Activision Blizzard is facing a lawsuit from California’s Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH). The lawsuit, along with numerous current and former Activision Blizzard employees, claim the company is rife with sexism and harassment. The company reportedly only allows men to succeed, paying them more and promoting them far more often. The DFEH and employees call out “Cube Crawls,” where drunken male employees would saunter through the office, bothering and sexually harassing female employees. Some of that abuse was so bad it lead to one woman’s suicide after nude photos were shared by employees at a holiday party. According to the lawsuit, Activision Blizzard also has sided with harassers. Notably, Blizzard president J. Allen Brack had given an employee, who was so abusive he had to be pulled away from women, little more than a stern talking to. That employee, whose hotel room was nicknamed “The Cosby Suite,” apparently after then accused and formerly (on a technicality) convicted rapist Bill Cosby, was allowed to work at the company for years.
No one employee at Activision Blizzard was the problem. However, executives have the ability to control culture within a company. Despite allegedly fostering a culture of exclusion, harassment, and abuse, Blizzard didn’t fire J. Allen Brack, but instead allowed him to leave voluntarily. The company hasn’t held any one else accountable yet.
With the media in a frenzy about Activision Blizzard, and mounting boycotts and negativity around the brand, the company may be looking for a scapegoat. They haven’t found one yet.
Org Chart Changes Without Company Changes?
Replacing J. Allen Brack will be Jen Oneal and Mike Ybarra, who will co-lead Blizzard in Brack’s place. Oneal was the company’s Executive VP of Development, and was the former head of Vicarious Visions, which Blizzard now owns. Ybarra is the Executive VP and general manager of platform and technology, and managed Battle.net and services. Both have been at the company for less than three years. Ybara joined in 2019, while Oneal joined in January of 2021. It is perhaps because they are both newer to the company, and therefore less likely to be involved directly in any of its scandals, that the company promoted them to share the role. Though, the fact that Blizzard did not have a lone candidate in mind suggests J. Allen Brack’s departure was sudden, and possibly a result of the controversy surrounding Activision Blizzard’s allegedly hellish environment.
However, the problems at Activision Blizzard run far deeper than Blizzard’s former president. According to the DFEH lawsuit, he was certainly a part of the problem, but no one claimed he took part in cube crawls, sexual harassment, revenge porn sharing, or any of the criticisms levied at other employees. While he certainly didn’t govern completely separate from the day-to-day of his employees, his departure is far from the only one Activision Blizzard needs in order to fix their company. Blizzard employees reported a Human Resources department that supported abusers, of which there were many. No one is truly held accountable if a single scapegoat isn’t even fired.
Activision Blizzard seemingly has a lot more to do if they want to clean up the culture at the company, including firing abusers and their enablers, raises and promotions for those who were held back by sexist managers, and training for those that remain. Oh, and also all of the penalties and retribution the DFEH is asking for, which could be in the area of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Employee Demands
Employees who walked out of Activision Blizzard last week have made four primary demands:
- Audit of executive staff
- End of forced arbitration
- New hiring and promotion practices to increase diversity
- Publication of salary data.
If J. Allen Brack was forced out, it could sort of meet part of the first requirement. Employees would likely want far more than just the president of Blizzard out the door though. Without more backlash, getting that may be hard.
Update
Blizzard’s head of HR has also left the company. Former employees complained that HR often sided on the side of harassers and abusers, telling victims to deal with it or work from homw, rather than reprimanding or firing abusers.