After a two-year long investigation by the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing, the state has filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard due to the constant sexual harassment that female employees have been subjected to over the years. According to a report from Bloomberg, Activision Blizzard is said to foster a "frat boy" culture.
This culture, left unchecked and unpunished for years has resulted in constant sexual harassment, unequal pay, and retaliation. This is all according to the lawsuit presented by the state of California. According to their two-year long investigation, the state agency found that the company discriminated against female employees when it came to compensation, assignments, promotions, and termination. They also found that management "consistently failed to take steps to prevent discrimination, harassment, and retaliation."
The lawsuit says that female employees make up just 20% of the entire Activision Blizzard workforce. They are subjected to a "pervasive frat boy workplace culture" that includes "cube crawls." These are events where male employees would "drink copious amounts of alcohol as they crawl their way through various cubicles in the office and often engage in inappropriate behavior toward female employees."
The lawsuit goes on to say that male employees often freely play video games during the workday while they pass along their obligations to female employees. Males were also found to "engage in sexual banter, and joke opening about rape."
There have been instances found where female employees were denied promotions because they might become pregnant. Others were criticized for leaving to pick their kids up from daycare. They have even been kicked out of lactation rooms so that male colleagues could use the room for meetings.
An African American woman says that she was with the company for two years before she was made a permanent employee. During this time, she notes, men who were hired after here were made permanent employees before she was. This employee also states how she was micromanaged by her supervisor. While her male coworkers were playing video games "without any intervention" her supervisor would call her to check to see if she "took a break to go on a walk." Another African American female employee says she had to write a one-page summary of how she would spend her time after requesting time off. She notes that no male employee was ever made to do this. She was also also reportedly criticized for body language "despite male counterparts slouching in meetings" and was "scolded for asking for assistance while others get help on similar tasks without the same criticism."
One female employee even took her own life while on a company trip with a male supervisor. Her male supervisor had "brought butt plugs and lubricant with him on the trip." Prior to this, the unnamed female employee had been "subjected to intense sexual harassment prior to her death, including having nude photos passed around at a company holiday party."
Blizzard president J. Allen Brack was named in the lawsuit. Another person of note highlighted in the lawsuit is Alex Afrasiabi, the former senior creative director for World of Warcraft.
Alex Afrasiabi, the former Senior Creative Director of World of Warcraft at Blizzard Entertainment, was permitted to engage in blatant sexual harassment with little to no repercussions. During [Blizzcon] Afrasiabi would hit on female employees, telling them he wanted to marry them, attempting to kiss them, and putting his arms around them. This was in plain view of other male employees, including supervisors, who had to intervene and pull him off female employees.
Afrasiabi was so known to engage in harassment of females that his suite was nicknamed the "Crosby Suite.
Afrasiabi was so known to engage in harassment of females that his suite was nicknamed the "Crosby Suite.
As part of the lawsuit, the state is seeking an injunction forcing compliance with workplace protections, in addition to unpaid wages, pay adjustments, lost wage payments, and benefits for female employees.
Activision Blizzard issued a statement in response to this lawsuit where they call the findings from the stage agency as being "distorted" and "false" in many cases.
As if this lawsuit wasn't damning enough on its own, numerous employees both past and present have come forward to support the claims made in the lawsuit or offer their own first-hand accounts. I'm not posting every single tweet, but only a sample of what has been going around social media since this story initially broke. These are from employees that had positions within Activision Blizzard that ranged from community managers, to game designers, to producers, to project managers, to artists, and everything in between.
