Video game developers at Activision Blizzard say they'll walk out Wednesday • Hacker News Board

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

#461

Post by cletus » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:40 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #434

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 agree with 98% of this :-). And it absolutely flows from the top. What is more, good leadership knows this and understands that no matter how something happened, they are responsible for it. The entire games industry however has a reputation for being "bad" at empowering good leadership. But let's talk about 'culture' for a moment. In my experience, the tech workers in the US make their "work" their "life" way too…

> It isn't easy. People interact on social media and at work and so if you're angrily criticizing the plight of the Palestinians on social media, your pro-Israel co-worker may bring that conflict into work with them.

There are many dimensions to this:

1. Is Alice speaking for the company or can be construed as speaking for the company? Like does her Twitter profile say "VP of X at Y" and is a verified profile? Like I know there are certain topics that have been in the news about my employer that I simply won't comment on because I never want to be quoted in the press as "Employee of X said ...". That's just common sense. And you can also be (rightly) terminated if your actions or statements reflect badly on the company or the company otherwise has to spend time dealing with;

2. Assuming the first person isn't speaking for the company and the second person is simply aware of their social media presence, it gets a lot trickier. I can sit here and say "just do your job" but would I be saying that if I were African-American and my coworker was spouting some White supremacist crap on Twitter? Probably not. There are degrees too. Reposting links on your personal Twitter in your free time is one thing. Putting up a Confederate flag in your cubicle is something else;

3. You should generally be comfortable with what your employer does. So let's say you're deeply evangelical and completely anti-abortion. Should you work for Planned Parenthood? Probably not. I mean if you can and want to, that's fine. But there are limits on what an employer should be expected to do to accommodate your views.

> ... and yet their company saw the "disruption" as a bigger threat than the loss of talent.

Obviously specifics matter here but let me express some generalities.

If you express views where your coworkers don't want to work with you because of those views then yeah you've created a problem. Even for an engineer the technical side isn't everything. You will still need to work with people. Supporting homophobic policies when you have a gay worker means you've brought something into work that has disrupted that work (as an example).

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

#462

Post by dleslie » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

planet-and-halo wrote: post #371

shadowgovt wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To my mind, the hardest part of scabbing a game studio is picking up where dev teams left off. Game engines and pipelines are savage beasts, and often heavily customized and under-documented (everybody using them "just knows how they work;" internal cultural knowledge and on-the-job training are the standard operating procedure). You'll need a particular type of developer or artist to come up to speed quickly on the…

Someone on HN recently posted a Jonathan Blow talk, "How to Save Civilization," that argues the normal evolution of technology is not a linear progression upwards, but actually slow degradation due to loss of knowledge and maintenance. I think this is a perfect example of why.

This is part of the advantage of the "Unix Philosophy": many small, easily understood processes that work in tandem to produce a complex outcome. Each individual process is less prone to knowledge decay.

However, this is moot in gamedev. We throw everything away before starting the next project because we don't "own" the IP from the last project.

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

#463

Post by kelnos » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

munk-a wrote: post #156

mftb wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You certainly can have a career that's lucrative, but not prestigious. I've been coding for over 25 years and in that time, have been referred to as a "nerd", "geek", etc... pretty much the entire time. Not prestigious monikers. Most people that I encounter do not act as though my career is a "money-printing machine", but rather that I do some, strange, arcane, thing that they could never approach (or would want to),…

To be honest though - geek and nerd have become prestigious monikers. I think that management and sales still reign supreme in terms of prestige but skilled individual contributors are being more recognized as cogs that make a company run smoothly... and after the 00's worth of culture we've seen a shift where technical aptitude has become more praiseworthy.

I guess that depends on where you are. I still don't think of geek and nerd as conferring prestige. IMO they just aren't (as) stigmatized anymore, and are mostly neutral descriptors.

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

#464

Post by Cosmin_C » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #415

bennysomething wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if I'm hiring someone at what point am I allowed to use my own personal discretion? Am I allowed to dislike someone? Am I allowed to say I don't like them so please don't hire them?

A lot of behaviour is obvious in aggregate but hard to identify in particular cases. If you make a job posting, get 5 applicants, interview 3 of them and hire 1 it's hard to point a finger and say you did (or didn't) do anything wrong. But let's say over the course of a year you receive 10,000 applications for various positions and 15% of those are African American. Now say that 10% of applicants get to the interview…

This reminds me of a practice a recruiter used to boast when I applied for a job - throwing half the applications in the shredder without even reading them because they didn’t want to work with “unlucky people”. Albeit I was mildly curious about what mental gymnastics the person did to end up with such a frivolous way of not doing his job, I never left a building quicker ever since.

