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The Courts Games

California Sues Activision Blizzard Over Unequal Pay, Sexual Harassment (npr.org) 125

Posted by BeauHD from the male-dominated-industries dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The video game studio behind the hit franchises Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and Candy Crush is facing a civil lawsuit in California over allegations of gender discrimination, sexual harassment and potential violations of the state's equal pay law. A complaint, filed by the state Department of Fair Employment and Housing on Wednesday, alleges that Activision Blizzard Inc. "fostered a sexist culture" where women were paid less than men and subjected to ongoing sexual harassment including groping. (Activision and Blizzard Entertainment merged in 2008.)

Officials at the gaming company knew about the harassment and not only failed to stop it but retaliated against women who spoke up, the complaint also alleges. Years after the online harassment campaign known as Gamergate targeted women in the video game world, the California lawsuit depicts an industry that can still be unwelcoming and even hostile to female employees. "All employers should ensure that their employees are being paid equally and take all steps to prevent discrimination, harassment, and retaliation," said DFEH Director Kevin Kish. "This is especially important for employers in male-dominated industries, such as technology and gaming."

The lawsuit alleges that Activision Blizzard's female workers who spoke to investigators "almost universally confirmed" that their time at the company was "akin to working in a frat house." Male employees drank on the job and came to work hungover, the lawsuit said. The alleged sexual harassment ranged from comments about women's bodies and jokes about rape to the unwanted touching of female employees by their male peers. The complaint, which was the result of a two-year investigation by DFEH, claims that the unequal treatment of women went beyond company culture to the more formal parts of their jobs. Women were allegedly paid less than men, both when they were hired and during the course of their employment. They were also assigned to lower-level positions and passed over for promotions, despite doing more work than their male peers in some cases, according to the lawsuit. One woman said her manager told her she wouldn't be promoted because "she might get pregnant and like being a mom too much." The sex discrimination was even worse for women of color, the suit claims. At least two African-American women reported being singled out and micromanaged. Some of the women who came forward with complaints of discrimination or harassment faced involuntary transfers, were selected for layoffs or were denied certain opportunities, the suit said. In a statement, an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said the company had worked to improve its company culture in recent years and accused the DFEH of not adequately trying to resolve the claims against it before resorting to a lawsuit.

"The DFEH includes distorted, and in many cases false, descriptions of Blizzard's past," the statement read. "The picture the DFEH paints is not the Blizzard workplace of today."

In response to the company's rebuttal, former Blizzard Entertainment employee Cher Scarlett tweeted: "This is certainly LONG overdue. I would be hard-pressed to find someone that wasn't witness to sex in the game lounges, coke in the bathrooms during a cube crawl, or a woman who wasn't sexually harassed at least once. I am so proud of these women." Scarlett added: "Blizzard has claimed that the DFEH report is false/misleading/irresponsible. I can tell you that I knew what was going to be in this report before I read it because during my time there - for only a YEAR - I witnessed ALL OF THESE THINGS. AND NAME NAMES."
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California Sues Activision Blizzard Over Unequal Pay, Sexual Harassment More

California Sues Activision Blizzard Over Unequal Pay, Sexual Harassment

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  • Gamergate! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Everyone take a shot!

    • I remember following that whole drama with popcorn in hand and one thing I saw frequently was people getting hits with bans or their threads shitposted to death for suggesting anything beyond going for the throats of a company and drawing attention to their fuckups, "keep sending emails" and all that. Even though it's all but vanished it continues to live rent free in their heads. Hell, I remember one of the 8chan boards filtering the names of some of the relevant people to "literally who" because they were

      • Nope. She moved on to some failed "women in history" video series, which I don't think lasted very long. If she's doing anything else noteworthy she's been pretty quiet.

  • ... you should see what they've been doing to the customers and their data.

  • Why don't the wimmin (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Tokolosh ( 1256448 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @06:29PM (#61609653)

    Start their own gaming business? They will mop the floor with Activision. They will be more creative, more efficient, lower payroll and culturally acceptable.

    Then they can do a hostile takeover and put the frat boys in their place!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cb88 ( 1410145 )
      Who knows they might even do something revolutionary like make a great male protagonist...

    • Re:Why don't the wimmin (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Dutch Gun ( 899105 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @07:23PM (#61609849)

      Not all game companies are like that. In fact, I'd argue *most* game companies aren't like that, or certainly none I've worked at (20+ years game industry experience). My current employer is very emphatic about creating a friendly and welcoming workplace for everyone. Not just lip service either, as far as I've seen. No frat boy mentality.

      Here's a hint: don't believe the companies that shout out how enlightened they are for all the world to see. Most of the companies who treat their people well simply try to make good games, and aren't interested in scoring additional PR points. It's actually hard for me to imagine working at a company that allows, or at least covers up, *physical groping* of female employees, along with the other allegations. Christ...

