Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: Does Activision Blizzard Think They’ve Done Enough? (Updated)

It’s been a little over three months since the state of California announced their lawsuit against Activision Blizzard for their rampant culture of sexual harassment. The company has responded to the allegations similar to any other large corporation accused of letting horrible “boys club” culture fester over years and doing nothing about it, even after briefly trying to attack their critics: They’ve done very little. Worse, they might already think this is enough in the eyes of those who purchase their games by the millions — assuming they cared about the allegations in the first place.

Activision Blizzard claims to have fired 20 employees in the months following, including those named in the allegations who hadn’t departed the company in recent years. Another 20 are facing disciplinary actions, though details about what the punishment could entail have yet to be provided.

The story currently getting more attention is the name change for Jesse McCree in Overwatch, previously named after a former Blizzard employee of the same name reported to be involved with the “Cosby Suite.” It’s as bad as it sounds (and should show anyone that the Bill Cosby allegations were around for years before the court cases started). The character has been renamed to Cole Cassidy, one still fitting for a futuristic cowboy. It’s not the name a vocal bunch of fans wanted for him, and others are, of course, upset about the name being changed at all, but it’s good that the team took a necessary step.

The changes at Activision Blizzard shouldn’t end here, though — far from it. These are meaningless platitudes that make for good headlines, intended to placate investors more concerned about the company’s future stability than the allegations themselves and the people (largely women) affected. It should also satisfy gamers who always show up on message boards and Twitter mentions asking why can’t they just talk about video games. It will work on them, but it sure as hell shouldn’t. If the safety and security of the employees is what concerns the company, more people need to go.

It’s difficult to believe that none of the execs that presided over Activision Blizzard for all these years didn’t know about the many allegations. If they weren’t told directly, they undoubtedly caught wind of them when the company’s HR made efforts to squash them. Anyone who thinks these executives won’t look the other way in the future or preside over the appointing of people who will is kidding themselves. If they felt any shame for what happened under them, they would have already walked. That they haven’t says everything.

This particularly goes for Bobby Kotick, who’s been chief executive officer of Activision Blizzard since the merger in 2008, and was CEO of Activision before then since 1991 — at the company’s helm for 30 years. Over that time, he’s presided over growth, or whatever you want to call it, and all sorts of scandals. Closer to the topic, Kotick fired a flight attendant for reporting sexual harassment in 2007 in a story that’s been largely forgotten these days. They settled outside of court, after Kotick tried and failed to reduce the price of the settlement like a true shitheel.

Before the lawsuit, Kotick was in the news for the big $200 million bonus he was set to receive despite the company recently laying off a bunch of employees. It’s clear this was a bad look when even investors were raising eyebrows at it. The company responded by saying that the precise size of the bonus hadn’t been determined at that time, which later turned out to be… $155 million. Big difference. Kotick remains on the throne after presiding over all these scandals, which overall are far too numerous to list here, so why wouldn’t he think he’s too big to fail? He’s right, and the fact that others are so powerless to do something about them is part of the problem.

When the higher-ups don’t feel any shame, the only solution is to push them out. But doing so would take so many steps and such a long time that few are even willing to begin the steps to pursue it. In addition to Kotick, this is how Fran Townsend, who defended torture as the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism in the George W. Bush Administration, is still in her job as the company’s chief compliance officer even after employees openly not wanting her there. Her stepping down as executive sponsor of Activision-Blizzard-King Women’s Network after criticizing whistleblowers on her now-deleted Twitter account is, surprise surprise, another platitude when her other position is far more important. This highlights how unaccountable the executives feel, but nothing will change in the company’s culture, as long as they remain in place.

It wouldn’t be a surprise if we see stories about Activision Blizzard similar to current ones about Ubisoft’s work culture in about a year’s time, where employees in the latter are saying that little has changed in their jobs since the well-publicized reports of sexual harassment and intimidation. This post feels anticlimactic without an answer better than “shit’s fucked and we’re largely powerless,” outside one key solution. You know the one. It wasn’t hyperbole.

Update: Sure, Kotick taking a pay cut to the lowest possible level counts here too, especially considering CEOs tend to make up for pay cuts through alternate methods. How he’ll make up for this remains to be seen, but given his previous actions, no one should think he’s being genuinely humble.