Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick Apologizes for His 'Tone Deaf' Response to Allegations - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 01 August 2021 / 1,928 Views
Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has responded to the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing 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.
Kotick said his response to the issues at Activision Blizzard have been "tone deaf" and says he and other leads at the company are "sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding."
Pressure on Activision Blizzard has been 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. Employees today also staged a walkout in order to protest the working conditions at the company.
"This has been a difficult and upsetting week," said Kotick. "I want to recognize and thank all those who have come forward in the past and in recent days. I so appreciate your courage. Every voice matters - and
we will do a better job of listening now, and in the future.
"Our initial responses to the issues we face together, and to your concerns, were, quite frankly, tone deaf.
"It is imperative that we acknowledge all perspectives and experiences and respect the feelings of those who have been mistreated in any way. I am sorry that we did not provide the right empathy and understanding.
"Many of you have told us that active outreach comes from caring so deeply for the Company. That so many people have reached out and shared thoughts, suggestions, and highlighted opportunities for improvement is a powerful reflection of how you care for our communities of colleagues and players – and for each other. Ensuring that we have a safe and welcoming work environment is my highest priority. The leadership team has heard you loud and clear.
"We are taking swift action to be the compassionate, caring company you came to work for and to ensure a safe environment. There is no place anywhere at our Company for discrimination, harassment, or unequal treatment of any kind.
"We will do everything possible to make sure that together, we improve and build the kind of inclusive workplace that is essential to foster creativity and inspiration."
Kotick has listed five actions Activision Blizzard will be doing immediately:
- Employee Support. We will continue to investigate each and every claim and will not hesitate to take decisive action. To strengthen our capabilities in this area we are adding additional senior staff and other resources to both the Compliance team and the Employee Relations team.
- Listening Sessions. We know many of you have inspired ideas on how to improve our culture. We will be creating safe spaces, moderated by third parties, for you to speak out and share areas for improvement.
- Personnel Changes. We are immediately evaluating managers and leaders across the Company. Anyone found to have impeded the integrity of our processes for evaluating claims and imposing appropriate consequences will be terminated.
- Hiring Practices. Earlier this year I sent an email requiring all hiring managers to ensure they have diverse candidate slates for all open positions. We will be adding compliance resources to ensure that our hiring managers are in fact adhering to this directive.
- In-game Changes. We have heard the input from employee and player communities that some of our in-game content is inappropriate. We are removing that content.
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.
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No, no one should take this man's words at face value. He's fired many employees just to scrape a few more million for himself, and he disregarded the quality and effort that Blizzard used to have for their company standards.
This man only cares because he got caught out, like so many others before him throughout time.
Bobby should be forcefully removed from his office, and anyone else below his rank that shares his shitty ideals.
Completely agree he should be removed (for various reasons), but I have a feeling he's the type to cling on for as long as he can and with the support of others.
If enough people within the company care enough to want for it, they could eventually file for a forceful removal, since I'm pretty sure that company is a PLC one and not fully private.
Let's hope that's the case.
I like to believe that he's Satan in human form. The man never smiles genuinely, he has a black soul and only cares for profits and nothing more, and he will stop at nothing to get more (literally all his studios are now working on CoD or are dismantled).
There needs to be a new law for rather big corps, and that's the ability to remove the leaders that are corrupted and selfish. For far too long have I seen the same song and dance play out again and again, and it's always the same.
There needs to be a more permanent change, and it should start with the ability to remove corpo leaders by force if necessary, because nothing is being done and these assholes just get richer for it.
The only reason he's sorry is because it's finally hitting him in the only place he cares about, his bank account. If there was no major lawsuit this article wouldn't even exist.
-"5. In-game Changes. We have heard the input from employee and player communities that some of our in-game content is inappropriate. We are removing that content."-
What specifically is that referring to?
-SERIOUS QUESTION NINJA APPROVED-
I love your comments lol
Yes, I`m sure ALL will be heard and dealt with.
Their initial statement sounded like it was written by the lawyers working on defense of the lawsuit, with no consultation from anybody in HR or PR. It made perfect sense to me from that standpoint. Of course you're going to vigorously defend yourself against a lawsuit. But, putting out a public statement that the whole world, especially your employees, is going to see without considering the impact on those people is pretty stupid.
The one thing that endlessly pisses me off about stunts like that, is that you know it's a lie, that it's PR to defend against being caught out, I know it, his staff know it, and soon millions more will know it...
And yet no court on this earth can or has ever punished anyone for knowingly pulling such an obvious stunt like that, even with lawyers, what he just did vs what is factually known, should have him punished regardless, simply because he and his lawyers want to obviously get away with this shit. That's why I'll always see justice as being truly faulty and blind, because this kind of statement is all fine and dandy for courts.
Fuck off Bobby. We know you will give yourself another huge bonus.
The CEO of any gaming company should always be a gamer and not a greedy cold hearted business man, who only cares about money and not at all about the actual games.
I know people love to hate on bobby, but there is a guy above him who earns more , has more shares and oversees the decisions. Look up brian kelly. This guy deserves just as much hate if not more.
