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State of California Sues Activision Blizzard for Culture of Sexual Harassment, Gender Bias, and a Suicide

Danielle from Leaf and Core
Reading Time: 10 minutes.
TW: Sexual harassment and abuse, suicide

Activision Blizzard background, with stylized text.

The state of California through the Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) is suing Activision Blizzard for discriminating against its female employees and creating an exceptionally toxic environment. We hear stories like this frequently in tech. The DFEH brought a similar case against Riot Games a few years ago. However, this story has a particularly heartbreaking detail: a casualty. The culture of harassment and discrimination, which was apparently pervasive through all layers of Activision Blizzard, lead one woman to commit suicide.

Allegedly, women’s careers stagnated at Activision Blizzard, but some women faced severe sexual harassment. Despite complaints and years of warnings, nothing reportedly changed within the company. While Activision Blizzard is just one of many tech companies with a toxic, misogynistic culture, it is perhaps one of the larges and most severe examples of it, if these reports are true.

Despite non-disclosure and non-disparage agreements, often a necessity for employees who need severance after leaving a position after facing discrimination, the word is out. Women in tech are speaking up about their treatment. Many companies will wish they didn’t. Better ones will wish they never created such a toxic environment in the first place.

A “Frat Boy” Culture

While the court documents use the phrase “frat boy” culture, I don’t believe that’s fair. Calling it a “frat boy” culture makes it seem as though these behaviors were innocent pranks and jokes. Instead, sexual abuse within the company was so horrid, it lead to one woman’s death.

After a two-year investigation, California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) brought forward a damning lawsuit. It’s the conclusion of interviews with current and former employees, including Blizzard president J. Allen Brack. Supposedly, every layer of the company knew of these offenses, including Brack, who reportedly punished one of the worst offenders with no more than a verbal reprimand. He’s now seeming acting like he’s surprised by the results of the investigation. But how could he be? He claims to “disdain ‘bro culture,'” but the contents of the investigation claim his company, under his leadership, may be one of the worst examples of it.

Again, some of this may be troubling to read.

Abyssal Representation

When I’m job hunting, I often only consider positions where I’ll see other women at the company. I’m in tech, so I’ll sometimes go through a majority if not all of the interviewing process without seeing another woman. One startup had about 12 employees, and wanted me to be their first female employee.

I passed.

It’s in that way that a problem of diversity can become a self-replicating issue. How do you gain diversity when you have none? There are a few key things to do here:

  1. Recruit from a diverse pool. Seek out sources of new employees that fall outside of your normal recruitment strategies, like women in tech conferences and programming boot camps.
  2. Ensure your policies are quick to punish harassers and problematic employees.
  3. Teach employees about unconscious bias, and force them to answer questions about it during post-interview discussions.
  4. Involve a diverse group in the interview process. Look for discrepancies or patterns that can suggest bias in some of your employees and leave them out of future interviews.
  5. Foster women’s healthcare needs as well as parenting needs, through benefits, and flexible work schedules, as well as (often legally required) lactation areas for nursing parents.

The key idea is to create an equitable platform of diverse talent. From there, women will come to a company, even if they’re early in that process. When it comes to an inclusive culture, if you build it, they will come.

But, apparently, none of that happened at Activision Blizzard.

Only 20% of Activision Blizzard employees are women. That’s abysmal, even in tech. While it can be easier to find male engineers, normally tech companies have women in other positions, or non-technical leadership roles. Ubisoft not only didn’t have this, but, according to the DFEH, “very few women reach top roles at the company.”

This shows that the so-called “pipeline problem” isn’t the issue at Ubisoft, it’s promotion, retention, and fostering an equal working environment for everyone.

Unfortunately, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, as the discrimination women faced makes it clear that Activision Blizzard’s problems run too deep to fix without breaking Activision Blizzard down and rebuilding from the ground up.

Misogynistic Discrimination

Women rarely see promotions at Activision Blizzard. Allegedly, one woman was told the company “could not risk promoting her as she might get pregnant and like being a mom.” Others simply promoted less qualified men over women because managers were friends with them, or drank with them. Women and harassment victims were discouraged from talking to human resources because they “were known to be close to alleged harassers,” according to the DFEH report.

Current and former employees claim men were allowed to play video games during the workday while delegating responsibilities to female employees. They goofed off, openly joking about rape and making derogatory comments about women and their female colleagues. When men would come in work hung over, it was a badge of honor and a joke, but the same friendliness wasn’t extended to women who had far better reasons for absences.

 

“Supervisors ignored medical restrictions given to female employees and gave them negative evaluations while they were out on maternity leave. Other female employees reported that they were criticized for leaving to pick up their children from daycare while their male counterparts were playing video games and female employees were kicked out of lactation rooms so employees could use the room for meetings.”

