Think we are about to see another wave.

[TeraRamis]

It's a fairly common tactic, unfortunately. There's a relationship between a customer and a business as well as between a business and an investor where the expectation is for a service to be provided in exchange for financial transactions. If that obligation is being obstructed, especially by avoidable drama, then the criticism is entirely valid.

In other words, money is being exchanged with the expectation of results. Many businesses operating in the present day have forgotten that and actively sabotage the goodwill that exists between those willing to give them the time of day. I strongly suspect that the company in question has become a little too confident in being able to hide behind a rabid fanbase willing to defend their every move. However, that in itself is not a finite resource and such an attitude will risk backfiring with increasing frequency.

At a normal company, were I to make a tweet like that - even in the midst of some kind of crisis like this - I would expect to be fired. Not given a talking to by HR - fired. Like terminated the next day. The very fact that he feels comfortable blame-shifting like this tells me that the situation at Blizzard is complete pants-on-head-on-fire-hey-a-donut crazy right now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcKWGJlhtxY

[Snorky]

This statement by that Blizz employees completely unacceptable. This is why many of these western gaming company's need a come to Jesus moment. The disrespect shown to it's player base is unacceptable. How is any of this BS that has gone on at Blizzard the fault of it's customers? They ( meaning upper management at Blizzard) all knew and if they didn't they suspected. Anyone I mean anyone who works in Corp. America has seen what goes on in many company's across different businesses. But the feint ignorance and blame shifting needs to stop a woman killed herself and many left because of this fostered environment. It's disgusting.

[TeraRamis]

This statement by that Blizz employees completely unacceptable. This is why many of these western gaming company's need a come to Jesus moment. The disrespect shown to it's player base is unacceptable. How is any of this BS that has gone on at Blizzard the fault of it's customers? They ( meaning upper management at Blizzard) all knew and if they didn't they suspected. Anyone I mean anyone who works in Corp. America has seen what goes on in many company's across different businesses. But the feint ignorance and blame shifting needs to stop a woman killed herself and many left because of this fostered environment. It's disgusting.

Blizzard seems to be a particularly special case. For some reason, even dating back to the time when they were still 'Blizzard' (IE, before the Activision buyout), they believed that they were above the vast majority of interactions with normal players. It got worse after the merger, of course - when they started dropping the class leads and such, and went completely dark except for scripted interviews - but they were never a company that was particularly open or engaging when it came to the playerbase. Most people were fine with that, so long as staffers were making good decisions on the whole. The problem is, nowadays, almost every design they roll out is bungled, and nobody ever takes their lumps and answers for it. In fact, higher-ups act like their bad ideas were a complete success, and most of the subscribers didn't like what they put out there because people are just stupid.

Honestly, this reckoning has been a long time coming. Clearly, there were demons in their closet that none of us knew about. But I have certainly been aware for years that Blizzard was run by assholes... and, frankly, karma being what it is, they're paying for it now.

[Pirana1]

This statement by that Blizz employees completely unacceptable. This is why many of these western gaming company's need a come to Jesus moment. The disrespect shown to it's player base is unacceptable. How is any of this BS that has gone on at Blizzard the fault of it's customers? They ( meaning upper management at Blizzard) all knew and if they didn't they suspected. Anyone I mean anyone who works in Corp. America has seen what goes on in many company's across different businesses. But the feint ignorance and blame shifting needs to stop a woman killed herself and many left because of this fostered environment. It's disgusting.

I can all but guarantee you they knew. I was in the corporate world roughly ten years ago for an extensive amount of time. Anything that went on in our offices, most of us knew about. We were on the Forbes 500 list, we were a big corporation, but we still monitored our employees. During my tenure there, we probably went through ten different personnel changes in the office, for varying reasons. We dealt with obstacles and nefarious activities swiftly. Whatever is going on with Activision/Blizz is a leadership issue, or lack thereof.

If all the allegations come to fruition, this won't end well for this company. Although, they could probably lose seventy five percent of their customer base and still net a sizeable profit. The knucklehead who tweeted that message out though, if he's not terminated after his message, speaks volumes regarding this company.

[HeyMcFly]

Yay

I spent 24 minutes in a q with a full pre-formed party, trying to get into E4S (sepulture savage) because a streamer was on, and tons of players were too.
I'm not against the new players at all, I just look forward to the server sizes getting increased to lessen the Queue's

[Liam_Harper]

I don't think the "nothing will change" comments apply in the same way anymore, the company won't die but it's certainly going to be impacted badly.

FF14 is actually a good example in this case. We've heard MMO's are a dying genre, games have a limited lifespan and that people will always take abuse from big developers. But this game is an MMO, that's getting on in years, with developers who have a passion for their game ...and we're having a massive spike in subscribers while the larger game with arrogant developers is crashing.

There are limits. People nowadays are more and more aware of cash grabs, monetization and how that functions. It's a key thing we look for when considering new games now. More and more have had enough.

[Ronduwil]

FF14 is actually a good example in this case. We've heard MMO's are a dying genre, games have a limited lifespan and that people will always take abuse from big developers. But this game is an MMO, that's getting on in years, with developers who have a passion for their game ...and we're having a massive spike in subscribers while the larger game with arrogant developers is crashing.

