Over 2,000 Activision Blizzard Employees Sign Letter Criticizing Company's Response To Allegations - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 27 July 2021 / 1,784 Views

The California Department of Fair Employment and Housing filed a lawsuit against Activision Blizzard over what is described as a "frat boy" culture at the video game giant. Female employees are subjected to constant sexual harassment, unequal pay, and retaliation, according to the lawsuit.

Pressure on Activision Blizzard is growing with an open letter condemning the response of leadership following the lawsuit that has been signed by over 2,000 current and former employees, according to CNN. The open letter says the response to the lawsuit is "abhorrent and insulting."

Blizzard co-founder Mike Morhaime who worked at the company for for nearly 30 years, before he left in 2018, has read the allegations and in a statement said he finds it "very disturbing" and is "ashamed."

Over 2,000 Activision Blizzard Employees Sign Letter Criticizing Company's Response To Allegations

Read the full copy of the letter shared to Kotaku below:

To the Leaders of Activision Blizzard,

We, the undersigned, agree that the statements from Activision Blizzard, Inc. and their legal counsel regarding the DFEH lawsuit, as well as the subsequent internal statement from Frances Townsend, are abhorrent and insulting to all that we believe our company should stand for. To put it clearly and unequivocally, our values as employees are not accurately reflected in the words and actions of our leadership.

We believe these statements have damaged our ongoing quest for equality inside and outside of our industry. Categorizing the claims that have been made as “distorted, and in many cases false” creates a company atmosphere that disbelieves victims. It also casts doubt on our organizations’ ability to hold abusers accountable for their actions and foster a safe environment for victims to come forward in the future. These statements make it clear that our leadership is not putting our values first. Immediate corrections are needed from the highest level of our organization.

Our company executives have claimed that actions will be taken to protect us, but in the face of legal action — and the troubling official responses that followed — we no longer trust that our leaders will place employee safety above their own interests. To claim this is a “truly meritless and irresponsible lawsuit,” while seeing so many current and former employees speak out about their own experiences regarding harassment and abuse, is simply unacceptable.

We call for official statements that recognize the seriousness of these allegations and demonstrate compassion for victims of harassment and assault. We call on Frances Townsend to stand by her word to step down as Executive Sponsor of the ABK Employee Women’s Network as a result of the damaging nature of her statement. We call on the executive leadership team to work with us on new and meaningful efforts that ensure employees — as well as our community — have a safe place to speak out and come forward.

We stand with all our friends, teammates, and colleagues, as well as the members of our dedicated community, who have experienced mistreatment or harassment of any kind. We will not be silenced, we will not stand aside, and we will not give up until the company we love is a workplace we can all feel proud to be a part of again. We will be the change.

A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.

12 Comments

GoOnKid (on 27 July 2021)

This is excellent, I love this. We need more voices like this.

OTBWY (on 27 July 2021)

ActiBlizzard has a track record of mass layoffs so I hope that won't be the case. Kotick needs to go.

Kakadu18 OTBWY (on 27 July 2021)

They can't just fire 2000 employees and expect all of them to be replaced any time soon and it would make them look way worse than they already do, so I don't expect mass layoffs this time.