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Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

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Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#281

Post by voakbasda »

Surely the timing of this is coincidence, what with Microsoft announcing their purchase of Blizzard?

Nope, probably not. Kinda sad to see that’s what it took to motivate them to take action. I’m not a gamer and have no horse in this race, but what initially seemed like a change of pace turns out to be the entirely laughable status quo of management giving lip service to these issues.

Given the timing, there should be no question that this was done in direct response to the acquisition, and only expendable tokens have been remove from play. Meanwhile, the management that led this shit show will avoid any consequences and laugh themselves all the way to the bank.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#282

Post by [deleted] »

Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #164
gotbeans wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotically, to this date and after 4 workplaces (FAANG included), I am yet to see what a bro culture is. To my eyes and experience over 10 years interacting with people, I have seen nothing of the sort, for which I believe this kind of culture must be very conditioned to the right (or wrong?) mix of individuals that by far do not make justice to the average SV engineer.

I've seen it, and to be honest I've only seen it in the ranks to the exec team rather than the tech team in both FAANG and startups. The tech teams and tech managers are usually trying to impress you about how they spent the weekend coding on a PDP-11, playing board games or mountain biking while drinking custom brand protein drinks. Generally harmless stuff like that. The exec teams are where the sociopaths live and…

[deleted]

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#283

Post by dataduck »

vinyl7 wrote: post #252
bob1029 wrote: post #214

Kotick has taken a dishonorable path. He should be first person out the door. Situation in the industry feels kind of bleak to me now. One of these days I am going to be able to trick my investors into letting me start a game studio. I really don't understand why there isn't more intense competition at the AAA tier. I know for a fact I can do it cheaper and faster. Not sure about better, but I'm willing to fail a few…

That's basically what AA games are, and are sometimes somewhat successful...but usually not as successful as AAA games. Then you have the indie and solo developers flooding Steam with mostly low-quality games with a few gems...making it extremely difficult to get noticed. So not only do you need a game idea that is attractive to gamers (AAA games are established franchise with decades of releases and marketing), it a…

> indie and solo developers flooding Steam with mostly low-quality games with a few gems...making it extremely difficult to get noticed

An aside: I know this is a common opinion but it doesn't really mesh with my experience as a player. Quite the opposite in fact - it's not the low-quality Steam games that make it difficult to get noticed, but the overwhelming number of real gems. There have been so many truly excellent indie games in recent years (Slay the Spire, Into the Breach, FTL, Factorio, Hades, Rimworld, Devil Daggers...) that I haven't gotten round to playing all the obvious must-play indie games I want to, let alone going looking for more. Either way, though, from an indie dev's perspective, it must be pretty difficult to get noticed.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#284

Post by Tiktaalik »

bob1029 wrote: post #214

Kotick has taken a dishonorable path. He should be first person out the door. Situation in the industry feels kind of bleak to me now. One of these days I am going to be able to trick my investors into letting me start a game studio. I really don't understand why there isn't more intense competition at the AAA tier. I know for a fact I can do it cheaper and faster. Not sure about better, but I'm willing to fail a few…

> I really don't understand why there isn't more intense competition at the AAA tier.

it's enormously difficult to make a game and not a repeatable business model.

> I know for a fact I can do it cheaper and faster.

To create the products they're making the big dogs are leveraging years and years and years of tech R&D development and tooling and enormous amounts of manpower.

To be able to create a hit AAA without any of this is relying on capturing lightning in a bottle.

If one stumbles upon some novel gameplay that propels your game to notoriety, the design will be copied by the big AAA devs next release cycle.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#285

Post by swalls »

stathibus wrote: post #207
Simon_O_Rourke wrote: post #160

This has the feel of the CEO rounding up as many patsies as he can find to scapegoat in order to placate the investors. No doubt the culture there is rotten to the core, the rumors of the horrible work environment and harassment are widely known, however, I predict you won't see too many of the exec team having to leave. It'll be all low level expendable IC's that the CEO won't have to encounter at the country club a…

The mostly empty low-effort changes they've made to their games recently in the name of inclusion also match this strategy.

