Two weeks ago, the State of California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, pertaining to the company allegedly treating its female employees poorly. Amidst the legal problems and criticisms being aimed at Blizzard, their president, J. Allen Brack will be stepping down from his role after serving 15 years with the company. Taking his place will be Mike Ybarra and Jen Oneal, the former of which used to be the VP of Xbox, while the latter is a woman who led Vicarious Visions, who was acquired by Blizzard earlier this year after being owned by Activision since 2005.

Both leaders are deeply committed to all of our employees; to the work ahead to ensure Blizzard is the safest, most welcoming workplace possible for women, and people of any gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or background; to upholding and reinforcing our values; and to rebuilding your trust. With their many years of industry experience and deep commitment to integrity and inclusivity, Jen and Mike will lead Blizzard with care, compassion, and a dedication to excellence. You’ll hear more from Jen and Mike soon.

Source

 

[Redhorse]

Is this what is meant by..
'When the going gets tough, the tough get going' [read as leave]
?

 

[xdarkx]

But Ybarra has 20 years of experience at Microsoft

That's fine and all, but he doesn't have much experience working with Blizzard employees. Though most of the OG staff left already, so ya.

and that Jennifer Oneal was the head of Vicarious Visions--which has been owned by Activision for 16 years (but only 6 months of ownership of Blizzard...which is Activision's company, too)

This is actually worst if you think about it. It means she would most likely she will be heavily influenced by Activision. Look where it got Blizzard to now. Just to give an example, anyone still remember Warcraft 3 Reforge? Let's just say it got "Activisioned."

 

[Xzi]

This is actually worst if you think about it. It means she would most likely she will be heavily influenced by Activision. Look where it got Blizzard to now. Just to give an example, anyone still remember Warcraft 3 Reforge? Let's just say it got "Activisioned."

It's not worse, she's the best possible choice. Vicarious Visions are the best developers left at ActiBlizz, based on THPS 1+2 Remastered and what we've seen of Diablo 2 Remastered alone. Pretty much everything else released by either Activision or Blizzard in the last five years has been garbage tier.

 

[jimbo13]

Was really looking forward to finding out the details and how much truth there was too the situation. But I can see the woke circle jerk has begun and it will quickly devolve in to a meritless witch hunt regardless of what actually happened.

 

[xdarkx]

It's not worse, she's the best possible choice. Vicarious Visions are the best developers left at ActiBlizz, based on THPS 1+2 Remastered and what we've seen of Diablo 2 Remastered alone. Pretty much everything else released by either Activision or Blizzard in the last five years has been garbage tier.

As long as Blizzard is not able to run in autonomy without any Activision overhead, I don't see the company will get any better.

 

[Xzi]

As long as Blizzard is not able to run in autonomy without any Activision overhead, I don't see the company will get any better.

Giving them full autonomy would solve some problems, but it wouldn't bring back all the talent that made classic Blizzard what it was. Like I said, the most talented people left are formerly Vicarious Visions, so it's a smart move to put their people in charge regardless of overall corporate structure.

 

[Deleted member 397813]

>be blizzard rn
>pfp related

 

[osaka35]

Even if the total number of false accusations is tiny, it doesn't mean all accusations should be taken and treated as true; that's doing a disservice to the victims of said false accusations, no matter how few, and is going against our rights to fair and unbiased legal trials where the presumption of innocence is of utmost importance.

It's our moral duty to doubt accusations, no matter what kind of accusation, who's making the accusation, or who's being accused.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

If we fail to doubt accusations, are we any better than those hunting supposed "witches" all those centuries ago? Than those lynch mobs last century?

yes, a false accusation should carry equal weight on the accuser. But the moral duty is to fully investigate. Morally, you support the people coming forward, on the assumption they are being truthful. The person being accused shouldn't be assumed guilty, but most definitely should be scrutinized and investigated. You should reserve personal judgement until the facts present themselves, as the situation could be worse or better than what you would understand from the information presented. but you should never, ever, treat someone coming forward as a potential liar. That's just the absolute worst thing you can do.

In this scenario, these aren't accusations without evidence. You are correct every accusation should be investigated, but ultimately it comes down to this: did the company knowingly support and promote a culture which allowed these things to happen? And what actions did they take when presented with these accusations and evidence, internally? Do you think that question has not been answered already?

In regards to witches, it's important to remember evidence of a witch back then was whatever made up thing they wanted it to be. It was an imaginary enemy to rally a mob against. Situations like what blizzard is being accused of happen frequently and are quantifiable. How we measure them, how we assess guilt, these are not imaginary and are not flights of fancy. This is serious stuff, not an imaginary enemy. That's why an accusation should carry a lot of weight.

 

[xdarkx]

Giving them full autonomy would solve some problems, but it wouldn't bring back all the talent that made classic Blizzard what it was. Like I said, the most talented people left are formerly Vicarious Visions, so it's a smart move to put their people in charge regardless of overall corporate structure.

I know that the chance of any of the OG staff coming back is slim to none. My main concern is with the new leadership. There are still several bad apples that are still with the company, and if the new leadership does nothing, then nothing will change.

 

[modafoca_killer]

how do they treat females poorly?

according to some woman reports those "mens" was flirting with female workers and saying things about that thing your mom and daddy make on the bed in front of everybody, like it was normal to say that, and a lot of other things that I can't say here but if you search you can find disturbing words of a lot of people (don't recommend!)

