New merch store!
Activision Blizzard has been running damage control ever since stories of the company’s abusive work culture exploded. Blizzard president J. Allen Brack is out, and hand-wringing contrition is in.
Be aware that Activision is only looking out for itself, and simply wants us to forget this ever happened. However, while Bobby Kotick and his unethically enriched executives remain in charge, nothing meaningful will change.
The remorseless profiteers who oversaw all this are still entrenched.
“Bobby Badpants and the Torture Apology Tour” sounds like the worst kind of Harry Potter parody :P.
Steph seems to be beating a dead horse, but that is not the case. They are one of the few (if not the only one) that keeps the spotlight on gaming news travesties while so many just speak a blurb and then go on to praise a game produced by the very developers/publishers that commit the atrocities that shouldn’t be so easy to forget.
Gamers have short attention spans. We get burned over and over with empty promises, false hype, and pre-order mumbo jumbo only to get burned by it again and again. Sterling hit their comfort zone by coming out, but never lost the megaphone that’s more necessary now than ever.
That voice isn’t a broken record, it’s a warning label, and one that too often just gets ripped off in our hurry to open and play with the new shiny video game created in horrendous environments that none should have to work in.
At this point I’m surprised when a corporation isn’t trash
Waterboarding apologist seems oddly in place at Activision.
I’m a touch nostalgic for the old Jimquisition outfit, but that is one fabulous hat.
In fairness, being a non-executive at ActiBlizz is torture in itself so hiring a torture apologist from the Bush Regime is actually in keeping with theme.
Some of the Blizzard allegations are pretty crazy – there was a case of a female employee whos manager was giving her unsolicited “back rubs” and when she reported him to his boss they made her read some BS essay about “how not to be so sensitive” and then quizzed her what she learned from it. That’s completely mad. btw after the lawsuit became public dozens of former employees came out with reports of similar stories happening all over the place. Seems like Blizzard is one hell of a cesspool and has been for years.
The fact that Brack was allowed to “step down” and not just fired outright tells you all you need to know about that development.
I’m gonna call it once and for all : Jim-Steph has now surpassed the Queen of England when it comes to hats. They won, no contest.
You’re doing the right thing, keep banging that drum. There’s hundreds of thousands of followers who support what you’ve been doing including myself. People need this reminder about the ugly face of the video game industry. And boglins
Unequal treatment will not be tolerated! He says, unironically, while pocketing more money than any of his employees will ever see in several lifetimes, while firing hundreds of employees and then taking a bonus that’s times again what those hundreds of employees would have made. Yes, Bobby. You OBVIOUSLY stand against unequal treatment.
Another Monday, another horrorstory and more reminders of why I quit my dream of becoming a Game dev. Thank you Jim. I am truly grateful. Your voice is needed.
Remember: it’s only called “Class Warfare” when the working class hits back.
It’s getting increasingly harder for me to handle this constant cycle of oppression, knowing that this likely *will* all be forgotten by most people in only a few weeks. Is there anything those of us can do who don’t have a lot of money or big platforms, and already don’t buy ActBliz’s games to support everyone still being abused by these monstrous companies? I’m genuinely asking. I want to help make this all stop.
Thanks for still being here reporting on all this, by the way. I’m loving the hat.
“Activision-Blizzard deserves pain”
How very appropriate, considering they have a torture-apologist on staff!
“Pain technicians! They used to be called torturers, but ever since they got organized, it’s Pain Technicians!” – Babylon 5
Blizzard to JAB: “They’re expecting one of us in the wreckage brother.”
“Exploitation is how they make profit.”
Which is inefficient because tired, stressed out workers that are worried about being bullied or sexually harassed don’t work as well as normal employees which is why their games have been getting worse and worse over the years. They’re only making more money year over year because they’re cramming more and more monetisation into their games, but at the exact same time they’re alienating their core fan bases with those monetisations. Eventually the whales, not loyal to the franchise, will move onto better franchises and that’s when their bubble will pop and the downward spiral into oblivion will begin. In other words, these executives are slowly killing these gaming companies and sucking their talent dry in order to make themselves even richer, despite already having too much money to be able to spend it all in several lifetimes no matter how aggressively you try to spend it all. And when the gaming companies start failing and these executives start bailing to find other companies to suck dry they’ll be given several hundreds of millions of dollars for their golden parachutes…