– From the California DFEH report

Pay Disparity

According to the DFEH’s research and lawsuit, women who did advance at Activision Blizzard consistently earned less than male employees with similar experience and the same role. This reportedly starts from the moment women are hired, as a former Blizzard developer who spoke under the condition of anonymity to Kotaku claims:

“Women are generally brought in at a lower rate of pay than their male counterparts with the same experience levels. Often this is because the men that join Blizzard have friends on the inside pulling [for] them. It also happens because women coming in are usually paid less at their previous job and will accept lower offers without knowing the pay band they are being brought in on.”

This is actually a huge problem in the software industry. It has happened to me, personally, and it took some amazing recruiters and companies to help me see what I was really worth. Women are brought in at a lower pay and have to work to get up to pay levels men are brought in at. Even if they leave to go to another company, they have a poor perspective on their own worth. Years of discriminatory behavior and lower pay can lead a developer of any gender to believe they’re worth less, but it disproportionately happens to women.

The same anonymous former Blizzard employee described how HR wasn’t there to help women, but to instead, allegedly humiliate them into silence:

“When HR has to get involved, it is never good for the victim. She is subjected to humiliating questioning, asked how much of the harasser’s behavior was her fault, and told to be a ‘team player’ and make things easier for the harasser to work with her. Going to HR labels her a troublemaker in the department, and retaliation has followed in almost every case I’ve witnessed or experienced.”

 

Intersectional and Racist Discrimination

The report from the DFEH claims that women of color faced an increased level of discrimination and scrutiny. For example, one Black employee noticed that she was kept on as a contractor for two years, while men hired after her were brought on full-time before her. Like other women, she noticed that her male coworkers weren’t questions when playing video games, but she would have to answer a call from her supervisor when taking breaks to go for a walk. Another Black woman had to tell her manager why she was requesting time off with a one-page summary. No one else had to do such a write-up for requested time off. Another woman reported her manager “criticized her body language,” despite men’s poor posture and slouching. She was even “scolded for asking for assistance while others could get help on similar tasks without the same criticism.”

Asking for assistance, by the way, is incredibly important in software development. Projects are too large for any one person to know, but someone has details about certain parts, and can give you a better perspective on how something was made and why. No one should face criticism for doing their job properly. Besides, slouching while programming is about as stereotypical as it gets.

Toxic Environment of Sexual Abuse, Revenge Porn, and Suicide

So far, things have been bad, but, I’ve been saving some of the worst items for this section so people could potentially just get some of the picture if they’re uncomfortable with these topics. As with all male-centric, toxic workplaces, the harassment of women was apparently quite prevalent at Activision Blizzard. Women complained that “random male employees would […] comment on her breasts.” According to the DFEH lawsuit, male employees would frequently “hit on [female employees], make derogatory comments about rape, and otherwise engage in demeaning behavior.”

One of the worst and highest profile abusers was apparently Alex Afrasiabi. Afrasiabi had been at Blizzard for years, and was the former Senior Creative Director of World of Warcraft. There are at least two NPCs and multiple items named after him in the game. Reportedly, during Blizz Con, Afrasiabi hit on female employees, attempted to kiss them, and would frequently put his arms around them.

“This was in plain view of other male employees, including supervisors, who had to intervene and pull him off female employees. Afrasiabi was so known to engage in harassment of females [sic] that his suite was nicknamed the “Crosby [sic] Suite” after alleged Rapist Bill Crosby [sic].”

Note: It’s believed that they meant to write “Bill Cosby.”

– from the DFEH lawsuit

Blizzard president J. Alan Brack decided Afrasiabi’s fate after this harassment… a slap on the wrist via a verbal reprimand. Afrasiabi, predictably, allegedly continued his harassment of female employees. Afrasiabi worked at Blizzard until June 2020.

Cube Crawls and Harassment

One of the more demeaning aspects that the lawsuit and other employees identified was the practice of “cube crawls.” During these, male employees would “drink copious amounts of alcohol as they crawl their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees.”

Supervisors knew about this kind of behavior. One supervisor reportedly “encouraged a male subordinate to ‘buy’ a prostitute to cure his bad mood.” Men joked about rape, discussed female employee’s bodies, and may have even harassed a woman to death.

Suicide

One employee saw some of the worst—and likely illegal—harassment of anyone. Male employees got their hands on nude photos of one woman, and shared them at a company holiday party. They reportedly mocked and shared photos of her genitals. She would kill herself shortly later on a business trip with a supervisor. She apparently had a sexual relationship with this supervisor, which could potentially explain the lube and butt plug police reported he brought with him to the event.

What’s Next?

“Things won’t get better until it’s more expensive to treat women wrong than to to treat women right.”

– Brianna Wu, independent game developer

Brianna Wu has the right idea here, and it seems like California’s DFEH agrees. In 2020, a court charged Riot Games just $10 million for their extreme culture of sexism and sexual harassment. The DFEH wanted $400 million. That would have been enough to adequately compensate women at Riot for lost wages and the sexual harassment they had to endure for years. Instead, they got a slap on the wrist, and reportedly, little changed at the company.