      We're also seeing game developers grow older, and hopefully a bit more mature. More of my colleagues are married, have children, and we'll probably even see more with grandchildren at some point. I'm not the only dev around with several decades of experience, and many devs like me are far less likely to put up with abusive nonsense.

      If this holds up in court, I don't mind seeing Activision-Blizzard get hammered for this. It'll make the industry better as a whole by signalling that sort of crap just can't happen.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        The "frat boy" companies are not just toxic to women, they are toxic for a lot of men too. It's surprising how many on a website for nerds don't seem to realize this, as if they never had trouble fitting it at college with the jocks.

        • Re: (Score:1, Funny)

          by Cryptimus ( 243846 )

          Yeah, because jocks are social introverts who spend enough time on their hobbies to gain the expertise required to become game programmers or graphic artists.

          This whole 'frat boy' accusation is total fucking bullshit. It's the usual slander by the hysterical pearl-clutchers of the gaming 'press' (and I use that word with irony). The gaming press is basically all the weird unpopular kids who were too dumb to gain any real credentials - and are mostly failed arts' degree rejects - who hate

      • I've been in the industry 20 years now too, and while I've never seen behaviour this egregious, I'm the sort of guy that makes friends more easily with women, and I've heard about so much of this stuff.

        There was one guy at a studio that I worked at that relentlessly hit on women and made them feel uncomfortable. We were all in our 20s and 30s at the time, and we went out for drinks as a group now and then, and I watched a group of women rotate through who was currently being forced to talk to this guy. They

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I think they tried this in 1930s Germany with Jews. Told them to go start their own country and let Aryans be Aryans in Germany. After all Aryans built Germany, and if the Jews didn't like it well they could just go somewhere else and it would surely be more efficient and more culturally acceptable to them. Then they can come back later and subjugate the Aryans to prove how great a Jewish country is.

      Possibly history has some lessons we can learn from how that turned out.

      • Yes, because starting a capitalist enterprise and ethnic dispossession are totally the same thing, really they are.

        The same way in which commenting on a woman's effectiveness as a coder (based upon samples of her work) is no doubt 'sexual harassment'.

    • Because they'll make the classic fuckup of spending more time telling people they're an all-woman team than actually putting out a product people will enjoy. People might give your business a higher spot on their purchase-from list if you align morally with them, but a shit product made by saints is going to lose to a good product made by companies that utilize slaves in all cases.

  • Let's back this up a second. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 22, 2021 @06:45PM (#61609713)

    When I'm hearing things from a community that thinks that the "dickwolves" comic [penny-arcade.com] is a "rape joke," I have difficulty determining what exactly a rape joke is, or what specifically is wrong with it. A joke that was targeted against women, and laughing about women being raped -- ok, I understand taking offense to that. But I think the Dickwolves controversy was over the top.

    I have been in favor of equality in the workplace for a long time. Women should not be discriminated against, for being women -- passed up for promotion, or any such thing. That said, if a woman does intend to get pregnant, then that seems to me like a reasonable consideration -- no different than if I say, "Hey, I intend to take off Q2" -- that's going to have an impact on how I'm evaluated. Even more so if I say, "I'm not sure about my life. I think I'm going to move to India for a couple months, join a cult, and see how it goes. I may or may not come back." A company could absolutely pass me up from a promotion for saying such a thing -- I wouldn't envision it any differently.

    But now going further -- I don't see what specifically is wrong with a "frat-house-like" work culture, and I think it'd be sad if there were no such places. I'm sure that there are workplaces that feel like sorority houses, as well -- I wouldn't want to see those lost as well, either. (Perhaps a nail salon or something.) I think that women who are sensitive to a frat-house like work culture environment just shouldn't work there, -- and I don't exactly see men lining up to work in the nail salons, either.

    All in all, I'm in favor of a multi-cultural society, and trying to make all cultures look and work the same, doesn't work for me, and I don't think it's going to work for others, either. If people want to create a company but don't like a particular culture, -- why can't they create a different culture, perhaps even an objectively superior culture, in a different company?

    I'm liking less and less the idea that the state is going to regulate culture- in home, school, or workplace.

    Posting anonymously, because I don't want to get fired from anywhere.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Posting anonymously, because I don't want to get fired from anywhere.

      There's a certain sense of irony about worrying about getting fired for posting something that goes against "oppressed" people ( who can say whatever they want and have it accepted as gospel ).

      • More like anonymous so he can mod it up with his other accounts.

        • More like anonymous so he can mod it up with his other accounts.

          That makes zero sense. If he has other accounts, why not log into the one with no points so that he starts at a higher score?

