Blizzard/Activation being hit by the Perfect Storm. Will they survive?

I suggest you review the forum rules, especially rule #1. I've seen you violating this rule quite often in various threads. We generally like to have constructive conversations here while having fun every once in a while. It's ironic that you insult one of our longtime members as a Redditor when digging into your short post history shows that you, yourself, may be more at home over there. I frequent the site myself quite often, but am able to separate my "Reddiquette" on such a large community forum from a tighter one such as this.

https://hardforum.com/threads/the-h-ard-forum-rules.760666/

I suggest you go after the original poster then, as it was political in nature, bringing up how women were treated in the workplace. But you won't do that, will you? Of course not. Selective enforcement, the staple of redditors everywhere.
 
There is a walkout planned for tomorrow based on some very reasonable requested changes.

One thing you all might consider is that lots of consternation rose from the official corporate response from AB central office, and by Fran Townsend. Nearly 2000 employees signed an open letter saying that statement does not reflect their perspective on this issue.
 
There is a walkout planned for tomorrow based on some very reasonable requested changes.

One thing you all might consider is that lots of consternation rose from the official corporate response from AB central office, and by Fran Townsend. Nearly 2000 employees signed an open letter saying that statement does not reflect their perspective on this issue.
Yes, but according to some in here, this entire case is all pretend.
 
Wish I was, a "Frat style" work environment sounds pretty fun considering the alternative of pushing pencils or digging ditches.
I would think that such would be more freedom, but I suspect it's polar opposite. The connotation of "frat" just makes me think of bad hazing & jerks for leaders.
 
Wish I was, a "Frat style" work environment sounds pretty fun considering the alternative of pushing pencils or digging ditches.
There's room for a fun unique working environment that doesn't condone things like groping female subordinates or unclasping their bras.

I never saw anything like that on my team there, and really enjoyed my experience.
 
There's room for a fun unique working environment that doesn't condone things like groping female subordinates or unclasping their bras.
Unclasping their bras while their shirts are on? C'mon, those damn things are hard enough as is, and I have plenty of practice. I wouldn't mind a little butt slap or an attempted wedgie every now and then at the workplace.
 
Did they have a walkout when Blizzard suspended the gamer who spoke out in favor of the pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong?
Yes. I expect this will be bigger.

Though that was less of an organized walkout and more of a spontaneous conversation that formed in our courtyard. I had four developers on my team participate then, iirc.

There was also some public demonstration outside the gates, but that was less important to us than the internal conversation we had with each other.. but the outcome was similar. A bunch of staff walked away from their work to discuss the situation. It wasn't an organized thing like this.

Edit: more detail about the blitzchung issue...
When that happened we immediately started a conversation internally on slack. That opened up into a conversation around the "circle of values" statue in the courtyard. We discussed, with each other, as a team what the "right" thing might have been for us as an organization. People from all over the company volunteered to help customer service deal with all the greifers (and I really don't mean our customers who were upset, they're awesome). I mean the people who wrote scripts to spam our ticketing systems with gorepics and repeat callers to our receptionists telling them they should kill themselves. I had a number of developers go to the statue to talk about it. Ray came down too, to hear people.
I went to reception to help them handle visitors while they dealt with phone abuse.
 
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Hoeg Law (Youtube laywer that covers a lot of video game related legal stuff) did a pretty good video on this lawsuit. Well worth a listen:

 
All references to Alex Afrasiabi were removed from WoW.
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"Cosby Suite" is being seriously misrepresented into stupid conclusions. The internet trying to demonize anybody in that photo or who ever chatted about it actually detracts from more important issues, imo.

It's like people think this was some sort of hotel rape dungeon.
Probably not, but it's still not funny to joke about rape.
 
"Cosby Suite" is being seriously misrepresented into stupid conclusions. The internet trying to demonize anybody in that photo or who ever chatted about it actually detracts from more important issues, imo.

It's like people think this was some sort of hotel rape dungeon.
Their public chat on social media is sexual harassment. Make no mistake about it.
 
Probably not, but it's still not funny to joke about rape.
Ok, but that had nothing to do with "Cosby Suite"
Cosby Suite predates the Cosby rape stuff.

Iirc it was called that because of the silly hotel carpet that looked like a Cosby sweater. I'm pretty sure it wasn't called that anymore after the bill Cosby accusations news broke.
 
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Ok, but that had nothing to do with "Cosby Suite"
Cosby Suite predates the Cosby rape stuff.

Iirc it was called that because of the silly hotel carpet that looked like a Cosby sweater. I'm pretty sure it wasn't called that anymore after the bill Cosby accusations news broke.
Nuance doesn't matter to people. Notice how Kotaku won't put an editors note on the top of the article to inform the reader that the people in the Cosby picture didn't know Cosby was a sexual predator in 2013 (Most didn't back in 2013). They put a note at the bottom, but by that point, the reader has already formed their opinion. It's hit-piece, through and through.

Whatever. Blizzard hasn't put anything decent out for years anyways. The WoW train could only last so long. I can't imagine why anyone successful would want to work at that company, or really, any large development studio these days. If you've got dev talent there are far more lucrative jobs out there outside the gaming industry working problem sets that have real impacts beyond just entertaining some idiot streamers who complain that your latest armor set does too much damage, or not enough.
 
