Activision Blizzard has not handled itself well since the announcement of its discriminatory workplace practices. In light of that, CEO of Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick, has finally spoken out about the development with plans for moving forward.
Last week, Activision Blizzard received a lawsuit from the State of California due to violating the California Fair Employment and Housing Act. The lawsuit comes after years of investigation of the company's "frat-boy culture," in which many of the company's female employees were reportedly harassed by many other employees without repercussions. Activision tried suppressing and downplaying these allegations in a statement which only created more unrest in its staff, and in turn led to the walkout the employees are currently practicing. To diminish the damage done, it was only a matter of time before Kotick released a statement about the ongoing situation.
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In the lengthy email to its employees and officially published by Activision Blizzard, Kotick speaks about the error of how the company originally addressed the discrimination, and the plan to make things right. Kotick admits to the careless way the company first responded, stating, "Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf." He continues on to thank the hundreds of courageous individuals who stepped out and shared their experiences, and makes it clear that the company is hearing them. The company has hired law firm WilmerHale, led by Stephanie Avakian, to review all of the company's policies and procedures, starting immediately.
Beyond the internal review by WilmerHale, Activision Blizzard is also taking five major actions in the fallout of the lawsuit. To start, the company pledges to examine every employee claim and add more resources to its Compliance and Employee Relations teams, as well as offer listening sessions, moderated by third parties, so that employees may speak freely about the company in a meaningful way. Furthermore, there will be personnel changes, specifically, "Anyone found to have impeded the integrity of [the company's] processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences will be terminated," in addition to a review of the company's hiring processes. Despite the comments of some of Activision Blizzard's senior personnel describing a welcoming workplace, it seems like massive changes are coming to the company's structure.
The last major action Activision Blizzard is taking will impact its players, as it plans to address the content of some of its games. Kotick notes that the company has heard complaints of its in-game content being inappropriate, and as such, will be swiftly removed from the games. Considering the historically flawed nature of Call of Duty's content filtering, this is definitely an area that needs to be addressed. Activision Blizzard and Kotick have said many of the right things, but what is important now is if they are properly acted upon.
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Source: Activision Blizzard