A new black page is written in the world of video games, when the legal claim against Activision Blizzard is known.
This denounces a series of severe instances of labor and sexual abuse, ranging from salary disparity, sexual harassment, abuse of authority and reaching the level of the loss of a life due to this situation. It is a civil lawsuit that demands reparations to the affected persons, presented in court by the Department of Equal Employment and Housing of the State of California.
The legal action is preceded by an intense investigation work of more than two years within the company, in which numerous employees and former employees denounced a huge inequality within it. With the female staff being delegated to perform tasks while the male staff dedicated themselves to playing and “supervising” their companions.
This affected their remuneration and notoriety within the brand, with female employees suffering from fewer or non-existent bonuses despite putting in more hours and quality of work than their colleagues. But this is only the superficial part of the matter.
The complaints, compiled in an excellent way by Bloomberg, mention that female staff was under constant scrutiny and harassment from their supervisors, who openly made sexual invitations and direct references to rape in the workplace.
Fraternity practices were regular in this space, explaining as an example the “cube crawls”, a practice in which employees would drink huge amounts of alcohol and crawl into the employee’s cubicles and overdo it.
But it is the case of the death of an employee that causes this case to take an even darker turn. A victim of abuse by her supervisor, she took her own life on a company trip. According to sources, private photos were distributed at a meeting the night before.
All this in the face of full impunity generated by protection from the highest echelons of the company. It is reported that names like J. Allen Brack are aware of this situation and have tried to keep it hidden.
This is a case in full swing, but one that surely continues to expose the darkness of the industry, which no one wants to see.
