At Activision Blizzard there is still no calm. The lawsuit brought by the State of California and the working conditions at the company keep bringing new allegations to light. Now even CEO Bobby Kotick is under attack.
Update:
Phew, there is currently a really stiff breeze as far as CEO Bobby Kotick is concerned. According to recent reports, some Activision Blizzard shareholders, led by SOC Investment Group, have come together to call for the resignation of Kotick and two other board members, namely Brian Kelly and Robert Morgado. Support comes from other investment groups that mainly support women in various industrial sectors. It is not known how high the proportions of the groups are, but in any case that means even more bad air at Activision Blizzard.
Original message 17.11. 10:13 am:
New Wall Street Journal reports
According to the WSJ, it has now emerged that she has given up her position because she has been marginalized and discriminated against (Oneal is of Asian-American descent and homosexual). The WSJ wants to be aware of emails in which Oneal reveals that she has been sexually molested before at the company. In addition, after taking up the new position, she was paid less than Ybarra. It can be assumed that her calling had more symbolic purposes.
Thanks to the reports in the Wall Street Journal, company boss Bobby Kotick is now also under attack. He is said to have known the conditions in the company for years, especially with regard to the harassment of female employees, but ignored or downplayed this. He is also said to have threatened female employees in 2006 and 2007 and settled the matter out of court.
Kotick is also said to have swept the board of directors under the table about the allegations that a Sledgehammer Games employee had been raped by a superior. Apparently not isolated cases, the report describes numerous other incidents that Kotick is said to have been aware of without taking appropriate action.
In a statement on the report, Activision Blizzard’s board of directors has backed Kotick for the time being:
“The Activision Blizzard Board remains committed to the goal of making Activision Blizzard the most welcoming and inclusive company in the industry. Under Bobby Kotick’s leadership the Company is already implementing industry leading changes including a zero tolerance harassment policy, a dedication to achieving significant increases to the percentages of women and non-binary people in our workforce and significant internal and external investments to accelerate opportunities for diverse talent. The Board remains confident that Bobby Kotick appropriately addressed workplace issues brought to his attention. The goals we have set for ourselves are both critical and ambitious. The Board remains confident in Bobby Kotick’s leadership, commitment and ability to achieve these goals.”
The report is already showing a personal impact. Dan Bunting, co-head of Call of Duty developer Treyarch, has since left the company after it became known that Bunting allegedly molested a female employee in 2017. There was an internal investigation into it in 2019, but Kotick stepped in and secured Bunting his job. Bunting was with Treyarch for about 18 years and has worked on a myriad of Call of Duty parts.
But that is not the end of the subject. According to a report by Kotaku, employees have now gathered in front of the Blizzard headquarters in Irvine and are calling for Kotick to resign and the air is burning on social media:
“We will not be silenced until Bobby Kotick has been replaced as CEO, and continue to hold our original demand for third-party review by an employee-chosen source”, demands for example the ABK Workers Alliance. It will be another exciting week at Activision Blizzard.