    • Re:Let's back this up a second. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by IonOtter ( 629215 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @07:08PM (#61609801) Homepage

      Thank you very, very much for illustrating with absolute perfection and precision why this lawsuit exists, and why everyone behind the GG fiasco should be sued into oblivion.

      • I agree. Zoe Quinn probably should be sued and I'm actually at a loss to understand why she's not being charged after her role in Alex Holowka's suicide.

    • But now going further -- I don't see what specifically is wrong with a "frat-house-like" work culture, and I think it'd be sad if there were no such places. I'm sure that there are workplaces that feel like sorority houses, as well -- I wouldn't want to see those lost as well, either. (Perhaps a nail salon or something.) I think that women who are sensitive to a frat-house like work culture environment just shouldn't work there, -- and I don't exactly see men lining up to work in the nail salons, either.

      I'll give you the perspective of a male game developer. The term "frat house" culture, as I understand the term, is shorthand for the attitudes of men who think it's acceptable to behave like they're irresponsible college students living in an all-male dorm, with no need for taking into account any sort of female sensitivity. So, while some of my friends were in pretty cool / fun frats in college, it's meant to exemplify the *worst* aspects of that lifestyle, not the best.

      All the places I've worked at in

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        (I'm the original Anon OP.)

        "I suspect your argument was predicated on "frat house" just meaning "fun, light-hearted", but I don't think that's what's meant by the term."

        Three things:

        1. WOTC was quite wild in the original days, I hear, and I'm sad I missed them. I don't see why they should be forbidden. Some people don't do well in "wild," and I don't see why we can't just say -- "Well, don't work there, then."

        2. I do value women having jobs and such. I don't want to give up the modern culture where women

    • Shut up, coward. Go back to college if you want to work in a frat house; while you're there, you can take basic literature courses and maybe learn why that joke is offensive to civilized folk. You're another sniveling gamerboi angry that gamedev culture is incompatible with labor rights. Same shit as with Riot, complete with worms like you.

    • Anecdata from my professional experience:

      Adding women to an all-male team improves the productivity of the team, and the more women you add, the greater the productivity until a sweet spot in the 30:70 / 70:30 range.

      Adding men to an all-women team causes the men to quit.

       

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Imagine if companies wanted to know if male employees ever got "man flu" and paid them less because they needed more redundancy to account for men's tendency to take more risks that might result in severe injury or death. Imagine if guys were unable to get jobs in anything involving person to person communication, like sales or systems analysis or medicine, because men are just not as good at communicating as women (it's a biological fact).

      • Except that is not what is happening so you are just using a form of straw man argument. In reality, a female economist looked into the pay gap and found that it was because women:
        A) tended to choose employment on factors other than pay, such as a company that has value reputation they like.
        B) tended to take the first offer and don't negotiate pay.
        C) tended to prioritize time off over pay.
        D) asked for raises and promotions less
        E) were less likely to change jobs for money.
        F) were less likely to volunte

  • I used to work at a building that shared a parking lot with Activision, and it seemed like any time they had a potential batch of interns, they had someone who looked like she was plucked straight out of a Suicide Girls pictorial (and dressed to match) lead them around the neighborhood. Presumably they got an office tour either before or after this. Since we had one person stay on through lunch, there were days when it was my turn to go to lunch at 11 and come back at 12 and be the one person on call. Those

  • Not mentioned in the article (Score:5, Informative)

    by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Thursday July 22, 2021 @07:16PM (#61609823)

    While NPR generally does a good job of covering a story, they botched this one. One woman at Blizzard committed suicide [gamesindustry.biz] "during a business trip with a male supervisor who had brought butt plugs and lubricant with him." This same woman was harassed by other coworkers who shared a nude photo of her [yahoo.com] at party.

    As the first article relates:

    "Male employees proudly come into work hungover, play video games for long periods of time during work while delegating their responsibilities to female employees, engage in banter about their sexual encounters, talk openly about female bodies, and joke about rape."

    The second article had this comment from someone who worked there:

    “I was there from 2015 to 2016, and it was as bad as described in the documents then,” Cher Scarlett, a former software engineer for Activision Blizzard’s Battle.net, told Yahoo Finance.

    But let's go to the comments and hear what the experts have to say.

    • "during a business trip with a male supervisor who had brought butt plugs and lubricant with him."

      Your source states nothing about why he brought them and who he wanted to use them on.
      Are you assuming just from that one quote that the butt plugs and KY were meant for her? If so, that is quite a big mental leap to make. Or is there more to this incident that wasn't covered in your post.

      I'd bet the majority of luggage on any flight, business or pleasure, contains some kind of birth control, dong, vibrator,

      • Are you assuming just from that one quote that the butt plugs and KY were meant for her? If so, that is quite a big mental leap to make.