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

#465

Post by dralley » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

CydeWeys wrote: post #453

dralley wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love how the "realism" crowd has no issues with jumping out of planes mid-air to snipe a pilot (and then steal their plane). Or jumping from the third floor of a building onto a cobblestone street and then running away as if you had barely tripped. Or having a WWI game where half the server is carrying automatic weapons.

> Or having a WWI game where half the server is carrying automatic weapons. It's completely beside the point now, but I do actually remember people being pissed off about that.

There's a distinct difference in volume, if so.

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

#466

Post by throwequality » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:42 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #459

throwequality wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Political beliefs / affiliation (especially when mainstream) is a protected class though. Was this individual also "bringing it to work"?

The explanation I heard was that a bumper sticker on their car outed them.

Depending on the bumper sticker, that's either absurd and a dangerous precedent -- or perfectly valid. Based on what you've described, I can only guess it is the former and not the latter.

IANAL but in California, it is certainly illegal to fire someone because they displayed a mainstream political party's bumper sticker on their car, even if it is not mainstream at the state level.

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

#467

Post by fleddr » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

TMWNN wrote: post #417

fleddr wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would agree that this is easy, but I did run into a weird edge case. First to be clear, I would never comment on anybody's body or clothes, especially not in the workplace. This is not to comply with some rule, I wouldn't have the urge to do that in the first place. It's weird and unneeded. Anyway, the edge case. My female coworker is very passionate about making custom dresses. One day, on the day before our count…

[...] >But we all kept our mouth shut, and picked the safe side of things. She left defeated, perhaps humiliated. Anti-sexual harassment training, and more broadly the discouraging of socialization between men and women, has also reduced the opportunity for men and women to marry. The flip side of the male executive no longer being able to chase his secretary around a desk to try to pinch her on the butt is another e…

There's different takes on this. To me, the workplace is free of romance or any sexual advance of any kind from my part.

I would never go beyond minor superficial personal interest (how was your holiday) at the coffee machine, and it ends there. Even if interest was shown in me, I'd deflect. Not going to happen.

That said, I do agree with the larger overall point that in today's digital and more sensitive world (don't have a better word), it likely is harder for people to connect that way.

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

#468

Post by dougmwne » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:44 PM UTC

Aeolun wrote: post #429

dougmwne wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. You better be able to articulate what job-relevant reason is behind your dislike and be able to express it in those terms. If you go with your gut feel alone, you could be easily selecting for physical attractiveness, extroversion, a nice smile or some of the many less acceptable biases. Maybe you have perfectly diverse personal discretion, but most people choose copies of themselves or attractive members of the…

> You better be able to articulate what job-relevant reason is behind your dislike I have to work with them? If they have a shitty personality that’s going to be hard. I’d much rather select for unconscious biases than hire terrible people just to satisfy some people’s idea of what is politically correct.

If you can't do better than "shitty personality," I guarantee I wouldn't hire you. On the other hand, "Unwilling to respect colleagues they wouldn't personally be friends with" is a valid reason to make a no-hire decision.

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

#469

Post by dougmwne » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:47 PM UTC

Cosmin_C wrote: post #464

cletus wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of behaviour is obvious in aggregate but hard to identify in particular cases. If you make a job posting, get 5 applicants, interview 3 of them and hire 1 it's hard to point a finger and say you did (or didn't) do anything wrong. But let's say over the course of a year you receive 10,000 applications for various positions and 15% of those are African American. Now say that 10% of applicants get to the interview…

This reminds me of a practice a recruiter used to boast when I applied for a job - throwing half the applications in the shredder without even reading them because they didn’t want to work with “unlucky people”. Albeit I was mildly curious about what mental gymnastics the person did to end up with such a frivolous way of not doing his job, I never left a building quicker ever since.

This is an old hiring manager joke that's been around for enough decades that someone was sure to try it.

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

#470

Post by heavyset_go » Tue, Jul 27, 2021, 10:47 PM UTC

cableshaft wrote: post #403

heavyset_go wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really think this is true. They can end up spending a lot of that 100m on a car collection.

I'm not too greedy. Give me enough money I won't feel too guilty spending a half million on a Lagoon 40 catamaran and a quarter million on a Lamborghini Huracan and enough for a single-family beach house on Lake Michigan or Lake Superior, (and enough investments I can 4% withdraw about 70k a year) and I'll be satisfied.

I agree, I just disagree that they aren't working for the money.