Activision Blizzard employees staged a walkout today to protest the company's "tone deaf" response to allegations in a California lawsuit. The suit alleges Activision Blizzard suffers from a "frat boy culture" that both harasses and marginalizes female employees.
The allegations levied against Activision Blizzard are very similar to the ones aimed at Ubisoft in a French lawsuit filed just two weeks ago. Ubisoft employees have since issued an open letter declaring their “solidarity” with Activision Blizzard workers walking out on the job to protest its toxic work environment.
“Over the past week, the games industry has once again been rocked by revelations that have long been known by too many of us,” reads the letter, courtesy of Axios Gaming’s Stephen Totillo. “Revelations that a year ago many were hearing about Ubisoft. It is clear from the frequency of these reports that there is widespread and deeply ingrained culture of abusive behavior within the industry.
"We believe you, we stand with you and support you,” the letter adds.
From there, the letter addresses Ubisoft's ongoing turmoil with its own toxic work environment, which resulted in the company being named in a collective action by French tech union Le Solidaires Informatique. The suit alleges Ubisoft suffers from a culture that allows sexual harassment to go largely unpunished thanks to "the complacency of Human Resources departments, protecting stalkers and silencing victims."
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Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot recently penned a letter outlining what progress the company has made to address its own allegations of a toxic work environment, instituting mandatory harassment training for all employees as well as bringing in an outside entity to investigate reports of abuse.
Ubisoft employees, however, painted a very different picture of the company in their own open letter today.
"It has been over a year since the first revelations of systemic discrimination, harassment, and bullying within Ubisoft came out … However, we have seen nothing more than a year of kind words, empty promises, and an inability or unwillingness to remove known offenders. We no longer trust your commitment to address these issues at their core. You need to do more."
The letter concludes with a proposal for major publishers to band together and create a set of rules to collectively deal with sexual harassment and abuse in the industry. The letter warns that any such agreement must "heavily involve employees in non-management positions and union representatives."
Next: World Of Warcraft Will See "Several Changes" As A Result Of Activision Blizzard Lawsuit