Activision Blizzard is another company allegedly rife with sexism and sexual abuse. The president reportedly knew of that abuse, but now feigns ignorance. However, it was so bad it caused a woman to take her own life. You can get a small taste of that sexism online just by playing any of Activision Blizzard’s games, where women suffer harassment and verbal abuse just for playing. Their game Overwatch, previously one of my favorites, is simply un-playable for many women. These companies have not done nearly enough to change the habits of abusive players, like lifetime bans, easier reporting, and voice to text chat logs to allow moderation and reporting after the incident. These would all be incredibly simple solutions, but, because the problem only faces women, these large gaming companies haven’t made it a priority. Caring about women isn’t simply in their nature, even when it would take very little effort on their part.

That’s why you have to break them down to almost nothing.

The DFEH needs to get what they’re looking for. Restitution like back pay and lost wages, punitive damages, declaratory relief, and changes within the company. Activision Blizzard needs to lose so much to the women they’ve harmed that they have to lay off every person at the company with a less-than-spotless record. If they’re hit hard enough that they have to sell off rights to develop long-time favorites of the company, like Overwatch or Call of Duty, it’ll change the company dramatically, forcing them to re-build their culture from the ground up. It’ll also send a clear message to other video gamer developers: treating women like shit is more expensive than just treating them like human beings.

If the DFEH doesn’t burn Activision Blizzard to the ground, we’ll just see this again from another company in a few months, and Activision Blizzard again in a year or two.

Nothing’s going to change until one of these companies has to fight to survive. It’s gotten to the point where women have literally been abused to death. Isn’t it time we send these companies a clear message? Change or die.

 

Activision Blizzard’s Games and Studios

Below are a list of just some of Activision Blizzard’s properties, including both games and studios, in case you were interested.

 

Activision Blizzard Response

Activision Blizzard denies the accounts of former and current employees, as well as the findings of the DFEH’s report. They also, disturbingly, suggested the DFEH was dragging “the suicide of an employee whose passing had no bearing whatsoever on this case.” Just a reminder, that employee committed suicide after numerous employees shared naked photos of her, seemingly without the recompense she wanted. Activision Blizzard has not stated that all of these employees have been fired or handed over to the authorities for distribution of revenge porn, though may wish to keep details of their defense hidden for now. Their full response given to Polygon and other news outlets is below. However, I do caution readers. The denial and seemingly callous language may be triggering to victims of similar sexual abuse.

“We value diversity and strive to foster a workplace that offers inclusivity for everyone. There is no place in our company or industry, or any industry, for sexual misconduct or harassment of any kind. We take every allegation seriously and investigate all claims. In cases related to misconduct, action was taken to address the issue.”

“The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard’s past. We have been extremely cooperative with the DFEH throughout their investigation, including providing them with extensive data and ample documentation, but they refused to inform us what issues they perceived. They were required by law to adequately investigate and to have good faith discussions with us to better understand and to resolve any claims or concerns before going to litigation, but they failed to do so. Instead, they rushed to file an inaccurate complaint, as we will demonstrate in court. We are sickened by the reprehensible conduct of the DFEH to drag into the complaint the tragic suicide of an employee whose passing has no bearing whatsoever on this case and with no regard for her grieving family. While we find this behavior to be disgraceful and unprofessional, it is unfortunately an example of how they have conducted themselves throughout the course of their investigation. It is this type of irresponsible behavior from unaccountable State bureaucrats that are driving many of the State’s best businesses out of California.”

“The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today. Over the past several years and continuing since the initial investigation started, we’ve made significant changes to address company culture and reflect more diversity within our leadership teams. We’ve amplified internal programs and channels for employees to report violations, including the “ASK List” with a confidential integrity hotline, and introduced an Employee Relations team dedicated to investigating employee concerns. We have strengthened our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion and combined our Employee Networks at a global level, to provide additional support. Employees must also undergo regular anti-harassment training and have done so for many years.”

“We put tremendous effort in creating fair and rewarding compensation packages and policies that reflect our culture and business, and we strive to pay all employees fairly for equal or substantially similar work. We take a variety of proactive steps to ensure that pay is driven by non-discriminatory factors. For example, we reward and compensate employees based on their performance, and we conduct extensive anti-discrimination trainings including for those who are part of the compensation process.”

“We are confident in our ability to demonstrate our practices as an equal opportunity employer that fosters a supportive, diverse, and inclusive workplace for our people, and we are committed to continuing this effort in the years to come. It is a shame that the DFEH did not want to engage with us on what they thought they were seeing in their investigation.”

 

 

Since going public, numerous current and former Activision Blizzard employees have come forward to confirm the contents of the DFEH report, contradicting the official Activision Blizzard statement.

Sources:

 

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