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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

#31

Post by nemo44x »

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 put up your investors money to take your competitors problem off their hands?

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

#32

Post by TameAntelope »

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?

Is your journal read and watched by millions of people?

C'mon, we can do better than this.

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

#33

Post by taeric »

micromacrofoot wrote: post #14
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…

Walkouts are an easy way to get more attention to an issue and it costs an employer real money. A single action doesn't need to solve everything.

The sceptic in me is unsure how much money this costs. They aren't an assembly line, so did any deadlines get pushed back? Similarly, they are not a services company, so no services were lost.

Certainly bad press. And I hope it has impact. But I'm not seeing direct lines to it.

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

#34

Post by fhjkkkg »

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.

“Sunlight is not a disinfectant; try gasoline” —Amber Frost

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

#35

Post by hkarthik »

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…

It's unfortunate, but walkouts and other employee activism around social justice can achieve the opposite effect. The marginalized leave because they don't feel heard, and potential new hires who might represent change stop applying or responding to recruiting attempts because of the company's tarnished reputation.

Over time this leads to increased marginalization and concentration of the vary behavior that provoked the activist response in the first place.

The only thing that actually works is board level action and commitment to following through on the change. Boards can hold execs accountable.

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

#36

Post by fhjkkkg »

drdeadringer wrote: post #19
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…

> 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.

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

#37

Post by mandelbrotwurst »

CyanBird wrote: post #22
mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That VC would need a lot of confidence in the team to be willing to fully fund them with no revenue, clients, or IP.

These people are just inherently creative, just look at hearthstone which was a prototype "quickly made" by Brode and friends while inside Blizz They could easily create large IPs and games if they so desired/needed, after all that's what they were hired to do in the first place

Fair enough, I’m coming at this from more of a non-gaming tech / SaaS startup lens. Maybe it would work, I’m not sure!

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

#38

Post by breck »

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.

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

#39

Post by tehjoker »

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.

A walkout is worthwhile if it signals that the employees are ready to strike.

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

#40

Post by tehjoker »

elefanten wrote: post #7
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…

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.
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