        My first thought as well, but given the context and the result it's suddenly not such a big mental leap to make. I mean it's one thing for a raging angry woman to lie for her own benefit by accusing others of sexual misconduct, quite another to commit suicide. I mean suicide just isn't a very good career move.

        Context is everything.

  • Seems like an easy way to improve pay disparities is to publish all employee pay. I was going to say publicly, but maybe that's too far?

    Or would public knowledge of pay disparities across companies help too?

    Yes, yes...different work might deserve different pay. But it seems those should have different job duties assigned too.

    • Same work or title doesn't necessarily mean same level of skill or talent.
      ( Unless you're a Union, then skill and talent are irrelevant and seniority is the only rule. )

      You can both have the title of " Character Animator " but one of you is clearly better at it than
      the other or one has been doing it for fifteen years and the other for five.

      Do you believe both individuals deserve the same level of pay ?

      Rarely is it simply black and white when it comes to differences in pay.

      Though I would definitely back the

      • Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)

        by narcc ( 412956 )

        This is a pretty good troll. You over simplified a complex issue, then claimed that it's more nuanced. The completely irrelevant example was just icing on the cake.

        Trying to criticize your post becomes a no-win situation. Attack the example, and it implies you agree with the premise. Attack the premise and you can claim they agree with the example. Attack both, and the post becomes too long for anyone to bother reading.

        I'll bet that you'll get a few up mods out of it too. Bravo.

      • Do you believe both individuals deserve the same level of pay ?
        Rarely is it simply black and white when it comes to differences in pay.

        The better employee deserves higher pay. The statistics indicates that this doesn't happen. Do you think there is not one single woman who is a better "Character Animator"?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Malggi ( 791997 )

        If someone's that much better then promote them to Sr. Character Animator or Lead Character Animator. Recognizing people's talent is not a new problem.

  • What a bizarre article (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    It keeps vacillating between what sounds like reasonably toxic, condemnable behavior and absolute ticky-tack who-gives-a-fuck shit like "showed up to work hungover" and "people did coke and had presumably-consensual risky-public sex". Not quite sure what's going on there - are we supposed to start shaming people for showing up to work hungover just as we'd shame someone for groping a coworker?

    Inmates at Auschwitz told harrowing tales of family members being murdered right before their very eyes, gruesome su

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by narcc ( 412956 )

      are we supposed to start shaming people for showing up to work hungover just as we'd shame someone for groping a coworker

      Yes. That is completely unacceptable. I also expect people to show up clean, properly dressed, and sober.

      • I agree, but showing up to work hungover is a disciplinary issue relating to work quality, not really in the same realm as groping.

        If someone comes to HR and says "Jack grabbed my ass this morning, Mark kept whistling and hollering when I walk by, and Tim has done nothing but surf the web all day!!!!" - all of those things may be unacceptable but one isn't really related to the others.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by narcc ( 412956 )

          Both things can be bad.

          Apparently, Slashdot is okay with employees showing up hung-over.

  • “witness to sex in the game lounges” (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Assuming heterosexual consensual sex, why is this more offensive to a woman than a man?

    • I could imagine that having to watch heterosexual intercourse may be as uncomfortable for homosexual people as it is for some heterosexuals to see consensual homosexual intercourse.

  • Nothing about re-branding whack-a-mole as a MMORPG? Once again, the authorities have no tech savvy.
  • So, does that mean I could have sued for sexual harassment when I heard women talking about men's bodies at one of my previous jobs?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by ebvwfbw ( 864834 )

      So, does that mean I could have sued for sexual harassment when I heard women talking about men's bodies at one of my previous jobs?

      Nope. Suck it up. You're a dude.
      Happened to me. Right out of high school. I walked through a room full of 20 something women. I was a piece of prime meat for them. They had me down into my undies quickly. They had a lot of fun with me.

      I came back the next day, however no luck.

  • If California prevails, a lot more companies will think twice about maintaining a footprint in the state.

    • If California prevails, a lot more companies will think twice about maintaining a footprint in the state.

      That's a valid concern-- although it raises the question, is this kind of legal exposure really more of an issue in California than it is in other states?

      I work in an industry where it would be relatively simple for me to start my own small company, doing exactly the same things as the company I now work for... and if I did, I'd probably make more money. But I'll most likely never do it. There are a lot of reasons for that, but *one* of the reasons is that I might one day have to worry about legal issues

  • ... legitimately unequal pay, or a female with less experience and tenure complaining that their male colleague who has more experience and has been around longer is making more, like the vast majority of these turn out to be? Don't get me wrong, if it's legit sue away, I'm just burnt out on this shit and jaded.

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