 

[regnad]

In modern times, we don't need evidence anymore. Guilty undtil proven innocent.

That may be the case in some situations, but not this one. It looks like they’ve amassed a fair amount of evidence: https://gbatemp.net/threads/the-sta...legations-of-workplace-discrimination.591679/

But don’t let that spoil your predetermined narrative.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Was really looking forward to finding out the details and how much truth there was too the situation. But I can see the woke circle jerk has begun and it will quickly devolve in to a meritless which hunt regardless of what actually happened.

Which hunt?

 

[modafoca_killer]

yes, a false accusation should carry equal weight on the accuser. But the moral duty is to fully investigate. Morally, you support the people coming forward, on the assumption they are being truthful. The person being accused shouldn't be assumed guilty, but most definitely should be scrutinized and investigated. You should reserve personal judgement until the facts present themselves, as the situation could be worse or better than what you would understand from the information presented. but you should never, ever, treat someone coming forward as a potential liar. That's just the absolute worst thing you can do.

In this scenario, these aren't accusations without evidence. You are correct every accusation should be investigated, but ultimately it comes down to this: did the company knowingly support and promote a culture which allowed these things to happen? And what actions did they take when presented with these accusations and evidence, internally? Do you think that question has not been answered already?

In regards to witches, it's important to remember evidence of a witch back then was whatever made up thing they wanted it to be. It was an imaginary enemy to rally a mob against. Situations like what blizzard is being accused of happen frequently and are quantifiable. How we measure them, how we assess guilt, these are not imaginary and are not flights of fancy. This is serious stuff, not an imaginary enemy. That's why an accusation should carry a lot of weight.

The real problem here is there is no enough evidence for this type of accusation, and the police and the government don't want to show up on the media with bad news, so the solution for both of them is already declare the person guilty, without any proofs, but in the Activision case I think most of people are saying the truth, because to get in this level of the president leave the company...

 

[Viri]

Don't worry, they'll make at least 3 more characters gay, and maybe they'll pull out the "big guns" and make a character trans!

I'm happy the only game I liked from Blizzard was Star Craft 1. Because this company is fucked, lol.

 

[mspy]

But Ybarra has 20 years of experience at Microsoft

And what exactly did Ybarra do at Microsoft? I would imagine that if he did great things he would still be there because Microsoft is not a small company where you can poach anyone you want at will.

It's not worse, she's the best possible choice. Vicarious Visions are the best developers left at ActiBlizz, based on THPS 1+2 Remastered and what we've seen of Diablo 2 Remastered alone. Pretty much everything else released by either Activision or Blizzard in the last five years has been garbage tier.

And pretty much all the good stuff that Blizzard ever created had no involvement of this person. Creating games from scratch is a totally different beast than remastering an existing game, saying that the Vicarious Visions team is blizzard best developers is just not true.

 

[Xzi]

And pretty much all the good stuff that Blizzard ever created had no involvement of this person. Creating games from scratch is a totally different beast than remastering an existing game, saying that the Vicarious Visions team is blizzard best developers is just not true.

The only people left over from "classic Blizzard" might be a couple janitors, so I stand by my statement. The best developers modern Blizzard has are those that were formerly part of Vicarious Visions. Everybody else only has stuff like Diablo 3 and Hearthstone on their resume.

 

[Seliph]

In modern times, we don't need evidence anymore. Guilty undtil proven innocent.

There are mountains of evidence if you just... look? Blizzard devs literally had a hotel suite for an event one year that they called the "Cosby room" and all sorts of heinous shit happened in there. Pretty damning and that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Anyways, good riddance.

 

[HellGhast]

Wealthy connected Mo-fo like him, this duude is somewhere laughing, having a good time and racking in millions as a a Board Chairman of a Mega Corporation.

Did I mention Board members basically do nothing but meet once a year(in Switzerland or Monaco) to approve the latest austerity cost cutting measures(read outsourcing jobs to a 3rd world country where workers do 12 hour workdays and 6 or 7 day work week with no overtime, no annual leave, no medical insurance, no sick-days, no terminal employment benefits coz they are never employed but just work on short-term contract basis or even a day-laborer basis) and for their troubles each Board member gets a company jet and other Million dollar perks?

Capitalism baby, not that different from Dark Ages feudalism.

 

[ZipMartin]

I wish I could mute some users here. I mean, can I...?

 

[Seliph]

Wealthy connected Mo-fo like him, this duude is somewhere laughing, having a good time and racking in millions as a a Board Chairman of a Mega Corporation.

Did I mention Board members basically do nothing but meet once a year(in Switzerland or Monaco) to approve the latest austerity cost cutting measures(read outsourcing jobs to a 3rd world country where workers do 12 hour workdays and 6 or 7 day work week with no overtime, no annual leave, no medical insurance, no sick-days, no terminal employment benefits coz they are never employed but just work on short-term contract basis or even a day-laborer basis) and for their troubles each Board member gets a company jet and other Million dollar perks?

Capitalism baby, not that different from Dark Ages feudalism.

Based

I wish I could mute some users here. I mean, can I...?

Closest you can do is click on their pfp and click "ignore". That should do it

 

[ZipMartin]

Closest you can do is click on their pfp and click "ignore". That should do it

That's something. Thanks