1467203514971529218
The whole Twitter thread has chat log shots and a confrontation video at his house.

Lots of comments saying it's someone who looks like him.
The poo poo people will say to dissociate their brands from crimes is depressing.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Forgive the 4ch screenshot, but it looks like the blizzard guy was bragging about the breastmilk thing back in 2019 on there

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Regalingualius posted:

Actually, speaking of, what’s MS’s games division’s public track record on sexual/racial harassment?

I wanna say there was some stuff back in the xbox 360 / xbox one transition days that lead to the games divisions loses some heads, but I don't have any links to hand.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Just gonna channel my inner Cassandra here

- They're gonna lose a shitload of money on NFTs
- The exec who is clearly all in on NFTs is gonna sulk and double down on how people "just don't get"
- The devs who were forced to implement this poo poo are going to be canned for not meeting the company's bullshit expectations
- The exec who's championing it will get a promotion and a raise for their "forward thinking vision that unfortunately didn't come to fruition"
- Assassins Creed 2023 will have a few bits in the "real life / modern day" segment where you're hackign the emails of Abstergo employees and they'll say poo poo like "the real difference between the assassins and the templars is a single point of difference, assassins believe nfts are great, and the templars don't"

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



anyone order an insider trading investigation into Bobby Kotick?

Here's a secondary source too

tithin fucked around with this message at 08:45 on Apr 1, 2022

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Rarity posted:

Trusting the guy who made Sonic 2006 sounds like a bad call

Remember during the last steam summer sale when sega was giving away games and they gave away sonic 1, and he complained about them giving away his work for free

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]




https://twitter.com/imranzomg/status/1374033875601477632

Jim Ryan's the fuckwit who doesn't understand why people like playing BC games
seems like a liability for sony to me tbh

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Please post about your forum enemies in another thread

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Metis of the Hallways posted:

Take it to QCS please, let's stay on topic here.

Reiterating this please. If you have an issue with one of the admins, take it to the designated forum that's meant to address this.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Dick Burglar posted:

Yeah, why would I want to question in this thread why somebody closed this thread for several days immediately after sebmojo showed their entire rear end?

but lol ok i posted in qcs, r u happy

Because it's a bigger problem than this thread.

Also, I asked for the thread to be closed, because the way the thread was going was super lovely.

If you're unhappy about an admin showing their whole rear end, there's a whole forum for discussion on gently caress ups by SA staff - so thank you for moving it there.

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



2x mods have already ruled it irrelevant - please stop talking about dunkey, there's another thread elsewhere for it, ty and gb

tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



Seems like a solved problem, please move on.

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tithin
Nov 14, 2003


[Grandmaster Tactician]



MarcusSA posted:

I don't really think that's needed seeing as how Disney is doing a pretty good job on its own of running itself into the ground.

Could you elaborate on this? I was under the impression they were doing extremely well

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