I saw the changes to WoW being described as reeling back from 'the line' because their company culture is so warped they have no idea where 'the line' lies anymore.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#286

Post by [deleted] »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #170
barkingcat wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd be surprised at the kinds of hr policies that makes their own sense, but has no common sense. Most likely to avoid someone returning on false pretenses to retaliate against being downsized in the firstplace.

Yeah that's the sort of policy a sociopath would think is a good idea.

[deleted]

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#287

Post by dpark »

ben174 wrote: post #267
bertil wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked in the gaming industry and I was surprised how some fairly standard questions about creativity, playing games, character development, etc. lead to detailed insights into the candidate’s personality. We’ve had candidates answer “You have to organise a fun evening for the 80 employees of this office. Your budget is $10. What do you do?” (a question meant to leverage their understanding that 70 of those 80 a…

If you expect an honest answer from your candidate, and you don't expect a well-qualified candidate to choose a well-endowed female to be their character of choice, then you're living in a fantasy world. I understand that it's insane to talk about that during an interview, but I think it's fairly common for non-creepy people to choose a character they find pleasurable to look at.

> I understand that it's insane to talk about that during an interview

That’s the key part, though. Part of being a professional is knowing how and when to appropriately compartmentalize. Keep the video game heroine fetishes at home. If someone can’t keep that stuff to themselves for an interview, there’s no way they’ll be able to keep it to themselves on the job. Hire someone inept enough to discuss this on an interview and you’ve hired your next sexual harassment case.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#288

Post by hacker_newz »

meatsauce wrote: post #234
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on whether they realize the error of their ways and have improved. If not, they shouldn't be around women. I mean, I don't want to stigmatize people and I want to believe that people can change if confronted with the error of their ways, but I've seen too many instances where it just didn't work like that. If they are still behaving inappropriately in the workplace, they should not be in the workplace.

And you are the judge?

No, the employer that fired them was the judge.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#289

Post by dpark »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #279
bertil wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked in the gaming industry and I was surprised how some fairly standard questions about creativity, playing games, character development, etc. lead to detailed insights into the candidate’s personality. We’ve had candidates answer “You have to organise a fun evening for the 80 employees of this office. Your budget is $10. What do you do?” (a question meant to leverage their understanding that 70 of those 80 a…

I agree with everything but your last sentence. Can people not look at other people anymore? And I am concerned you are actually sexually harassing the female employee by asking her that question and singling her out for her sexual appeal and gender.

I agree with this. Asking a female employee “if she noticed any sideway look” seems very inappropriate. It puts her on the spot in what I would assume is a very uncomfortable way, and also prompts her to be thinking about a potential hire as a creep (because of what you said, not anything they actually did).

If you want an actual female opinion on the candidate, have your female employees active in interviews. Then ask them what they think about the candidate. Your female employees are just as capable of evaluating candidates effectively as your male employees.

Re: Activision Blizzard pushes out dozens of employees over workplace misconduct

#290

Post by dpark »

secondcoming wrote: post #276
bertil wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve worked in the gaming industry and I was surprised how some fairly standard questions about creativity, playing games, character development, etc. lead to detailed insights into the candidate’s personality. We’ve had candidates answer “You have to organise a fun evening for the 80 employees of this office. Your budget is $10. What do you do?” (a question meant to leverage their understanding that 70 of those 80 a…

> Candidates have suggested with blunt words that their pick characters in certain video games because they are female, well-endowed and barely dressed. Are these characters ones made available to them by the game developers? If so, what's the offence here?

The offense is that it’s not work-appropriate to discuss in those terms. The person who tells you in an interview that his favorite character is his favorite because she’s half naked and “jiggly” is one who’s going to discuss similar things on the job. Don’t be surprised when you hear this same candidate discussing Scarlett Johansson’s breasts at the office. Or worse, a co-worker’s breasts.
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