That's because this game's developers respect their players, and we respond to that. When there are delays, we don't get long silences followed by lame excuses. We get ongoing updates with credible explanations and realistic projections. When there are complaints, we're not gaslighted with laughable explanations like, "It's mostly a skill issue." We're given an explanation of the intent behind the current design along with plans to try and address areas where the intent has fallen flat. Given the scorn that Blizzard has publicly shown their players, it's no surprise that they disrespect each other behind closed doors as well.

[Awha]

Blizzard were the rock stars of gaming world for years. Their behavior was normalized and or tolerated cause blizzard was a cool place in the eyes of normies and within the industry it opened up many doors. So people in the past tolerated to advance their own social status or personal/ career status.

In the end I do agree with Jim Sterling every company within the industry needs to be investigated to such a degree it will never happen but yeah.

[Larirawiel]

Here is a good explanation why many content creators and players quit the game:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ6w--GhpaM


Cheers

[Shougun]

Response from Bobby (CEO of Activision Blizzard):

This has been a difficult and upsetting week.

I want to recognize and thank all those who have come forward in the past and in recent days. I so appreciate your courage. Every voice matters - and we will do a better job of listening now, and in the future.

Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf.

It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding.
Many of you have told us that active outreach comes from caring so deeply for the Company. That so many people have reached out and shared thoughts, suggestions, and highlighted opportunities for improvement is a powerful reflection of how you care for our communities of colleagues and players – and for each other. Ensuring that we have a safe and welcoming work environment is my highest priority. The leadership team has heard you loud and clear.

We are taking swift action to be the compassionate, caring company you came to work for and to ensure a safe environment. There is no place anywhere at our Company for discrimination, harassment, or unequal treatment of any kind.

We will do everything possible to make sure that together, we improve and build the kind of inclusive workplace that is essential to foster creativity and inspiration.

I have asked the law firm WilmerHale to conduct a review of our policies and procedures to ensure that we have and maintain best practices to promote a respectful and inclusive workplace. This work will begin immediately. The WilmerHale team will be led by Stephanie Avakian, who is a member of the management team at WilmerHale and was most recently the Director of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement.

We encourage anyone with an experience you believe violates our policies or in any way made you uncomfortable in the workplace to use any of our many existing channels for reporting or to reach out to Stephanie. She and her team at WilmerHale will be available to speak with you on a confidential basis and can be reached at ATVI@wilmerhale.com or 202-247-2725. Your outreach will be kept confidential. Of course, NO retaliation will be tolerated.

We are committed to long-lasting change. Effective immediately, we will be taking the following actions:

Employee Support. We will continue to investigate each and every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action. To strengthen our capabilities in this area we are adding additional senior staff and other resources to both the Compliance team and the Employee Relations team.

1. Listening Sessions. We know many of you have inspired ideas on how to improve our culture. We will be creating safe spaces, moderated by third parties, for you to speak out and share areas for improvement.

2. Personnel Changes. We are immediately evaluating managers and leaders across the Company. Anyone found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences will be terminated.

3. Hiring Practices. Earlier this year I sent an email requiring all hiring managers to ensure they have diverse candidate slates for all open positions. We will be adding compliance resources to ensure that our hiring managers are in fact adhering to this directive.

4. In-game Changes. We have heard the input from employee and player communities that some of our in-game content is inappropriate. We are removing that content.

5. Your well-being remains my priority and I will spare no company resource ensuring that our company has the most welcoming, comfortable, and safe culture possible.

You have my unwavering commitment that we will improve our company together, and we will be the most inspiring, inclusive entertainment company in the world.

Yours sincerely,

Bobby

One may be pressing a firm "doubt", given how Activision operates normally (at least from an outside appearance, given some employee feedback, and a sense of 'money first and if the game was good that was a happy coincidence' vs 'we must make a good game, and as a consequence of that we're going to make money'), but it would be nice if Blizzard could turn this around (and maybe everything said above which sounds nice is exactly what is going to be done, cynicism is easy to have, so I hope all is done and meant well). After the required proper internal reflection, specifically emphasis on internal- seems like those obsessed with external reflection (stuff that is consistently akin to moral preaching) are the ones we should be avoid listening to because it is at this point seeming like a flare sign for a call for help rather than someone to lead an issue (other game companies, and companies in general, following this trend of shouting about an issue they're not practicing in even the vague slight essence- which isn't to say "don't reflect", far from that, more that leading by example is one of the most powerful ways to be a leader, and leading by shouting is just more of a nuisance and at this point a tell-tale sign of internal issues).

I don't think it's a good thing if Blizzard bites the dust, it would be nice for those employees that deserve to be there to have the work environment to thrive, and of course for gamers, in general such things can act as inspiration for other companies (like FFXIV might both be inspired by some of Blizzard's work, as Yoshida has said, and as FFXIV also inspire others, including probably Blizzard themselves).

In some ways it's like... yes... I hope FFXIV gobbles everything like a blackhole, muahaha, and then Yoshida and team (always important it's more than just one person lol) takes all that money to make more great games and particularly invest into bigger ideas / general employee comfort (not arguing for some top exec to make another mil on their mil), but it's not really that simple and overall only one thing in the sky is a relatively boring sky. It'd be better if we've more stars- successful happy stars (both player and employee) and not less.