Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

281–290 of 570 posts

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#281

Post by qmmmur »

jimbob45 wrote: post #222

Did the women go to HR? If so, just fire all of HR and get a new HR. Did they not go to HR? That's on them and no one should feel bad for them then. No one should be persecuted for not solving your problems for you . I know law offices like very much to get public opinion on their side with strategic leaks so that they can push for a settlement ASAP. If things go to trial, it's likely to come out that their clients a…

There are literal documented stories in the case of people complaining to HR and having the issues swept under the rug by them. Did you even do a modicum of research before posting this?

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#282

Post by johncessna »

stnmtn wrote: post #140
johncessna wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Think about all those men complaining that a video game _dared_ have a female character or even more so, a non-conventionally attractive one gasp. That was in 2018... That's the _average_ person who is making a video game. Mrs PacMan? Samus? Peach? That was all before 1988

Peach was and still is just a damsel in distress in any non-sports mario game. Samus is covered up entirely by armor, and when she's not she's in a skin-tight suit that shows off every single curve Mrs. Pacman... I'll give you that one.

Peach was one of 4 playable characters in Super Mario world 2, released in 1989.

The Samus reveal in Metroid is notable for the exact opposite of what you stated. There were no curves or skin tight anything. This continued with Super Metroid.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#283

Post by supergirl »

sandworm101 wrote: post #177

Appeal to public opinion is generally a great idea but there is a risk. Activision gets no sympathy from me, but I also don't think the answer will come from the masses. I'm not sure that most gamers really care about sexism in the gaming industry. Video games are synthetic, we don't really see the people behind them. At least in movies we see the actors. If push comes to shove, I think most gamers will still be lini…

maybe the average gamer won't care. but who will want to work for activision now? even the existing employees are walking out.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#284

Post by hinkley »

etempleton wrote: post #244
joe-collins wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been playing WoW since the first year, and the developers have my full support. I know several current and former Team 2 (WoW) developers, from QA up to leads, and they are all unified in their rejection of their executives. And I live nearby, so I'll be joining them on the pavement tomorrow.

The biggest Blizzard fans I know personally are pretty fed up. From a fan perspective many are disappointed and/or concerned with the direction of WoW, Overwatch, and other Blizzard franchises from a gameplay perspective. And from what I understand, the WoW community is talking about the recent news with many seeing this as the same leadership that is making poor decisions about the games they like as the same leader…

The 'problem' with people who are invested in you is that when you do something they really don't like, up to and including breaking their trust, they push back instead of leaving.

They will stick with you through little fuckups, but if you want to make a big change, for better or worse, then you're going to hear about it.

It's why ex-smokers and ex-drinkers complain about having to stop hanging out with their old friends. It's not just the temptation to revert, there's also social pressure for you to be the old you. If you want to go the other direction and become an ass, you're in for a similar treatment.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#285

Post by elliekelly »

ozarkerD wrote: post #219
FanaHOVA wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some extracts from the lawsuit: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/activision-...

Absolute degeneracy. I don’t understand how a professional workplace could devolve to this. I have trouble talking about non work matters for more than a few minutes, How do things get this far?

> How do things get this far?

The tone at the top.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#286

Post by kryogen1c »

ev1 wrote: post #121
0x500x79 wrote: post #13

This seems to largely match a lot of the same things that happened with Riot Games over the last couple of years. I am hoping that these actions can help spread awareness of any issues that may be present at Blizzard and past, current, and future employees won't face the same issues. It is a long road to be traveled to get there. I hope that the current WFH situation doesn't detract from the walkout. A lot of the vis…

> I do find it interesting that the DFEH has lawsuits against both Riot Games and Blizzard for similar issues Yes, because Riot's C-level executive was literally dry humping interns and shoving their ass into faces and still has their job? Clearly "visibility" has not worked past creating PR articles. Does DFEH have the same problem with any other major game studio there that isn't embroiled in this type of behaviour…

> literally dry humping interns and shoving their ass into faces

statements like this are why i have no interest in investigating allegations of sexism because neither of these things are sexist.

is your starting point that we're supposed to assume this is only being done to women? assuming women are being treated differently is a poor premise for proving women are being treated differently. or are you implying that doing the same thing to men and women is sexist to women? either way, its a very poor argument and calls into question your judgement.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#287

Post by overgard »

cletus wrote: post #233

If you haven't read the state of California's claims here you should. It's the result of a two year investigation and the claims are.. shocking. I want to make a point about "culture fit". "Culture fit" in a company typically comes down to "we like you" and the reason why people like other people is that they are like them. Similar age, background, whatever. It's why Stanford grads probably like other Stanford grads.…

> I want to make a point about "culture fit". "Culture fit" in a company typically comes down to "we like you" and the reason why people like other people is that they are like them. Similar age, background, whatever. It's why Stanford grads probably like other Stanford grads.

I mean I do kind of agree, but I'm not sure if "hire people you dislike" works either? It probably needs to be more of a situation of like "if you're a stanford grad the world isn't just other stanford grads" or something.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#288

Post by username90 »

input_sh wrote: post #275
username90 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any documentation why people harassed her that isn't just speculation? The gamer culture works just like twitter mobs, they attack things for almost no reason and do it hard, harassment and death threats etc. There is no big plan or conspiracy behind it, just thinking that maybe she slept with some reviewer to increase her score is enough to trigger the hate mob. With that said, I'm not saying it was justifi…

Speculation? Her former boyfriend wrote a blog post detailing their relationship (and lying that she slept with a game journalist, something he later said had no evidence of), someone posted it on 4chan, they tried to spin it as "ethics in game journalism" discussion (which never made any sense since he never reviewed any of the games she worked on). That's all there is to it, and it's pretty well documented.

You speculated about the motive of the harassers, not the actual chain of events. Nothing you say here says that the harassers attacked her for being a woman instead of attacking her for cheating the game review system.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#289

Post by gambiting »

etempleton wrote: post #254
gambiting wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, your "average gamer" won't know or care about any of this. I work in the industry and according to our own stats the "average gamer" is a 20-30 year old, owns a console, and buys exactly three games every year - fifa, CoD, and one other title that got the most advertising that year. I used to live with such guys at uni, had them as flatmates - you wouldn't catch them dead talking about video games, "ner…

I believe those stats for most games, but not for WoW, which is still Blizzards cash cow. Those players are invested in the community. Same largely goes for Overwatch. Blizzard has cultivated a community over the years and has their own convention.

Yeah, absolutely - but Activision is a behemoth compared to Blizzard. I'm just saying that WoW players will probably care, but in general customers of Activision likely won't notice.

Re: Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday

#290

Post by xenihn »

Daishiman wrote: post #68
908B64B197 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tech industry is strongly biased in the favor of white men That's debatable. CS was overwhelmingly male and wasn't prestigious until recently. > video games even more so I wonder how much of that we can attribute to DOOM. The DOOM devs wanted to make an hyper-violent game centered around Demon and heavy metal, and that reflected in the culture at id (not the violence). And they made a bunch of money which spurr…

> That's debatable. CS was overwhelmingly male and wasn't prestigious until recently. We're talking about the same career that's been known as a money-printing machine for the past 25 years?

It paid significantly less than other engineering fields, and much, much less than specializations in finance, medicine and law (which artificially constrain supply through various gatekeeping mechanisms) up until recently, when the wage-fixing and anti-poaching policies were quashed.

There were also two periods in the past 25 years where it was very difficult to find work, especially for entry-level, without there being an especially large glut of engineers. Dot-com bust and the 2007 recession.

Post reply on HN