About some months ago ActivisionBlizzard is under fire over allegations of sexual harassment and a toxic work culture. The straw that broke the camel’s back was a report from The Wall Street Journal that was published last November, which even put on the ropes Bobby Kotick, the CEO of the company. And although the video game firm has disputed several of the complaints that were made public, they seem to have taken steps to start cleaning up their image.
A new report from WSJ indicates that Activision Blizzard has “fired or expelled more than three dozen employees” who had been reported for sexual harassment. It also indicates that another 40 workers have been “disciplined” for the same reason, in a move that would have been taking place from July of last year to the present.
In any case, beyond the number of employees punished or dismissed, the official data is still quite vague. Supposedly Activision Blizzard would publish a summary of all the complaints before the end of the year holidays, but that would not have happened by express order of the Kotick. Said summary would be made up of some 700 reports in which the company’s own workers expressed their concerns about the misconduct of other employees and managers.
According The Wall Street Journal, a spokeswoman for the firm has dismissed the number of reports included in the summary; as well as that Bobby Kotick has prevented its publication. But nevertheless yes confirms the dismissal of 37 workers, and that there are another 44 who are under a disciplinary period. In any case, it is not specified how many of the workers left the company in November, with the growing media pressure on Activision Blizzard.
Activision Blizzard still has a lot to do to clean up its image
Activision Blizzard isn’t the only company in the eye of the storm for inappropriate behavior, sexual harassment, and a toxic workplace culture. Ubisoft has been in a similar situation in recent years; something that has made it possible to make visible something that is certainly not new in the video game industry, but that did need real attention.
The Activision Blizzard thing hits hard not only because of the seriousness of what was reported, but also for the apparent complicity of its CEO. Also, let us bear in mind that some of the main companies in the industry have publicly expressed their concern through their most important directors; such has been the case for Phil Spencer (Microsoft/Xbox), Jim Ryan (Sony/PlayStation) and Doug Bowser (Nintendo).
A short time ago, Bobby Kotick assured that he would resign from the leadership of Activision Blizzard if he could not quickly solve the problems of the companies. He had also previously mentioned that he would accept to charge only the minimum wage until the company’s objectives in its anti-discrimination plan were met; despite this, more than 1,300 employees asked to leave.
For now, this Activision Blizzard story is far from over. If you want to know in depth how this scandal was unleashed, you can read the report that we published in hypertextual last November.