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Nuance doesn't matter to people. Notice how Kotaku won't put an editors note on the top of the article to inform the reader that the people in the Cosby picture didn't know Cosby was a sexual predator in 2013 (Most didn't back in 2013). They put a note at the bottom, but by that point, the reader has already formed their opinion. It's hit-piece, through and through.

Whatever. Blizzard hasn't put anything decent out for years anyways. The WoW train could only last so long. I can't imagine why anyone successful would want to work at that company, or really, any large development studio these days. If you've got dev talent there are far more lucrative jobs out there outside the gaming industry working problem sets that have real impacts beyond just entertaining some idiot streamers who complain that your latest armor set does too much damage, or not enough.

As far as I understand it, big companies basically prey on recent college grads and people who are passionate about making video games. Every big company dealing with art related projects tends to do this.
 
As far as I understand it, big companies basically prey on recent college grads and people who are passionate about making video games. Every big company dealing with art related projects tends to do this.
There are plenty of other folks outside of gaming going around trying to scoop up college grads. If some kid is dumb enough to work for a company like Blizzard - Let them. That was their choice.
 

That picture was taken in 2013. Bill Cosby's accusations only became known among the general public in 2014, when the trial begun.

I just saw a Twitt of some female employee complaing about some memo. Until proven otherwise in court, i'm going out of a limb and say none of those accusations are real.

What happened to Christ Avellone recently shows how all it takes is vague innuendo and the status of rapist becomes established fact among everybody. His friends, his coworkers, the media. Then once one starts looking at the facts the case seems to evaporate into nothing.

At this point, i'm actually convinced Bill Cosby himself was also innocent and that all he did is have sex with women who took drugs voluntarily (this was the 70s after all) and regretted what they did afterwards.
 
That picture was taken in 2013. Bill Cosby's accusations only became known among the general public in 2014, when the trial begun.

I just saw a Twitt of some female employee complaing about some memo. Until proven otherwise in court, i'm going out of a limb and say none of those accusations are real.

What happened to Christ Avellone recently shows how all it takes is vague innuendo and the status of rapist becomes established fact among everybody. His friends, his coworkers, the media. Then once one starts looking at the facts the case seems to evaporate into nothing.

At this point, i'm actually convinced Bill Cosby himself was also innocent and that all he did is have sex with women who took drugs voluntarily (this was the 70s after all) and regretted what they did afterwards.

The only thing I agree is the Cosby picture and reference have no bearing on the case but so many current and previous employees have now come forward with their own accounts that this is no longer just a case of a smoking gun. Also, given that the CA gov budget isn't really in great shape 2 years ago, they would have tried to work things out with A/B and not invest the resource to conducted a 2 years investigation if they don't really think there's a very serious problem at the core.
 
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They can come forward as much as they want until anything is proven i take it all with a grain of salt.

I mean, can anybody tell me why this is supposed to be bad?

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Here's what i think happened. They hired those women because of politics and not because they were qualified. They felt compelled to reprimend them when they didn't perform, and the women in question took it as a personal attack and created this drama to avenge themselves of having to "suffer" through criticism and reprimands.
 
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At this point, i'm actually convinced Bill Cosby himself was also innocent and that all he did is have sex with women who took drugs voluntarily (this was the 70s after all) and regretted what they did afterwards.
And where the hell do you get off with that?

Cosby has been publically accused and in lawsuits for sexual assault and rape, since 2004. Nowadays, at least 60 women have come forward with their stories. Many of which were cited along with the lawsuits (Andrea Constand's 2005 lawsuit alone, included depositions from 13 other women. Some of which later revealed their identities and gave further statements about their assualts or rapes, to try and strengthen the case.)

Also, several comedians and industry people, say Cosby's predatory conduct was an open secret, for decades.

https://www.thewrap.com/60-bill-cosby-accusers-complete-list-breakdown-guilty/

https://abcnews.go.com/Entertainmen...lete-timeline-happened-2004/story?id=47799458
 
They can come forward as much as they want until anything is proven i take it all with a grain of salt.

I mean, can anybody tell me why this is supposed to be bad?

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Here's what i think happened. They hired those women because of politics and not because they were qualified. They felt compelled to reprimend them when they didn't perform, and the women in question took it as a personal attack and created this drama to avenge themselves of having to "suffer" through criticism and reprimands.
I don't see any examples of sexual assault or harassment in those screenshots. What am I missing? Do they think "Keeping emotions in check" is a unique criticism made toward females? Is what was said not true? That review snippet in the first review sounds rather glowing, to me.
 
The presence of Gloria Allred removes a lot of credibility and i'm too jaded by so many accusations being demonstrated to be false that at this point i don't trust anything unless there's some concrete evidence. Bill Cosby is a free man now precisely because of said lack of evidence.

Modern feminism has done a lot to undermine the credibility of actual victims of harassement by fostering this notion that all men are guilty by default by virtue of being men as well as diluting the definition of harassement to the point of absurdity. Case in point:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ent-19-faces-JAIL-sex-assault-conviction.html
https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...-news/touching-teenage-girl-way-home-17061816
 
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