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Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

theguardian.com

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Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#51

Post by ecshafer »

fhjkkkg wrote: post #36
drdeadringer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did the walkouts at Google change anything? I was a "TVC" at Google several times. One of those times was during the walkout period. Even though I had no way of finding out about it until a lucky "right now in 3 minutes" time period, I participated. Whilst the walkouts may not have changed much on corporate or the outsourced "side-corporates" [the contract companies], it did change myself. For decades I've heard of…

If this isn’t parody, and I am guessing it’s not, then it’s still a perfect depiction of what changed in the American left in the 1960s. Politics became more about changing the orientation of one’s mind than the orientation of one’s society. Walkouts are worthless.

American Left went from solidarity, going against the corporates, and better salaries and conditions to supporting whatever the latest hot political stand is.

Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#52

Post by shadowgovt »

breck wrote: post #38
epicureanideal wrote: post #12

Is there a VC out there that can just throw a few tens of millions of dollars at these employees and literally just teleport them from Blizzard to NewBlizzard in the same roles in a new company with a culture they prefer? I'm actually surprised this isn't "a thing". If a large percentage of a well known, profitable company doesn't agree with a direction it's taking... why doesn't a VC or private equity just help fina…

If we had Freedom of Ideas, then yes, you could pull this off. But we don't have that. We have copyrights and patents. Those with capital have a lot more freedom with ideas. Those without, don't. If we abolish copyright and patent laws ( https://www.reddit.com/r/ifa ), then workers will have a lot more power.

Video games are one part idea and three parts implementation.

And the talent at Blizzard has no lack of good ideas.

Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#53

Post by wonderwonder »

tehjoker wrote: post #40
elefanten wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure as hell would accelerate the outsourcing of game development, which has rapidly growing capacity outside of the US & Western Europe. We're already very near the tipping point where non-Western studios will produce >50% of global industry revenue.

Capitalism is global so organizing must be as well. Workers must organize at their company, sectorally across the industry, and internationally with other workers so the capitalists have no where to run.

"so the capitalists have no where to run" Who is going to finance the companies and workers that build those games then? These games cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build, who is going to front the money if they don't expect a significant return. That is capitalism in a nutshell.

Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#54

Post by bryan_w »

trs8080 wrote: post #21
blitz_skull wrote: post #8

eSports teams and streamers didn’t post on social media for the duration of the walk out. Am I missing something? Was this supposed to do literally anything to support it? I’m genuinely puzzled. That’s like saying I stopped writing in my journal for the duration of women’s suffrage “in solidarity”. Aren’t you supposed to do something people will notice?

does being written up in the Guardian not count as being noticed?

Not really, because it's the Guardian, but in a better newspaper, sure

Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#55

Post by drdeadringer »

fhjkkkg wrote: post #36
drdeadringer wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Did the walkouts at Google change anything? I was a "TVC" at Google several times. One of those times was during the walkout period. Even though I had no way of finding out about it until a lucky "right now in 3 minutes" time period, I participated. Whilst the walkouts may not have changed much on corporate or the outsourced "side-corporates" [the contract companies], it did change myself. For decades I've heard of…

If this isn’t parody, and I am guessing it’s not, then it’s still a perfect depiction of what changed in the American left in the 1960s. Politics became more about changing the orientation of one’s mind than the orientation of one’s society. Walkouts are worthless.

Not parody. It's what happened as I did it.

Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#56

Post by tehjoker »

wonderwonder wrote: post #53
tehjoker wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism is global so organizing must be as well. Workers must organize at their company, sectorally across the industry, and internationally with other workers so the capitalists have no where to run.

"so the capitalists have no where to run" Who is going to finance the companies and workers that build those games then? These games cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build, who is going to front the money if they don't expect a significant return. That is capitalism in a nutshell.

The lords of finance have historically been the enemies of the working man. All their money comes from our pockets and the people's printing press. We can run things ourselves.

Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#57

Post by toast0 »

elpakal wrote: post #28
epicureanideal wrote: post #12

Is there a VC out there that can just throw a few tens of millions of dollars at these employees and literally just teleport them from Blizzard to NewBlizzard in the same roles in a new company with a culture they prefer? I'm actually surprised this isn't "a thing". If a large percentage of a well known, profitable company doesn't agree with a direction it's taking... why doesn't a VC or private equity just help fina…

Why would you ever take this VC’s money if this was their thing?

Because you were tired of the crap at BigCompany and this VC was offering you a way out?

Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#58

Post by meristohm »

poisonarena wrote: post #44

From the article: "Just 20% of Activision Blizzard’s 9,500 employees are women, and leadership at the company, one of the largest video game makers in the world, is largely white and male." I am 36 years old, white male. I imagine alot of the employees there are within my age range give or take 5-10 years. For me it just makes sense. in the late 90s and early 2000s if you asked me, an obsessed computer gaming white g…

Why would a publicly-traded company not want to appeal to as many potential gamers as possible?

Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#59

Post by tehjoker »

oijasfpoi wrote: post #42
nielsbot wrote: post #3

Wouldn't forming a union help them better negotiate as a group? FTA: "Activision Blizzard employees are also calling for an end to mandatory arbitration in employee contracts, which prevent workers from taking conflicts with their employer to court, policies to improve representation of women and marginalized groups, the publication of salary data, and an audit of the company by a diversity, equity and inclusion task…

Have you ever dealt with an actual union in the US? The ones I've dealt with are incredibly sexist and racist. They work to protect harassers, and they prevent employees from taking their employers to court.

Have you ever dealt with an actual company in the US? The ones I've dealt with are incredibly sexist and racist. They work to protect harassers and they prevent employees from taking their employers to court.

EDIT: To elaborate, if you are in a bind, you have usually four places to turn. The employer, the state, your coworkers and other workers in a union, and the people generally (via the media, protests, etc). Your coworkers are likely to have similar interests to you and are strategically positioned to make demands by virtue of the fact they have their hands on the levers of production. Take your pick.

Re: Activision Blizzard employees walk out over harassment and ‘frat boy’ culture

#60

Post by bulek »

smnrchrds wrote: post #25
ditonal wrote: post #6

Did the walkouts at Google change anything? Not only did Sundar enable the disgusting, predatory behavior of Vic Gundotra and Andy Rubin, but as far as I can tell, he’s still a darling of the press. Even on HN Sundar and Google get the kid gloves despite the abhorrence of the culture they created. Walkouts are pointless. True Employee organization and collective bargaining is the only answer to holding execs accounta…

A major global publication has written an article about it. Spotlight is shone on Activision Blizzard's culture. We have seen that the only way to get any sort of customer support out of big tech companies is making noise on social media. And it works when enough noise is made. This is the next level of that: making noise in publications with global reach. The management will be wise not to ignore it.

The Guardian will be tuned out as noise by anyone who doesn't already agree.
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