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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

#151

Post by ryathal »

garmaine wrote: post #120
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…

Unions work where labor is interchangeable. That is definitely not the case in game industry, where people are highly specialized and super creative.

The vast majority of developers on modern games are interchangeable peons that are essentially working high paying gigs as they get laid off when the game ships.

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

#152

Post by dam5s »

Tiktaalik wrote: post #117
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.

As someone in the games industry that has seen the stuff that foreign "helper" studios "contribute" I do not feel this is likely...

Agreed, as a consultant in software engineering (not games though), a lot of companies that used to outsource have come back for many reasons, mainly communication and code quality.

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

#153

Post by pjmlp »

HowTheStoryEnds wrote: post #148
pjmlp wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently it works in Europe, go figure.

As a european(Belgian) I can only anecdotally tell you: no, it doesn't. They're the same instrument of collusion with the employer to keep wages down for the many in exchange for benefits of the upper few while also serving as the counterweight that keeps both the incompetent and the malicious firmly fixed in place. To put it in current days' terms: they're a major source of toxicity.

Well it works in Portugal and Germany from my point of view.

I take my 40h week, health insurance, vacations anywhere I feel like, paid overtime, over some magical wage in exchange for less benefits that exploit working class.

Anyone that feels it isn't their thing is free to make their own business, free of union agreements and see how they manage for themselves in the market.

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

#154

Post by addingnumbers »

lmm wrote: post #77
winphone1974 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I grew up on the other side of unions where my parents couldn't get jobs because a strong union protected those lucky enough to get in early, with no concern for their skills or performance. The same behaviors that people here are so shocked by are busy as common in the old school unions you're proposing as the solution.

The only thing the absence of that union would have changed would be more money in the owners' pockets. If hiring your parents would be profitable the owners would do it; if not, not, not. That's true regardless of how profitable or not the other employees are.

That's a short-sighted take. The presence of a union completely changes staffing decisions. If hiring his parents would be profitable, the owners are out of luck because they are fully staffed with worse performers who are protected.

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

#155

Post by ryathal »

ikr678 wrote: post #17
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?

Withholding content in solidarity sort of hurts Blizzard's attempts to keep interest in their E-sport franchises. I'd prefer they didn't actually stream either, but they make their living from Blizzard products in a more precarious way than the direct employees do.

Blizzard doesn't have much of an e-sports scene. The leagues are largely independent at this point for most of the games.

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

#156

Post by ryathal »

elefanten wrote: post #9
jwilber wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an odd, blanket statement considering 1. The quality/longevity of their games 2. The variance in genres they produce games in. Comparing Starcraft to Candy Crush may help elucidate how off you are with the vape/fb comparison.

GP, while phrased a bit stridently, isn't totally off base here. Arguably, Blizzard led the charge in proliferating RPG systems into virtually all other genres and they proved the popular power of "grind" based systems. The original RTS games (Warcraft 1-3, Starcraft 1) did not really contain these systems. But virtually everything else Blizzard has produced (including Starcraft 2) has grinding & collecting in it. As…

The grinding collecting "rpg" elements are 100% Activision influence as these are great entries to monetization. Blizzard barely had monetization on wow outside of the subscription until the merger. Every game since has been littered with some amount of monetization.

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

#157

Post by ryathal »

jwilber wrote: post #41
elefanten wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP, while phrased a bit stridently, isn't totally off base here. Arguably, Blizzard led the charge in proliferating RPG systems into virtually all other genres and they proved the popular power of "grind" based systems. The original RTS games (Warcraft 1-3, Starcraft 1) did not really contain these systems. But virtually everything else Blizzard has produced (including Starcraft 2) has grinding & collecting in it. As…

Not disagreeing with your larger point, but what grinding exists in Starcraft 2? Been playing for a decade and can’t think of anything. I’m not sure who invented loot boxes, but that’s another (unmentioned) issue entirely.

Starcraft 2 had achievement grinds, and later pay and grind unit skins. Coop mode has leveling and xp boosters were implemented but never really sold before support dropped

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

#158

Post by commandlinefan »

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…

> in the same roles in a new company

Aren't the protesters pretty much by definition protesting the most productive actual employees though? If whatever the protesters are saying about the ones being protested is even remotely true, then the people being protested must have been incredibly valuable to remain protected under such accusations - and the protesters themselves are the ones who are viewed as effectively expendable.

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

#159

Post by shadowgovt »

txdv wrote: post #98
shadowgovt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video games are one part idea and three parts implementation. And the talent at Blizzard has no lack of good ideas.

they have trade marks like skeleton king, even other big companies like valve bow down to blizzard

Yep, so I wouldn't suggest a potential competitor try to make a game about skeleton kings.

... Minecraft, on the other hand, was an adequate idea (and not even original to Notch) doggedly implemented over years of iteration.

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

#160

Post by runarberg »

rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #79
runarberg wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-compete clauses are very much a thing in our industry I wouldn’t be surprised if Blizzard were to enforce—or at least threaten to enforce—them if a sizable bulk of their workers migrated to a new workplace.

In California?

You can always threaten to sue, that is often enough of a deterrent.
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